Muslim without sharia?

Muslim without sharia?

By Harris Zafar

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/muslim-without-sharia/2012/01/19/gIQApEbIBQ_blog.html

On Tuesday, January 17th, former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich said that the only way he would ever support a Muslim for the presidency of the United States is if that person would “commit in public to give up sharia,” thereby continuing his trend to exhibit his ignorance on the subject of Islamic law (sharia) as well as his ignorance of the United States Constitution.

To be fair, Mr. Gingrich did say that “a truly modern person who happened to worship Allah would not be a threat,” thereby acknowledging the fact that there are indeed trustworthy and moderate Muslims. This statement expresses that he does not condemn all Muslims wholesale, which is encouraging, and I applaud him for those words.

On the other hand, I’m disappointed with his lack of understanding of sharia and the United States Constitution itself when he then continues to say “a person who belonged to any kind of belief in sharia, any kind of effort to impose that on the rest of us, would be a mortal threat.” This is in line with his previous comments, calling sharia “totally abhorrent to the Western world” and “a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it.” He suggests there are “violent jihadis” who use violence to spread sharia, as well as “stealth jihadis” who use cultural, religious and intellectual means to manipulate sharia into legislation. So whether the Muslim is violent or not, apparently we all have sharia on the mind.

 The hysteria around sharia continues to grow, especially with the GOP presidential primaries in full swing. The message is that we better do something fast before sharia law usurps the American Constitution. This exposes their absolute ignorance of sharia and the American Constitution itself. The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution suffices to protect the Constitution as “the supreme law of the land.” Furthermore, the Establishment Clause prohibits the federal government from establishing or preferring any religion (including Islam) in the United States. No law can trump the Constitution of the United States.

Besides, there is nothing in Islam’s teachings about taking over the law of the land. The Koran, Islam’s holy scripture, instructs that absolute justice, not religion, must be the ruling government’s guiding principle, irrespective of different faiths, races, etc.

For Mr. Gingrich to ask Muslims to publicly “give up sharia” is akin to asking them to publicly give up the Koran because sharia is simply the Islamic code that guides everyday Muslim beliefs and actions. Sharia is far from merely a set of punishments or legal obligations. Rather, it is a set of obligations of a personal and private nature dictated by faith. A religious legal system cannot be imposed in the current global society with people of different faiths in all countries.

People like Mr. Gingrich cite some countries to assert that Muslims want to institute harsh punishments for certain crimes. There is no doubt that countries that claim to follow sharia have used it as an excuse to gain power and sanction religious extremism. No country in the world today has implemented a system of government that truly follows Islamic sharia.

When the Prophet Muhammad became the de facto ruler of Arabia, he required all residents be allowed to worship in peace and without oppression. Sharia teaches freedom of conscience and religion. The Koran goes as far as to oblige Muslims to fight on behalf of Jews, Christians and people of other faiths and to protect their churches, synagogues and temples from attack.

The Islamic system of punishment must be examined in the context of Islamic moral teachings, and the atmosphere of high moral standards that Islam first wishes to establish in a society. When that happens, society rises to such heights that crimes become very rare and unnatural. Without creating that society first – where everyone’s needs are met, where honesty, integrity and safety are accepted principles and crimes are an anomaly – no attempt can be made to institute criminal punishments. Islam does not command us to enact punishments. That’s putting the cart before the horse.

Although some exploit the sharia hysteria to rally the base in this election year, accusations levied against sharia are patently absurd. The nearly two dozen proposed bills to ban sharia in the United States are an exaggerated response to a non-existent and manufactured problem. I invite Mr. Gingrich, as well as lawmakers at all levels of government, to meet with us to better understand sharia’s role in the life of American Muslims.

Harris Zafar serves as the national spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community - the oldest Muslim organization in America - and is a frequent lecturer about Islam around the country. He can be contacted at harris.zafar@ahmadiyya.us.

