From the website of the Consulate General of India, Jeddah, who is recording these matters because they come up in connection with his people who are working in Saudi Arabia (via JW)
How Feisal Abdul Rauf and Muqtedar Khan whitewash Sharia
“Just pretend it doesn’t exist until we are strong enough to overcome the kuffar….”
“Veiling Shari`a in a Judeo-Christian Cloak: Imam Ra’uf’s and Muqtedar Khan’s Latest Ruse,” by Timothy R. Furnish at History News Network, October 25/Read it all.
Reuel Gerecht: Sharia really isn’t all that bad
This is a couple of weeks old, but Jihad Watch reader Benedict just brought it to my attention today, and I thought in light of the ongoing recent attempts to whitewash Sharia, it was worth setting the record straight. Gerecht never answered my response to his straw-man attack on Pamela Geller, so I doubt he will respond to this — which is unfortunate only because his befuddled New Republic readers will continue blithely on with the misconceptions he has given them.
Gerecht here criticizes those who allegedly “blur the line between militant Muslims and the everyday faithful,” and asserts that Sharia should not be subjected to a “blanket demonization,” because, he says, just look at fine men like the Ayatollahs Sistani and Montazeri, both Sharia scholars and adherents, and neither terrorists.
All right. Let’s look at them. The Ayatollah Sistani’s website contains this helpful classification, placing unbelievers (kafir) on par with blood, urine, feces, etc.:
The following ten things are essentially najis [unclean]:1. Urine
2. Faeces
3. Semen
4. Dead body
5. Blood
6. Dog
7. Pig
8. Kafir [unbeliever — i.e., non-Muslims]
9. Alcoholic liquors
10. The sweat of an animal who persistently eats najasat [unclean things].
Is this Sharia? Yes, for Shi’ites in particular, who base the idea that unbelievers are unclean on Qur’an 9:28. Is this idea “militant” or “terrorist”? No, but it is supremacist, and unbelievers who believe in equality of rights for all are not wrong to be suspicious of the spread of such ideas Westward. And Montazeri held the same views, such that an Iranian Christian complained that his views of non-Muslims were “rubbing salt into our wounds.”
I’m going to stand against such things, and for human rights.
“The Bill O’Reilly Fallacy,” by Reuel Marc Gerecht in The New Republic, October 16 (thanks to JW)
More here:
Analyst Reuel Gerecht’s confused, uninformed pieties, vs Professor J.J. G. Jansen’s scholarly lucidity
Andy Bostom
Analyst Reuel Mark Gerecht, in a recent New Republic essay, condemned those who “demonized” Sharia—Islamic Law—despite conceding that the application of what he refers to deferentially as Islam’s “Holy Law,”
…can be ugly, not least for women. Westerners, especially Europeans, are quite right to be outraged by the importation of Sharia practices to their shores. And Westerners should cast a very dim eye on any financial institution that sets up Sharia-compliant offices that could, if left unchecked, discreetly normalize anti-Semitic practices in big global institutions……[E]ven some Muslim theologians have seen the strain of despotism in Islamic history as being related to the static and authoritarian nature of Islamic legal practice…
Continue reading Jihad & Sharia: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Rauf with black eyeliner
A deceitful (Musel-)man of wealth and taste….
