Posted on 10/19/2010 12:28:21 PM PDT by betty boop
Is the U.S. Constitution “Sharia-Compliant?”
By Jean F. Drew
Imam Feisal Abdel Rauf recently declared that the U.S. Constitution is “Sharia-compliant.”
Rauf is the Egyptian-born Muslim cleric who is spearheading the construction of Park51, originally named Cordoba House, a planned 13-story Islamic community center and mosque to be located just two blocks from the World Trade Center, the site of the most devastating attack on the American people in the history of our nation. He claims that Park51 is being built to promote greater cultural understanding and tolerance among the various religious communities in America.
In short, he holds himself out as a great champion of First Amendment religious liberty, a claim that he evidently hopes will assuage all fears that there is some nefarious purpose behind this mosque being built at this particular site, so fraught with agonizing memories of the September 11, 2001 Jihadi terrorist attack on America. More than 200 employees of the company I then worked for, based on the 87th floor of the WTC’s South Tower, perished that day.
Maybe some wishful thinkers out there were placated by the Imam’s assurances of peaceful intent, which he tried to underscore by his suggestion that, in effect, Islamic sharia law is compatible with our system of individual liberty under equal laws and equal justice. That is, with our basic American rule of law, the Constitution. After all, why can’t we all just get along? So the more clueless Americans out there are disposed to take the Imam’s statement in good faith, supposing him to have offered it in good faith.
But note Rauf didn’t say that the U.S. Constitution is sharia-compatible or that sharia is compatible with it; he says it is sharia-compliant. That is, he posits sharia as the standard of law to which the Constitution must be brought into conformity. He won’t say this out loud; but the logic of his statement speaks for itself. It would likely take a political revolution or a successful invasion of our country (militarily or demographically) to bring about this result. But Islam is patient, believing that Allah is on its side. So, unlike most Americans — who want a quick fix for any and every problem or controversy — Islam takes the long view.
As an aside, we should remember that throughout history, victorious Muslim invaders have had a practice of building mosques on the sites of their victories. This practice is both a “victory yell” and a signal to the rest of the world that “we’re here, and we’re here to stay; we’ll never retreat from here.” The Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, for example, was erected on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, the place where the First and Second Temples are generally accepted to have stood.
We need to remember that historically, Islam has been a militant religion; it converts by the sword, not by (say) baptism. Also we need to recognize that Islam regards any territory it has invaded (either militarily or demographically) as its own forevermore. Even though Islam was driven out of Spain after many centuries of occupying it, the Islamic world still regards Spanish territory as its own. It simply needs to be reclaimed, and will be in Allah’s own good time.
Indeed, Islam believes the same thing about human souls: It’s a “Hotel California” kind of thing — “you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.” Once a Muslim, always a Muslim. The penalty for converting to another religion — i.e., for committing apostasy — is death.
So much for religious toleration! Of course the First Amendment cannot be “compatible” with such a view, let alone “comply” with it. By now we should begin to suspect that things may not be exactly as Imam Rauf has claimed them to be. To make this entirely clear, we need only consider what sharia is.
Fundamentally, sharia is devoted to personal status law, a set of regulations that pertains to marriage, divorce, inheritance, and child custody. None of these are federal matters under the Constitution. In a nutshell, the Constitution is about securing and protecting the natural (inalienable) rights of all human individuals equally, under just and equal laws. These laws are not “respecters of persons”: It doesn’t matter what gender you are, or your race, sexual orientation, religious persuasion, or economic status. Nor is the Constitution concerned with micromanaging personal moral and family life by means of religious authority and sanction.
Which is what sharia claims the authority to do.
Sharia means “path” in Arabic. What is meant by this is sharia guides all aspects of Muslim life including daily routines, familial and religious obligations, and financial dealings. “It is derived primarily from the Quran and Sunna — the sayings, practices, and teachings of the Prophet Mohammed. Precedents and analogy applied by Muslim scholars are used to address new issues. The consensus of the Muslim community also plays a role in defining this theological manual.”
