Posted on 12/12/2007 5:06:52 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Kevin Jaques: U.S. response to 9/11 should conform to sharia law
Dr. Kevin Jaques is one of the Three Mosqueteers. Of the three academics who are helping architect Paul Murdoch to plant a terrorist memorial mosque on the Flight 93 crash site, Jaques was most central to the Park Service’s fraudulent internal investigation.
He has also left a revealing paper trail. Shortly after 9/11, Indiana University School of Law sponsored a forum on the likely legal fallout from the attacks: consequences for immigration law, civil rights, etcetera. As the university’s resident expert on Islamic (sharia) law, Jaques was invited to say something about our looming engagement with the Islamic world and their systems of law.
He chose to write a prescriptive article, urging the United States to frame its response in conformity with traditional sharia requirements:
In formulating an American response to the acts of terror, it is necessary to define them according to the provisions of Islamic law.
Whitewashing sharia
Jaques makes the basic arguments for submission that any anti-war multiculturalist might make. He offers an appeasement pitch:
If the United States wishes to approach the fight against terrorism to limit future revivalist terror groups from forming and attacking American citizens and interests, it will be necessary to craft a response that conforms to the realities of Islamic law.
And he offers a when-in-Rome pitch:
Muslim religious leaders think of the world in legal terms and will react to U.S. policies according to how these policies conflict or adhere to Islamic legal principles.
Of course we should avoid gratuitous offense, when in Rome (just as we should practice it as a pastime at home). But should we really submit to sharia law?
Nowhere does Jaques even acknowledge that world-wide submission to sharia law is the ultimate goal of the 9/11 terrorists. That is a pretty glaring omission for someone who is advocating adherence to sharia law, but Jaques does more than just elide the point. He actively misleads, going to great lengths to pretend that the terrorists reject the whole idea of sharia law:
[R]evivalist movements around the Islamic world are articulating new and exciting systems of legal interpretation that, in real terms, are similar to traditional legal norms. Only the violent fringe—approximately 1 percent to 2 percent of Muslims worldwide—would disparage any discussion of Islamic law as being reflective of the kinds of non-Islamic ideas that they claim have contaminated Islam since the very first centuries of Islamic history.
Talk about a whitewash! To paint sharia as benign, Jaques pretends that the “violent fringe” is opposed to it, and this is no offhand comment. The whole first third of Jaques’ discussion is spent setting up this punch line.
Qutb did you say?
Jaques begins by describing how Islamic jurisprudence has historically proceeded by working out consensus views of the meaning of “texts of revelation”: the Koran and the sunnah (Muhammad’s biography). He then discusses the trend toward “revivalism,” starting in the 14th century, which sought to purify Islamic jurisprudence by purging all influences other than Koran and biography.
The modern phase of this revivalism is the work of Wahhab and Qtub, the sources of today’s bin Ladenist doctrines of maximally aggressive conquest. Wahhab dismissed the requirement for consensus, insisting that anyone can read the Koran for themselves, and Qtub carried this innovation in a particularly violent direction:
Qutb advocated a radicalized form of Wahhabi extremism as the only means of driving foreign (meaning U.S. and Israeli) influences out of the Islamic world. His writings have become the basic texts of contemporary violent fringe movements around the Islamic world.
Jaques identifies the “violent fringe” with Qutb while claiming that the violent fringe “disparage[s] any discussion of Islamic law.” But Qutb did not shun sharia law. Just the opposite. He declared that any Muslim ruler who failed to impose sharia should be killed as an apostate.
This is detailed in Lawrence Wright’s book The Looming Tower. Flopping Aces posted an excerpt last year:
Sayyid Qutb had pointed the way by declaring that a leader who does not impose Sharia on the country must be an apostate. There is a well known saying of the Prophet that the blood of Muslims cannot be shed except in three instances: as punishment for murder, or for marital infidelity, or for turning away from Islam. The pious Anwar Sadat was the first modern victim of the reverse logic of takfir.
