Overcoming Islamism: Defeat the Ideology and Claim Majority Victory- Part 3 of 3

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Defeat the ideology and claim majority victory

By M. Zuhdi Jasser

Part 3 of 3 (appeared in the Washington Times)

August 4, 2006

Islamists fear any real ideological battle within Islam against Islamism and its clerics. To that end, they seek the removal of American and Western involvement from Muslim majority countries. Americanism is founded upon an anti-theocratic ideology that is a global ideological threat to Islamism. “Jeffersonian” Muslims who depart from Islamism are similarly the greatest threat to the influence of Islamists within the Muslim community.

Disengage Islamism from Muslims and Americanism will flourish among Muslims. With the deconstruction of Islamism (the ends), Islamist terror (the means) has no cause.

Muslim activists should find it commonplace to address the central ideological issue of this war -Islamism vs. Islam vs. anti-Islamism. Islamist moderation, vis-a-vis anti-terrorism and anti-autocracy, should not dismiss the remaining overriding Islamist philosophy. This philosophy is what needs to be understood.

The issue is not one of patriotism. Islamists can be intensely patriotic while having a differing vision for America. It is the ideology of political Islam that needs to be engaged. The following questions may begin to help opinion leaders discern an Islamist from an anti-Islamist: Do you believe in the strict separation of religion and politics? Do you support the development of religious (Islamic) political parties and movements? Should the imam’s “mimbar” (pulpit) be the place for the advocacy of domestic and foreign policy opinions? Should clerics be politicians or legislators?

Also: Would you prefer (if Muslims were a majority) to see legislatures argue interpretation of scripture and religious law over secular non-theological argumentation? Do you believe in a movement at any time to return a global Caliphate into existence? Where do you stand in regards to the stated global goals of the Muslim Brotherhood or the Wahhabi Movement? Is the American system of government and the Constitution inferior to the basis used for an “Islamic” state? What is the role in local and global society of the Muslim “ummah” (community)? Of the mosque? Do you believe individuals who leave Islam should be a legal concern of society? In the hereafter, by your theology, do you believe that God will only judge individuals or will He collectively judge entire communities overriding the individual?

Moderate Islamists are not an ideological threat to the radicals of al Qaeda, Hamas or Hezbollah because they generally seek similar “Islamic” governance, albeit a more moderated, non-violent, even democratic playing field in the end. Moderate Islamists will usually also avoid identifying radical Islamists by name as the enemy.

We are five years behind and only just beginning to delve into the intellectual debate we should already be having with the Muslim world domestically and abroad. This debate needs to be at the forefront of our mass media and our “public diplomacy programs.”

Our public diplomacy leaders must no longer avoid these central questions when meeting with Muslims all over the world. Engagement involves real dialogue and debate where ideas conflict, not superficial photo-ops and sporadic ineffectual comments. Such superficial discourse actually makes the work of anti-Islamist Muslims much more difficult, for it publicly mainstreams Islamist ideology.

President Reagan did not defeat communism by creating photo-ops and a few verbal exchanges with non-Soviet communist nations during the height of the Cold War. Our leaders need to emphasize the ideological chasm between Islamism and Americanism and begin to methodically deconstruct Islamism. Our officials should also find and engage Muslims who are on the same wavelength against political Islam.

In the meantime, the United Arab Emirates just announced the provision of a very disturbing endowment to the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) of reportedly upwards of $50 million. Not only is this unprecedented foreign interference, but these monies are also unlikely to be used to deconstruct the ideological basis for Islamism, Wahhabism or the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah or other enemies of the United States. They will rather be used to continue the focus on apologetics, non-Muslim “education” and political empowerment (Islamism) with very little attention to internal renewal (ijtihad), anti-terror work and the ideological incompatibilities between Islamism and Americanism.

All civil human beings and their organizations condemn terrorist acts. The real question is what separates Islamists from “Americanists”? In order to fight an ideological battle against the Islamist enemy, we must not only seek to understand them, but we must make sure that we understand ourselves. If we remain unclear about America’s ideology, then we will never understand what drives the ends of our Islamist enemies.

Our forefathers understood what was needed to extricate the oppressive influence of theocrats in England. Muslims have yet to articulate this understanding about Islamists. We must quickly embrace the openness and pluralism of our American religious heritage.

At our nation’s 230th birthday this July, we can no longer afford to dismiss the Islamist threat. Just as Islamism is a threat to the essence of the America we love, it is also a threat to the essence of my personal faith of Islam which I love. Many pious Muslims can engage in this debate to defeat Islamism. Defeat Islamism and its political ideology, and we have achieved a major victory for our nation’s security.

