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
Very well presented. Very difficult to refute. Nay, impossible to refute. Excellent. Thanks.
I suspect that the key ingredient that makes Christianity different is the central tenet that each person must come to personal faith in Jesus Christ.
mohammed accepted forced conversions.
Jesus asks for the heart of the believer.
That is totally inconsistent with the use of force in conversion.
Counterfeit “religion” keeps going through my mind. One offers (glories in) life, one offers (glories in) death - “Choose ye this day,” is what I would say.
I think Christianity had a head start on the upstart “counterfeit” by about 6-700 years. They both have a “prophet;” they both have a holy book “divinely” inspired, etc. We know who energizes “Christianity,” but just who energizes Islam? As the Church Lady would ask, “Mmmmm, could it be - SATAN?”
Mo-ham-head not only accepted forced conversions, he forced conversions. I still don’t like the only three choices offered by Islam (the imperitive form of the verb which is “submit”): 1.) Convert to Islam; 2.) Remain a second class citizen paying protection money to Islam; 3.) Die. What kind of a “religion” is that? Islam wants to subject the whole world to its “way.” I think Satan also wanted the whole world to be subject to his “way.” I suspect you know that there is only one “way,” and His name is Jesus the Christ, the “Way” and the truth.
Aye, there’s another rub (distinction). Jesus is the way and the truth. He hates liars. Liars will have no place in His kingdom. Islam promotes lying and swearing falsely in order to further its aims (Al Taqqiya). Sheesh. Enough of their crap already!
Agreed, dear brother in Christ! Excellent point. Which tends to substantiate Overwatcher's asssertion that there is no such thing as a "moderate" Muslim.
What we do know is that a Jew cannot enter Saudi Arabia. He'd never get a visa. Christians are allowed — but are absolutely prohibited from wearing a cross or any other insignia of the Christian faith; and would be in the most serious trouble with the authorities if they were "caught" carrying a Bible.... The implication being that if they are carrying a Bible, they must be proselytizing. And this is absolutely forbidden!
The Saudi regime — and Islam more generally — is illiberal — in the classical sense of that word, deriving from the word "liberty." There is no liberty in Saudi Arabia. Period. And especially not for women. This crucial Anglo-American value simply has no meaning in Islam.
Don't forget that Islam means submission, subjection — the very opposite of the Anglo-American idea of liberty as individual freedom "under God."
Great points in your last, xzins. Thank you so much for writing!
Great point, dearest sister in Christ.
The ruling family, the Royal House of Saud, is comprised of some 5,000 MALE members. Some appear to be more open to the West than others — e.g., Prince Bandar. Others are outright sponsors and financiers of world-wide terrorism.... Quite possibly it is the latter who enjoy the support of the natives....
Don't forget that Islam means submission, subjection — the very opposite of the Anglo-American idea of liberty as individual freedom "under God."
Contrarian groups will create all sorts of arguments regarding their “rights and privileges” and use the all-powerful oligarchs to enforce their “winning ideology” by “Federally” pounding you (Virtually) up the anus. All the Civil Rights “stuff” has been usurped by an apathetic populous who trust the elitists running the show rather than studying the document that was put in place to control the show. Death by suicide...
Thanks for your great post and pings.
You and I both know the answer to that question, dear rollo tomasi: NO!!!
Thank you ever so much for asking it.
It seems to me that logic and observation are the very fundaments of rational thought. Logic is pretty much a given, a universal as the philosophers say. Observation is what keeps us connected to the world of actual reality. Their combination is what you term Realism. (Which, by the way, conforms to the classical understanding.) Fortunately, it seems human beings are well-equipped (at least in potential) to handle both.
But they need freedom to do it.
FWIW, I prefer the word "liberty," because my idea of liberty is necessarily connected to God (thus i.e., to the nature of man, and to truth and justice, among other things). Moreover, I believe that liberty is unrealizable in the natural world without Him. JMHO.
But in the "no-God" situation, freedom loses its context and thus its meaning.... Without that connection, the word "freedom" can be applied to virtually innumerable contexts of personal and social behavior, including those known to be deleterious to the well-being of humans and society.
This is a rough description of where moral relativism gets you!!!
You wrote,
Contrarian groups will create all sorts of arguments regarding their “rights and privileges” and use the all-powerful oligarchs to enforce their “winning ideology” by “Federally” pounding you (Virtually) up the anus. All the Civil Rights “stuff” has been usurped by an apathetic populous who trust the elitists running the show rather than studying the document that was put in place to control the show. Death by suicide...Your point being that the U.S. Constitution is already "dead as a doornail???"
I STRONGLY doubt that.
Just because the currently-sitting ersatz POTUS finds the Constitution "inconvenient" (because it legitimates and establishes a doctrine (or contract) of negative liberty — i.e., it is a constraint on government, not on citizens) doesn't mean you have to accept this view. And as a consequence, evidently, to give up in despair....
Exercise your liberty! Just because the elite law schools have been trying to declare-dead-and-bury the Constitution for the past 50+ years doesn't mean the Constitution has died. It only means they have been trying to kill it.
Dontcha know the presently-living Constiution has to "die" to make way for the "Living Constitution?"
But it still lives in the hearts and minds of American citizens. And it is we who have to defend it.
There's no one else to do this but us.