Jaques takes the 20th century’s foremost advocate for imposing sharia by violent means across the entire globe and suggests that he and his followers “would disparage any discussion of Islamic law.”
Whitewashing Wahhabism
Pretending that the violent fringe spurns sharia allows Jaques to whitewash, not just sharia, but also the mainstream revivalist movements that, as Jaques acknowledges, fully embrace sharia:
… revivalist movements around the Islamic world are articulating new and exciting systems of legal interpretation that, in real terms, are similar to traditional legal norms.
The mainstream of revivalism is Saudi Wahhabism, the state sponsored doctrine of violent aggressive conquest whose “fringe” elements attacked us on 9/11. As Jaques notes, these revivalists are thoroughly traditional in their interpretations of sharia law. All of them look backwards to the purity of 7th century Islam. Not much “new” there, however “exciting” to a person of Jaques’ evident sympathies.
Doctrinally, there is no gap between the “violent fringe” of bin Ladenists and the larger Wahhabi sect that spawned them. At most there are questions about whether bin Laden has been a good general, whose strategies effectively serve the Wahhabi goal of world domination. Mainstream Wahhabism completely embraces all of bin Laden’s objectives.
Honest about one thing: how sharia limits infidel responses
When he turns to the question of how we could frame a military response that is consistent with sharia law, Jaques takes the subject seriously, and is commendably forthright, acknowledging sharia as the law of Islamic conquest:
The laws of war that developed in the earliest periods divide the world into two halves, dar al-Islam, or the “land of submission” and dar al-harb, the “land of war.” Dar al-Islam refers to any territory that is under the control of Muslims and thus forms an Islamic commonwealth. Legal texts imply that the term is meant to denote a political designation of submission to Muslim political authority. … All areas outside of Muslim political authority are considered to be in a potential state of war with the Muslim state. All relations between the areas of submission and the areas of war are regulated by the concept of jihad … an obligatory “struggle” against non-believers who are not already under Muslim rule.
Any cessation in hostilities is purely strategic, until Muslims can get back to a position of strength from which to continue to fight:
The law outlines, in most cases, rules for the cessation of struggle (hudnah) when it is deemed by the Imam or his surrogates that it is to the advantage of the Muslims to do so, or out of a need due to Muslim weakness. In cases where Muslims simply seek some advantage in the cessation of hostilities, hudnah is limited to a period of four months. If the cessation of hostilities is due to Muslim weakness, hudnah can last for a period of up to 10 years.
Jaques also acknowledges that under Islamic law, infidels have no legal rights to fight back against Muslims at all:
…reaction by the United States becomes problematic since the rebels are still defined as Muslim and the law expressly forbids non-Muslims from attacking Muslims in a Muslim land.
Yes, well, that is the problem with conforming to the law of Islamic supremacism. It’s called “surrender.”
Takfir squared, or Qutbed
So we must submit to Islamic law, says Jaques, yet according to Islamic law, we are not allowed to fight back. What to do? What to do?
Jaques, expert in the nuances of Islamic law, offers us a way out. We can embrace Qutb’s innovation and declare the bin Ladenists apostates! (The strategy of takfir.) Then we would be allowed to kill them. But of course we have to get Muslim jurists to okay this first:
American responses to the attacks will be greatly assisted if Muslim jurists are willing to define the attacks as riddah (apostasy) and not as bughat (rebellion), or simple homicide (qatl). In the latter two categories, the perpetrators remain Muslim and any effort by non-Muslims to punish them will expressly violate provisions in Islamic law that prevents non-Muslims from killing Muslims. Only apostates may be killed by non-Muslims, and in some interpretations, Muslims may ask non-Muslims for assistance in bringing apostates to justice.
The only way Jaques is able to make this Qutbian strategy seem like a real possibility is through his earlier deception, pretending that the “violent fringe” is hostile to sharia law. Since there is not actually any doctrinal divide between the bin Ladenists and the traditional Islam, there is no way for traditional jurists to declare them apostates.