M. Zuhdi Jasser is chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and a former Navy lieutenant commander.

Muslims in the crosshairs- Part 2 of 3

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By M. Zuhdi Jasser

Published August 3, 2006

Part two in a three-part series. published in the Washington Times

So far the ideological battle against political Islam has proven to be a fight few Muslims want to participate in. It has taken five years since September 11 for conventional wisdom to even begin to attempt to understand “moderate” Muslims let alone engage their ideology.

Far more important than a debate over who or what defines a moderate is our need in the United States to focus discussions upon the ideology of Islamism and political Islam. If radical Islamist terrorism is a means to an end, we should be pressing American Muslim leaders about where they stand regarding al Qaeda, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood or Hezbollah.

Islamism, as I see it, is an overriding philosophy of Muslims who believe in a society guided by a system of government founded upon clerical interpretations of religious law as derived from their own interpretation of the Koran and Sunnah. Argumentation within Islamist governments and parties is based upon clerical interpretations of God’s law, not upon a reasoned deduction of effectiveness of human law. No matter how moderate Islamists present themselves, they will always hold on tightly to the notion that a majority Muslim state must be identified as an “Islamic state” with clerical guidance of their society’s proximity to the Muslim path.

Islamism is clearly in direct conflict with Americanism. Yet, an Islam which is anti-Islamist is not. Americanism as Islamists see it is defined by our Constitution and our legal precedents as a system based in legislative liberty for all faiths – true pluralism. Americanism uses a language of legislative debate not derived from religious precedent or clerical interpretation of one faith, but rather from the reasoned precedent of our secular courts and legislatures. Until this great chasm of thought between Islamists and American ideology is made clear, we are actually facilitating the spread of Islamism among American Muslims.

Make no mistake. There are many Muslims who do understand that anti-theocratic societies like the United States are preferable for the free practice of their own private faith and that of all others. In fact, many Muslims are inherently anti-Islamist by virtue of being pious Muslims demanding to be free of coercion. That is why many of our families immigrated to the United States. But virtually no efforts are underway to find these Muslims, who are our greatest untapped resource since September 11.

Islam, as a personal faith, and its inherent spirituality, worship, moral code and practices can and should be looked upon as entirely separate from all that is political Islam. This is the profound challenge of anti-Islamist Muslims of this generation. While this separation is admittedly hard to find, its existence is essential to our victory in this ideological battle.

Muslim ideological moderation is not achieved by a declaration of nonviolence. It is not demonstrated by a belief in elections and representative democracy. The radical Islamists simply ride along with moderate Islamists toward the same arena. They repackage themselves as moderates while still residing within an Islamist construct.

For example, Europe’s radical, pretend moderate, Imam Yusef al-Qaradawi, the international spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Grand Islamic Scholar of Qatar, has recently been pushing for a “wasatiya” (middle way) movement, often preaching to his followers to moderate and tolerate. Yet, he continues to have the blood of American soldiers and innocent civilians in Iraq on his hands, with his endorsement of the religious legitimacy of suicide bombing in Iraq. He moderates his language for European audiences and reverts back to his fundamentalism for his Al Jazeera audiences. His fundamentalist stances are misogynistic, anti-Semitic, anti-Western, pro-Islamist and anti-freedom.

In the current American discourse, we should be curious to learn whether Muslims agree with leaders like him and why. Unless my fellow Muslims are willing to take on the likes of al-Qaradawi ideologically, they will continue to facilitate Islamism and its associated threat to American security.

When we fought the ideological battle against communism during the Cold War, was there a moderate Communist ideology? The public intellectual debate was clear that Americanism and communism were entirely incompatible. The Soviet goal for global domination was an imminent threat to our security. Similarly, the Chinese, North Vietnamese, North Koreans and Cubans, to name a few, had central conflicts with American ideology. Are we as aware of the threat posed by “moderate” Islamists regardless of their denunciation of militancy? Those who know American Muslims will tell you that the violent jihadists are a small minority of the world’s Muslim population and hard to find in our local communities. This militant minority, including members of al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas and others, certainly needs to be found and reckoned with swiftly and forcefully on the battlefield. However, the jihadists use barbaric methods to achieve change toward a theocratic political end – political Islam.

Political Islam, on the contrary, has great support within the Muslim population. It should be engaged relentlessly in our public arena. Only anti-Islamist Muslims can change that tide. But, for now, our private and public-sector thought leaders should first wake up and force the debate.