Newt Gingrich: I'd Support A Muslim who Commits To 'Give Up Sharia'

Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVnBN_JTLy4&feature=player_embedded


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/17/newt-gingrich-muslim-president-sharia_n_1211521.html


Newt Gingrich told a South Carolina town hall audience on Tuesday that he would be open to seeing a Muslim-American run for president, as long as the candidate denounced Sharia law and didn't seek to impose his or her views on others.


At a town hall meeting in West Columbia, S.C., a man asked Gingrich if he would ever "support a Muslim-American running for president."


"Would you endorse...a Muslim-American, [who] could possibly be running for president, given that we had a woman running for president in Hillary Clinton, and we had a Jewish-American, in Joe Lieberman, running for vice president?" he asked.


"A truly modern person who happened to worship Allah would not be a threat," Gingrich replied. "A person who belonged to any kind of belief in Sharia, any kind of effort to impose that on the rest of us, would be a mortal threat."


In the past, Gingrich has repeatedly decried Sharia, a legal code derived from Islam, and called for a federal law to pre-emptively bar its use in any U.S. courts. He didn't soften his position on Tuesday, saying his support would be contingent on a candidate's willingness to denounce Sharia.
"I think it would depend entirely on whether they would commit in public to give up Sharia," he said, referencing his support for the bill and drawing cheers from listeners at the event. "If they're a modern person integrated into the modern world, and they're prepared to recognize all religions, that's one thing. On the other hand, if they're the Saudis, who demand that we respect them while they refuse to allow either a Jew or a Christian to worship in Saudi Arabia, that's something different."


He pointed to an acquaintance as an example of a "truly modern" Muslim.


"We have a friend in Arizona who serves in the U.S. Navy, who's a medical doctor, who's Muslim -- but he's a totally modern person, trying to find ways to bring Islam into modernity," Gingrich said.


Former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain said he wouldn't be comfortable appointing a Muslim to a judgeship or cabinet position. He later apologized.

In Islamic Law, Gingrich Sees a Mortal Threat to U.S.

By SCOTT SHANE

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/us/politics/in-shariah-gingrich-sees-mortal-threat-to-us.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha24

Published: December 21, 2011

WASHINGTON — Long before he announced his presidential run this year, Newt Gingrich had become the most prominent American politician to embrace an alarming premise: that Shariah, or Islamic law, poses a threat to the United States as grave as or graver than terrorism.

“I believe Shariah is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it,” Mr. Gingrich said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington in July 2010 devoted to what he suggested were the hidden dangers of Islamic radicalism. “I think it’s that straightforward and that real.”

Mr. Gingrich was articulating a much-disputed thesis in vogue with some conservative thinkers but roundly rejected by many American Muslims, scholars of Islam and counterterrorism officials. The anti-Shariah theorists say that just as communism posed an ideological and moral threat to America separate from the menace of Soviet missiles, so today radical Islamists are working to impose Shariah in a “stealth jihad” that is no less dangerous than the violent jihad of Al Qaeda.


“Stealth jihadis use political, cultural, societal, religious, intellectual tools; violent jihadis use violence,” Mr. Gingrich said in the speech. “But in fact they’re both engaged in jihad, and they’re both seeking to impose the same end state, which is to replace Western civilization with a radical imposition of Shariah.”


Echoing some Republicans in Congress, Mr. Gingrich blasted the Obama administration’s policy of declining to label terrorism carried out in the name of militant Islam as “Islamic” or “jihadist.” Administration officials say such labels can imply religious justification for a distortion of doctrine that most Muslims abhor, thus smearing an entire faith.


But to Mr. Gingrich, whose campaign did not respond to a request for comment, the administration’s language smacks of the willful blindness of an earlier era. “The left’s refusal to tell the truth about the Islamist threat is a natural parallel to the 70-year pattern of left-wing intellectuals refusing to tell the truth about communism and the Soviet Union,” Mr. Gingrich said.


Shariah (literally, “the path to the watering place”) is a central concept in Islam. It is God’s law, as derived from the Koran and the example of the Prophet Muhammad, and has far wider application than secular law. It is popularly associated with its most extreme application in societies like Afghanistan under the Taliban, including chopping off a hand as punishment for thievery.