Jaques himself makes clear that the complaint about bin Laden from the point of view of traditional Islam is that he acted without consensus, and that he seems to be a bad general, engaging in acts that weaken rather than strengthen the Muslim position:
Defining the acts as contraventions of ijma would not hinge just on the enormity of the acts (simple murder contravenes ijma but is not defined as apostasy), but also on the idea that they endanger the Muslim community because of what they suggest about structures of legal authority. Encouraging others to commit suicide, claiming the right to declare jihad, to kill thousands (including many Muslims) and destroy billions of dollars of property without proper consent, and to risk the lives of Muslims due to Western military and economic retaliations challenges the authority of the community of jurists and of every principle of law that, by consensus, seeks to promote the welfare of the Muslim community.
But if bin Laden is just a bad general, acting without proper authority, how exactly is he supposed to be declared an apostate? Under sharia, the terror attacks might at most be viewed as rebellion (for which infidels have no recourse), but as Jaques notes, the demise of the caliphate makes it impossible even to establish bin Laden as a rebel. Who is he rebelling against?
Defining the acts as bughat [rebellion] is complicated by the fact that there is no universally recognized Muslim leader in any area of the Muslim world and has not been for more than 700 years. Many jurists argue that since this is the case, rules for bughat are not applicable today.
The bin Ladenists are trying to rectify this lack of a recognized Muslim leader by establishing a new caliphate. That hardly makes them apostates.
First Jaques pretends that the terrorists are hostile to sharia law. Then he pretends that sharia law is hostile to the terrorists. All the while neglecting to mention that the terrorists’ explicit goal is world submission to sharia law. That is quite a concatenation of strategic deception (taqiyya).
Jaques was just as deceptive in his advice to the Memorial Project
That giant Mecca-oriented crescent that forms the centerpiece of the Flight 93 Memorial? Jaques admits that it is similar to the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built, but so what:
…just because something is ’similar to’ something else does not make it the ’same’.
The half-mile wide crescent is much too big, says Jaques, to be recognized as the central feature of a mosque. After all, that would make it the world’s biggest mosque by a factor of a hundred! What could be sillier? But Taqiyya very much for asking.
Jaques does not name his own religious beliefs, but it seems pretty clear that he must be a Muslim, and probably of the revivalist stripe (which he finds so “new and exciting”). Will he deny it, as Islam allows (Koran, verse 16:106)? Feel free to ask. Please note any response in the comments.
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Outrageous!
Jaques
The only response that I have to this would get me banned, along with all people within a 50 mile radius. Freepers, or not.
Screw islamic legal principles!!
Unbelievable. These buffoons are really getting tiring.
I will do anything in my power to make sure any response is totally contemptuous of shari'a law ---
--- the devil culture that made the 911 atrocity possible.
And this doofus should stay as far away as possible!
When words fail me, a picture is worth a 1,000 words
Bump
Mohammed 3:16: “For allah so loved the world that he commanded his fools to kill everybody in it - or at least to die trying.”
This vile thing called “islam” is incompatible with human life.
*******************
by R. Kevin Jaques, Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies, Department of Religious Studies, Indiana University
Any discussion of an "Islamic legal response" to the attacks of Sept. 11 is complicated by the fact that there is no standard system of Islamic law to which all Muslims adhere. Traditional Islam has developed four institutionalized systems of law (madhahib, sing. madhhab) that have created standardized methods of legal interpretation (usul al-fiqh). Since the 14th century, a small number of Muslim intellectuals have criticized the institutionalized methodologies of legal interpretation and have argued that they have been corrupted by "foreign" and non-Islamic modes of thinking. Indeed, the debate on how to interpret the rules of law lies at the heart of the current crisis in the Islamic world and informs not only how Muslims will respond to the attacks but how they will react to U.S. responses as well.