Note that last statement — the “consensus of the Muslim community” plays a definitional role. This evidently is the entire extent of sharia’s “democratic” bona fides. Unfortunately, there are many parts of the Muslim world today — e.g., Afghanistan and North Africa — that appear still mired in the mores and folkways of people living in the seventh century. How else is one to understand the very widespread practice of “honor killings?”
Marriage and divorce are the most significant aspects of sharia, but criminal law is the most controversial. In sharia, there are categories of offenses: those that are prescribed a specific punishment in the Quran, known as hadd punishments, those that fall under a judge’s discretion, and those resolved through a tit-for-tat measure (i.e., blood money paid to the family of a murder victim). There are five hadd crimes: unlawful sexual intercourse (sex outside of marriage and adultery), false accusation of unlawful sexual intercourse, wine drinking (sometimes extended to include all alcohol drinking), theft, and highway robbery. Punishments for hadd offenses — flogging, stoning, amputation, exile, or execution — get a significant amount of media attention when they occur….
Despite official reluctance to use hadd punishments [in some Muslim countries], vigilante justice still takes place. Honor killings, murders committed in retaliation for bringing dishonor on one’s family, are a worldwide problem. While precise statistics are scarce, the UN estimates thousands of women are killed annually in the name of family honor…. Other practices that are woven into the sharia debate, such as female genital mutilation, adolescent marriages, polygamy, and gender-biased inheritance rules, elicit as much controversy. There is significant debate over what the Quran sanctions and what practices were pulled from local customs [that] predate Islam. Those [who] seek to eliminate or at least modify these controversial practices cite the religious tenet of tajdid. The concept is one of renewal, where Islamic society must be reformed constantly to keep it in its purest form. “With the passage of time and changing circumstances since traditional classical jurisprudence was founded, people’s problems have changed and conversely, there must be new thought to address these changes and events,” says Dr. Abdul Fatah Idris, head of the comparative jurisprudence department at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Though many scholars share this line of thought, there are those who consider the purest form of Islam to be the one practiced in the seventh century.
One thing is very clear about sharia: It does not afford equal protection of the law to women, nor to non-Muslims, nor to homosexual persons; and certainly not to slaves. Sharia still permits and even regulates human chattel slavery. How the federal Constitution can be made to “comply” with this situation without invalidating itself and thus the rule of law on which American jurisprudence depends remains a mystery.
[When] you accept Sharia as the [legal] code, you accept the whole notion of citizenship that comes with it. You divide society in two: the people of the [Koran] and the non-Muslims. Here you create a hierarchy of citizens: Christians, Jews, and traditional believers [i.e., Muslims]. The hierarchy is applied to power — if you are Muslim you are more likely to have more legal rights under Sharia law than non-Muslims — so the implications [of Sharia] go beyond the criminal code.
Speaking as an American woman, the most deeply shocking and offensive aspect of Islam has to do with customary relations between the sexes. A woman is not a “person.” She is the chattel of the male members of her family.
“There is nothing in the Koran, the book of basic Islamic teachings, that permits or sanctions honor killings. However, the view of women as property with no rights of their own is deeply rooted in Islamic culture. Tahira Shahid Khan, a professor specializing in women’s issues at the Aga Khan University in Pakistan, wrote in Chained to Custom, a review of honor killings published in 1999:
“Women are considered the property of the males in their family irrespective of their class, ethnic, or religious group. The owner of the property has the right to decide its fate. The concept of ownership has turned women into a commodity which can be exchanged, bought and sold.”
Honor killings are perpetrated for a wide range of offenses. Marital infidelity, pre-marital sex, flirting, or even failing to serve a meal on time can all be perceived as impugning the family honor.
Amnesty International has reported on one case in which a husband murdered his wife based on a dream that she had betrayed him. In Turkey, a young woman’s throat was slit in the town square because a love ballad had been dedicated to her over the radio.
In a society where most marriages are arranged by fathers and money is often exchanged, a woman’s desire to choose her own husband — or to seek a divorce — can be viewed as a major act of defiance that damages the honor of the man who negotiated the deal.
