Court Upholds practice of Sharia in Oklahoma

COURTESY HUFFINGTON POST

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ghouse/congratulations-to-the-pe_b_1198878.html


Congratulations to the people of Oklahoma that the rule of law has prevailed over bigotry in their state.  We applaud the court in Denver for upholding U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange's order blocking implementation of the amendment shortly after it was approved by 70 percent of Oklahoma voters in November 2010.

It is unfortunate that the Oklahomans were misled by the politicians to believe that Muslims were demanding Sharia law and that it was dangerous and must be gutted; they trusted their representatives and passed the referendum to ban Oklahoma courts from considering Islamic law to resolve personal matters between individuals.

 When a conflict arises between family members, before you sue each other, you seek guidance from other family members, friends, church and the counselors, if you don’t find a solution; you go to the court as a last resort.  The court may appoint a mediator if the parties are willing to abide by the decisions or simply take it up with the bench or the jury.

Those who opt for a mediator may agree to common guidelines and one of them is available from your religious sources. In case of Muslims, if the couple is willing to seek Sharia to guide them to serve justice equitably to both and willing to abide by, the mediator will get that agreement approved by the judge.  The Christians may seek Pastoral counseling as Jews may seek guidance from the Halaqa, their family laws.

Who would not want a resolution to their conflict, be it through friends or religious laws? Isn’t it between them? If a couple chooses to settle their dispute about child custody, divorce or inheritance they should seek all resources including Sharia, which is designed to serve equitable justice to people. It is unfortunate that people have come to associate Sharia with injustices, indeed abuse of law is prevalent in every nation and society where the innocent is nailed, just as we have administered lethal injection to innocent men and women in Texas.

It is a victory for justice and a victory for all Americans. We cannot a let a few short-sighted men and women deny others their rights guaranteed in constitution.

Mike Ghouse is committed to build a cohesive America, where no American has to live in apprehension, discomfort or fear of the other. He is a speaker, thinker and writer offering pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. 


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10th Circuit upholds ruling blocking Shariah law ban
http://www.denverpost.com/commented/ci_19712265

Federal court blocks Oklahoma ban on Sharia - CNN.com
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/10/justice/oklahoma-sharia/index.html

Federal court reminds Oklahoma it can't discriminate against Muslims | Editorials & Opinions ...
http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/01/10/3650654/federal-court-reminds-oklahoma.html

CAIR Rep Behind Lawsuit Reacts to Okla. Sharia Ruling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nL6a0wKod4

Federal court deals blow to anti-Shariah efforts
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/10/10097954-federal-court-deals-blow-to-anti-shariah-efforts

Court upholds injunction against Shariah law ban in Oklahoma courts | Tulsa World
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&artic

Court: Okla. Ban on Islamic Law Unconstitutional

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/court-okla-ban-islamic-law-unconstitutional-15330933#.TwzWaqWxS8A

Anti-Shariah conference at Madison church spurs vigil

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20111113/NEWS/311130052/Anti-Shariah-conference-Madison-church-spurs-vigil

A Colorado-based ministries group is planning to hold a vigil outside Cornerstone Church in Madison during morning services today in response to the Constitution or Sharia conference held there Friday.

In a letter to Cornerstone pastor Maury Davis dated Nov. 5, Charles E. Carlson of Project Strait Gate urged the church to cancel the conference.

“The lead speakers are inflammatory, anti-islamic racists, who engender, if not openly advocate, war in Iran,” Carlson wrote. “This program is not about ‘Shariah’ law or ‘Jihad,’ as is its pretext, it is about war. … One or more hotels have canceled the event with good reason, and you have picked it up out of the gutter.”

The letter also encouraged Cornerstone members to meet with the group outside the church. Promises of a large sign reading, “WHO WOULD JESUS BOMB?” being displayed at the vigil also were made.

According to its website, Strait Gate is an action program started by We Hold These Truths, a volunteer-led organization formed in 1996. The purpose of both groups, according to the site, is to reach out to “lost sheep” within the church who don’t know they’re “lost.”