The word "islam" means "submission," and a "muslim" is one who submits to the will of God as articulated in a system of rules (shari'ah) that exists in a complete form only in the mind of God. The traditional jurist must discover the rules of the shari'ah that lie either explicitly or implicitly in the texts of revelation (the Qur'an and the traditions [Sunna] of the Prophet Muhammad), because very few rules are explicitly stated. For instance, of the 6,247 verses of the Qur'an, only approximately 500 contain explicit rules reflective of God's will. Most of these pertain to laws for divorce, contracts, standards for basic forms of evidence, and so forth. In order to discover the rules hidden in the Qur'an and Sunna, jurists developed sophisticated systems of textual interpretation that examined such things as grammar, lexicography, history, and rhetoric in order to discern the implicit rules in the texts and make them applicable in various cultural and social settings. Central to these rules of interpretation is a system of analogy which, depending on the school of law, was applied in varying degrees. The backbone of the traditional system of jurisprudence is the concept of ijma, or consensus of the juridical community. All of the rules based on ijma—on which jurists in a given generation agree—rise to the level of explicit statements found in the texts of revelation and become direct statements of the shari'ah. These rules cannot, therefore, be disputed by later generations of jurists.
Beginning with the medieval legal reformer Ibn Taymiyah (d. 1328), traditional systems of legal interpretation were criticized by intellectuals who believed that the modes of discerning the shari'ah used in institutionalized systems of law had become corrupted by foreign (usually Sufi, or mystical) ways of understanding the world and God's role in it. Ibn Taymiyah argued that mysticism had clouded juridical perceptions because Sufi modes of reasoning, especially the idea that mystically inclined jurists could be aided by inspiration from God in deciding legal cases, led legal scholars away from the methods of textual interpretation developed in early Islam. Only by removing mystical influences on legal interpretation could the law be cleansed of non-Islamic bias and returned to a system which reflects "true" Islam. In addition, he believed that Sufism, especially its focus on spiritual authority, had caused jurists to become subservient to the non- consensus based rules (furu') discovered by previous generations. Ibn Taymiyah argued that for law to continue to be relevant to the needs of the Muslim community, jurists would have to exercise greater levels of independent reasoning and cast off those areas of law that were based on the blind adherence to the authority of previous generations of jurists.
Ibn Taymiyah's ideas were developed by the central Arabian revivalist Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792), who argued that the only way to remove foreign influence was through violent means. 'Abd al-Wahhab believed that Ibn Taymiyah's call for a return to non-Sufi piety as the cure-all for the problems of Muslim society did not go far enough. He called for a two-pronged approach to legal and social reform: the violent expulsion of Sufism and the destruction of traditional jurisprudence. In practical terms, the destruction of traditional jurisprudence meant the elevation of the individual Muslim as the sole interpreter of the texts of revelation: All that was necessary to interpret the will of God was individual piety and the ability to read the Qur'an and the traditions of the Prophet in their original Arabic. Juridical authority not only had no legitimacy, but it perpetrated non-Islamic norms in the Muslim community. While many revivalists follow aspects of Ibn Taymiyah's and 'Abd al-Wahhab's ideas, they do not adhere to the Wahhabi call for violence as a means of purifying Islam. The "Wahhabi idea," however, did become widespread in the 19th century in places where Muslims were under the domination of European powers.1
In the colonial context, European colonial authorities and Sufism were understood to be the non-Islamic forces that were preventing true Islam from flowering. In the post- colonial context, the establishment of the state of Israel and U.S. support for it and various authoritarian regimes in the Muslim world have been understood as the latest threats to the development of true Islam and the revival of the ideal Islamic community. The idea that the United States threatens the revival of true Islam is based on the ideas of the Egyptian revivalist Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966). Qutb believed that the United States had become an industrial power, not because of its moral and technological superiority, but because it built its massive industrial and technological system on the backs of minorities and the poor. Qutb saw U.S. support for the establishment of Israel in 1948 as an extension of American and Western racism into the Middle East. If unchecked, Qutb worried that American values of racism and oppression—of individual success at the expense of the many—would corrupt Muslims and drive them even further away from "true" Islam. Qutb advocated a radicalized form of Wahhabi extremism as the only means of driving foreign (meaning U.S. and Israeli) influences out of the Islamic world. His writings have become the basic texts of contemporary violent fringe movements around the Islamic world.2
In the context of the rise of various forms of revivalism, any discussion of Islamic law must be understood to speak to and about those Muslims who still, to one degree or another, participate in traditional systems of legal thought. By this I do not mean that all revivalists fall outside discussions of Islamic law. On the contrary, revivalist movements around the Islamic world are articulating new and exciting systems of legal interpretation that, in real terms, are similar to traditional legal norms.3 Only the violent fringe—approximately 1 percent to 2 percent of Muslims worldwide—would disparage any discussion of Islamic law as being reflective of the kinds of non-Islamic ideas that they claim have contaminated Islam since the very first centuries of Islamic history.