Even victims of rape are vulnerable. In a widely reported case in March of 1999, a 16-year-old mentally retarded girl who was raped in the Northwest Frontier province of Pakistan was turned over to her tribe’s judicial council. Even though the crime was reported to the police and the perpetrator was arrested, the Pathan tribesmen decided that she had brought shame to her tribe and she was killed in front of a tribal gathering.
The teenage brothers of victims are frequently directed to commit the murder because, as minors, they would be subject to considerably lighter sentencing if there is legal action. Typically, they would serve only three months to a year.
Officials often claim that nothing can be done to halt the practice because the concept of women’s rights is not culturally relevant to deeply patriarchal societies.
Well, America is not a “deeply patriarchal” tribal society, and probably isn’t interested in becoming one, in undergoing the sort of cultural devolution that would be required to produce such an exotic bloom on American soil.
Nonie Darwish, a Muslim “apostate” (she converted to Christianity), has a challenge for Imam Rauf: She wants to know whether his claim that the Constitution is sharia-compliant “is truthful or a fraud.” And so she has compiled a little list of sharia practices, and invites the Imam to show in what way each is conversant with American constitutional jurisprudence. She indicates her list is not exhaustive — it contains only 33 items out of the plethora of sharia practices. Here is Darwish’s list:
1. Jihad [is] defined as “to war against non-Muslims to establish the religion” … the duty of every Muslim and Muslim head of state (Caliph). Muslim Caliphs who refuse jihad are in violation of Sharia and unfit to rule.
2. A Caliph can hold office through seizure of power, meaning through force.
3. A Caliph is exempt from being charged with serious crimes such as murder, adultery, robbery, theft, drinking, and in some cases of rape.
4. A percentage of Zakat (alms) must go towards jihad.
5. It is obligatory to obey the commands of the Caliph, even if he is unjust.
6. A caliph must be a Muslim, a non-slave, and a male.
7. The Muslim public must remove the Caliph in one case, if he rejects Islam.
8. A Muslim who leaves Islam must be killed immediately.
9. A Muslim will be forgiven for murder of: 1) an [apostate] 2) an adulterer 3) a highway robber, [which makes] vigilante street justice and honor killing acceptable.
10. A Muslim will not get the death penalty if he kills a non-Muslim.
11. Sharia never abolished slavery and sexual slavery and highly regulates it. A master will not be punished for killing his slave.
12. Sharia dictates death by stoning, beheading, amputation of limbs, flogging and other forms of cruel and unusual punishments even for crimes of sin such as adultery.
13. Non-Muslims are not equal to Muslims and must comply [with] Sharia if they are to remain safe. They are forbidden to marry Muslim women, publicly display wine or pork, recite their scriptures or openly celebrate their religious holidays or funerals. They are forbidden from building new churches or building them higher than mosques. They may not enter a mosque without permission. A non-Muslim is no longer protected if he commits adultery with a Muslim woman or if he leads a Muslim away from Islam.
14. It is a crime for a non-Muslim to sell weapons to someone who will use them against Muslims. Non-Muslims cannot curse a Muslim, say anything derogatory about Allah, the Prophet, or Islam, or expose the weak points of Muslims. However, the opposite is not true for Muslims.
15. A non-Muslim cannot inherit from a Muslim.
16. Banks must be Sharia-compliant — that is, they are forbidden to charge interest.
17. No testimony in court is acceptable from people of low-level jobs, such as street sweeper or bathhouse attendant. A woman in a low-level job such as professional funeral mourner cannot keep custody of her children in the event her husband divorces her.
18. A non-Muslim cannot rule even over a non-Muslim minority.
19. Homosexuality is punishable by death.
20. There is no age limit for marriage of girls under Sharia. The marriage contract can take place anytime after birth and [be] consummated at age 8 or 9.
21. Rebelliousness on the part of the wife nullifies the husband’s obligation to support her, gives him permission to beat her and keep her from leaving the home.
22. Divorce is only in the hands of the husband and is as easy as saying: “I divorce you” and becomes effective even if the husband did not intend it.