Project Strait Gate also focuses on war and its causes. It has confronted more than 50 megachurches, the site says.

About 500 people attended the Shariah law conference Friday

It is important to understand the basics of Sharia, how it was formulated and how we can fix it.

1. Genesis of Sharia Law - http://sharialaws.blogspot.com/2013/02/genesis-of-sharia-law.html
2. Fixing Sharia Law  http://sharialaws.blogspot.com/2014/01/fixing-sharia-laws.html

Sharia Comes to Libya (Thank You America)

The following article by Tarek Fatah seems to be based on inexplicable hate for Sharia. It seems he is too eager to appease the right wing gang rather than dissecting and pointing the mis-applications and flaws in the Sharia laws. In absence of any laws in a nation, Sharia serves the justice, however, a few parts of the law are not about justice and the misapplications continue although they are about the same percentage of misapplications in any legal system. Please read my article http://sharialaws.blogspot.com/2011/07/sharia-in-one-gulp.html for clarity of my position.

Mike Ghouse

Sharia Comes to Libya (Thank You America)

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/tarek-fatah/libya-sharia_b_1032911.html

by Tarek Fatah

If George Bush's adventures ended up handing Iraq on a silver platter to America's enemies in Iran, President Obama's softer and gentler imperialism has been the catalyst that stands to deliver North Africa into the hands of the anti-American Muslim Brotherhood. Dumb and Dumber could hardly ask for a better cast.

After over 5,000 dead American soldiers and over a trillion dollars spent fighting the "war on terrorism," what happened in Benghazi on Sunday, Oct. 23, 2011 sums up the colossal failure of U.S. foreign policy vis-à-vis the Muslim world.

Standing before cheering crowds, and in the shadow of war crimes committed by his troops, the new interim leader of Libya, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, declared in his 'liberation' address that Sharia law would govern the new Libya. Sharia is of course the source of the doctrine of jihad that triggered the attack on America on 9/11.

Mustafa Abdel Jalil was careful in not uttering the word 'jihad' that is obligatory to anyone following the application of Sharia in the public domain. Jalil instead trumpeted the more salacious aspect of Sharia:

"We as a Muslim nation have taken Islamic Sharia as the source of legislation, therefore any law that contradicts the principles of Islam is legally nullified. This includes changing marriage laws to allow men to more easily take on a second wife."

America and NATO had not just helped place an Islamist regime in Tripoli, but had driven the country a full 40 years back by introducing polygamy in a society that had long ago rejected the institution. As if the prospect of multiple wives was not enough, Jalil sent the crowds into what the Washington Post reporter Mary Beth Sheridan described as "thunderous applause" when he proclaimed the introduction of Sharia banking. "The interest [on loans] will be ruled out. You will not pay it anymore," he promised. (Ironically his promise of interest-free banking came at a time Canada's leading interest-free Sharia institution went bankrupt.)

Free money and free sex; new Libya was on a roll. Jihad, or holy war against the infidel, an integral part of Sharia, would have to wait and better remain unsaid. Al-Qaeda supporters were smiling. The most prominent among them is Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the bearded former emir of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

As for the secular liberal Libyans, people like Mahmoud Jibril, Mahmoud Shammam, and Ali Tarhouni, who sold the revolution to the West and made NATO intervention politically palatable, they were now in the back seat or totally eclipsed. Remember Iran in 1979?

U.S. and Sharia in Libya

For the U.S., this is not the first time it has had to deal with Tripoli invoking Sharia as its guiding principles in foreign and domestic policy.

The two countries first made contact in 1785 when Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had to deal with Abd al-Rahman al-Ajar, the representative of the pasha of Tripoli to sort out a dispute the Libyans felt was their right under Sharia's laws of jihad.