How can the attacks of Sept. 11 be defined under Islamic law?4 Almost universally, Sunni Muslim religious leaders who have been able to speak out have condemned the attacks. They have generally defined the acts as "un-Islamic" based on the fact that Islamic law does not allow for suicide or for the murder of innocent women and children. Many religious leaders, however, constrained by the threat of reprisals from sympathizers to violent revivalists and from governments afraid of violent revivalist uprisings, have been unable to define the attacks in more specific legal terms. In formulating an American response to the acts of terror, it is necessary to define them according to the provisions of Islamic law.
There are two possible characterizations of the attacks based on the standard texts of Islamic law. They could be viewed as bughat, or outrages committed by "rebels" against the state. Bughat is primarily a political category and includes anyone who attacks the Imam (the universally recognized political leader of all Muslims), who disobeys his orders, who refuses his services, or who does not pay taxes. Defining the acts as bughat is complicated by the fact that there is no universally recognized Muslim leader in any area of the Muslim world and has not been for more than 700 years. Many jurists argue that since this is the case, rules for bughat are not applicable today. Others argue, however, that, in the absence of a universally recognized leader, the community of jurists fills the role of the Imam.5 In this case, the second condition for rebellion may apply. Since the jurists have expressly forbidden suicide and the murder of innocent women and children, it is possible to argue that the acts expressly contravene the orders of the ulama (community of jurists). Under this definition, reaction by the United States becomes problematic since the rebels are still defined as Muslim and the law expressly forbids non-Muslims from attacking Muslims in a Muslim land.
The second possible definition of the attacks is riddah, or acts committed by apostates. Traditional law defines an apostate as anyone who separates from the submission to the will of God mentally, by statements (whether in jest, contradiction, or in good faith), or by acts. Any one of these must include a statement that one does not believe in God, does not believe in the prophets, does not believe Muhammad to be a prophet, considers something lawful that by consensus (ijma) is ruled unlawful, considers something forbidden that by consensus is ruled lawful, is not required to follow the rules decided by consensus, intends to change religion, or doubts the truth of Islam. Under the rules, anyone defined as being an apostate is, inter alia, not a Muslim. The penalty for apostasy is death, if the offender does not recant and return to religion.6 The rules for fighting an apostate are the same as those for fighting any non-Muslim. This leads by necessity to a discussion of the rules of war, and by what legal provisions the United States may engage in a military response.
Traditional Islamic law has very few and rudimentary rules outlining the laws of war between Muslims. To a certain extent, Islamic law sees the world as an ideal setting in which all Muslims are united under the leadership of a single state. Jurists simply did not develop comprehensive rules regulating intra-Muslim conflict. This is not the case with war between the Muslim state and its non-Muslim neighbors. War between a Muslim state and its non-Muslim neighbor is legally defined as "jihad," which has a legal and a pietistic definition. In all cases, the legal definition involves some aspect of military expedition (sayr) or political expansion.7 Discussion of jihad is complicated by legal texts that reflect the changing circumstances of the Muslim community as it moved from a military power to a community that was under foreign domination.