M. Zuhdi Jasser is chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and a former Navy lieutenant commander.

Faux ‘moderate’ Islamists- Part 1 of 3

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Faux ‘moderate’ Islamists

August 2, 2006

M. Zuhdi Jasser

Part one in a three-part series (appeared in Washington Times).

It is almost five years since September 11, one year since the July 7 attacks in Britain and just months after the arrests of alleged members of a Toronto terrorist cell. But the intellectual machinery of the United States has not legitimately engaged the Muslim American community and its leadership in an ideological debate about Islamism.

Stories about Muslims and Islam are now ubiquitous in the mainstream media. Yet rarely is there any substantive discussion with American Muslims about the ideology of Islamism or its prevalence. Is it limited to the activists? Is it the money trail? Or is it the faith? These questions and others that engage American Muslims in declaring or denouncing Islamist ideology seem to generally be off-limits for the media and for our elected officials. As they dance around this central cognitive engagement of our global war, the consequences to our nation’s security are immeasurable.

Many frontline reporters seem to actually have little understanding of the conflict between Islamism and Islam. There is a deep contradiction between the Islamist ideology of theocracy and our Americanism. Avoiding this, we forget who we are. The touchstone of Americanism that Islamists fear the most is our constitutional system, which protects our individual spiritual liberty through a complete separation of religion and state.

While the vast majority of Muslims do not support terrorism as a means of political change, the burning question is where Muslim leaders and their constituencies stand regarding the ideology of Islamism. Moreover, is there a difference between Islam and Islamism? If pious Muslims can be anti-Islamist, shouldn’t public discourse highlight this potent ideological weapon against the political ends of our enemies?

There are plenty of news and human-interest stories about Muslims and Islam that discuss the so-called “moderate” Muslim American identity. But what is the exact measure of this moderation? The concept of moderation can be superimposed upon any ideological construct. How long is it going to take for conventional wisdom to come to terms with the fact that moderation within Islamism is in no way moderation with regards to Americanism? Until this understanding is commonplace, anti-Islamist American Muslims are going to be unable to force the hand of their fellow Muslims in the ideological conflict within Islam against the Islamist ends.

Why? Anti-Islamists are a minority among activist American Muslims. Internally, we are usually ignored or dismissed by the majority of our activist co-religionists when trying to engage them in debate regarding the dangers and toxicity of Islamism upon Islam. No matter how pious, anti-Islamists are often demonized as irreligious. All the while we try to argue that, to the contrary, there is no closer relationship a Muslim can have with God than one entirely free from government and clerical coercion.

On June 18, the New York Times ran a story by Laura Goodstein, “U.S. Clerics seek a Middle Ground,” which highlighted the “moderate” work of Sheikh Hamza Yusuf and his colleague, Imam Zaid Shakir. The bulk of this typical story discussed platitudes regarding the personal struggles of these American Muslim leaders and positively anticipated their development of a moderate Muslim seminary. However, nowhere did the New York Times delve into a genuine critical analysis of whether there was a central conflict in the ideology of the Zaytuna Institute, the school mentioned in the New York Times piece, and that of America. Yet, the piece ended with this alarming quotation from Mr. Shakir: “He still hoped that one day the United States would be a Muslim country ruled by Islamic law, not by violent means, but by persuasion.” The imam further stated, “Every Muslim who is honest would say, I would like to see America become a Muslim country,” he said. “I think it would help people, and if I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be a Muslim. Because Islam helped me as a person, and it’s helped a lot of people in my community.”

Not only is this a blatant endorsement of Islamism (theocracy) over Americanism (anti-theocracy), but this imam labels anti-Islamist Muslims dishonest. The radical Islamists are rabidly anti-American from their fear of pluralistic liberty. They are too insecure to give Muslims or any citizens the opportunity to be free and to choose to sin or not. Can mainstream American thought afford to be naive and uncritical about this central theme of Islamist movements? Radical or moderate, regardless of the packaging, the goal of Islamists is to create a Muslim theocracy. Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League responded with clarity in his June 23 letter to the New York Times: “Religion flourishes in America because we have no imposed religion, as the founding fathers designed. Imam Zaid Shakir’s hope for an America ruled by Islamic law is fundamentally un-American. Our hope is that he is an aberration and that moderate Muslim voices will prevail.”

How long is it going to take for our mass media and political leaders to finally begin to turn our collective lenses upon this un-American ideology and report on the threat it poses to America even in its most subtle forms? If Muslims insist upon remaining silent about the dangers to Americanism of Islamist ideological infiltration, we must ask why. Anti-Islamist Muslims receive the brunt of attacks from radical Islamists. This is not happenstance. Conversely, attempts by so-called moderates to ‘Islamize’ America are cheered on by the radicals no matter how far these ‘moderates’ try to distance themselves from them in all their empty condemnations.
How long will it take Muslims to frontally counter Islamism (political Islam) and separate it from their Abrahamic religion of Islam? We in the Muslim community unfortunately need a little nudging before it’s too late. America’s security hangs in the balance.

