Islamic Sharia Council subservient to the English law." In an April 2013 report, the BBC's "Panorama" asked whether the Islamic Sharia Council was "failing vulnerable women and mothers" by requiring women seeking divorce to give back their marriage dowry (or "mahr"). The question of "khula" divorce often turns on the dower: if the woman is seeking the divorce, she has to return the dower to the man, or else the divorce cannot proceed. Since in traditional Islamic society, men are traditionally the bank account holders and women are traditionally homemakers, the woman has no purchase, and cannot obtain a loan in order to
Ban on sharia law leaving other religious conciliators free to continue their work. "Any reform would have to impact equally on all faith communities, and it is not only Muslims who would object if federal legislators presumed to do that." Sharia law is explicitly banned in Quebec, upheld by a unanimous vote against it in 2005 by the National Assembly. In Ontario there was a "heated 20-month controversy" after Toronto lawyer Syed Mumtaz Ali declared in 2004 that an “Islamic Institute of Civil Justice” would begin "arbitrating family matters on the basis of sharia law", accompanied by a warning that Muslims who did not