There were three phases in the legal development of rules of war: the period from 622 to roughly the mid-10th century, when Muslims were expanding their empire from southern Europe to central Asia; from the mid-10th to the mid-18th century, when Muslim powers were consolidating political and military power; and from the mid-18th century to the present, a period when Muslim power has been in a general state of decline.
The laws of war that developed in the earliest periods divide the world into two halves, dar al-Islam, or the "land of submission" and dar al-harb, the "land of war." Dar al-Islam refers to any territory that is under the control of Muslims and thus forms an Islamic commonwealth. Legal texts imply that the term is meant to denote a political designation of submission to Muslim political authority (non-Muslims already living under Muslim political authority are exempt from jihad as long as they obey the rules of the state and their own communal laws). All areas outside of Muslim political authority are considered to be in a potential state of war with the Muslim state. All relations between the areas of submission and the areas of war are regulated by the concept of jihad.
Jihad is defined as an obligatory "struggle" against non-believers who are not already under Muslim rule. Since the obligation is collective and not individual, as sufficient numbers of people are engaged in the struggle with unbelief, the majority of Muslims are excused from participation in jihad. Jihad is generally but incorrectly understood to be a war to convert non-Muslims to Islam. To the contrary, it is legally and historically meant to be a systematized struggle for Muslim political control, not the religious conversion of non-Muslims. Most traditional legal texts outline 14 to 16 different categories of struggle, only one of which involves military action. The remaining rules outline ways in which Muslims can increase social cohesion and religious adherence in the face of threats from non-Muslim political opponents, the majority of which are aimed at expanding the authority of jurists in Muslim society.8 Rules for increasing social and religious cohesion indicate that the majority of jurists understood external threats from non-Muslims to be marginal to the greater threats to Islam posed by Muslims who failed to adhere to the law and thus weakened social and religious bonds in Islamic society.
In situations involving military struggle with non-believers, the rules state that only men who are free, not ill (physically or mentally), who have the permission of their creditors, and who own the arms and equipment necessary for war, are required to fight. This stipulation changes, however, if Muslims are attacked in their lands by non-Muslims. In that case, all Muslims—men and women, regardless of health or wealth—are required to fight. If Muslims cannot organize a resistance, they may allow themselves to be taken prisoner, and are required to travel only the equivalent of 48 miles to fight in a war. If the invaders are more than 48 miles away, Muslims are not required to take up arms in defense of Islam. In addition, in the case of invasion, women and children may be attacked if the enemy hides behind them with the sole purpose of using them as a defensive shield. In all other cases the law expressly forbids attacking women, the mentally ill, the disabled, and minors who have not reached the age of maturity.9
The declaration of jihad can be made only by a universally accepted Imam, or in his absence, by the community of jurists.10 Individual Muslims can and have declared jihad, but this carries little weight under Islamic law. Declarations by individual jurists are issued in the form of a fatwa, or non-binding legal opinion. Only trained jurists, according to traditional legal norms, can issue a fatwa. Declarations issued by non-jurists carry no legal power and are treated both legally and popularly as personal statements. Only those already inclined to adhere to such statements will follow these edicts. The fact that jihad must be declared for struggle to be valid indicates that conflict between dar al-Islam and dar al-harb is not perpetual, but exists only under certain restricted circumstances.