M. Zuhdi Jasser is chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and a former Navy lieutenant commander.

Islamofascist Rage in Seattle

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07/30/2006 11:35:56

Time to expose and defeat the ideology which sparked Haq’s Mind

M. Zuhdi Jasser
Chairman, American Islamic Forum for Democracy

On Friday the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle was viciously attacked by the terror of madman Naveed Afzal Haq. Haq is apparently a 30 year old “Muslim American” who was reportedly a ‘loner’ and ‘mentally ill.’ At 4 P.M. on July 28th, he stormed into the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle and reportedly announced that he was a “Muslim American” and that he “was angry with Israel.” He began shooting indiscriminately at the 18 employees in the office murdering one and critically injuring five.

The entire Seattle interfaith community must be horrified after witnessing Friday’s barbaric hate crimes perpetrated upon the Jewish community of Seattle. One can only pray for their strength as they recover. When one faith is attacked with a hate crime every one of us is affected.

Can this all simply be dismissed as the actions of a lone crazed gunman? Is the fact that he was Muslim a footnote or actually a symptom of a more systemic illness– islamism? What inspired his hate? Is his inspiration only the truly fanatic or do the likes of Naveen Haq find something from within the ideology of mainstream Islamism which lights their spark?

In the rest of the country, we can only sit and pray that such horror never happen again. But, recent history argues otherwise. It’s a matter of time. We can no longer waste any time. It is long overdue that we go beyond the ‘politically correct’ dismissals of these so-called isolated episodes of ‘rage’. These individuals may not be connected in the conscious realm but there is a subconscious realm of Islamism which is ignored. It is time to seriously evaluate the signs, symptoms, and pathological origin of each incident (each moderate turned fanatic). Make a diagnosis. And then institute a treatment.

Recall, on July 4, 2002, Mr. Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, a crazed Egyptian-American immigrant Muslim, opened fire at the ticketing counter of El Al Airlines at Los Angeles International airport murdering two and wounding four before being shot down. In March of this year, Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, terrorized the campus of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill driving his vehicle into nine pedestrians all of whom fortunately survived. Before their rampages each had blamed the U.S. and the west for ‘killing Muslims’ so they responded with rage.

At the end of the day, there is little difference in the motivation, the means, or the ends of groups like Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbullah, or any of these ‘crazed’ individuals. Thus, it is the intangible, their spiritual subconscious we must combat. Muslims turned crazed Islamofascists strike out at America, Jews, or any of a list of other groups because of their ideology and their anti-social mindset. We cannot ignore their common ideological progenitor- Islamism. We naively dismiss the common psychological features of these psychopaths to our own peril. Each individual is uniquely ill, but their lethal inspiration is the same.

The dust should not settle on this shooting in Seattle without harnessing our resources to address what exactly was the specific ideological stimuli which lit this man’s psychopathic match. We certainly cannot attempt to predict or prevent psychopathology. The point is rather to determine what information or ideas led to his combustion and defeat it.

There should be no holds bar in looking under every stone in order to learn what exactly drove the mind of Naveen Haq in the weeks and months leading to his rage. Investigators should reveal all in shedding light upon the specifics of the ideologies which finally drove Haq to the breaking point. It is of great interest for us to know what websites, books, publications and ideologies sparked his mind and his subconscious. We are each a product of what we absorb and each individual can respond to the same hate differently depending upon their guiding moral compass. If we can begin to understand what ideologies drive these few Muslims toward terror, we can begin to unravel and defeat the very soul of our enemy abroad and domestically.

Defeat the ideology and these radical outbursts will disappear.

As some Muslim organizations rushed yesterday to condemn the shootings, in “the strongest possible terms”, such condemnations seem to be misplaced and just more misdirected energy. If these organizations had active concerted anti-Islamist campaigns to deconstruct the supremacist Islamist ideology which feeds these individuals, they would shed the sense of need to ever make bizarre pronouncements of condemnations which should go without saying. The problem they find themselves in is that many sane Muslims as part of radical political movements from Bin Laden to Zawahiri to Nasrallah to Ahmednidijad say and do the same type of violence.

My coreligionists along with conventional wisdom need to finally begin working toward defeating Islamism as an ideology, or these series will sadly continue.