But it has always been subject to interpretation by religious authorities, so its application has varied over time and geography, said Bernard G. Weiss, professor emeritus at the University of Utah and an authority on Islamic law.


“In the hands of terrorists, Shariah can be developed into a highly threatening, militant notion,” Professor Weiss said. “In the hands of a contemporary Muslim thinker writing in the journal Religion and Law, Shariah becomes an essentially pacifist notion.”


The Arab Spring has set off a lively political and scholarly debate over the growing power of Islamists in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. But those are all overwhelmingly Muslim countries. The idea that Shariah poses a danger in the United States, where the census pegs Muslims as less than 1 percent of the population, strikes many scholars as quixotic.


Even within that 1 percent, most American Muslims have no enthusiasm for replacing federal and state law with Shariah, as some conservatives fear, let alone adopting such ancient prescriptions as stoning for adulterers, said Akbar Ahmed, chairman of Islamic studies at American University in Washington, who spent a year traveling the United States and interviewing Muslims for his 2010 book “Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam.”
The notion of a threat from Shariah to the United States “takes your breath away, it’s so absurd,” Dr. Ahmed said. He sees political demagoguery in the anti-Shariah campaign, which fueled rallies against mosques in the last two years from Manhattan to Tennessee.


All of the Republican presidential candidates have been asked about the supposed threat from Shariah. Representative Michele Bachmann told the conservative Family Research Council in a November speech that Shariah “must be resisted across the United States,” endorsing moves by several states to prohibit judges from considering Shariah.


Mitt Romney said in a June debate: “We’re not going to have Shariah law applied in U.S. courts. That’s never going to happen.” He immediately added, “People of all faiths are welcome in this country.”


For Mr. Gingrich, concern about Shariah has been a far more prominent theme. He and his wife, Callista, produced and narrated a 2010 film on the threat from radical Islam, “America at Risk,” that discusses the danger of both terrorism and Shariah against a lurid background of terrorist bombings, bloody victims, wailing sirens and chanting Muslim crowds. (Mrs. Gingrich does say, at one point, “This is not a battle with the majority of Muslims, who are peaceful.”)


One Muslim activist who is shown in the film calling for “separation of mosque and state,” Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, said he appreciated Mr. Gingrich’s support in an ideological contest with large Muslim advocacy groups in the United States that he believes have an Islamist slant.
But Dr. Jasser, a Phoenix physician and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, said non-Muslims like Mr. Gingrich were not the most effective advocates for what he believes is really a debate within Islam.


“Unfortunately, as long as a non-Muslim opens the discussion, whether it’s Gingrich or someone else, it’s going to hit a brick wall in the Muslim community,” Dr. Jasser said.
Mohamed Elibiary, a Muslim and an adviser to law enforcement agencies in Texas and to the Department of Homeland Security, is a conservative Republican who said he once idolized Mr. Gingrich. He said he no longer did.


He said the anti-Shariah campaign in the United States was “propaganda for jihadists,” offering fuel for the idea of a titanic clash of faiths. Those who truly want to protect American values should talk to Muslims, he said, not demonize them.


“There are plenty of American Muslim patriots who will defend American freedoms,” Mr. Elibiary said. “But you can’t be anti-Islam and find those allies.”

Newt Gingrich…History of Anti-Islam Slurs

Thursday, 22 December 2011 11:56

“I believe Shari`ah is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States," Gingrich said

CAIRO – Seen as the front-runner to challenge incumbent president Barack Obama in next year's presidential elections, US Republican president hopeful Newt Gingrich has a history of anti-Islam slurs, who sees Shari`ah a mortal threat to the United States.

“I believe Shari`ah is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it,” Gingrich said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington in July 2010and cited by The New York Times.

“I think it’s that straightforward and that real.”

The former speaker of the House of Representatives in the mid-1990s believes in the theory that advocates of Shari`ah are radical Islamists.

