[My speech on “Is Shariah compatible with democracy was presented
in Maine on March 22, 2014. The below text differs slightly from the original
as I was able to check a couple of references that I did not have access to
while in Vacationland. From here forward everything in brackets was added after the speech was delivered.]
Salaam alaykum. Peace be unto you. Good evening.
In 1996, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, then a basketball player for
the Denver Nuggets, refused to stand during the national anthem. Abdul-Rauf asserted
that his action was a reflection of his understanding of the Islamic faith.
This sparked a nationwide debate.
Shortly after, one of the major news magazines ran a
story about the ensuing controversy.
The story featured a photo of a woman at a later Nuggets
game wrapped in an American flag and crying.
[She was demonstrating her outrage at Abdul-Rauf’s deed.]
Abdul-Rauf’s
action was, in my opinion then and now, disrespectful and inappropriate.
Indeed, he later stated that while he believed his motivation
was correct, his choice of expression was not the best approach.”
So while I disagreed with the action, I would defend his right to do what
he did.
Abdul-Rauf’s
act was political dissent, respect for which is enshrined in our national
character.
[This respect for dissent is why I also disagree with the woman in the photo. I defend her right to do what she did, but I think becoming angry at his act is also not the best approach.]
At the time there were calls for Abdul-Rauf to face
consequences. He served a one game suspension.
Often in incidents like this we even hear legislators
talk of passing laws to ban certain behaviors or to legally impose them.
Outlawing flag burning, another form of protest I view as
a crass political stunt, is a frequent example.
I think the tension between faith, politics, ideals and
their expression we see in the Abdul-Rauf incident is important to think about
tonight.
Now, before my hosts get too nervous trying to figure out
why the speaker is rambling on about a minor incident, I want to take a moment
to increase their tension.
I respectfully disagree with our chosen topic for tonight.
I think it draws on incorrect assumptions about Shariah, or Islamic legal
principles, and democracy.
I honestly think there is another, more significant topic
to be considered.
So I am going to beg your indulgence for a bit and allow me
to make my case. I pray you will find by the end of our discussion that I have
answered the “"Is Shariah
compatible with democracy"”
question anyway.
Shariah’s ideals
To start, let’s
discuss Shariah. Like Jihad, it is a term that has been hijacked and turned
into something scary.
To assist our discussion of Shariah I will turn to a
scholar, Asifa Quraishi-Landes.
She teaches American constitutional law and Islamic law
at the University of Wisconsin and has a doctorate from Harvard Law School among
other honors.
Here is a short passage from her paper Shariah and Diversity where she describes shariah,
"[literally meaning ] ‘way’ or ‘street’ shariah refers to
the way that god has advised Muslims to live, as documented in the Quran and
exemplified in the practices of Prophet Muhammad. In other words, shariah can be understood as the Islamic
recipe for living a good life. But of course, no one can taste a recipe. We can
only taste the product of a chef's efforts to follow one. In addition,
different chefs can follow the same recipe and still come up with quite varied
results.”
There are a few things I hope we hear in this reading.
First, Muslims recognize that the process of
understanding God’s will is
ongoing. There is not a set of books equivalent to the U.S. Code sitting
somewhere that spells out what the law is in fine detail. There is the ideal of
divine law [found primarily in the Quran and the life of Islam's Prophet] and the reality of human interpretations of the law, which we can
define using the Arabic term Fiqh.
Second, we are painfully aware of our humanity and that
we can interpret and express these ideals wrong.
Third, there can be a wide variance in the understanding
of Islam.
I like Quraishi-Landes’s use of the recipe metaphor. Shariah is the recipe, but
different religious scholars, produce varied dishes from it.
Let me give you a real world example of the variety [available to Muslims.]
One of Islam's most important holidays is Eid Al-Fitr. It
comes at the end of Ramadan, the month wherein Muslims eat no food, drink no
water and avoid other physical indulgences during daylight hours.
Ramadan is a time of great spiritual reflection and
self-denial, Eid is the party at the end. I would be lying to you if I did not
admit that after a month of food and sleep deprivation it is a joy to get this
party started.
The problem is, we have a hard time agreeing on when it
starts.
Islam is on a lunar calendar, and thus the date of Eid
changes each year in relation to our own calendar.