Within the widely prevalent ideology of Islamism (in its most radical form-Islamofascism) is a utopian, intolerant, anti-Semitic, anti-Western, theocratic exclusivity. This is the clinical progenitor of the primary malignant tumor cell of all that is islamofascism whether in the individual or the community. These cells can divide and produce many different cancers-some more malignant than others.

One type of Islamist malignant cancer cell plants itself in the community of Muslims in their religion, politics and government mixing all as one and suffocating the individual and their own faith. It manifests in the community consciousness of the regimes and movements of the likes of Iran, Hamas, Al Qaeda, and Hezbullah and other radical or fundamentalist Islamist movements.

Another very similar malignant cancer cell type plants itself in the accepting pathological minds of individuals like Haq and manifests itself in the final actions of these individuals and their own subconscious derangement. Both the communal malignancy and the individual malignancy are similar drives toward domination of society which is threatened by the west, threatened by religious freedom and liberty, and threatened by our anti-theocratic ideology.

Only Muslims can acknowledge the role of Islamism in sparking this violence. Only Muslims can place the inebriating nature of this ideology outside of Islam and thus outside our consciousness. Even a moderated Islamism may be less violent but it is still intoxicating to the weak accepting mind in its all-encompassing form. The growing list of radical violent outbursts from selected Muslim individuals and terror organizations makes the case for the fact that Islamism is actually a malignancy and could never be moderated since it is a failed ideology at its core.

Islamists would argue that they cannot be held responsible for preventing the actions of a deranged few within their midst. Is this reply much different from a family or our society arguing that it bears no responsibility for the deaths caused by a drunk-driver. Law enforcement does have an impact, but there is no greater prevention than the treatment of alcoholism. Similarly, Islamism needs to be defeated. For, when infused into a consciousness it can lead to this type of spontaneous violence in the name of religion.

The American Muslim community needs to take the first of its twelve steps and acknowledge that Islamism may be the spark within the community which keeps setting localities ablaze. As we learn and expose where Islamism directly conflicts with Americanism we will cross each step towards a treatment and a sorely needed cure against the malignant manifestations of radical Islamism.

Rather than waste time condemning acts which any sane human being would find unconscionable, sane Muslim Americans need to dismantle the ideology which fuels the minds that commit these acts. That is the least we can do to honor the memory of those who lose their lives or are injured in these heinous hate crimes.

The National debate over Islamism is long overdue

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In Wednesday’s Washington Times, it was refreshing to see Tony Blankley lead the way in demanding that the American public start asking more questions about Islamism. He asks the questions which very few are asking and yet seems so obvious after so long into this war.

The unrelenting series of Islamist terrorist actions around the world could not be disconnected groups when they all share the same Islamist ideological goals. Hezbullah and its recent prelude to war against Israel cannot be “Just another Coincidence?“. He poignantly says the following which is excerpted from his July 26,2006 editorial.

“Most Europeans – and far too many Americans – still see Hezbollah terrorism as just part of that Arab-Israeli mess in the Middle East. (And, of course, Hezbollah doesn’t want foreigners to stop it from killing.) But, more importantly, most of the peoples of the world – including U.S. citizens – still don’t believe that radical Islamist terrorism is a grave, worldwide challenge to civilization. And therein lies our greatest strategic failure to date. So long as most people – certainly most Europeans, perhaps most Americans – see Islamist terrorism as merely the more or less disconnected actions of a relatively small number of fanatics, then Europeans will never send their sons to fight and die to defeat it.”

What should be done? Here are his specific recommendations which should be heeded if we are to win this war:

The president should give a series of major speeches on the nature of the worldwide threat…The Senate and House Foreign Relations Committees should hold extensive, high-octane, joint, select public hearings in the next two months on the nature of the threat. Let the best advocates for each perception testify. Former presidents, princes, generals and specialists should all come and testify. Congress can and must give both depth of analysis and sustained public attention to such a presidential initiative. The media should give major front-page and top-of-the-news attention to such a great debate. It is not enough for Fox, The Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, talk radio, selected authors and blogs to carry on the debate. The mainstream media
should join in giving prolonged, prominent coverage in conjunction with such hearings.

In five years we have, remarkably, never had such a sustained effort to publicly debate the nature of the danger. At the outset of the Cold War, Congress spent years holding hearings on the “red menace.” Some people think they overdid it. I do not. It required that sort of an effort to establish the public support and bipartisan judgment over the 50 years that Communism was in fact a worldwide threat to civilization. It was such a threat; and it was defeated – but only because the public, for 50 years, understood the danger and voted for politicians who were prepared to devote trillions to defense.