Thank you so very much for sharing your insightful observations, rollo tomasi!
You referenced ideology as part of the current public intellectual mix.... Increasingly showing up in political discourse nowadays.
FWIW, to me an ideology is in principle always an abuse of reason that almost always involves a rejection of Reality, or at least of "the human condition."
This is hardly a thought that arises with me. The classical Greeks were well aware of this problem, this flight from Realism. Heraclitus described it as a relapse into a dream state, in refusal of the One Logos. Plato called it nosos, clearly indicating it as a profound spiritual disease, the disease of a man who refuses to engage with/in the world beyond himself. The Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero further elaborated the syndrome, describing it as aspernatio rationis — that is, as "rejection of reason."
The other thing I wanted to mention is I believe the logic and experience behind the Constitution rests on eternally truthful grounds. And so whatever lies are thrown at it, finally they cannot and will not stand.
But it would be really nice if American citizens could help out a little bit along these lines — that is, the defense of our foundational organizing principle as We the People of the United States of America.
At the very least, dear reader, go VOTE next Tuesday, November 2nd!!!
This is a point I've tried recently to make.
When they refer to the "living constitution", they mean that they interpret it as meaning whatever they want it to mean. Which means, in effect, that the constitution is dead.
The constitution is only alive if you read it as meaning what it says, as meaning what its writers intended for it to say, and if you read it as having the authority its writers and framers intended it to have. We are the ones who believe in a "living constitution". Again, the enemies of freedom use words to mean the very opposite of what they mean.
Others have made a similar point. Precedence in law should matter, but if you let precedence trump the constitution the constitution is finished. And so are we. Its a kind of moral and intellectual corruption.
You know, there is more than one kind of corruption; but it seems they all usually are found in close proximity to one another.
Liberals are happy with gov't granted privileges that are alienable..
Conservatives require Unalienable Rights.. that are unalienable..
Which is why liberals see illegal aliens as undocumented citizens..
Because to them illegal citizenship is alienable thru amnesty..
Just make them citizens and the problem, many many problems, goes away..
Pretty much how liberals deal with just about everything..
Change the law and moral problems go away..
Like affirmative action, everybody is equal except some are a little more equal than others..
Very logical to a liberal.. teenager logic..
They have their truth you have yours.. its all a matter of opinion..
To them, the Constitution is just some opinions of some conservative white men..
NOT a model to base all law on...
The truth is they do not know what Constitution means..
OR they do know but want to change the Republic into a Democracy..
I think they do know.. and are seditious and treasonous in nature and agenda..
On purpose with malice aforethought..
Dontcha know the presently-living Constiution has to "die" to make way for the "Living Constitution?"
But it still lives in the hearts and minds of American citizens. And it is we who have to defend it.
There's no one else to do this but us.
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!
Absolutely! People seem to think that 'ideology' is just a fancier, more modern-sounding word for 'principles.' In fact, 'ideology' started as a pejorative term, just like 'bureaucracy,' and is still correctly used as such.
As St. Thomas Aquinas warned us, beware "the man of one book." One book, or idea, becomes a Procrustean bed against which the whole of creation gets measured, and must be chopped or stretched to fit. Ideology and religion are not incompatible, but ideology and compassion are: the ideologist is a ruthless judge, to whom any thought or fact outside the idea is unforgivable.
In this sense, it might be correct to call Islam an ideology.
Oh so very true, mrreaganaut! Alternatively, an ideology is like a kind of filter that one lays down over reality, which screens out all evidence that does not conform to one's ideological presuppositions. Two great examples of this: Marxism and Darwinism....
Marx absolutely forbade any questioning of his system. You had to buy it whole cloth, or not — but if not, you'd be some kind of an "enemy," someone "outside" of "our group." Darwinism rejects any and all non-material aspects of reality. If something cannot be directly observed, then it doesn't exist. But note that no Darwinist (or anybody else for that matter) has ever directly observed evolution. The very idea is non-material — as are all ideas.
Ideologies tend to be riddled with internal contradictions of this type. Which is evidently why their sponsors do not want you to look too closely into their fundamental premises or — as in Marx's case — outright forbid all questioning altogether.
As to your suggestion that Islam might be ideological in this sense — e.g., is selective when it comes to its definition of reality — well, just on the basis of what can actually be observed, I think you are correct!
In any case, I do not/cannot recognize the reality it proclaims.... That the God of Truth wants his sons to exterminate non-believers is simply incredible to me. To me, such a "god" is no God, but a satanic creature conjured up in the imagination of 7th-century Bedouins....
Still it is true that not all Muslims subscribe to this doctrine of Jihad — i.e., as the extermination or subjection of non-believers so that the Ummah, the global Islamic caliphate, may be established on earth. For such "non-radicalized" Muslims, Jihad is understood as an internal battle, as a self-conquering whose object is to conform one's self and moral life to God's law. It has nothing to do with wiping out Jews and Christians....
The problem is complex; certainly I do not have all the answers. Islam itself seems to have divisions in it. And has actually been subjected to withering criticism by such Muslims as Salman Rushdie. Of course, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini instantly proclaimed a fatwa — a death sentence — against Rushdie, after his Satanic Verses came out in 1988. Somehow, after all this time Rushdie has managed to stay alive....
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