This is all we need from our Muslim friends: acknowledgment of the issue/problem, and a viable solution that respects our views and insures our human rights. There's utterly no need for all the "phobia" crazy talk and saber rattling, hate speech, insults and all the rest of the rot. Thank you - this is an excellent and highly encouraging sign!
Of course, the fact that these American Muslim organizations have a problem with sharia essentially proves that, well, there is a problem with sharia. A most welcome acknowledgement, indeed, in the face of so much dishonesty from the usual quarters concerning whether or not sharia is being pushed in the U.S. and whether or not it's really anti-Constitutional and incompatible with American values.
See, for example, the New York Times's recent fluff piece deflecting off the brutality and cruelty of sharia law as practiced in many Muslim nations and attempting to smear opponents of beheadings, stonings, hangings, honor killings, bombings, death sentences for apostates and homosexuals, limb amputations, genital mutilation, misogyny, sexism, child marriage, censorship, etc., ad nauseam. Sorry, but we are not mindless bigots for objecting to such brutality and cruelty - that accusation represents simple calumny, libel, slander and maliciousness.
Note that the signatories of this announcement include our favorite Muslim moderates whose work we support, such as Zuhdi Jasser, Hasan Mahmud and Tarek Fatah, the latter of whom is Canadian but a North American nonetheless. These moderates, however, are perpetually under attack from the rabid fanatics who would consider them to be either heretics, apostates or kuffar. These courageous and truthful individuals need to be supported and encouraged in their quest to speak for the thousands of patriotic American Muslims interested in upholding the Constitution.
American Muslims speak out against the enforcement of shari‘ah law in America
Islamic Coalition announces support for Michigan legislation that will bar state courts from enforcing ‘foreign law’ above U.S. and state constitution
Washington, DC (September 2, 2011) – A coalition of diverse American Muslim leaders has announced support for a proposed bill in the Michigan State Assembly, HB 4679, that is intended to bar Michigan courts from enforcing any foreign law, if doing so violates any rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and/or the state of Michigan’s constitution.
Like many Americans, members of the American Islamic Leadership Coalition (AILC) have been observing the efforts of a growing number of state legislatures, which are seeking to address the incompatibility of various shari‘ah court systems around the world with the principles and foundations of our Constitutional republic and its laws. As American Muslims, we believe that the law should treat people of all faiths equally, while protecting Muslims and non-Muslims alike from extremist attempts to use the legal instrument of shari‘ah (also known as Islamic jurisprudence, or fiqh) to incubate, within the West, a highly politicized and dangerous understanding of Islam that is generally known as “Islamism,” or “radical Islam.”
We see no evidence that statutes like HB 4769 will adversely impact the free exercise of our personal pietistic observance of Islam, which is not in conflict with the U.S. or Michigan constitutions. We recognize that not only Muslims, but also Jews, Christians and all people of faith need the government to protect their right to peaceful assembly, mediation and arbitration free of coercion, but also within the bounds of American constitutional principles. Therefore, we stand together as a diverse coalition in support of any legislation that serves to protect and integrate our communities into the fabric of this great nation, by strengthening our accountability to the laws of the land, and the constitutions of the various states in which we live.
As American Muslims we are conscious of the fact that Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups and other Islamists and their surrogates in the U.S. are trying their best to portray any opposition to manifestations of shari‘ah law as “racism” and “discrimination against Muslims.” However, as a coalition of traditional, liberal and secular Muslim Americans, we denounce this fear-mongering and playing of the race card, which only serves to mask the Islamists’ highly politicized agenda. According to AILC member C. Holland Taylor, “the Islamist agenda threatens not only the well-being of the United States and its inhabitants, but also undermines and distorts the highest principles of Islam itself.”
“Michigan House Bill 4769 seeks to ensure that American Muslims can live in freedom and safety, in accordance with our constitutional principles, and not be enveloped by the tentacles of medieval, man-made laws that have been falsely accorded divine status,” said the AILC.
“To equate Bill 4769 to racism is not only dishonest, but is a poor and clumsy attempt at making ordinary Muslim Americans feel alien in their own homeland, while creating a rift between Muslims and the rest of our country,” said AILC member Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser.
