Given that part of the lecture was devoted to entrepreneurial journalism, I also asked: how many of you are hoping to get jobs in traditional “big media” outlets?
Virtually the whole room put up their hands. They may be digital natives, but their ambition is to work for others rather than themselves. They know the risks. They have been told there will be few job openings. They know that they will be expected to work for weeks, maybe months, for nothing. But they are undaunted. Mainstream media remains a lure.”
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But many Americans, perhaps most Americans, will still get the bulk of their news from “mainstream” outlets. It’s kind of ironic, actually: most young people, when asked, say they prefer to get their news online—yet most of those same people would prefer to go work for one of the legacy mainstream media companies.
It would be a huge mistake for conservatives to abandon those platforms. We need people who not only understand our way of thinking, but also live it themselves—at the highest levels in all fields of media. We need to encourage our journalism-minded young people to aspire to those jobs. I fear that one downside of “new media” is that so many of our best will jump to it that we’ll have abandoned “old media” completely. That would be a huge, dangerous mistake.
For those conservatives who do take jobs in the mainstream media, let me offer this advice: Bring your background to the table. Don’t have a chip on your shoulder and don’t come with an agenda. Have an open mind, but don’t balk away from the inevitable discussions and debates you’ll be thrown into the first time there’s a story about a racially motivated murder, a homeowner’s association that wants to ban someone from flying their American flag, or a school board that wants to eliminate “God” from the Pledge of Allegiance.
You will need to hold everyone you work with to a higher standard. The esteemed conservative social scientist James Q. Wilson had a good sense of this. Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, recently wrote about the advice Wilson once had for him:
At one point in my academic career, I called Jim for advice about how best to navigate the waters of liberal academia when one is openly conservative. “Simple,” he told me lightheartedly. “Be twice as productive and four times as nice as your colleagues.” It was a formula he himself had followed.
You may see those you work with get away with all kinds of ideological ills. Don’t get sucked in. Don’t duplicate sins you might see on the left with equivalent sins on the right. This business is not about an eye for an eye; it’s about heart and brains and soul.
No matter what happens, what medium you find yourself working in, or whether you’re working the beat at the local police station for the Cheshire Herald or the Department of Justice for the New York Times, always hold yourself and others to a higher standard—a standard where the truth has no agenda.
“Jihad for Allah is not limited to the specific region of the Islamic countries, since the Muslim homeland is one and is not divided, and the banner of Jihad has already been raised in some of its parts, and shall continue to be raised, with the help of Allah, until every inch of the land of Islam will be liberated, and the State of Islam established.”
—Mustafa Mashhur, leader of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt 1996–2002
JUNE 2009 The Muslim woman sat in the courtroom waiting for the judge. This was it, the day when her misery would finally end. Her life had been filled with pain and humiliation. Her husband had repeatedly raped her over a period of months as she cried and pleaded with him to stop. Today, she was seeking a court order that would finally end the abuse.
After what seemed like an eternity, the judge entered the courtroom. You could cut the tension with a knife. The abused woman hoped this would be the last day that she would ever have to live in fear of this man. A simple restraining order was all she needed.
Silence fell over the court as Judge Joseph Charles began to speak.
A few minutes later, the judge had finished with his ruling. Silence once again overtook the courtroom, but this time it was because the spectators had been left in shock.
According to Judge Charles, the preponderance of the evidence clearly demonstrated that the defendant had harassed and assaulted his wife, but there was more. The judge also ruled that the husband had done so with no criminal intent. In fact, the judge said, “The Court believes that (the defendant) was operating under his belief that it is, as the husband, his desire to have sex when and whether he wanted to, was something that was consistent with his practices and that was not prohibited.”
You can understand why the spectators might have been confused. How could harassing and abusing your wife not be prohibited? How could a man’s desire for sex trump his wife’s right to not consent to it?
The answer is as simple as it is outrageous: It’s because this Muslim man lives according to Islamic law—known as shariah. This law allows him to beat and rape his wife, especially when she resists his sexual advances. Since he was operating under the teachings of his faith he had every right to act as he did.
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Sanity Ruled in the End
So that you’re not left totally outraged, our legal system did work . . . eventually. An appellate court overturned Judge Charles’s ruling and issued the restraining order, giving the woman the protection she was seeking.
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What is most incredible about this story is that it did not occur in Iran or Morocco. It happened in a New Jersey family court.
This specific kind of court case is (thankfully) relatively rare, but it serves to illustrate how our democracy can, without vigilance, incubate “a state within a state.” The legal system of the Islamic state can live and breathe within our supposedly secular democracy.
Despite the thundering silence from the mainstream media, the truth is that a small but increasing number of American Muslims are slowly, almost silently, being allowed to live by their own shariah law. Whether it’s misguided allegiance to political correctness, or just pure incompetence, that is preventing this reality from being discussed openly, I do not know. But I do know this: if we continue to pretend that it is not happening, that those who practice shariah would love nothing more than for it to be widely accepted as the supreme law for U.S. Muslims, then it most certainly will.
