American Muslim organization calls upon American Muslims to denounce Shariah for America rally

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

STATEMENT

AIFD stands against any movement that would subjugate Americans under Shariah law

PHOENIX (March 1, 2011) – Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim and the president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) issued the following statement regarding the March 3, 2011 rally – Shariah for America: A call for revolution.

“Shariah for America’s march on Washington is an affront to very idea of America and in no way represents the core of American Muslims. American Muslims need to denounce this rally and to unequivocally state that Sharia for America’s movement to bring shariah into government is unconstitutional and unconscionable for liberty loving Muslims in America.

Shariah for America’s belief in governmental shariah is not a mandate from God, but is instead an instrument of man that uses the myth of Islamic supremacy to strip away individual liberty and freedom.

Not all Muslims are Islamists and the problems with Islamism are not only related to violence, but related to the entire ideology of seeking the supremacy of the Islamic state over the United States and Western society, which is exactly what Shariah for America is trying to do.

The organizers of Shariah for America believe that freedom of speech is a one way street and ultimately that their rally for shariah will not be countered by Muslims or Americans. AIFD stands in support of groups like Move America Forward and the Liberty Alliance who will rally on March 3 against shariah and the Islamic State. Events like this demonstrate that American Muslims need to be open about the need to separate mosque and state and to defeat the insidious supremacist ideology of shariah in government and Islamism in general.

Shariah for America is not the first group calling for the Islamist ideologies to defeat American values. These ideologies were also recently seen in July 2009 at the Hizb ut-tahrir recruiting conference outside Chicago.

Many American Islamist organizations see these demonstrations and meetings as being on the fringe, but at the end of the day very few American Muslim organizations have directly taken on the ideology of the caliphate, Islamism, political Islam and the Islamic state. They instead want us to believe that classically Islamist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and all of its offshoots and front groups are not a threat to the United States, when in fact rallies like this demonstrate the depths of exactly what the threat is and how at their core all Islamists desire to remove our Constitutional republic and put in its place an Islamic state based in Islamic law and the interpretations of clerics and theocrats.

AIFD calls upon all people of conscience to counter these ideas and demonstrate the fact that these are the very ideas that radicalize Muslims. There is a continuum of radicalization which is not only violence but accentuated by ideologies like this group’s that are not being countered by Muslims. In fact their silence against these ideologies caters to a mindset which is obstructionist and less than cooperative in preventing jihadism and the continual recruitment of Muslims into radicalization. Until the majority of American Muslims can begin to have frank discussion about these ideologies and how various levels of these ideologies feed into extremism and radicalization we will not as a nation be able to counter the ideology of political Islam and it’s inherent radicalization..

Shariah for America has called for a day of Anger against America. American Muslims need to have a day of anger against Shariah for America and their ideas and demonstrate that they are truly marginal. The silence of American Muslims against the Islamic state and political Islam allows radical groups like this to speak for all Muslims. It is our hope that there will be a reform for the separation of mosque and state and to make it unequivocal that these ideas of shariah and Islamic supremacy are not welcome in our Muslim communities.

About the American Islamic Forum for Democracy

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. AIFD’s mission advocates for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. For more information on AIFD, please visit our website at http://www.aifdemocracy.org/.

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