As the Iranian parliament today distributed Hezbullah flags to its members shamelessly in true to form radical islamofascism, the interconnectedness of Islamist regimes and terrrorist Islamist organizations like Hezbullah was again plain for all to see. And yet, we remain nationally silent with so little debate in the public arena over Islamism.

Mr. Blankley finishes with continued clarity for our next steps against Islamism as a nation:

“Before action must come belief; before belief must come understanding; before understanding must come education and debate. In the beginning was the word. It is time to begin.”

The Synergy of Libertarianism and Islam

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AFFAIRS OF RELIGION AND AFFAIRS OF STATE

Address by M. ZUHDI JASSER, Chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy
Delivered to the Economics Discussion Group of Phoenix, Phoenix, Arizona, October 19, 2005

When it comes to libertarian ideology and its synergy with Islam, mine is a minority opinion within the “current” Muslim community. My prayer is that it is a majority opinion within the Muslim conscience.

It is my belief as a Muslim that libertarianism is a prerequisite for piety and for a pure unadulterated relationship with God. Faith must be personal in order to be “faith”. Moreover, what is faith?—but a belief in that which cannot be proven but does exist and for which one may be held accountable? Islam as I know it and practice it is a personal faith without encumbrance external to my own physical being, to myself. It is unencumbered by clergy, or a man-made hierarchy.

It is my belief as a Muslim that liberty is necessary for religion and religion is necessary for liberty.

The independent nature of this relationship is at the core of the success of both ideologies—a virtual covalent bond.

What is Islam as a religion? What is Islam to me?

Islam is derived from the root term selama, “to surrender or submit” to God. Thus, in reference to the relationship of the soul with God, the almighty creator, the soul is only at “peace” [selam] if it has completely submitted to the will of God. One will achieve the ultimate free will—the purest of liberty and truth—if a Muslim has submitted to God. The crux of the matter is thus what is exactly meant by this submission. I could elaborate ad nauseam about what this concept is “not”. But today I will only focus on what it “is” to me. I will focus on what my faith is, in forming who I am as a libertarian Muslim.

Interestingly, while we may have a few quibbles on whether I tow the line of libertarianism in areas of a forward foreign policy or accepting government payments in my medical practice, I believe the area in my life in which I am a strict uncompromising libertarian is in my relationship with God. This relationship is unidirectional. While I am a creation of God, my understanding and manifestation of that relationship is entirely created by me and enacted by me. The vehicle of internal harmony which I utilize to achieve peace in my relationship with God is one based on the Truth that my perception of God is that He is real and all encompassing, omnipresent, omnipotent, and all empowering in a divine humility. In the absence of a belief in a Creator and the free will He (the Creator) placed within me to choose to believe in Him, I am left inexorably with the emptiness of self-worship (this is a binary formula similar to many other binary choices in life). The presupposition of His creation is initiated with Free Will (Liberty).

In the Koran, God tells Muslims—“If I so desired to I could have forced you to believe, but I did not.” Thus to believe in God and his faith is to believe an individual’s choice is his or hers alone and must be free of coercion or else the entire faith is abrogated and irreconcilable. The purity of this choice, this liberty to believe, is unequaled in life for it is this choice over which all else is measured and over which I believe, as a believer, I will be judged in the Hereafter. The existence of a Day of a Judgment by the creator establishes the binary nature of life. Good and bad, joy and sadness, or pleasure and pain without both we know neither.

The decision, or any of our exercises of freedom and free will, are meaningless if they are not finalized with a judgment or an observation from the Creator. Joy is meaningless without pain. Love is meaningless without hate or apathy. This choice and final arbitration is the ultimate chance and the ultimate test of liberty. While we always seek to understand life, to understand God is to have that comfort of an explanation for all that in life which defies explanation no matter how hard I try. This is the submission. With liberty as the core truth upon which we all agree, the variation of that Truth whether the God of Abraham through Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, or any other faith is very personal with all being possibly the ‘right path’.

Relevant historical landmarks of the Islamic faith

The religion of Islam was brought to this world from God, Muslims believe through a revelation transmitted by the angel Gabriel to the Prophet Mohammed beginning in 610 C.E. and ending in 633 C.E. This revelation intermittently was compiled to form the Muslim holy book—the Holy Qur’an. The faith was not revealed to Jews or Christians in order to convert them, but rather to the pagans of Arabia who had no moral code, and wallowed in materialism, arrogance, ignorance, and tribalism.

In the Qur’an, God retells many of the stories of Judaism and Christianity to the Muslims of Arabia from Adam to Abraham to Moses to Jesus.

