Can a Muslim be a Loyal American?

Is it possible for a Muslim to be both a true believer to his religion as well as a sincere citizen of the United States of America? I will present the evidence, and you, the reader, should draw your own conclusion. Shortly after my arrival in this blessed welcoming land, I found myself reciting the following:

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

I was not exactly a diehard Muslim. In fact, I was not a Muslim at all. Yet I was raised in a Muslim country and was familiar with the Islamic ethos.

As it is my habit, I began to examine the issue. I encountered several serious problems. The points presented below are not exhaustive, yet they clearly answer the question.

Loyalty. A Muslim’s loyalty is to the Islamic ummah that recognizes nothing other than one worldwide ummah of Islam, with no allowance for independent nationalities.

Subscribing to the Law. A Muslim is required to abide by and live under the laws of Sharia, and not by the Constitution of the United States of America.

Rule of Allah. The Pledge of Allegiance says, “one nation under God,” while a Muslim is required to be part of the ummah under Allah. It is critically important to realize that Allah is not the same as the Judeo-Christian God. The two are vastly different beings.

Justice and Liberty. The shield of justice and the life-sustaining air of liberty are constricted in Islam and their beneficence reserved primarily for Muslim men. Muslim women are excluded from the same rights. Additionally, under the Islamic ethos, Muslim slaves are further disenfranchised from their rights. Yes, slavery. It is thoroughly condoned and stipulated in the Islamic belief. And since Islam is impervious to reformation and Muslims view their belief as the best and immutable faith of their Allah, slavery is permissible. Treating even non-slave women as chattel is part and parcel of Allah-ordained law.

Muslims and Islamic apologists are impotent in refuting the inherent incompatibility of being a loyal American citizen and a true believer in Islam. Some of these people rationalize their argument by saying that the Jewish and Christian Bibles are also replete with discriminatory and unfair assertions.

The counter argument is that the Jews and Christians have long moved past those scriptural provisions and have cast off any and all justice- and liberty-stifling beliefs and practices. By contrast, in countries where Islam rules, Muslims tenaciously cling to and enforce their Stone Age Islamic laws and practices.

Admittedly, there are those who reject the Pledge of Allegiance altogether as an obsolete vestige of a bygone era, popularized by the fear of international Communism and the witch-hunt reactions of McCarthyism.

While I respect and indeed celebrate the freedom of people to hold and express different viewpoints, I disagree with this position. No people can survive for very long without having a common bond. And all groups and nations all throughout history have faced forces that aimed to defeat and decimate them. Many groups and people have disappeared and others have formed and appeared in their places.

One thing we must understand. To be a loyal and faithful Muslim, one must adhere to and perform many rituals, as specified in the Quran by Allah and the Hadiths/Sunna, every waking moment of his entire life. Disobeying these rituals does not make one a moderate Muslim, but rather it would make him a non-Muslim, facing an uncertain future.

Because it is mandatory for a Muslim to adhere to Islamic laws and not to a man-made law such as the US Constitution, a Muslim can never be a both a Muslim and an American at the same time.

Hence, a Muslim is, first and foremost, an ummaist: a citizen of international Islam. So when a Muslim takes the American Pledge of Allegiance, he is either ignorant of the implication of his pledge or is willfully lying. Ignorance is never a valid reason in the court of law, and lying in the process of becoming a citizen is grounds for denying the application and even deporting the violator. Sadly enough, Taqiyya –– lying, or dissimulation — is not only condoned, it is recommended to Muslims in their scripture. Hence a Muslim can and would lie without any compunction, whenever it is expedient.

Presently, the American nation, largely free from the threat of international Communism, is facing a much more persistent and potentially deadly threat of international ummaism. Fear of any threat, as long as it is fact-based, is vital for energizing protective and proactive actions. And the multi-pronged threat of Islam is indeed very real and deadly.