"Stealth jihadis use political, cultural, societal, religious, intellectual tools; violent jihadis use violence,” Gingrich said in the speech.

"But in fact they’re both engaged in jihad, and they’re both seeking to impose the same end state, which is to replace Western civilization with a radical imposition of Shari`ah."

In 2010, Gingrich and his wife produced and narrated a film, "America at Risk", about what they say the threat of "radical Islam".

In the film, they discuss what they say the danger of terrorism and Shari`ah against a lurid background of terrorist bombings, bloody victims, wailing sirens and chanting Muslim crowds.

Gingrich had once called for a ban on all mosques near Ground Zero "so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia."

Shari`ah has come under scrutiny recently in the US, with right-wing campaigners and politicians questioning its role and operating system.

Lawmakers in at least 15 states have introduced proposals forbidding local judges from considering Shari`ah when rendering verdicts on issues of divorces and marital disputes.

In Islam, Shari`ah govern issues in Muslims’ lives from daily prayers to fasting and from to inheritance and marital cases to financial disputes.

The Islamic rulings, however, do not apply on non-Muslims, even if in a dispute with non-Muslims.

Gingrich has also been critical of president Obama's refusal to label terrorism as "Islamic" or "jihadist".

“The left’s refusal to tell the truth about the Islamist threat is a natural parallel to the 70-year pattern of left-wing intellectuals refusing to tell the truth about communism and the Soviet Union,” Gingrich said.

Administration officials say that labels smear the entire Islamic faith with terrorism.

Gingrich was the front-runner in the Republican race recently, just ahead of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

However, Gingrich's lead has evaporated in national polls amid a barrage of Romney television ads that have cited, among other things, the ethics charges Gingrich faced as House speaker.

Gingrich, who had a reputation in Washington for counter-punching when criticized, has fired back at Romney on occasion, but vowed to continue running a positive campaign.

Gingrich's anti-Islam slurs are not the first by Republican presidential aspirants.

Former candidate Herman Cain had said that he would not appoint a Muslim in his administration.

Cain, who withdrew from the race for the White House, later modified his position by calling for an unconstitutional "loyalty" oath for Muslim appointees.

Republican aspirant Rick Santorum had also describes Islamic Shari`ah as "an existential threat" to America.

US Muslims have been sensing a growing hostility following a hearing presented by Republican representative Peter King on what he described as “radicalization” of US Muslims.

Recently, a Republican Missouri lawmaker described Islam as a disease like polio while another Alaska Rep. branded Muslims as ‘occupiers’ of American neighborhoods.

A US survey has revealed that the majority of Americans know very little about Muslims and their faith. 

Courtesy - http://www.onislam.net/english/news/americas/455097-newt-gingrichhistory-of-anti-islam-slurs.html

SHARIA LAWS, NOT IN AMERICA

The intent of the Sharia laws was to construct a complete justice system with fairness to all members of society. Peace and a sense of security are the products of justice in a given society. The violations of justice and the rule of law are found in every faith, culture and political system, to varying degrees. In this respect no community is free of blame and no one can cast the first stone against another community.

American Muslims have placed their trust in the American justice system and will continue to oppose Sharia laws as they are currently applied in many places across the globe. I will be one of the first ones, if not the first one, to stand up against it. The Muslim majority in America is happy with the American system and does not want to have Sharia law here in America.

Continued - http://www.opednews.com/articles/Sharia-not-in-America-by-Mike-Ghouse-110622-556.html

Mike Ghouse is committed to building a cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. He is a speaker, thinker, writer and a frequent guest on Hannity show and nationally syndicated Radio shows and Dallas TV, Radio and Print Media. Over 1000 articles have been published on Pluralism, Interfaith, Islam, India and cohesive societies. Two of his books are poised to be released this fall on Pluralism and Islam. He is available to speak at your place of worship, work, school, college, seminars or conferences. His work is encapsulated in 27 blogs, four websites and several forums indexed at http://www.mikeghouse.net/.