[4] The council has no legal authority in the United Kingdom,[3] and cannot enforce any penalties; many Muslims would appear voluntarily to accept the rulings made by the ISC.
"[6] According to The Economist magazine its "two main founders come from purist schools of Islam, the Deobandis and the Salafis".
[5] A rival service, the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal, was founded in 2007 by followers of the Barelvi school of South Asian Islam, is reportedly "less strict than the Deobandis" and as of 2010 offered dispute resolution in half a dozen British cities.
The Islamic Sharia Council must recognise a British divorce, by virtue of the law of the land, if the petitioner shows them a decree absolute.
[1] Writer, broadcaster and academic Myriam Francois-Cerrah has pointed to "serious problems" with the councils, citing a case in which a Muslim woman seeking advice was reportedly directed to a "controversial cleric" who urged her to give up her custody dispute with her husband and "hand over full custody of her seven year old child" to him despite the fact that the husband was a "violent schizophrenic" who had abused her for years.