ISLAMIC LAW 101
Since the concept of Islamic law is new to many Americans, it’s helpful to first take a step back and understand exactly where it comes from.
Shariah is an Arabic word meaning “The Straight Path” (Quran 45:18). Another translation is “the path to the watering hole.” To the Muslims who practice this version of Islam strictly, shariah is a codification of the rules of the lifestyle (or “deen”) ordained by God (or “Allah”). In other words, shariah can govern and dictate every aspect of life. It’s considered by many Muslims to be the perfect expression of divine will and justice and is therefore considered to be the supreme law that governs all aspects of Muslims’ lives—irrespective of where they live.
Shariah is derived from four principal sources: the Quran, the Sunna or Hadith, Ijma, and Qiyas.
The Quran: The central, sacred text of Islam. Muslims believe that it was revealed by God to the Prophet Muhammad through the Angel Gabriel during twenty-three years of the Prophet’s life at Mecca and Medina.
The Sunna or Hadith: Sunna is the example and practice of the Prophet’s life as gleaned from the Hadith, which are a broad range of oral traditions of the Prophet Muhammad. These have been collected by variably reliable sources that chronicle what Muhammad’s contemporaries noted that he did, said, or personally observed others to have done during his lifetime.
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Can You Rely on Reliance?
Reliance of the Traveller is an authoritative summary of Shafii—one of the four schools of thought in Sunni jurisprudence. Shafii is considered to be the most stringent of the four, but it’s also widely accepted around the world. The book itself is one of the best sellers at the Isl
amic Society of North America website and is endorsed by preeminent leaders, such as Dr. Taha Jabir al-Alwani of the International Institute of Islamic Thought, who said, “There is no doubt that this translation is a valuable and important work, whether as a textbook for teaching Islamic jurisprudence to English speakers, or as a legal reference for use by scholars, educated laymen, and students in this language.” Reliance of the Traveller has also been endorsed by al-Azhar University in Cairo, the preeminent institute of Islamic learning, which stated, “We certify that this translation corresponds to the Arabic original and conforms to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community (Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jama’a).”
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Ijma: This can be loosely translated as “consensus” of the Muslim community, especially of Muslim scholars (ulemaa). It is one of the main sources of law and ethics in Islam.
Qiyas: The process of reasoning by analogy, during which the teachings of the Sunna and Hadith are compared with those of the Quran. This is used primarily when Islamic law comes in conflict with the laws of other societies or religions.
The most comprehensive English language translation of shariah can be found in a book titled Reliance of the Traveller. This book has been authenticated by the Fiqh Council of North America, a group that advises its members on how to apply shariah within the “North American environment,” and has been “approved” by scholars under the jurisdiction of Saudi Arabia.
All of that is a long-winded way of saying that this book was not written by someone with an axe to grind against Islam; it is considered by many scholars to be a legitimate and fair translation. Knowing that, most Americans who read Reliance of the Traveller will be (or at least should be) struck by how brutal and cruel shariah can be. And yet this book is sold by major Islamic outlets in America as a primary source of Islamic law for orthodox Sunni Muslims. Some argue that few Muslims actually follow its guidance. Thankfully, that is true, especially in the United States. Yet how many Muslims in the West have even attempted to deconstruct it or marginalize it? How many Muslims stand up and unequivocally say “That is not the Islam we follow!”?
Shariah classifies women as inferior beings and it provides them with considerably fewer privileges than a man. For example, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a female may be punished beginning at age nine; a boy not until age fifteen. Beating and raping one’s wife is authorized and, by some interpretations, even encouraged. A woman’s testimony in court is valued at half that of a man.
Shariah calls for the amputation of a thief’s right hand. (The right is used for eating, while the left hand is used for personal hygiene. Eating with one’s left hand is, therefore, considered unclean.) If the thief commits a second offense, his left foot is amputated. A third offense means his left hand, and if he steals again, he loses his right foot.
Shariah is in direct conflict with the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution because it mandates the denial of free speech and freedom of religion. In 2006, a Muslim posted a question to the Assembly of Muslim Jurists in America asking how he should respond to questions about the punishment for apostates (those who leave Islam). The answer, according to Sheikh Mohammed Al-Hajj Aly, was that “it is the punishment of killing for the man . . . as the prophet, prayers and peace of Allah be upon him, said: ‘Whoever a Muslim changes his/her religion, kill him/her.’”
Muslim supremacy is a constant theme of shariah, and Holy War (jihad) against nonbelievers is required of all adherents. The shariah texts like Reliance of the Traveller confirm this death sentence mandate for apostates. Youcef Nadarkhani, a Christian pastor in Iran, was ordered to be executed not only because he left Islam, but because he refused to recant his faith in Christianity. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon. To say that shariah can be repressive and cruel is an understatement.
