Britain Grapples With Role for Islamic Justice

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/world/europe/19shariah.html?_r=3&ref=world&pagewanted=all

[The New York Times] 20 Nov 2008--The woman in black wanted an Islamic divorce. She told the religious judge that her husband hit her, cursed her and wanted her dead.

But her husband was opposed, and the Islamic scholar adjudicating the case seemed determined to keep the couple together. So, sensing defeat, she brought our her secret weapon: her father.

In walked a bearded man in long robes who described his son-in-law as a hot-tempered man who had duped his daughter, evaded the police and humiliated his family.