What transpired between the two American founding fathers and the nobleman from Tripoli would be the United States' first exposure to the sense of entitlement with which most Muslim rulers governed -- and still do. These caliphs and sultans considered their rule to be a God-given trusteeship, with an obligation to conduct first dawah* and then jihad† as part of Sharia.

In the late 18th century, the United States had no navy, while the North African Muslim states, including Tripoli, had a combined naval strength that rivalled their European neighbours and facilitated the largely undocumented European slave trade -- white men enslaved to work in Africa.

In the 1780s American merchant ships in the Mediterranean, having lost the protection of the British Navy, were subject to attack by pirates and slave traders from Morocco, Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers. Jefferson and Adams, recognizing the limits of U.S. naval power, were meeting with Abd al-Rahman al-Ajar to offer him a tribute of $25,000 in exchange for his protection. The French were already paying. Jefferson told al-Ajar that although the United States was "eager to avert bloodshed" and therefore willing "to offer a treaty of lasting friendship with Tripoli," he was intrigued and wanted to know under what moral authority the Muslim nobleman was demanding the bribe.

Tripoli's ambassador gave the two Americans a crash course in Sharia as laid into law by medieval Muslim theologians, who did not consider such a tribute as a bribe, but rather an interim arrangement until the non-Muslim party accepted the invitation to Islam or was conquered by force of arms.

Ambassador al-Ajar told the two Americans:

"It was... written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their [Muslims'] authority were sinners, that it was their [Muslims'] right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle would surely go to paradise."

Jefferson and Adams were taken aback. They had just glimpsed the mindset that drew inspiration from the medieval application of jihad. Most Muslim rulers from the earliest caliphates to the Ottomans of the 18th century self-righteously saw themselves as saviours of the human race, "Shadows of God on Earth," and thus entitled to rule.

From the perspective of the Tripoli official, the United States was a non-Muslim Christian entity. It was perfectly justifiable for him to ask for the tribute, since the United States had not accepted the Muslim caliphate's invitation to Islam.

The link between "inviting the infidels" to the fold of Islam and demanding a tribute if they turned the invitation down was sanctioned by most medieval Islamic scholars in the ninth and 10th centuries. Imam Muslim (d. 875) -- in his collection of the sayings of Prophet Muhammad, Sahih Muslim -- indicates that a dawah is the first of three "courses of action" to be undertaken prior to war with non-Muslim enemies. In 1368, Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri wrote the classic work of Shafi Islamic law, Umdat as-salik (Reliance of the Traveller). In his book, al-Masri is quite frank about the link between dawah and jihad:

"The caliph makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians (provided he has first invited them to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax jaziyah -- which is significance of their paying it, not the money itself -- while remaining in their ancestral religions) and the war continues until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax in accordance with the word of Allah Most High."

The doctrine of Sharia sanctioned armed jihad against the non-Muslim "enemy" would take on a more robust and political form in the early 20th-century interpretations among such Islamist scholars as the trio mentioned earlier in this chapter: Hassan al Banna, Abul Ala Maudoodi, and Syed Qutb.

These men have laid the foundation of a new form of jihad, patterned on the tradition of the underground communist parties of Europe and at times resembling the anarchists of the 19th century. Today, it has evolved into a form of a death cult, where the highest level of Islamic worship is to die and leave this world to its "satanic existence." This blending of the death cult and jihad has translated into the martyrdom sought by so many brainwashed young Muslim men and women.

While many Islamists in the West are careful about what they say to the media, Islamists from the Muslim world are not so guarded. Justice Muhammad Taqi Usmani was a Sharia judge in Pakistan's Supreme Court and one of the world's most respected Islamic scholars. The learned judge, who advises many multinational companies on Sharia banking and halal investments (like the one proposed by the new Libyan leadership) is a regular visitor to Britain, where in 2007 he declared in a The Times interview that Muslims should wage military jihad "to establish the supremacy of Islam" worldwide.