Some Muslims maintain Eid starts when someone of good
reputation sees the new moon with their eyes, thus starting the new month.
Others say we can use scientific calculations to know the exact moment of the
birth of the new moon. Many immigrant Muslims prefer go with when their country
of origin says Eid starts. Others say that since Islam is now worldwide, we
should all go with when Mecca, the place all Muslims face when we pray,
recognizes the start of Eid.
As a result, every year we hear conversations in mosques
along the lines of “"Are
you celebrating Eid on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday?”
We have people going to their employers and saying, “next week is our most important
religious holiday of the year, I need to take the day off.”” The boss usually replies, "Sure,
what day do you need?" Then we
get the rather awkward response of, "Well, it might be Monday, but maybe
Tuesday, perhaps Wednesday."
As an aside, next time someone tells you Muslims have
some shady conspiracy to subvert the Constitution, remember this holiday. If we
cannot organize our major holidays, I doubt we can pull off a vast conspiracy.
I have also never encountered any actual Muslim interest in such a conspiracy.
So. Shariah was and is developed to be flexible and
dynamic in practice. This was done in order to achieve two main goals, and
protect six main principles in society.
The two goals are to bring good to humanity community,
and to repel harm from humanity.
Please note, this is not bring good to Muslims, and to
repel harm from Muslims. It is humanity.
All religious rules must be in line with these six
principles of Shariah, presented here as written out by Sumbul Ali-Karamali:
* “The right to the protection of life.
* “The right to the protection of family.
* “The right to the protection of education (intellect).
* “The right to the protection of property (access to
resources).
* “The right to the protection of human dignity.
* “The right to the protection of religion.”
Shariah must then adapt with respect to the social,
political, and cultural climate of a given place and time in order to ensure that
these two goals are met, and these six principles are protected.
In fact, Shariah mandates that a Muslim practice their
faith while respecting the law of the land in which they reside.
Throughout history the way to achieve these goals and
protect these principles has differed between various philosophies, eras,
communities, and leaders.
At the center of these various interpretations is always
intended to be human good.
Ibn al Qayyim, a notable medieval-era Islamic jurist put
it this way, "The foundation of the Shariahh is wisdom and the
safeguarding of people's interests in this world and the next. In its entirety
it is justice, mercy and wisdom. Every rule which transforms justice to
tyranny, mercy to its opposite, the good to the evil, and wisdom to triviality
does not belong to the Shariahh . . ."
So these are the ideals behind Islamic legal principles.
We Muslims, like every other way of life with which I am
familiar, do not always live up to our own ideals.
Let's think about one example. In Islamic inheritance a
son gets a full share and a daughter gets a half share. This is done because
the son is expected to pay for funeral expenses and support all family members.
The daughter can choose to help, but it is not an obligation.
Similarly, a man is obligated to financially support his
family. Any money a wife earns is hers to do with as she chooses, she can
contribute or not as she wishes.
These are the ideals aimed at ensuring everyone is
supported financially and it is clear who is responsible. Does it always work
out that way? No.
American ideals
In my opinion, ideals are at the core of our conversation
tonight. They are precious things.
We in America have them and strive for them.
We Americans, like every other way of life with which I
am familiar, do not always live up to our own ideals.
In 1761, Boston lawyer James Otis spoke against
overly-broad warrants issued by the British government. These Writs of Assistance allowed the crown's
agents to search any house or ship they chose.
John Adams--who went on to sign the Declaration of
Independence and become our nation's second president--said of Otis's speech,
"Then and there, the child Independence was born."
In 2013, shortly after revelations of overly-broad
warrantless surveillance of the American public by the National Security
Agency, or NSA, the Pew Research Center found fifty-six percent of Americans
think this is an acceptable way for the government to investigate terrorism.” Sixty-two percent agreed that it is more important for the
government to investigate possible terrorist threats, even if it intrudes on
personal privacy.”
A stark contrast to the men who founded our nation.
More recently Pew reported, “Today, 40% approve of
the government’s collection
of telephone and internet data as part of anti-terrorism efforts, while 53%
disapprove.” Pew adds, “In addition, nearly half (48%) say
there are not adequate limits on what telephone and internet data the
government can collect.””
So here we see an example of our national struggle to
balance our ideals with reasonable concerns for public safety and less
reasonable fears that may cause us to be too willing to give up ideals the
Founder’s valued.
