The Muslim delegates at the October conference (Law Times photo)

OTTAWA, Canada, November 29 (IslamOnline.net) – In the latest effort in a long struggle to have Shari'a recognized in Canada, Muslim leaders in the country elected a 30-member council to establish a judicial tribunal for Muslims, a Canadian newspaper reported Friday, November 28.

The move is designed to persuade Canadian courts to uphold decisions made under the Muslim law, Ottawa Citizen newspaper said.

Jamal Badawi, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Association of the Maritime provinces, said Muslims in the U.S. and Britain already have similar juristic councils that render decisions which are routinely upheld by the courts.

Husain Bhayat, one of the campaign's organizers, said the Muslim community in Canada, the country's largest minority, could give thumbs-up to the move by making the tribunal representing different schools of Islam, namely the Sunnis and the Shiites.

"It seems as if the community was looking forward to something like this. If all groups are represented, with hard work and the unity we saw here, we will have no difficulty going forward," Bhayat told the Canadian Law Times.

Syed Mumtaz Ali, a pioneering Canadian Muslim lawyer who struck the first blow in the campaign for recognition of Islamic law in 1962 , told the Times that the proposed tribunal did by no means indicate that Muslims in Canada would not follow the country's set of laws.

"We are required by our own law to follow the laws of the country and to follow our own laws. We have a double obligation. You don't have to be the wisest man to see there will be conflicts," he said.

On October 21, Muslim leaders in Canada gathered at the International Muslim Organization Hall in Etobicoke, Ontario, and elected a 30-member council to establish a judicial tribunal to be known as the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice.

There was only one woman present at the convention. Bibi Zainob Baksh attended in her capacity as president of the Ladies' Muslim Organization.

The proposed tribunal, if ratified, would set up committees across the country to arbitrate in marital breakups and other civil or business disputes, and then submit the agreements under Shari'a law to secular courts for ratification.

What makes it possible for Muslim committees to get Canadian legal recognition of settlements according to Shari'a is the recent changes in provincial arbitration acts, which make it possible for Muslim committees to enforce settlements, the Ottawa Citizen said.

Last May, a census showed that Islam had become the number one non-Christian faith in Quebec and Canada as a whole.