“It risks removing the protection afforded by law, for example, to children in custody cases or women in divorce proceedings. There is a fundamental principle here – when you appear before a court in Britain you appear as a citizen, equal to any other and should be treated equally.”

A man recieves 80 lashes in Iran for drinking alcohol and having sex outside marriage

He added: “Follow the logic of this extreme multiculturalism through and where do we end up?

“With a group of white Christians in Barking and Dagenham deciding they had a conscientious objection to non-white Muslims in their neighbourhood and seeking the support of the courts?

“I don’t doubt the Archbishop’s desire to accommodate diversity, but we cannot do so at the expense of our common values.”

Gordon Brown declined to condemn the Archbishop’s remarks, and Downing Street even suggested some laws could be changed to reflect Muslim sensitivities.

The Prime Minister believed that “British laws should be based on British values”, his spokesman said, going on to add: “There are instances where Government has made changes, for example on stamp duty, but the general position is that sharia cannot be used as justification for committing breaches of English law nor can its principles be used in civil courts.”

In a strikingly conciliatory tone, the spokesman said Mr Brown had a “good relationship” with the Archbishop. Downing Street was virtually alone in refusing to join the outcry, however. 

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion, said: “The Archbishop’s comments are unhelpful.

“Freedom under the law allows respect for some religious practices. But let’s be absolutely clear. All British citizens must be subject to British laws.”

Tory MP Mark Pritchard called the Archbishop’s remarks naive and shocking. “He may want to run up the white flag of surrender over Lambeth Palace, but there are many who do not.”

Mike Judge, of the Christian Institute, said: “The fact that we all obey the same law, whatever our religion, is an important principle of the British way of life.” And Stephen Green, national director of Christian Voice said: “This is a Christian country with Christian laws. If Muslims want to live under sharia law then they are free to emigrate to a country where sharia law is already in operation.”

Many leading Muslims also rejected the Archbishop’s remarks. Labour MP Khalid Mahmood said: “This will alienate people from other communities because they will think this is what Muslims want and it is not.”

Dr Williams’s remarks came in an interview with BBC Radio 4 yesterday, ahead of a speech last night to members of the legal profession. He argued that the legal system needed to be reformed to recognise different religious convictions within Britain’s multi-faith society.

“It seems unavoidable and, as a matter of fact, certain conditions of sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law, so it is not as if we are bringing in an alien and rival system.

“There is a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law as we already do with aspects of other kinds of religious law.

"It would be quite wrong to say that we could ever license a system of law for some community which gave people no right of appeal, no way of exercising the rights that are guaranteed to them as citizens in general.

“But there are ways of looking at marital disputes, for example, which provide an alternative to the divorce courts as we understand them. In some cultural and religious settings they would seem more appropriate.”

He did admit that some Islamic punishments could be inhuman.

But he added: “But I do not think we should instantly spring to the conclusion that the whole of that world of jurisprudence and practice is somehow monstrously incompatible with human rights.”

Dr Williams said Orthodox Jewish courts already operated in the UK.