Pirate's Cove

The NY Daily News has allowed Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to write a cute little piece in support of Sharia law

The silly American fear of sharia law

“Most Americans would be shocked to hear Israel imposes sharia law. But it does for some 60 years.” These are the words of Israeli writer Yossi Gurvitz, opening an article he wrote for +972, an online periodical.

He’s right — and it’s a fact that Americans who love Israel and hate sharia have to wrap their heads around.

In Israel, the family laws of several religions function within the larger framework of secular jurisprudence. Muslims marry according to the rules of Islamic law, as Jews do according to Jewish law, and Christians do according to Christian (canonical) law.

The religious courts belong to the Israeli court system. The Israeli government enforces their decisions. This is called legal pluralism — and Israelis inherit it from the Ottoman Empire.

Why, then, is the very idea of sharia so consistently vilified in our country? Why is it used as a culture-war punching bag, such as in the March Against Sharia being staged this Saturday?

Let’s be clear: America could never have state-sanctioned religious courts. The First Amendment, which prevents government establishment of religion, forbids it.

But Islamic law can and does already operate in America under state sanction. When Muslim Americans are married according to Islamic law by a state-certified officiant of Muslim marriages, and receive in the process a civil certificate of marriage, they have, in effect, practiced Islamic law under official U.S. sanction.

Would the anti-sharia agitators keep Muslim Americans from marrying? Would they keep them from praying, distributing charity, fasting during Ramadan? For Muslim Americans already do all these things at the command of their law.

Oh, noes, it might keep them from marrying! It’s allowed in Israel! How can Americans be so silly! Imam Rauf goes on to write that Sharia law is super consistent “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and that you right wingers are just creating caricatures of it. Thomas Jefferson would approve! It’s totally fine!

He’s forgetting a few things, like that full Sharia law is not allowed in Israel, and that full Sharia law is something more than just getting married….hey, he does realize that full Sharia, as reflected in today’s practice, allows middle age men to marry pre-teen girls, right? He’s good with that, right? Would pro-Sharia agitators approve of that? Hasan Mahmud noted that not all of Shari is bad, there are plenty of things within Sharia law that’s fine, and he’s right, much like what Imam Rauf writes. But, Mahmud goes further

Sharia is more than stoning or amputing limbs or public beheading – Sharia is a spirit also. Its spirit is against current civilization. Sharia instigates its believers to destroy secular democracy (from within!) and establish so called Islamic State because law is pointless without a state. True that secular democracy is not problem-free but that is the best we have and it is evolving; but even a cursory look into the laws shows that problem with Sharia law is far deeper.

Stonings, public beheadings, amputating limbs, all those things were forgotten by the Imam. And modern Sharia is an attempt to institute a more repressive version of Islam within nations, replacing the existing laws with Islamic law. And THAT is the major problem. The hardcore Islamists like Rauf do not want to stop with just small things, they want the whole kit and kaboodle.

Israel allows Sharia to a point, but, Israeli law takes precedence. They don’t allow honor killings or female genital mutilation. Hasan lists many points, including

14. Muslim women are the primary victims of sharia law. The claim that “Sharia law is Islamic” destroys Islam’s image as a religion of peace and justice.

Those on the political left always say they support women, but, they are more than willing to run the bus over them in attempting to protect the hardcore version of Islam which is pushing Sharia law down the throats of nations around the world, including the Western world. James Arlandson noted 10 reasons why Sharia is bad for societies, including

• Islam commands that drinkers and gamblers should be whipped.
• Islam allows husbands to hit their wives even if the husbands merely fear highhandedness in their wives.
• Islam commands that highway robbers should be crucified or mutilated.
• Islam commands that homosexuals must be executed.
• Islam orders unmarried fornicators to be whipped and adulterers to be stoned to death.
• Islam orders death for Muslim and possible death for non—Muslim critics of Muhammad and the Quran and even sharia itself.

For those who keep saying Sharia is no big deal, you’re good with being whipped for hooking up, right? You’re fine with hanging gays, right? Let’s say we just allow full Sharia within just the Muslim community? You’re fine with a woman to be stoned, right? But, that’s not what Muslims like the above Imam want: they want to replace our whole system with Sharia law. What happened at the Orlando Pulse nightclub, a place where the LGBT community went, was “a hate-crime driven by a fundamental belief in Muslim Sharia law.”

And what of Imam Rauf himself? He’s a piece of work, skirting that line of Islamic extremism in public, and never really wanting to talk about the violence inherent in Sharia law. He liked to blame the U.S. for 9/11. He’s been pushing for the implementation of Sharia law in the U.S. for over a decade, but, like most, what he’s really pushing is for the replacement of U.S. law with Islamic law, an Islamic theocracy. And that’s the problem with this Sharia law push: they do not want to practice it within small communities up to a point, with the laws of the U.S. still in force. They want to replace it.

Crossed at Right Wing News.