In cases where a state of war exists between Muslims and non-Muslims, or in other cases where it becomes necessary for non-Muslims to move through Muslim-controlled areas, the law stipulates that the Imam or his surrogates may issue safe conduct or quarter to the enemy. Safe conduct is to be granted for a limited time (usually four months) and must not prejudice the interests of the Muslims. A corollary to this rule is that in times of need, the Muslim military may employ non-Muslims as "guides" in order to root out the enemies of Islam.11
The law outlines, in most cases, rules for the cessation of struggle (hudnah) when it is deemed by the Imam or his surrogates that it is to the advantage of the Muslims to do so, or out of a need due to Muslim weakness. In cases where Muslims simply seek some advantage in the cessation of hostilities, hudnah is limited to a period of four months. If the cessation of hostilities is due to Muslim weakness, hudnah can last for a period of up to 10 years. Many legal texts also admit the reality of world affairs when they state that if the cessation of hostilities extends past the 10-year limit, hudnah remains in effect until such a time that one side or the other violates the terms of the original treaty.12
What do the above legal interpretations mean for U.S. responses to the terror attacks of Sept. 11? If the United States wishes to approach the fight against terrorism to limit future revivalist terror groups from forming and attacking American citizens and interests, it will be necessary to craft a response that conforms to the realities of Islamic law. Although Islamic law—especially rules of war and foreign relations—is not applied in the modern context, Muslim religious leaders, the very people the United States needs to attract to its cause to avoid future difficulties, use legal provisions as the foundations of their religious world views. Muslim religious leaders think of the world in legal terms and will react to U.S. policies according to how these policies conflict or adhere to Islamic legal principles.
American responses to the attacks will be greatly assisted if Muslim jurists are willing to define the attacks as riddah (apostasy) and not as bughat (rebellion), or simple homicide (qatl). In the latter two categories, the perpetrators remain Muslim and any effort by non-Muslims to punish them will expressly violate provisions in Islamic law that prevents non-Muslims from killing Muslims. Only apostates may be killed by non-Muslims, and in some interpretations, Muslims may ask non-Muslims for assistance in bringing apostates to justice.13 Defining the terror attacks as apostasy would be based on the clear indication that the perpetrators, by advocating suicide, the mass murder of innocent women and children as a legitimate act of war, mass destruction of private property, and the declaration of jihad without the authority of the community of jurists (ulama), contravenes the authority of the ulama by considering lawful things which by ijma have traditionally considered unlawful. Defining the acts as contraventions of ijma would not hinge just on the enormity of the acts (simple murder contravenes ijma but is not defined as apostasy), but also on the idea that they endanger the Muslim community because of what they suggest about structures of legal authority. Encouraging others to commit suicide, claiming the right to declare jihad, to kill thousands (including many Muslims) and destroy billions of dollars of property without proper consent, and to risk the lives of Muslims due to Western military and economic retaliations challenges the authority of the community of jurists and of every principle of law that, by consensus, seeks to promote the welfare of the Muslim community. Convincing Muslim jurists of the value of such a definition would be critical to any U.S. response.14
In addition, under Islamic law individuals harmed as a result of an unjust act have certain financial tools that allow them to be compensated for losses that result. Rights to compensation extend to non-Muslims when they are harmed by Muslims and allow for rather comprehensive rights to financial recompense. Especially useful is the provision that injured parties have the right to sue any individual who forms part of an organization that commits acts of unjust violence against them. This extends to individuals who do not themselves form armed bands, or take up arms directly, but in some other way contribute to the formation or activities of the organization in a non-military capacity. These provisions would allow the United States to seize funds from groups that are proven to facilitate the activities of terror groups.
In each of the above legal responses, the issue of proof is central to American reactions to the terror attacks. It will not be enough for the United States to say, "we think so and so did it." Rather, it will be necessary to lay out a case of guilt that conforms with the standards of Islamic law. Proving guilt in cases of murder or apostasy requires three witnesses to each individual fact. Witnesses can be either eyewitnesses to individual acts or transactions, or expert witnesses who can testify to the facts as they understand them. The last question that this discussion raises is this: What role does the United States have in making a religious argument to Muslims? In other words, why should the United States try to make a religious argument to Muslims about the guilt under Islamic law of those it says committed the acts? The United States has the opportunity to redefine its relationship with the Islamic world. There need not be a conflict of civilizations if the West seeks to prevent such a war by building bridges with Muslim intellectuals who it can win to its side by speaking their language and seeking to understand their world views. Only if the United States and its allies take Islamic legal norms into account can it fight and win a war on terrorism without creating more terrorists down the road. While a legally sound response is only one prong of a comprehensive effort, one that includes redressing economic and political policies toward the Muslim world, it is nonetheless central to a sound policy for dealing with this new war.