John Adams, by the way, set the standard for placing
ideals over emotions when he acted as legal counsel to British soldiers accused
in the Boston massacre, one of those iconic incidents that contributed to
sparking full scale colonial revolt against King George.
The ideal, broadly embraced in our society, was later
expressed in the Sixth Amendment as an accused having the right to the Assistance
of Counsel to his defense.”
Writing in his diary, Adams expressed fear he felt for
his own safety, as well as that of his family from more radical elements of the
revolutionary movement.
Of his decision to defend the soldiers Adams concluded:
"It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly and
disinterested Actions of my whole Life, and one of the best Pieces of Service I
ever rendered my Country.”
Let’s
consider a couple of more recent examples.
In 2004, three years after the 9/11 attacks, Cornell University reported, "Nearly half of all Americans believe the U.S.
government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim-Americans." This
included “27 percent of
respondents supported requiring all Muslim-Americans to register where they
lived with the federal government.””
Article VI of the U.S. Constitution prohibits any
"religious test" for public office. However, in 2010 Time reported
that "twenty-eight percent of voters do not believe Muslims should be
eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court" and that "nearly one-third
of the country thinks adherents of Islam should be barred from running for
president."
The lesson I see here is that we have grand ideals in
this nation, but our reality does not always live up to them. The struggle to
enshrine our ideals is long and difficult.
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book on the Civil War,
James McPherson reports on English Protestant Americans suspicion of German and
Irish Catholic immigrants to the U.S. in the nineteenth century.
He writes, "most of these new Americans worshipped
in Roman Catholic churches. Their growing presence filled some Protestant Americans
with alarm. Numerous nativist organizations sprang up as the first line of
resistance in what became a long and painful retreat toward acceptance of
cultural pluralism."
Striving to "civilize" Native Americans, the
federal government instituted a practice of taking children away from their
parents and placing them in off-reservation boarding schools. Here, the
children were to learn a culture not their own.
These schools still existed in the 1960s.
It took until 1920, 144 years after the signing of the
Declaration of Independence, to pass a constitutional amendment granting women
full voting rights. The Lilly Ledbetter Act, signed into law in 2009, reminds
us that women in America still struggle for equal pay for equal work.
Our nation placed Japanese-Americans in internment camps
following the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
The deeply troubling story of the African-American
struggle for full equality is well known.
Sadly, it is commonplace for minority groups and their
leaders to be vilified.
Martin Luther King, a non-violent, civil rights icon, has
a federal holiday named after him and won a Nobel Peace Prize.
However, before his assassination, he was branded the
"most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country" in an FBI
memo. His calls and sometimes hotel rooms were wiretapped.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover labeled King a degenerate.
Which Democracy?
I hope by now you may begin to see why my concern is not is
shariah compatible with democracy.”
The term democracy may not even be the best for our
thoughts tonight.
Like Islam, democracy takes many forms.
The citizens of Athens, a direct democracy where only
landed males could vote, would hardly recognize our system. Pirate democracy, entertaining as the subject
is, is probably not a focus for us tonight. On a pirate ship, all crew got a
vote and the captain was elected.
Some, say Vladimir Putin, would call the recent
referendum in Crimea an instance of democracy.
But voting is not necessarily an indicator of a healthy
democracy. We are all familiar with despotic rulers who handily win “vote me or else” elections.
Indeed, our own democracy, the recipe the founding
fathers gave us is constantly being assessed by new chefs.
When the U.S. Constitution came into effect, 10 of the 13
states required a voter to own property or pay some form of tax. Today, such requirements cause outrage.
Examining the ideals side-by-side
But, as you may have noticed, the ideals, the principles
behind our expression of democracy do offer us a guide to the target of our
thoughts tonight.
Two documents give us a sense of the recipe:
The Declaration of Independence asserts that the right of
the People “”to alter or to
abolish their government” must remain intact and the people must have the
freedom to lay government’s “foundation on such principles” and
organize “its powers in such
form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.””
The Constitution adds additional thoughts, “form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,
promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves
and our Posterity.””
These are the goals of the democracy our Founder’s created. These are the ideals,
the recipe.
Let me remind you of the two main goals and six
main principles of Shariah.
The two goals are to bring good to humanity, and to repel
harm from humanity.