Michigan House Bill 4769 states:
“[To] …limit the application and enforcement by a court, arbitrator, or administrative body of foreign laws that would impair constitutional rights; to provide for modification or voiding of certain contractual provisions or agreements that would result in a violation of constitutional rights; and to require a court, arbitrator, or administrative body to take certain actions to prevent violation of constitutional rights.”
The AILC statement reinforces the American Muslim community’s commitment to the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and the separation between religion and state. Unfortunately, Islamist groups would like to compromise this separation and provide cover to medieval, misogynistic and homophobic laws that no Muslim is obligated to demand as public law.
“Shari‘ah law, wherever it has been applied in the public domain, be it in Iran, Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, has resulted in untold misery and oppression of Muslims, in particular Muslim women, by Islamists and dictators who invoke shari‘ah law to justify their rule,” said AILC member Manda Ervin. “Many of us fled the Muslim world to escape shari‘ah law and to practice Islam in our personal lives, by moving to the USA and other western countries. We do not wish these laws to follow us here,” she concluded.
The Michigan state senators are not alone in expressing concern about foreign laws creeping into North America under the guise of religious freedom. Many Muslim academics, religious scholars and human rights activists have voiced their concern.
The contrast between what has occurred in Britain and in Canada provides a roadmap for how the U.S. may address these legal issues. In Britain, shari‘ah arbitration courts have been allowed to assume virtually unchecked control of legal arrangements in many Muslim communities. This is creating a ghettoized, medieval and separatist state within Britain. In Canada, however, local Muslims led strong opposition to the Islamists’ shari‘ah agenda and were successful in preventing its implementation, thereby sparing our Northern neighbor the fate of so many Muslims in the United Kingdom, where women are commonly subjected to forced marriage and the denial of basic human rights.
“We Muslims in Canada defeated an attempt by Islamists to sneak shari‘ah law into Ontario,” said AILC member Tarek Fatah, who has been on the front lines of this struggle for many years. “We recognized the damage shari‘ah had inflicted on Muslims in the UK, and its oppressive nature in Muslim-majority countries, and decided to oppose it. We urge American Muslims not to succumb to the Islamists’ propaganda, and to back the Michigan Bill, which will protect Muslims and non-Muslims alike from the impact of foreign laws that violate the U.S. or Michigan constitutions.”
About the American Islamic Leadership Coalition (AILC)
The American Islamic Leadership Coalition (AILC) is a diverse coalition of liberty-minded, North American Muslim leaders and organizations. AILC’s mission advocates for defending the US Constitution, upholding religious pluralism, protecting American security and cherishing genuine diversity in the faith and practice of Islam. AILC provides a stark alternative to the Islamist organizations that claim to speak for what are diverse American Muslim communities. For more information on AILC, please visit our website at http://www.americanislamicleadership.org/.
AILC Coalition Signatories
Bahman Batmanghelidj, Founding Member, Alliance for Democracy in Iran, Virginia, USA
Manda Zand Ervin, President,Alliance of Iranian Women, Maryland, USA
Tarek Fatah, Founder, Muslim Canadian Congress, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Jamal Hasan, Council for Democracy and Tolerance, Baltimore, MD
Farzana Hassan, Ed.D., Past President, Muslim Canadian Congress, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D., President, American Islamic Forum for Democracy, Phoenix, AZ
Hasan Mahmud, Member, Advisory Board, World Muslim Congress, Dallas, TX
C. Holland Taylor, Chairman & CEO, LibForAll Foundation, Winston-Salem, NC
Jalal Zuberi, MD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA
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|2011-09-08 04:10:52 JH Chrestos - Expose the Islamic mythologyHi Acharya
You've done such a wonderful job of showing that the Judeo-Christian religion is based on ancient traditions and astrotheology, perhaps if you explained that Islam is based on the Old Testament, Zoroastrianism, and Christianity, which you demonstrated to be false it would shine some light on the falsity of Islam. This one is the toughest nut to crack because they broke from the astrotheological theme in part. But the Night Flight and their Ptolemaic references to the 7 heavens are certainly enough of an opening to make in-roads.
Special thanks for blogging it, Acharya. Those who think there's no real threat with sharia and Islam in America and other western nations have absolutely no clue what is really going on.