Mohammed wore many hats, and in reading the Qur’an one notes that it is very clear in the passages when God is referring to Mohammed as His Prophet, as His Messenger, or as the head of state. This shared role certainly stretches one’s ability to purely separate the concepts of religion and state. But in the scheme of history, the revelation of Islam had been a profound step forward in the journey toward liberty and in the journey to separate that of this world from that of the next. The creation of the city-state of Medina and its compact with the many tribes of various faiths in the region rests in history as one of man’s greatest steps forward in establishing an example of pluralism and a governmental contract guaranteeing liberty and freedom from government and of religion regardless of faith. This was based upon a foundation of Islamic law, the sharia. So a knowledge of the legal processes of the faith of Islam was prerequisite.

For centuries this foundation became the basis of a new global liberty. Many in fact fled Europe to escape the persecution of medieval Christianity of the time in exchange for the open society of the Islamic world. Paul Johnson, in the History of the Jews refers to this period in the 12th Century as the Golden Age of Judaism. Islamic renaissance brought forward Greek philosophy, new sciences of algebra, applied mathematics, astronomy, advanced medicine (Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine), and a cumulative experiential law based upon local precedents with little central authority.

The positive contributions to the world of Islamic society from 650 to 1500 are numerous and are the subjects of treatises. But, what followed is also a complicated history which through a number of stages led to the deconstruction of the Muslim community.

With the Ottoman Empire closed were the days of religious ijtihad—the interpretation of Islamic scripture in light of modern day understanding. The independence of religious centers of higher learning was a thing of the past. The dynamic nature of religious law in a precedent system similar to that of western courts of today was no more under the militarized Ottomans. This culminated in Ataturk outlawing the Arabic language and stifling any ability for attempts at ijtihad.

The Twentieth Century brought Muslims a colonial change, a change which distanced them even further from a modern interpretation of their faith. After the World Wars the abrupt withdrawal of foreign forces left some hope for democracy and freedom, but the vacuum and demilitarization of the people empowered coups and installed dictatorships across the Middle East. These dictatorships and oil monarchies ultimately completed the destruction of Muslim civilization, institutionalized corruption, and brought much of the community back to pre-Islamic tribalism, and moral vacancy. The only religious institutions fostered were those which catered to the despots and fostered radicalism. Witness the spread of salafism, Wahhabism, the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the litany of other fundamentalist ideologies and their offspring militant organizations. The exploitation of the religion of Islam for political divisiveness spread throughout the Muslim world. Political Islam (Islamism) was born and remains the primary affliction of the Muslim world.

That which is sacred is above the scientific and the rational which is open to critique and deconstruction. As Abdelkarim Soroush, author of Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam: the Writings of Abdelkarim Soroush states, “religious geometry or religious thermodynamics are possible in only as far as one presupposes that the world has a common source of truth otherwise the ‘religious’ is separate from science.” He further asks, “How can human beings fraught with error create ‘infallible’ governments or churches?”

Dr. Soroush further states, Religion in Islam from the Qur’an is “a language of duties not rights”. Humans are simply being given commandments by a supreme authority in a language of sharia’ (rules of God transmitted to Muslims no different from ‘mitzvot” of Judaism). But yet it remains that the ultimate acceptance and governance is still divinely individual—in point of fact libertarian.
If one were to sit down and write rules for one’s own home, even though there is a strict set of rules, it would still be libertarian since the introduction, acceptance, continuation or the end of the rules would remain voluntary. While much of the Qur’an is rules, the acceptance of them is purely individual and is to be left inviolable by society.

The Muslim concept of sin and forgiveness as it relates to liberty

To a Muslim, infants are born pure and sin-free without need for baptism. In fact, it is felt in Islamic theology that children who die before the age of reason, age of true choice or liberty, are not judged by God negatively for any reason and are believed to go to heaven by His decision as a result of their purity. Once beyond the age when the superego and the soul understand right from wrong, at death an individual awaits God’s judgment.

Muslims believe that life’s actions are the ultimate barometer of faith on earth. In the end, Muslim theology imparts that God will judge these actions in a “bal¬anced” fashion with an all-encompassing assessment of our good and bad deeds of our life. The only beliefs judged are those in regards to Him. The others are opinions related to this earth and are part of the shades of gray of human interac¬tions. On earth it is not obligations but a measure of gain and loss as measured by a number of issues form one’s intentions to the final arbiter—God.