An Islamic republic is a nation in which shariah is the law of the land, but Muslims are expected to adhere to shariah regardless of where they reside. Countries like Iran, Sudan, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia rely on shariah as their legal system. Even when living in a Western nation, Muslims are expected to use shariah as their guide for how to live and worship.
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Secular Shariah?
It’s counterintuitive, but there are some countries, like Somalia, where the government is secular, but shariah is still practiced. The Council on Foreign Relations quoted Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, a professor of law at Emory University, with a possible explanation for this: “Enforcing a [shariah] through coercive power of the state negates its religious nature, because Muslims would be observing the law of the state and not freely performing their religious obligation as Muslims.”
That’s all well and good for enlightened, modern, reform-minded Muslims who rely on reason, but it’s not going to help the abuse of human rights inherent in shariah. Separating mosque and state is irrelevant if the followers of shariah prioritize their religious obligations ahead of their obligations as a citizen of that country and the laws of the land.
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That, of course, includes Muslims in America.
Although many Muslims who live in the United States reject Islamic law, Islamic jurists and scholars, as well as a large number of imams, still mandate that they live according to the provisions of the law. That is an enormous problem considering that many academics and Islamic scholars have repeatedly said that shariah and democracy are incompatible.
Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, a professor of Islamic law in Islamabad, Pakistan, articulates this point in his book Theories of Islamic Law: The Methodology of Ijtihad. “Islam, it is generally acknowledged, is a complete way of life,” he wrote, “and at the core of the code, is the law of Islam. . . . No other sovereign or authority is acceptable to the Muslim, unless it guarantees the application of the laws (shariah) in their entirety. Any other legal system, howsoever attractive it may appear on the surface, is alien for Muslims and it is not likely to succeed in the solution of their problems: it would be doomed from the start.”
After reading that quote, and understanding what shariah is all about, you may feel as though there is no middle ground, no way out. But that is the big lie. Americans must understand that Nyazee’s Islam is political Islam—the Islam of Islamists, of those who believe in the dominance of the Islamic state. We make a mistake when we try to equate Islamism with all of Islam or all Muslims.
In most Muslim communities there is a struggle for power between Islamists and moderate Muslims. We can blame that struggle on everything from oil money, to the dominance of the Muslim Brotherhood movement around the world, or to a million other things, but the bottom line is that much of the Muslim leadership continue to peddle Islamism (political Islam) as Islam.
SETTING A BAD PRECEDENT
Despite the opinion of numerous scholars that many elements of shariah and democracy are not compatible, Islamic law continues to make its way into America. If you think that is just hyperbole or conspiracy theory, you’re wrong. Here are the facts.
The Center for Security Policy recently reviewed fifty court cases from twenty-three states to determine if shariah had been used in deciding the outcomes. Their findings, detailed in the center’s report “Shariah Law and American State Courts,” might surprise you:
The study’s findings suggest that shariah law has entered into state court decisions, in conflict with the Constitution and state public policy. Some commentators have said there are no more than one or two cases of shariah law in U.S. state court cases; yet we found 50 significant cases just from the small sample of appellate published cases.
Others have asserted with certainty that state court judges will always reject any foreign law, including shariah law, when it conflicts with the Constitution or state public policy; yet we found 15 Trial Court cases, and 12 Appellate Court cases, where shariah was found to be applicable in these particular cases. The facts are the facts: some judges are making decisions deferring to shariah law even when those decisions conflict with Constitutional prot
ections.
The study, while eye-opening, is really only the tip of the iceberg. Abed Awad, an adjunct law professor at Rutgers University law school and a New York attorney who runs the site ShariaInAmerica.com, recently boasted that he had “handled as an expert, or consultant or attorney for, more than 100 cases (in the United States) with a component of Islamic Law or the laws of the Middle East in the past 11 years.”
In February 2012, Pennsylvania state court judge Mark Martin dismissed an assault and harassment case against a Muslim man who attacked an atheist who was dressed in a “Zombie Muhammad” costume during a Halloween parade. The atheist man was pretending to walk among the dead and was joined by another individual dressed in a “Zombie Pope” costume.
From a U.S. legal perspective the assault case was pretty straightforward: the attacker allegedly admitted his guilt to a police officer. And while the act may have been offensive to some, the atheist was exercising his First Amendment right to express himself, along with his right to freedom of religion (or, in this case, no religion).
Judge Martin ruled that the atheist had offended the Muslim who assaulted him and that, according to Muslim belief, the man was compelled to defend his faith. In fact the judge dressed the victim down with a very harsh diatribe:
Before you start mocking someone else’s religion you may want to find out a little bit more about it. That makes you look like a doofus. . . .