[3] In June 2009, a family court judge in Hudson County, New Jersey denied a restraining order to a woman who testified that her husband, a Muslim, had raped her.
[12] Missouri also passed a measure banning foreign law in 2013, but Governor Jay Nixon vetoed the bill "because of its potential impact on international adoptions.
[14] David Yerushalmi has been called the founder of the movement in America and is described by The New York Times as "working with a cadre of conservative public-policy institutes and former military and intelligence officials"[6] and to pass legislation, "a network of Tea Party and Christian groups" as well as ACT!
[15] According to him, the purpose of the anti-sharia movement is not to pass legislation banning sharia law in the courts but "to get people asking this question, ‘What is Shariah?’”.
[16] During the lead-up to Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign 2012, he described sharia law as a "mortal threat" and called for its ban throughout America.
A 2013 report by the Brennan Center for Justice warned that the bans may have the unintended effects of invalidating prenuptial agreements and court decisions made in other states where arbitrators may have taken into account Islamic, Jewish, or Christian legal norms.
[1] Historian Justin Tyler Clark argues that the rise of an anti-Sharia movement in the US, more than a decade after the September 11 attacks, is in part a reaction to increasing political correctness in the American society.
Clark compares the phenomenon to the 19th century anti-Catholic movement in the US, which, he writes, rose largely in reaction to changes in middle-class American etiquette, interpreted by the nativists as encroachment of an alien ideology on their own social norms.
"[20] While the US Congress could in theory repeal the act, it could not ban arbitration by Muslims while leaving other religious conciliators free to continue their work.
A "One law for all" campaign[25] seeks to ban sharia councils and arguing this is "the only way to end discrimination suffered by Muslim women".
[26] The issue arose in 2008, when the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams suggested it was "inevitable" that elements of Sharia would be incorporated in British law.
[26] As of 2014, there were reported to be around 85 "shariah courts" in the UK,[26][27] operated by two rival services – Islamic Sharia Council and the newer, smaller, less strict Muslim Arbitration Tribunal.
[26] But they are also criticized for taking the man's side in rulings,[26] for example advising women to forfeit their mahr (marriage dower) in exchange for a divorce.
[29][30] According to legal historian Sadakat Kadri, the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal has "no jurisdiction over criminal matters or cases involving children."
"[20] According to Kadri, British Muslims neither know nor care about the criminal penalties of Sharia law (tazir and hudud)[20] but seek much less controversial services.
In September 2014, a small group of Muslims wearing mock police uniforms patrolled the streets of the western German city of Wuppertal.
Following the incident the Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière told the daily newspaper Bild, "Sharia law is not tolerated on German soil.
[36] The issue of the supremacy of Sharia has arisen in Greece where a Muslim woman (Chatitze Molla Sali) was left her husband's estate in his will (a Greek document registered at a notary's office) when he died in March 2008.