Rowan Williams sent shock waves through Britain in 2008 when he said adopting some aspects of Islamic Sharia law in the UK appeared “unavoidable”.
Tonight, the former Archbishop of Canterbury will revisit the controversial lecture and consider whether adjustments to English law, moral and social practices should be considered.
The talk by the master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, comes in the wake of the brutal murder of Drummer Lee Rigby on the streets of Woolwich.
It will take place as part of the book launch of Islam and English Law: Rights, Responsibilities and the Face of Shar’ia, to which Lord Williams of Oystermouth has contributed a chapter.
A spokesman for Cambridge University Press, which is publishing the book, said the 2008 lecture had caused a “storm of comment, partly due to media misrepresentation” and the fear of Islam had, if anything, increased since.
The spokesman said: “The fear of Islam that fuelled the media’s response then has if anything been stoked since by reports from within the UK of radicalised young Muslims.
“Five years on after a lecture that has come to be recognised as a foundational statement of the concerns and questions confronting political, social and religious thinkers of all castes, Rowan Williams will re-examine the issues raised, what has happened since then as well as examine how our religious and secular society might adapt to and works with a growing Muslim population now that Britain has more than two million people of Muslim origin.”
He said English Law had already evolved in response to these developments and Dr Williams would consider whether further adjustments ought to be thought about.
In the 2008 lecture delivered in the Royal Courts of Justice, Dr Williams had said adopting some aspects of Sharia in Britain seemed to be inevitable and giving it an official standing would aid social cohesion.
The speech read: “If what we want socially is a pattern of relations in which a plurality of diverse and overlapping affiliations work for a common good, and in which groups of serious and profound conviction are not systematically faced with the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty, it seems unavoidable.”
He told the BBC at the time “nobody in their right mind” would want in Britain things like the extreme punishments sometimes associated with the way Sharia is practised in some countries.
But, Dr Williams said: “There’s a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law, as we already do with some other aspects of religious law.”
Tonight’s event in London’s Temple Church will see Dr Williams take part in a panel discussion chaired by Stephen Hockman QC with Prof Elizabeth Cooke of the Law Commission and Prof Maleiha Malik of King’s College, London.
Among the aims of the book, edited by Robin Griffith-Jones, are to present what Dr Williams said and proposed, the place Islamic principles currently hold in English law and what legal changes, if any, would reduce the division between communities in the UK.