All religious rules must be in line with these six
principles of Shariah:
* The right to the protection of life.
* The right to the protection of family.
* The right to the protection of education (intellect).
* The right to the protection of property (access to
resources).
* The right to the protection of human dignity.
* The right to the protection of religion.
I hope you are beginning to hear what I concluded long
ago, that the similarities between Islamic Shariah ideals and western
democratic ideals are fairly obvious.
Many Muslims have already concluded the ideals are similar
This is not just my opinion.
Early after my decision to embrace Islam I heard a story.
I do not know if it is fact, but it expresses a reality I have heard many
Muslims agree with.
In short, after visiting America, a Muslim scholar is
reported to have said, “I
went to the east and found Muslims without Islam. I went to the west and found
Islam without Muslims.”
This scholar is saying he saw in the west Islamic
principles in action where Islam was not the majority faith. He is saying in
many countries where Islam is the majority faith, politics, and history have
created circumstances where Islamic principles are not expressed in society.
In 2011, the Fiqh Council of North America adopted a
resolution titled “On BeingFaithful Muslims and Loyal Americans.”
Here are a few lines from that resolution:
* ‘”Like
other faith communities in the US and elsewhere, we see no inherent conflict
between the normative values of Islam and the US Constitution and Bill of
Rights.”
* “”Likewise,
the core modern democratic systems are compatible with the Islamic principles
of Shura – mutual
consultation and co-determination of all social affairs at all levels and in
all spheres, family, community, society, state and globally.”
* ‘”Islamic
teachings require respect of the laws of the land where Muslims live as
minorities, including the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, so long as there
is no conflict with Muslims’
obligation for obedience to God. We do not see any such conflict with the US
Constitution and Bill of Rights. The primacy of obedience to God is a commonly
held position of many practicing Jews and Christians as well.””
Aside: Al-Qaeda is everybody's enemy
At this moment of thinking about the parallels between Islamic ideals and
western democratic ideals, let me insert a couple of thoughts about Al-Qaeda
and their ideological allies.
Extremists who claim Islam motivates, or worse,
sanctions, their atrocities have done deep harm to Islam.
Their terrorism. The blatant human rights abuses. Their
complete distortion of the faith. These provide the breeding ground for much of
the anti-Muslim extremism we are living through today.
The worldview of violent extremists is a complete
distortion of Islam. Islamic teachings clearly state that the killing of one
innocent is the moral equivalent to the killing of all humanity.
To the more than a billion Muslims worldwide, Islam is a
religion that teaches tolerance, justice and compassion.
Unfortunately, for many who know little of Islam or
Muslims, violent extremists have come to personify both.
What many do not realize is that in the struggle against
Al-Qaeda and its ideological allies we can adopt an us [America] vs. them
[Muslims] attitude or we can adopt a "we are all in the struggle against
violent extremism together" approach.
At least 31 Muslims were among the victims of the 9/11
attackers. This includes Mohammed Salman Hamdani, who went into one of the Twin
Towers to offer assistance and died while doing so. His sacrifice was noted in
the USA PATRIOT ACT.
After reviewing a 2009 report titled Deadly Vanguards: A
Study of Al-Qaida's Violence Against Muslims, Ralph Peters, wrote in New York's
Daily Post, "Al-Qaeda does one thing extremely well: killing
Muslims."
President Obama echoed this conclusion at a White House
Ramadan fastbreaking reception in 2010 when he noted, "In fact, al Qaeda
has killed more Muslims than people of any other religion and that list of
victims includes innocent Muslims who were killed on 9/11."
American Muslims are on the front lines of protecting American ideals
The more we think about it, the more the us [democracy]
vs. them [shariah] dichotomy falls apart.
Now here is a key, and for this gathering, crucial
reality, that may surprise you:
American Muslims are on the front lines of protecting
American ideals.
Anti-Muslim sentiment in America has resulted in a
certain willingness on behalf of a significant proportion of Americans to
undermine the Constitution.
We are not just talking about [survey respondent's] words and opinions.
In 2010 Oklahoma voters approved SQ 755, a state
constitutional amendment banning judges in that state from considering Islamic
religious principles in their rulings.
In practice this would have prohibited a judge from
probating an Islamic will, marriage agreement or other contracts such as home
financing structured according to the Islamic prohibition against interest-bearing
loans.
