I recently moved to the UK from the USA to live with my husband. Recently, he received a letter inviting him to perform Jury duty. He said he will ignore it and doesn’t want to join the Jury because the legal system is based on Non Islamic, man made laws. I am worried, because in America, if one is chosen by their county’s judicial court system to perform jury duty and they do not appear for the summons without a reasonable excuse, they can be imprisoned. I don’t think the same rule applies here in the UK, but can you confirm whether it is permissible in Islam to perform jury duty for non Islamic Judicial courts and make a decision based on a secular, non Islamic judicial system?

Sister Y. Rahman

ANSWER

Mufti Muhammad Ashraf of Darul Ifta in South Africa says that it is necessary upon a Muslim to pass judgement in the light of Shari’ah and not against it. Therefore, if the case in court is of such a type wherein one will not be passing the verdict against the Shari’ah then it will be permissible for him to be on the jury, otherwise not.

The laws in UK stand as that you can ask for your jury service to be deferred, but, you can only do this once and for no more than 12 months from the original date. However, if you want to be excluded from jury service altogether you will need to write to the Jury Central Summoning Bureau setting out your reasons why, but I’m unaware of the laws in the US. Where you stand legally in the secular law, I suggest you take advice from a solicitor.

(VERILY, ALLAH TAA’LA IS ALL-KNOWING!)