Source: Washington Post
By Harris Zafar
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.”
Read further in Washington Post:
Chief Editor’s comments: IslamForWest.org the official website of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community for Christians, agnostics and atheists has dedicated a section to the all important issue of Separation of Mosque-Church and State. Check out the right column.
Sharia is collection of hundreds of doe’s and don’ts and rather than examining them one at a time, lumping them together in an argument, only helps to fuel the hysteria created by the Islamophobes, to rally the Christian fundamentalists and by the Islamomaniacs to rally the Muslim fundamentalists, to grab political power and influence.
The rational and the moderate should evaluate Sharia, one idea at a time for its utilitarian value or lack there of! To shoot down Sharia in totality is plain silly, as many of its teachings are actually already implemented in our personal, social, judicial and political life in the West, knowingly or unknowingly, for one reason or the other. If you do not understand this premise, read Prof. John Makdisi. When Sharia is defined in these terms, to shoot down Sharia is to shoot oneself in the foot. Which part of Sharia does Newt Gingrich wants Muslims to give up and which parts he wants us to keep? According to Sharia we are also supposed to love our neighbors to a degree that he or she becomes our heir and according to a Hadith if a neighbor of a person sleeps hungry and he or she does not do anything for it knowingly, then he or she looses any claim to Paradise! Does Gingrich want us to denounce this teaching? Let him opine on all the doe’s and don’ts for our benefit!
Categories: Law, Law and Religion, Sharia, Sharia Law
Solomonic wisdom needed to establish Separation of Mosque-Church-Synagogue and State
The Judgment of Solomon refers to a story from the Hebrew Bible in which King Solomon of Israel ruled between two women both claiming to be the mother of a child. It has become a metaphor referring to a wise judge who uses a stratagem to determine the truth, tricking the parties into revealing their true feelings. Specifically, the judge pretends that he will destroy the subject matter of a dispute, rather than allowing either disputing party to win at the expense of the other.
The story is recounted in 1Kings 3:16-28. Two young women who lived in the same house and who both had an infant son came to Solomon for a judgement. One of the women claimed that the other, after accidentally smothering her own son while sleeping, had exchanged the two children to make it appear that the living child was hers. The other woman denied this and so both women claimed to be the mother of the living son and said that the dead boy belonged to the other.
After some deliberation, King Solomon called for a sword to be brought before him. He declared that there is only one fair solution: the live son must be split in two, each woman receiving half of the child. Upon hearing this terrible verdict, the boy’s true mother cried out, “Please, My Lord, give her the live child—do not kill him!” However, the liar, in her bitter jealousy, exclaimed, “It shall be neither mine nor yours—divide it!” Solomon instantly gave the live baby to the real mother, realizing that the true mother’s instincts were to protect her child, while the liar revealed that she did not truly love the child. The reputation of the king greatly increased when all the people of Israel heard of this wise judgment.
However, in the time of Solomon in the seventh century BC, in Judaism of his time, there was no distinction between the sacred and the profane. This lack of separation of the Temple and State or Synagogue and State in Judaism should become fairly apparent from a quick reading of some of the verses of the Old Testament. If any one doubts this premise, let me suggest the reading of a short article Violence in the Bible and Jihad in the Quran.
Read further:
http://islamforwest.org/solomonic-wisdom-needed-to-establish-separation-of-mosque-church-synagogue-and-state-2/
Life is about priorities
First let me quote from Harris Zafar’s article:
This certainly sets some priorities for Muslims who are USA citizens. In view of these considerations, if any Muslim truly believes in separation of Mosque-Church and State, as I do, then any prescriptions in the Holy Quran about public life, would need to be considered as recommendations rather than as mandates. This creates coexistence of personal piety and harmonious public life. The devoted individual uses inspirations from these prescriptions to convince the society to take these into serious consideration, on their utilitarian merit and not divine or scriptural authority! The merit of these prescriptions needs to be examined in a civic discourse, in a pluralistic society. This is the best way to understand, how a Muslim can be a patriotic citizen as well as a believer in his or her scripture, at the same time, in any democratic and free country.
The non-Muslims do not believe the Quran to be literal word of God and consider it to be potentially erroneous and a Muslim can at least understand that his or her interpretation of it may be erroneous. So, he or she should understand scriptural instructions about public life as suggestions and not orders. This flexibility of thought and choosing appropriate priorities allows a devout Muslim to do justice to his pledge of allegiance to the constitution of the country, which may at times be at odds, with his or her understanding of Quranic message.
Sharia is not just a few teachings: Many have been implemented in the West!
Sharia is collection of hundreds of doe’s and don’ts and rather than examining them one at a time, lumping them together in an argument, only helps to fuel the hysteria created by the Islamophobes, to rally the Christian fundamentalists and by the Islamomaniacs to rally the Muslim fundamentalists, to grab political power and influence.
The rational and the moderate should evaluate Sharia, one idea at a time for its utilitarian value or lack there of! To shoot down Sharia in totality is plain silly, as many of its teachings are actually already implemented in our personal, social, judicial and political life in the West, knowingly or unknowingly, for one reason or the other. If you do not understand this premise, read Prof. John Makdisi. When Sharia is defined in these terms, to shoot down Sharia is to shoot oneself in the foot. Which part of Sharia does Newt Gingrich wants Muslims to give up and which parts he want us to keep? According to Sharia we are also supposed to love our neighbors to a degree that he or she becomes our heir and according to a Hadith if a neighbor of a person sleeps hungry and he or she does not do anything for it knowlingly, then he or she looses any claim to Paradise! Does Gingrich want us to denounce this teaching? Let him opine on all the doe’s and don’ts for our benefit!
Yes, we should make a list of ‘sharia laws’ implemented in the ‘Christian countries’. There are uncountable ones. OK, they did not knowingly copy the Sharia but came to the logical conclusion that it was best for the society.
Right of ownership for women is one, divorce another.
I think the real problem here is that people don’t really actually know what the Shariah IS. It is derived from the Quran, Hadith and Sunnah. A study of these three things will show that the shariah the Middle Eastern countries claim to have violate the Quran, Hadith and Sunnah in many ways. So instead of people like Newt Gingrich condemning the shariah they should take the time to learn the true meaning of Shariah which unfortunately the Middle East has given a bad name. It would be ignorant to try to degrade the Shariah before understanding it.