In the voting booth, Oklahomans were told that
"Islamic religious principles are based on two principal sources, the
Koran and the teachings of Mohammed."
This language rather directly contradicts the First
Amendment in two key ways.
First, the Establishment Clause prohibits government from
condemning or endorsing any religion.
Second, the Free Exercise Clause guarantees all persons
of faith equal liberty to practice their faith.
Now, persons of faith regularly enter contracts or enact
incorporating elements of their faith.
So long as such provisions do not violate U.S. law, it is irrelevant to
courts from where the provision originates.
For example, if a Jewish person enacts a will that
directs a court to divide his estate in accordance with a particular verse
found within his religious tradition, a court would likely comply with this
request.
But if a Muslim person were to attempt something similar
in a state that has passed an anti-Islam bill such as Oklahoma’s SQ 755, that Muslim would be
prevented from doing so. This
differential freedom accorded to members of one faith over another is what the
Free Exercise Clause was written to protect against.
For this reason a CAIR staff person in Oklahoma
challenged the law in court.
Interestingly, CAIR was accused of trying to subvert the
Constitution while we were making the First Amendment arguments I just
presented to you.
In 2013 a Federal judge struck the amendment down as
un-Constitutional.
Oklahoma's bill wasn't unique. In 2011 and 2012, 78 bills
or amendments designed to vilify Islamic religious practices were introduced in
the legislatures of 29 states and the U.S. Congress.
I am still tallying 2013, but it looks like another [37
bills in 16 states] total bills.
Anti-Islam bills are now law in seven states.
As a second example that Muslims are on the frontline of
protecting American ideals let’s
look at the 2012 presidential election, one of our nation’s most visible platforms for
political thought.
Herman Cain was for a while the frontrunner for the GOP’s presidential nomination.
Speaking to Christianity Today on March 11, 2011, Cain
said that followers of the Muslim religion have an objective to convert all infidels or kill them.”
Cain also said that Muslims who wanted to serve in his
administration would have to take loyalty oaths. He explained to Fox News host
Glenn Beck that he would not require similar oaths from Mormons or Catholics, “Because
there is a greater dangerous part of the Muslim faith than there is in these
other religions.””
As we know from earlier, this would violate Article VI’s ban on “religious tests” for public office.
So, here we have a man, a frontrunner, committing to
undermining the Constitution. Did he get tossed from the stage?
No.
He got applause.
Rick Santorum, also a frontrunner for a time, endorsed
religious profiling during one of the GOP presidential debates, saying,
"Obviously, Muslims would be someone you'd look at." In January, 2012
journalists brought attention to a lengthy Islamophobic rant Santorum gave in
2007 during which he asserted that in order to ”win” against
a vaguely-defined Muslim enemy Americans must "educate, engage,
evangelize and eradicate."
A former Speaker of the U.S. House, Newt Gingrich, yet
another onetime frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, told an
audience that he feared that by the time his grandchildren reach his age “they
will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists
and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."
If you find Gingrich's assertion that a future secular
atheist America will be run by Islamic radicals confusing, don't worry so does
everyone else.
While these facts are disconcerting, they are nothing
new. Just as Jews, Catholics and others stood up to prejudice, so, too, are
Muslims.
In fact, Muslims benefit from the lessons these other
faith traditions learned in their struggles against prejudice.
America's Muslims also recognize that while the lens of
prejudice may be on us today, it will eventually turn elsewhere.
We want to make sure our struggle is a benefit to this
next group and our nation as a whole.
We should stop splitting into two different camps
So, to my understanding, our original topic tonight has
the effect of slicing us into two different camps.
Is shariah (them) compatible with democracy (us).
I am pretty sure, hearing that topic, most of you did not
come here expecting an American history lesson.
However, I pray that what I have said tonight brings you
to share my conviction that we are, in fact, allies.
Islam and American democracy may disagree on some things.
However, just as best friends often disagree without it
hurting their relations we too can be adults and debate differences while
partnering on ideals.
Frankly, those differences are relatively minor. Violent
extremists like al-Qaeda may trying to convince you otherwise, but they are
everyone's enemy.
I also pray that we can now start our conversation from a
healthy place, not one of us vs. them, but of how do we work together to
establish our shared ideals of justice.
Thank you.