He told the newspaper that Muslims should live peacefully in countries such as Britain, where they have the freedom to practise Islam, but only until they gain enough power to engage in battle. He told the prestigious Times:

"The question is whether aggressive battle is by itself commendable or not. If it is, why should the Muslims stop simply because territorial expansion in these days is regarded as bad? And if it is not commendable, but deplorable, why did Islam not stop it in the past?"

He then proceeded to answer his own question:

"Even in those days... aggressive jihads were waged... because it was truly commendable for establishing the grandeur of the religion of Allah."

The booklet Call to Jihad by the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami is sold in most Islamic bookstores in North America and is distributed by Muslim youth organizations on campuses. Maudoodi urges young Muslims to consider themselves under attack if any Muslim country is threatened.

He writes that it is "the categorical injunction of the Islamic shariah that whenever an enemy attacks any part of darul Islam (the Muslim world), Jihad for its defence becomes obligatory (fard) on every Muslim."

Maudoodi makes another significant clarification. He writes that even though jihad is separate from qetal (warfare), they are complementary. He says warfare may end, but jihad does not. He writes:

"In terms of Shariah or Islamic Law, Jihad and Qetal are two separate things. Qetal is actual warfare and clash of arms of the fighting forces against the armies of the enemy. The Jihad on the other hand means the struggle as a whole -- the entire war effort which the nation collectively puts forth in order to achieve the objective for which war takes place. In the course of Jihad, Qetal is, at times, put off or temporarily suspended, but Jihad goes on and continues until the object for which it was undertaken is realized."

Another prominent Islamist, the Egyptian Syed Qutb had this to say about sharia in his book, Milestones:

"Any place where Islamic shariah is not enforced and where Islam is not dominant becomes the Home of Hostility (Dar-ul-Harb)... A Muslim will remain prepared to fight against it, whether it be his birth place or a place where his relatives reside or where his property or any other material interests are located."

With the installation of Islamists in Libya, the election of so called "moderate" Islamists (whatever that means) and the upcoming Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Egypt, Osama bin Laden must be smiling in his watery grave at the bottom of the Arabian Sea. With Dumb or Dumber at the wheel, the American ship is headed for disaster while the rest of us cannot get up from our slumber.

The $43 Million Islamophobia Machine

http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/09/the_43_million_islamophobia_machine.html

Is President Obama a secret Muslim? Is Sharia law the radical scourge that’s threatening the very fabric of U.S. democracy? Contrary to the saying, a lie repeated often enough won’t make it a true. But that doesn’t mean anti-Muslim activists, armed with millions of dollars of foundation support, won’t stop trying.

It turns out a handful of seven donors have given nearly $43 million over the last decade to fund a close network of right-wing intellectuals and scholars who’ve concocted and fanned Islamophobic hysteria to push an anti-Muslim political agenda.

According to “Fear Inc.,” a new report released by the Center for American Progress, those millions have gone to a coordinated network of anti-Muslim thought leaders: Frank Gaffney at the Center for Security Policy; David Yerushalmi at the Society of Americans for National Existence; Daniel Pipes at the Middle East Forum; Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch and Stop Islamization of America and Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

This network, with millions of dollars behind it, has moved an agenda that seeks to pit Islam against the West, that imagines Muslims as untrustworthy and dangerous, that has painted Muslims as a looming threat who are out to undermine American democracy and national security. And with the help of activists, right-wing bloggers and a platform from a more than obliging cable news system, these fringe ideas have become more and more mainstream.

“There is a coordinated, strategic, deliberate, interconnected agenda here, which has very detrimental effects on fellow Americans and our communities and which really poisons the well of civil discourse,” says Wajahat Ali, the lead author of the CAP report.

“We’re living in a post-9/11 environment so what the network does is very cynically exploits fear, hysteria and misinformation and ignorance for the sake of profit, and for the sake of pushing an anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of allegedly combating radical Islam and protecting our national security,” Ali said.

It’s in this post-9/11 climate that the most absurd statements have become commonplace in the mainstream political discourse.

