Jihad Watch
As is often the case, we hear what Sharia supposedly isn't. We don't hear about what it is. This editorial depends entirely on an analogy of Sharia to Jewish laws, without ever addressing a single tenet of the former system of laws. The author doesn't even take the usual time to dismiss concerns about its specific contents, like a woman's testimony being half that of a man (Qur'an 2:282). Or the double standards in women's ability to get out of a marriage. The Qur'an's endorsement of wife-beating (4:34, which really does say to hit one's wife). The death penalty for apostasy. The subjugation of non-Muslims. The inability to propagate non-Islamic religions. And so on. Defenses of Sharia consistently avoid specifics, or deny the existence or importance of controversial rulings. They depend instead on platitudes and flawed analogies to other legal systems that do not share the unique combination of Sharia's abusive tenets, and supremacist and totalitarian impulses. The fact remains that wherever Sharia gains a foothold, it does not stop at "just a little," and its observable effects are consistently bad for tolerance and civil liberties, whether in Aceh or Tower Hamlets. Indeed, consider how swimmingly things have gone in Britain's experiment with Sharia.
That won't stop Islamic supremacists and their multiculturalist allies from wanting to try it here, of course. It will be "different" this time, they will argue, because America is "different." But one cannot casually invoke the rights, liberties, and values Sharia does not respect as the hope of reforming it -- so much less as Western societies are robbed of their ability to resist and even to criticize Sharia.
"Don’t Fear Islamic Law in America," by Eliyahu Stern for the New York Times, September 3:
More than a dozen American states are considering outlawing aspects of Shariah law. Some of these efforts would curtail Muslims from settling disputes over dietary laws and marriage through religious arbitration, while others would go even further in stigmatizing Islamic life: a bill recently passed by the Tennessee General Assembly equates Shariah with a set of rules that promote “the destruction of the national existence of the United States.”
Supporters of these bills contend that such measures are needed to protect the country against homegrown terrorism and safeguard its Judeo-Christian values. The Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has said that “Shariah is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it.”
This is exactly wrong. The crusade against Shariah undermines American democracy, ignores our country’s successful history of religious tolerance and assimilation, and creates a dangerous divide between America and its fastest-growing religious minority.
The suggestion that Shariah threatens American security is disturbingly reminiscent of the accusation, in 19th-century Europe, that Jewish religious law was seditious. In 1807, Napoleon convened an assembly of rabbinic authorities to address the question of whether Jewish law prevented Jews from being loyal citizens of the republic. (They said that it did not.)
Fear that Jewish law bred disloyalty was not limited to political elites; leading European philosophers also entertained the idea. Kant argued that the particularistic nature of “Jewish legislation” made Jews “hostile to all other peoples.” And Hegel contended that Jewish dietary rules and other Mosaic laws barred Jews from identifying with their fellow Prussians and called into question their ability to be civil servants.
The German philosopher Bruno Bauer offered Jews a bargain: renounce Jewish law and be granted full legal rights. He insisted that, otherwise, laws prohibiting work on the Sabbath made it impossible for Jews to be true citizens. (Bauer conveniently ignored the fact that many fully observant Jews violated the Sabbath to fight in the Prussian wars against Napoleon.)
During that era, Christianity was seen as either a universally valid basis of the state or a faith that harmoniously coexisted with the secular law of the land. Conversely, Judaism was seen as a competing legal system — making Jews at best an unassimilable minority, at worst a fifth column. It was not until the late 19th century that all Jews were granted full citizenship in Western Europe (and even then it was short lived).
Most Americans today would be appalled if Muslims suffered from legally sanctioned discrimination as Jews once did in Europe. Still, there are signs that many Americans view Muslims in this country as disloyal. A recent Gallup poll found that only 56 percent of Protestants think that Muslims are loyal Americans.
This suspicion and mistrust is no doubt fueled by the notion that American Muslims are akin to certain extreme Muslim groups in the Middle East and in Europe. But American Muslims are a different story. They are natural candidates for assimilation. They are demographically the youngest religious group in America, and most of their parents don’t even come from the Middle East (the majority have roots in Southeast Asia). A recent Pew Research Center poll found that Muslim Americans exhibit the highest level of integration among major American religious groups, expressing greater degrees of tolerance toward people of other faiths than do Protestants, Catholics or Jews.
Given time, American Muslims, like all other religious minorities before them, will adjust their legal and theological traditions, if necessary, to accord with American values....
We're to accept a flawed, abusive system on the promise of a reform that could, would, should happen, but has not happened.
No.
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