When Multiculturalism and Islamic Fundamentalism Coincide: Sharia Councils in the United Kingdom

Dr. Machteld Zee will present Chapter Three of her book Choosing Sharia? Multiculturalism, Islamic Fundamentalism and Sharia Councils, in which she argues that Sharia councils are deeply at odds with Western moral and legal principles of equality, freedom and justice. Yet high-profile multiculturalists tend to present a romanticised view of these councils, which obscures both the ideology that motivates them and their practical consequences.

Machteld Zee is a Dutch political scientist and legal scholar. She has done extensive research in the United Kingdom and was present at hearings of England’s most prominent Sharia councils. She has defended her PhD dissertation on Choosing Sharia? Multiculturalism, Islamic Fundamentalism and British Sharia Council in December 2015 at the Leiden Law School, University of Leiden. Her research consists of in-depth analysis of multiculturalism and Islamism as political ideologies and fieldwork in the United Kingdom. She has written extensively about these topics and other imminent issues for numerous academic and popular journals, magazines, and newspapers and published her book in 2015.