The Case For Banning Sharia Law In America

Shariah Law is Incompatible with American Democracy

The incompatibility of Islamic Shariah law with secular courts stems from the underpinning of Islamism – the unyielding union of the laws and punishments of the Qu’ranand Hadiths with the country’s legal and political system. Shariah law is the legislation of these religious and criminal rules, which rejects America’s Constitutional secularism and legal penalties.

Realizing Shariah law rejects the Constitution is critical to unveil the hypocrisy of using it in defense of establishing Shariah courts in America. This tactic is disingenuous and completely misleading. The Qu’rancommands Muslims to change secular laws to conform to Shariah, eventually establishing Islamic law worldwide. Islamic courts want their Fatwas to supersede the civil and criminal laws, untying Muslims from civil secular courts.

The facts reveal that in 2008, when the first Shariah court was recognized in the UK, within one year over 85 recognized Shariah courts were established within their Tribunal Court system. The problem with this rapidly spreading dogma is that several of these courts have issued some Fatwas that are completely incompatible with British and European law.

As a male dominated ideology, the laws of the Qu’ran make half of its devotees, its female population second-class citizens. This inequality has drawn recent attention to the need for additional British legislature to rein in these courts so they abide by British law.

It appears that once any legal system opens its doors to Islamic law, that door will be hard to close…and eventually the only thing missing will be a parallel Islamic government.

But, even with this reality in front of Americans, there are still many who are saying “Oh, that can’t possibly happen in America. Our laws will prevent that from occurring.” And because of this nonchalant attitude, there are numbers of people, both Muslim and non-Muslim, who believe that Shariah Law is not a threat to non-Muslim Americans or to the Western liberal democratic rule of law.

Sharia Law is in the US

The possibility that Muslim-only towns and urban enclaves could be created in the US seems unimaginable to most Americans, but it already is a reality. Just travel 150 mile northwest of New York City to the woods of the western Catskills, and you will find Islamberg, a private Muslim community founded in 1980 by Sheikh Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani.  Sheikh Gilani is said to be one of the founders of Jamaat al-Fuqra, a terrorist organization believed to be responsible for dozens of bombings and murders in the US and abroad.

Islamberg is only one of 20-30 additional Muslim-only communities and training compounds that this Pakistani group supports thru other Muslim affiliates in America. This radical group has purchased land in isolated areas close to city networks and infrastructure.  Jamaat al-Fuqra now has sites in Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Pennsylvania, California, Washington, Colorado, Michigan and Illinois, as well as Canada, Venezuela and Trinidad.

The Shariah debate in the U.S. is heating up as more and more Americans are reacting to lawyers requesting rulings based on Shariah law and local judges agreeing to it. This has happen in a New Jersey divorce case, a Maryland child custody case and most recently in a Florida property case. These cases are now a precedent for other American-Muslim communities. In addition, according to the Center for Security Policy study that was published in May 2011 there are actually over 50 Appellate Court cases from 23 states that all involve conflicts between Shariah law and American state law. (Link: http://shariahinamericancourts.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Sharia_Law_And_American_State_Courts_1.4_06212011.pdf)

There are numbers of Muslim community leaders who are challenging the delicate line between religious freedom and the laws against state religion by petitioning in favor of living under Shariah law.  The moment one court allows the establishment of an independently ruled enclave, others courts in Detroit, Washington DC, Dearborn, Cedar Rapids, Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta, Peoria (Illinois) San Francisco, Houston and Chicago, just to mention the obvious, will petition for the same opportunity.

Another example of efforts to usurp the Constitution are the actions of the global Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) whose main agenda is to have ‘Hate Speech’ laws enforced against anyone who criticizes Islam. And, unfortunately there are those determined to enforce Shariah on their own who attack and murder people to silence them. The Qu’ran justifies and protects their violence by declaring it is blasphemous to mock or degrade any component of Islam and according to Shariah law it is punished by death.

It is this on-going effort to shut down public criticism of Islam that presents the gravest danger to America – one that the Muslim Brotherhood and their Salafist organizations regards as key to limiting individual rights over the rights of the community. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), along with other Islamic activist groups, continues to pushback, often with demonization of character and follow-up lawsuits. Recently, intimidation and character assassination has been used against US politicians who question Islamism or want hearings on issues relating to radical Islamic terrorism, along with those Congressmen who introduce state legislation to ban all foreign law.

Preventing Sharia Thru Legislation

The Court of Appeals is the system used to review lower court decisions and believed by some to be the stopgap against foreign law, including Shariah, from entering our legal system. However, some Islamic cases that have reached the Appellate Court for review have retained the Shariah rulings in the face of their contradiction to American civil law.

The US is heading towards dangerous territory if its citizens buy into the twisting of Constitutional Amendments and depend on the interpretations of the laws as they are written in order to prevent the encroachment of Islamism into the court system.

The establishment of Shariah courts within the arbitration laws is a leading objective of every peace loving, kind hearted moderate male Muslim. I have asked several male American Muslims whom I know, some living in my community and are very happy living in the US, what one wish they would pray to come true. The answer is always the same: “Everyone should be a Muslim.”

The line must be draw in State’s Legislatures not in the courts. It is imperative that we recognize the differences between the religion of Islam and the ideology of Islamism and not get them confused. Political correctness is leading to interpretations of the Constitution and its Amendments that is pushing America across that line.

Americans must stop the seduction of profits and power that persuade corporations to accommodate Shariah. Americans must not allow the voices criticizing Islamism to be silenced. Americans must not allow our enemies to minimize its support of Israel or allow Anti-Semitism and the attack of Coptic Christians to be ignored. Americans must not allow their taxpayer dollars to be funneled to supporters of training camps, madrassas, mosque construction and renovation projects, or Islamic and pro-Palestinian charity and human rights groups.

Americans must regulate and enforce their immigration laws. Americans must educate their college students as to the misinformation delivered by Islamic pro-Palestinian propaganda on their campuses and support their counter responses. Americans must not allow religious attire to supersede civil safety and dismiss frivolous lawsuits.

If non-Muslim Americans do not recognize how close they are to the precipice then they are beyond a shadow of a doubt going to fall victims to an Islamic conquest. The time is running out.

First published on The AmericanThinker: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/the_case_for_banning_sharia_law_in_america.html