Sharia law must be taken into account when drawing up HR policies concerning prayer breaks, dress code and food or alchohol
24 July 2008
Firms must take sharia law into account when drawing up HR policies, a leading law firm has warned. Employers who allow smokers to have cigarette breaks can hardly complain about Muslim employees slipping out several times a day for prayers, Norton Rose associate Adrian Hoggarth told delegates at a seminar in London this month on the subject.
“The Muslim Council of Britain says it takes 10-12 minutes for a devotee to go through their prayers, which is about the time it takes for a smoker to get through a large cigarette or small cigar,” Hoggarth said. But he added that providing a prayer room was not a requirement and providing one purely for Muslims might be discriminatory to other faiths.
It should be easy to provide halal or vegetarian options where food was offered, and monetary alternatives if alcohol was used as a prize or incentive, Hoggarth said. On the issue of dress code, Paul Griffin, a partner at Norton Rose, said the legality of policies hinged on whether dress impeded a person’s ability to do the job. Recent case law found it was reasonable to ask a teaching assistant to remove a veil, but not for a hairdresser to remove a headscarf.