1 For an interesting discussion of the implications of the Wahhabi idea, see Fazlur Rahman, Islam (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966), 193-211.
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2 Qutb's book Milestones (Cedar Rapids: The Mother Mosque Foundation, n. d.) has become the bible of the violent revivalist movement. Widely available throughout the Muslim world (including the United States), the book outlines Qutb's vision of the current state of Islam and articulates a theory for the application of jihad against the enemies of true Islam. It should be noted that for Qutb, the majority of Muslims are so perverted by foreign elements that they should no longer be defined as such and are to be the primary objects of jihad.
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3 For instance, see H. M. Amein Rais and H. Ahmad Syafii Maarif, Metode Ijtihad Majlis Tarjih Muhammadiyah (Jakarta: Logos Publishing House, 1995).
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4 As stated above, institutionalized Islamic law is a broad subject. There are, however, a number of issues on which most of the schools of legal interpretation agree. What is presented below are those areas of agreement according to the medieval legal text Minhaj al-talibin (Beirut: Dar al-kutub al-'ilmiyah, 1996), written by the great Shafi'i jurist Yahya b. Sharaf Muhyi al-Din al-Nawawi (d. 1277). The text is one of the most important foundational texts in the Shafi'i school of law and is highly esteemed by jurists in all traditional schools. Al-Nawawi seeks to represent the consensus view of his school and in places where there is disagreement (ikhtilaf) he delineates what this may be.
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5 Ibid., 169-179.
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9 Ibid., 180-81.
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14 It must be admitted that such an argument has limitations. There are very strong arguments made in the traditions of the Prophet against condemning anyone as an apostate. These admonitions stem largely from the debate that arose after 658 when a group that came to be known as the Khawarij claimed that any Muslim who committed a grave sin should be killed. A number of civil wars broke out after the rise of the Khawarij that centered on who had the right to define what a Muslim is and whether or not humans had the right to condemn anyone to death for committing an act of sin. In response to the atrocities of the Khawarij, a group known as the Murjia (the postponers) asserted that only God had the right to declare who was, and who was not a Muslim, which could only occur on the Day of Judgment. The Murjia argument eventually became part of the "orthodox" Sunni tradition.
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PING & GRRRRRRR!!!
America needs to carefully remember WWII, our responses, our attitudes, our language, etc.
Is this guy a nut?
He can take a flying f__k at the Moon!
this article deserves to be a feature on http://jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/
Why Dhimmi Watch? Dhimmitude is the status that Islamic law, the Sharia, mandates for non-Muslims, primarily Jews and Christians. Dhimmis, "protected people," are free to practice their religion in a Sharia regime, but are made subject to a number of humiliating regulations designed to enforce the Qur'an's command that they "feel themselves subdued" (Sura 9:29). This denial of equality of rights and dignity remains part of the Sharia, and, as such, is part of the law that global jihadists are laboring to impose everywhere, ultimately on the entire human race.
The dhimmi attitude of chastened subservience has entered into Western academic study of Islam, and from there into journalism, textbooks, and the popular discourse. One must not point out the depredations of jihad and dhimmitude; to do so would offend the multiculturalist ethos that prevails everywhere today.
But in this era of global terrorism this silence and distortion has become deadly. Therefore Dhimmi Watch seeks to bring public attention to the plight of the dhimmis, and by doing so, to bring them justice.
I will pass this article on to Robert Spencer.
Hey Jaques al-Shit for Brains.
I am sworn to defend this country from all enemies foreign and domestic.
Don’t let me know I’ve seen you.
BTTT
In this address, he said, "I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It's practiced freely by many millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah. (Applause.) The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them. (Applause.)
Then, he said:
Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.
President Bush on 9/20/01 in his address to the Joint Session of Congress and the American People
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