23. There is no community property between husband and wife and the husband’s property does not automatically go to the wife after his death.
24. A woman inherits half what a man inherits.
25. A man has the right to have up to four wives and she has no right to divorce him even if he is polygamous.
26. The dowry is given in exchange for the woman’s sexual organs.
27. A man is allowed to have sex with slave women and women captured in battle, and if the enslaved woman is married her marriage is annulled.
28. The testimony of a woman in court is [worth] half the value of a man’s.
29. A woman loses custody of her children if she remarries.
30. To prove rape, a woman must have four male witnesses.
31. A rapist may only be required to pay the bride-money (dowry) without marrying the rape victim.
32. A Muslim woman must cover every inch of her body, which is considered “Awrah,” a sexual organ. Some schools of Sharia allow the face [to show] and some don’t.
33. A Muslim man is forgiven if he kills his wife caught in the act of adultery. However, the opposite is not true for a wife who kills her husband so caught, on the presumption that he “could be married to the woman he was caught with.”
The above are clear-cut laws in Islam decided by great Imams after years of examination and interpretation of the Quran, Hadith and Mohammed’s life. Now let the learned Imam Rauf tell us what part of the above is compliant with the U.S. constitution.
Of course, Ms. Darwish has gotten it backwards — on Rauf’s suggestion, the Constitution is what complies with sharia, not the other way around.
Nonetheless it should be obvious that sharia and the Constitution cannot be reconciled. Sharia cannot be accommodated under the Constitution. So it becomes a matter of which legal system will “win in the end.”
I imagine that Imam Rauf is placing his bets on sharia law, not on the Constitution. I further imagine that his Park51 project is designed as a showcase and training center for the Islamic point of view, including sharia. There’s less religion here than there is activist, militant, hegemonic politics….
America would cease to be America, our Constitution would be utterly gutted, our greatest principles held in contempt, were Islamist culture to be established on our shores — and most particularly the legal culture of sharia.
It would be the ultimate “Death to America!”
But isn’t that what the jihadis usually say? And what they really want?
©2010, Jean F. Drew
>>Actually, Muslims are minorities in the Philippine, Nigeria, and India; but yet they cause a lot of havoc anyway.<<
Yeah, it really is in phases.They cause havoc there, but where they are the majority it is much worse. Search google for bible, koran, violence and “freerepublic.com” and you will find a great article on freerepublic from the early part of the century that lays it all out very nicely.
Muslims are peaceful, until they’re not. They are like Pit Bulls with bad owners.
And all that that implies.
Cannot -- or may not?
Just did so... (See tagline...) So, I guess I can...
As for "may", I refuse to ask a muslim's permission for anything...
I will kill muslims rather than submit to Sharia. And, if necessary, I will do so -- in defense of the Constitution I swore to "uphold and defend"...
I agree.
The state Dept needs to stop issuing visas to Muslims coming from majority Muslim nations; simply because their minds have already been poisoned with hate against us from their media and mosques.
Either way, same outcome.... The reason why there is no practical difference is because the fundamental evil that lies at the root has not yet been exposed to the American public at large in a rational, understandable way.
Assuming there are still rational Americans out there, and not just a passel of pansies for the politically correct view. The holding of which is rewarded by our political class in so many ways, and punished in so many others.
Hello, First Amendment!!!!
Case in point: NPR, who fired Juan Williams early today, evidently on grounds that he is a highly observant, rational, not to mention non-racist human being.
We cannot have free thought, free speech in this country!!!!
Although "we" — i.e., the U.S. Constitution — fully protects obscene art such as Serrano's "Piss Christ" (enuf said); a painting (artist's name mercifully forgotten) of Mary, Mother of Jesus, incorporating elephant feces and other "suitable" ingredients; not to mention the marvelous "performance art" of such renowns as Annie Sprinkle, et al. All such free speech expressions are fully guaranteed by the First Amendment on the basis of recent SCOTUS reviews.
But we cannot allow Juan Williams to state the obvious in public!!!
Why is HIS free (and utterly rational) speech not "protected," guaranteed?