We need to support those truly moderate muslims with everything we've got. And we need to criticize these muslims I've quoted below. We need to guard America from Islam at all costs or it will be a global version of fascist Nazi Germany.
History of Hitler and Muslim Waffen SS
The Association between Naziism and Arab Antisemitism
Islamic flag over the White House. Radical Muslims want America rul...
Muslim Cleric: "The Flag of Islam Will One Day Fly Over the Whi...
"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."
- Omar M. Ahmad, founder of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) July 4th, 1998
www.danielpipes.org/rr/394.pdf
"I am telling you that my religion doesn't tolerate other religion. It doesn't tolerate. The only one law which needs to spread, it can be here or anywhere else, has to be Islam"
- Abu Bakr, Muslim Cleric
"Oh, you Muslims everywhere, sever the ties of their nation, tear them apart, ruin their economy, instigate against their corporations, destroy their embassies, attack their interests, sink their ships, and shoot down their airplanes. Kill them in land, at sea, and in the air, kill them wherever you find them."
- Sheikh Abdel Rahman from a US prison
"The real weapons of mass destruction are the desire for martyrdom. Millions of you are ready to be shaheed. Half a million martyrdom shaheed is enough for Muslims to control the whole of earth forever. In the end of the day, Islam must control earth, whether we like it or not."
- Abu Hamza al-Masri, Islamic Cleric
"We don't make a distinction between civilians and non-civilians…Only between Muslims and unbelievers. And the life of an unbeliever has no value."
- British career welfare recipient Sheikh Omar Bakri
"We must not forget that Allah's rules have to be established in all lands..."
- Imam Muzammil H. Siddiqi, Islamic Society of North America
"Ultimately, we (Muslims) can never be full citizens of this country ... because there is no way we can be fully committed to the institutions and ideologies of this country"
- Ihsan Bagby, CAIR
"The 9/11 hijackers should be honored as martyrs."
- Warith Deen Umar, Former Muslim Chaplain, New York Prisons
"Now, all our imams, our public speakers, should be concentrating on militarizing the Muslim public...Only carrying arms will do this task."
- Muhammad Al-Asi, Former Imam at the Washington, D.C. Islamic Center
"Americans in general might be more supportive of targeted attacks on civilians, as part of the war on terror, than U.S. Muslims."
- Ahmad Al-Akhras, CAIR
"In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing. And the only thing left will be Islam."
- Siraj Wahhaj, Brooklyn, New York Imam
“Muslims cannot accept the legitimacy of the secular system in the United States, for it "is against the orders and ordainments of Allah ... the orientation of the Qur'an pushes us in the exact opposite direction as the forces that are at work in the American political spectrum."
- Imam Zaid Shakir, Former Muslim Chaplain at Yale University
"Let us continue the protests. Let us damn America. Let us damn Israel. Let us damn their allies until death. Mohammad is leader. The Qu’ran is our constitution. Jihad is our path. Victory to Islam. Death to Israel. Revolution! Revolution! Until Victory! Rolling, rolling to Jerusalem."
- Sami Al Arian
"This religion [Islam] will destroy all other religions through the Islamic Jihad fighters"
- Jordanian/Palestinian School Book 1998
"Mosques are our barracks, domes our helmets, minarets our bayonets, believers our soldiers."
- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan
"Islam not a religion of violence, but if you burn Qur'ans or draw Muhammad, we'll kill you"
- Gambian President
"No we don’t want to democratize Islam, we want to Islamize democracy" "We love you, America – and we want your children for Islam"
- Islam on Capitol Hill.com
"I am a traitor to America because my religion requires me to be. We pledge to wage jihad for the rest of our lives until either we implant Islam all over the world or meet our Lord as bearers of Islam."
- Samir Khan
"Once we gain power in Egypt, "we will launch a campaign of Islamic conquest, throughout the world"
- Sheikh 'Adel Shehato, Senior official of Egyptian Islamic Jihad
"Greater integration between Islam and the West depends on incorporation of Sharia law into the legal systems of Europe and the U.S."
- Ground Zero Mosque Imam, Faisal Abdul Rauf