“Arabic is not just another language like French or Italian, it is the spearhead of an ideological project that is deeply opposed to the United States,” Pam Geller wrote in February on her right-wing blog Atlas Shrugs. She is closely connected with David Horowitz, whose anti-Muslim group the David Horowitz Freedom Center has raked in $8.3 million in the last decade. Or, in the words of Bridgitte Gabriel: “[Muslims and Arabs] have no soul. They are dead set on killing and destruction.”
It’s the kind of extremist thought leadership that has paved the way for Rep. Peter King’s congressional hearings on the supposed Islamic radicalization of the country. They’re the authors whose anti-Muslim rants were cited dozens of times in the Oslo, Norway shooter Behring Breivik’s manifesto. These are the people who’ve singlehandedly brought anti-Sharia laws to over a dozen statehouses. They’re the machine that’s given rise to the idea that Obama might secretly be Muslim, and that were that true, it’d somehow be a terrible offense.

Ali says that the success of this messaging rests in part on the fact that 60 percent of Americans claim not to know any Muslim person, and so people rely for on mainstream media and the words of political leaders for information.

The anti-Muslim rhetoric firing across the airwaves and in congressional hearings has real-life impacts, too. It’s provided the political cover for a whole slew of policies that have targeted Muslim, Arab, Middle Eastern and South Asian communities. An AP investigation published last week uncovered a years long domestic surveillance program that the NYPD had undertaken to gather information on Muslim communities. The invasive surveillance measures meant that New York police had broad powers to monitor, harass and racially profile New York Muslims.

But the manufactured threat has been overblown, experts say. A 2010 study from Duke University found that the imagined threat of Muslim fundamentalists committing acts of terrorism was exaggerated. The study tracked 139 known radicalized Muslim-Americans who had attempted to carry out acts of terrorism or had been prosecuted in connection with suspected acts of terrorism—they are just a handful of the nation’s 6.2 million Muslims.

“Muslim-American organizations and the vast majority of individuals that we interviewed firmly reject the radical extremist ideology that justifies the use of violence to achieve political ends,” David Schanzer, an associate professor at Duke and the director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, said in a statement at the report’s release.

And this week a new report from the Pew Research Center found that American Muslims are concerned about the exact same things everyone else is: they take national security seriously and are distrustful of extremism in many forms, even as they report being unfairly seen as suspect themselves. American Muslims overwhelmingly have both, Pew reports, “mainstream and moderate” attitudes.
Nevertheless, in the last decade, Muslims, Arabs, Middle Easterners, South Asians and those who’ve been confused for any of the above, have been the targets of a marked rise in job-related discrimination, hate crimes and biased-based bullying.

“Fear is a two-way street,” said Zahra Billoo, the executive director of the Bay Area chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, a national Muslim civil rights and advocacy group. “It’s created fear within the community too.”

Billoo said that since September 11, it’s not uncommon for American Muslims to be confronted by anti-Muslim incidents in their daily life, the the utter frequency of which have begun to normalize Islamophobic rhetoric in even her community members’ eyes.

“Some sort of hate is manifested but it doesn’t rise to the level of a hate crime,” Billoo explained, “where someone calls me a terrorist, or someone looks at me funny, or someone yells something from their car at me.”

“It’s happened for so long that many people have taken it in as their reality and stopped complaining when it’s not okay, whether it’s happening to them or anyone else.”

Ali urged people to put the current debates within a historical context. “What’s happening right now is simply a remake. The characters in the past were Jews, Irish Catholics, and Japanese Americans,” Ali said. “And the scapegoating of those minority communities represents in hindsight the worst of America.”

Ali said he hoped the report would give these funders an opportunity to assess their political priorities and distance themselves from the obvious fearmongering that they’ve funded. He said that the U.S. needs to learn from its past mistakes and regain its moral compass to bring some moderation back to the national discourse.

“What’s inspiring is that America usually does find its way back,” Ali said. “Sometimes grudgingly, and sometimes after making mistakes along the way. But we’re a resilient nation, eventually we find our way.”