NPR, hang your head in shame!!! If you've got it in you to do it!!! [And you probably don't!!! You folks have become a moral sewer.... If I were Juan, I'd consider myself well worth ridden of you!]
Best wishes to/for Juan Williams.
Sorry I digress, ,dear TXnMA! I will never submit to sharia myself. I will not subject my living neck to that dead yoke.
Thank you ever so much for writing!
When I read your article, Overseer, I was so very glad to append it to the article at the top, for further discussion!
Your qualification as an Arabic linguist for the National Security Agency — thus presumably as a person who can understand a foreign culture in terms of its own language — definitely lends credibility to me (at least) that you are a person knowledgeable respecting the present question....
I am so very glad for your insights!
I only hope and pray that your insights can have some sobering effect on the folks out there that would trade anything for their own personal peace, welfare, and security (as they imagine it). I mean the very folk who think that the solution to all human problems is answered by the pathetic whine, "Why can't we all just get along?"
The Doctrine of Kumbiyah ever seems to be the answer of the brain dead.
Jeepers, I hope not too many brain dead will show up at the polls on November 2! LOL!
Thank you ever so much for your outstanding article, Overseer!
Thanks for the kind words.
It is very frustrating to try and sound the alarm when the enemy is not only at the gates, but actually within the gates. A few years ago shortly after 9/11, I wrote and expressed my outrage to Gordon England, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, that he would permit CAIR to set foot on the grounds of Quantico, VA, and conduct their BS. Turns out his right hand man is Hisham Islam.
You can’t say anything even slightly negative about Islam. Witness NPR today. CAIR and their ilk successfully and forcefully deploy the tactics that Alinsky taught and used so well: Isolate, personalize and then demonize. These tactics work very well for all our enemies. This is what they do, this is how they operate.
And all the sheeple said, “Amen.”
Oy!
On that score let's do "realpolitik," involving the scoping of a real war. On that theory, the absolutely most effective military tactic, after identifying who the snake is (i.e., the enemy), is to decide to decapitate it, to cut it off at its head. I am told this is absolutely the best method of dealing with a poisonous snake: Kill it at its "root," at its head via physical decapitation.
So it seems eminently reasonable to me: Go for the head of the snake.
Which, regarding the jihadi war on Western Civilization, if I am not very much mistaken is to be found in Tehran nowadays.
The weird thing is we, America, have been in an undeclared war with the "sovereign" state of Iran since 1979. We have so far refused to acknowledge that such a war is on-going; but this very war is the entire centerpiece of current Iranian domestic and international policy, and has been for the past 31 years.
We Americans evidently think we can ignore a war, even if our devoted enemies insist on waging one — against us.
Anyhoot, I'm with you on the requisite military planning issues. To go after the head of the snake (which inspires and funds international jihadism), what we should do is simply bomb Tehran plus all its known nuclear and military sites into smithereens, into total oblivion. [Such an operation would relieve the civilized world of obnoxious scientists and politicians.]
Hopefully we don't need nukes for this. Indeed, nukes ought to be avoided (for reasons of innocent civilian casualties and mass environmental damage).
But it seems to me you could load a whole bunch of bombs down onto Tehran, Dresden style; use daisy cutters and massively penetrating bombs against their nuclear sites — possibly aided by EMP weapons (if the U.S. Military ever bothered to develop them). A massive strike of this scale would probably lessen, if not solve, threats against U.S. national security, and give a breather to our ally Israel.
We could do it. And it would probably work — i.e., achieve the goal. At least in the short run....
But just because one can do a thing, does that mean one ought to do it? I ask that especially because there is a younger generation in Iran that is putting itself at risk by defying the theocratic political order (seemingly of seventh-century mentality and culture) in favor of greater openness to the outside world, and a more congenial attitude toward "modernization." [Meaning: Westernization, not to put too fine a point on it.]
I suppose there would be great satisfaction on the American side if the Mullahs' trained monkey, Ahmadinijadh, were to blow up anytime soon. But I imagine he is expendable in the Mullah's view anyway, if I read that cabal correctly. A-jad is just a front man for organized evil practiced privately by a cabal of experts....
