Islamic Sharia Council repay the dower to receive an Islamically recognized divorce. 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. However, the Islamic Sharia Council is displeased if the dower remains unpaid. 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"
Ban on sharia law "never existed" and he only wanted to "raise attention" to sharia. The Central Council of Muslims in Germany (ZMD) condemned the activities. 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. Her in-laws immediately challenged the bequest with the local mufti (a Muslim jurist and theologian) in the name of sharia law, "which forbids Muslims to write wills" (Islamic law rather than the inheritee determining who gets what from