The Shari'a itself - this is possibly a kind of verbal debate - is understood to be something different from the Fiqh, and the Fiqh is the man-made element and the Shari'a is theoretically the divine element but it depends on one's personal beliefs.

If Muslims want to take their disputes to religious arbitrators because they genuinely believe that it's a matter of great spiritual importance that they do that, they shouldn't be the only community in this country that's denied the opportunity to do that. Because the Jewish population has been entitled to take their disputes to tribunals known as the Beth Din for over one hundred years, and the Church of England is integrated into the fabric of this country, and there are ecclesiastical tribunals where religious disputes can be dealt with.

The first thing to say is that the ordinary criminal law in this country, the Human Rights Act, the Children's Act, all of the laws of the country take precedence, but what I'm also saying is that within the context of a secular country, which Britain now kind of is, or at least a country which purports to be relatively equal between religions, there should be some scope for allowing faith communities to govern themselves - subject to it being consensual and subject to everyone's human rights being observed.

I spoke to my father - my father's from Pakistan and he's also a lawyer - I said to him, "Well what does the Shari'a say?" And he said, "Well, of course it doesn't justify suicide bombs," but he didn't seem to know where the Shari'a came from or what it was all about. The more I asked people in my family as well as friends, the more I realized that there seemed to be widespread ignorance in the Muslim community. And that's something which I actually found to be the case over the next two and a half, three years I spent writing the book.

People are coupling and decoupling all the time in Great Britain. The fact that Muslims choose to precede it with a certain formula of words, shouldn't bar them from anything. But, no one's saying that polygamy should be institutionalized in this country. That Muslim's uniquely should be allowed to have two or three or four marriages.

What we shouldn't do is victimize and target Muslim communities specifically. But as things stand, there's one tribunal which has drawn a lot of flack - the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal.

Whenever one writes a book one should have a notional reader in mind.