Their biggest worry right now is the disaffection of their own young people, in droves. The Mullahs claim to operate a "'democratic society." This claim rings hollow, false, when we see them persecuting their own young people, for their principled dissent from the "mandatory" assent to the Allah-authorized "powers that be."
They don't have a First Amendment in Iran. Allah would NEVER approve of such a thing!
I just mention all of this, mrreaganaut, because I think that some of the above tendered "observations" may have tactical significance, and also may require our forbearance....
'Tis a thorny problem.... We seek the balance, the true measure....
The price of peace is eternal vigilance.
Thank you oh so much for writing, mrreaganaut! And for your kind words.
NOT ME, Overwatcher!!!!!!!
Not EVER!
Scream from the roof tops, scream from the lamp posts! We must tell the Truth we see!!!
Truth is Truth. And it will set us free.
Otherwise, one remains benighted, doomed.
Thank you, Overwatcher!
The Copts(christians) in Egypt murdered their country by diversity..
As happened to the Marionite christians in Lebanon..
currently whats happening in URP...
Some cultures are simply better for "people" than others..
Some cultures are benign others are predatory even murderous..
Islam is a murderous culture.. it didn't evolve into one it was one from the beginning..
AND will remain one... in the end..
A Good muslim is murderous a Bad (or nominal one) isn't..
That'd make a great tagline.
I disagree: Tehran is the lesser head of two. Riyadh is the real source of terrorist ideology and money, dramatically outpacing Iranian efforts. We don't see it because the Saudis have spent so much money corrupting the state departments around the world (including our own). The Saudis have the subtlety that the Iranians lack.
10 out of 12 of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudis, and 100% of Islamic Studies departments are funded - at least in part, usually entirely - by Saudi money. Nobody in the MSM reports this, because Saudis own large shares in all the networks, including FOX. The commies didn't have a bottomless supply of money, and that's why they lost the Cold War. What can stop the Saudis?
You have a point, mrreaganaut! But to me, it's just that Saudi Arabia is not overtly at war with us, but I believe Iran is. They are already fighting proxy wars against us in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I do agree with you that Saudi Arabia is definitely the source and chief funder and exporter of the Wahabbi ideological view of Islam — which is backward, bloody-minded, irredentist, misogynistic, tribal, mired in the seventh century, and which easily crosses the line into a radical view of what "jihad" is.
What really infuriates me is the silence of so-called "moderate" Muslims, especially in America, whenever the radicalized jihadis succeed in pulling off bloody attacks against innocent civilians. To my way of thinking, their silence makes them complicit in these acts.
Though I did receive some heartening news the other day, on Fox. They featured a gentleman by the name of Zudhi Jasser, M.D., of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a "leading American Muslim voice taking back Islam from the demagoguery of the Islamo-fascists." He said that Islam needs "a period of modernization and reflection." He wants American Muslims to understand that, under the U.S. Constitution, there is a fundamental separation of church and state (so forget about implementing sharia law here). In effect, he was saying that America is at once a polity that maintains a secular order for governmental purposes, and a polity that respects and values the religious inspiration and insight of people of all faiths. Indeed, that protects and guarantees them.
So there are Muslim voices out there that do condemn the Islamo-fascists. I just wish there were more of them.
Thank you so much, mrreaganaut, for your excellent observations!
Thank you oh so very much for your wonderful essay, dearest sister in Christ! Sorry to be so late to the party...
Hi dearest sister in Christ! Thanks for your kind words! It’s great to see you!
I have heard Dr. Jasser twice on the Mark Levin Show, and am impressed with what he has to say. I want to believe he is truthful and sincere. And, if that is the case, I also truly wish there were more like him.
However, as in “The Infestation Grows,” I do not believe there is any such thing as a “moderate” Muslim, although many people wish there were such a thing. Either you are a Muslim, or you are no longer a Muslim - one or the other. Sure, maybe there are Muslims who want to reform the backwards entity that Islam represents, but that effort will probably get them nowhere except the edge of a sword on their necks.
Perhaps a moderate Muslim is one who has been “westernized” or “Americanized.” But, when push comes to shove, with whom will they stand? Us, or the enemy? A Muslim can swear allegiance to the US Constitution all day long, but on the battle line I don’t want one of them behind me.
BTW, because of what Iran has done, and continues to do, every single one of its strategic targets should be erradicated, not necessarily with nukes -just wiped out.
Saudi Arabia exists to promote Wahabbism, for sure. But, I think they are extremely fearful of Iran and of what events the actions of that rogue state can precipitate.
The superficial difference between Saudi Arabia and Iran is that the former is Sunni Muslim, and the latter Shi'a Muslim. This makes them theological enemies. But there appears to be not a dime's worth of difference between them when it comes to embracing Islamic theocratic law. Both are anti-Western. It's just that Iran is more obvious about it. I mentioned they are already conducting proxies wars against us, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also they are waging proxy war against our ally, Israel, through Hamas and Hezbollah.
Probably it is the latter that is really concerning to the House of Saud. They like "stability" — the status quo greatly enriches the ruling house, what with all that oil wealth, the price of which they manipulate to their own advantage; and they don't want anybody to "rock the boat." As long as their customers are from the West, they can't let their anti-Western sentiment show too much....
I'd like to believe that there is such a thing as a "moderate" Muslim; but the jury's still out. Your point about assimilation into the American system as promoting such a possibility is well-taken. But then the question becomes, are they actually assimilating? I notice that honor killings are taking place here, and it isn't the Amish who are perpetrating them....
The Amish aren't big on assimilation either. But they respect the American legal system and generally conduct themselves as full, responsible citizens, following the law, paying their taxes, exercising the franchise, etc. Plus I am not aware of any Amish plotting against Americans....
Thank you so much, Overwatcher, for your excellent observations!
Saudi Arabia exists to promote Wahabbism, for sure. But, I think they are extremely fearful of Iran and of what events the actions of that rogue state can precipitate. The superficial difference between Saudi Arabia and Iran is that the former is Sunni Muslim, and the latter Shi'a Muslim. This makes them theological enemies. But there appears to be not a dime's worth of difference between them when it comes to embracing Islamic theocratic law. Both are anti-Western. It's just that Iran is more obvious about it. I mentioned they are already conducting proxies wars against us, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also they are waging proxy war against our ally, Israel, through Hamas and Hezbollah.
Probably it is the latter that is really concerning to the House of Saud. They like "stability" — the status quo greatly enriches the ruling house, what with all that oil wealth, the price of which they manipulate to their own advantage; and they don't want anybody to "rock the boat." As long as their customers are from the West, they can't let their anti-Western sentiment show too much....
I'd like to believe that there is such a thing as a "moderate" Muslim; but the jury's still out. Your point about assimilation into the American system as promoting such a possibility is well-taken. But then the question becomes, are they actually assimilating? I notice that honor killings are taking place here, and it isn't the Amish who are perpetrating them....
The Amish aren't big on assimilation either. But they respect the American legal system and generally conduct themselves as full, responsible citizens, following the law, paying their taxes, exercising the franchise, etc. Plus I am not aware of any Amish plotting against Americans....
Thank you so much, Overwatcher, for your excellent observations!
The true test of “moderates” of any religion would be in a culture that is predominantly of their faith. It is in such a culture that one would find how outsiders truly are viewed.
Therefore, the best place to view “moderate” Islam would not be in the USA. It would be in Saudia Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, etc. How are non-Islamics treated in those cultures?
The best place to view “moderate” Christianity would be in the US, Germany, Brazil. How are non-Christians treated in such cultures?
What does that authority of predominance do to the expression of their religion in terms of treatment of those not part of their faith group?
In short, I must conclude that there is no such thing as moderate Islam, and I must conclude that there is such a thing as moderate Christianity.
When in the majority, moderate Islam seriously discriminates against all others. For all practical purposes it disappears.
ABSOLUTELY INDEED.
That’s why I’ve decided to remove the absurd “radicals” label . . . whenever I can think to do so.
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