Thus, individuals choose alone, and sin alone. No one else, not even the parent will be there on the day of Judgment to bear the sin (thus the major deviation from Christianity over ‘salvation’ or ‘Jesus taking on our sins’ or ‘the assurance of heaven based only on salvation—there is no assurances of heaven in Islam regardless of what some may say). Confes¬sion or absolution of sins by a third party is antithetical to Islam. The need for baptism to wash away sins of birth is also not in line with the essence of Islamic concepts of faith, liberty. The analogy of Adam choosing sin and thus we are all born to sin is also antithetical to Islamic concepts of sin and purity at birth.

As I stated at the outset, it is my belief as a Muslim that liberty is necessary for religion and religion is necessary for liberty. The independent nature of this relationship is at the core of the success of both ideologies—a supernatural covalent bond. In the first, as I mentioned, the loss of liberty negates actual faith and God’s tests or challenges of free will then become rote actions of coercion. In the second, religion brings with it the definition of a value system or morality which forms the superego and allows society to function in security in the absence of the ‘state’.

Now ‘Godless’ individuals can have a similar value system as a utilitarian argument. However, it is my belief that engrained within free will is an arrogance, a vacuum of humility, which without reigning in by religion and by a ‘fear’ or put more precisely a ‘respect’ for God, could not otherwise lead to a globally moral society. We have seen this in the pagan societies before Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is in a way absurd to assume that the freedom, and liberty of today’s society and our great advancements came from anywhere else other than as a result of a pious Judeo-Christian-Islamic culture albeit after wresting control away from religion (but still in the ever-presence of religion and its values). To say that atheism or paganism can now be successful whether or not moral, is like allowing the Chinese to claim a benefit from globalization and then saying that their communism created the success of their free markets.

Complete Equality of all human beings

Islam has no ‘church structure’, no institutional, hierarchy: all human beings are equal (even the Messengers of God)

This lack of institutionalization is certainly not obvious to a student of the so-called Muslim world, but as a devout libertarian Muslim, it’s the only way I see my faith. The Koran is the only direct communication of the creator with Muslims and nothing else represents him. Thus the communication was one way via our messenger just as prior messengers and now we communicate personally in the other direction through prayer. This communication, this relationship would be inexorably altered if an intermediary were to step in with constricting rules as to the mechanism or ‘permission.’ In the end if it is clear that God will judge individuals on Judgment in isolation from anyone else, then they must be free of any hierarchical control or interpretative leadership.

In fact, in my own tradition of Sunni Islam (as compared to Shia) it is felt that ‘ceremonial’ practice is discouraged since it empowers a pseudo-clergy which may in the end interfere in this liberal relationship between an individual and God. From this innate close relationship comes the need to maintain its pure monotheism. Thus, in Islam one finds a distinct differentiation or theological disagreement with the Christian concept of the Trinity. The supernatural power and nature of God in his spirit is acknowledged but never separated from his oneness (tawhid). The Qur’an strictly describes that God begets none and is not begotten. This variant understanding of Jesus Christ as messenger of God in Islam versus son of God in Christianity is the primary theological difference between the faiths.

Thus, one understands the prohibition in Islam of giving God a human characteristic and also the prohibition of a picture of any of the prophets or deification of individuals no matter how great or pious.

The Legal Tradition of Islam

The sharia evolved in Islam as a legal framework from which to enact the moral guidance of God as enumerated in the Qur’an. This was lent to over centuries by scholars and jurists schooled in the religious law. The evolution was similar to the development of any precedent based juristic law. Just as our own American law evolved side by side with the original U.S. Constitution, religious law can evolve similarly side by side with the Qur’an. Its dynamic modernization is reflected off of the original intent of the primary document and its current understanding. This is with the most important caveat that these two legal systems should remain completely separate.
br />This separation is the essence of the conflict between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim world of the twenty-first century. I am an originalist in U.S. law and separately and similarly a classically liberal originalist and modernist in my own interpretation of the Holy Qur’an.

Accepting and rejecting Islam

While history of the spread of Islam is rife with assertions of the meanings of ‘jihad’, in today’s world it is clear that this word, jihad is one of a militaristic coercion of religion. Based on the libertarian ideology of faith which I practice, any individual who expresses vocally let alone physically a need to change another individual has violated his own faith. Faith is simply limited to God’s role with that individual. Any interference by any other individual violates the whole premise of faith in God.

In my understanding of my own faith of Islam, even the correction of minor transgressions of religious law are forbid¬den between individuals for our moral behavior teaches us to honor individual independence and teach by subtle example not by coercion or even suggestion.

Free markets and Islam

The very nature of Islamic banking is free of collectivism and inherently decentralized. Profit-making, the invisible hand, and the ‘virtue of selfishness” are all precepts to which I find no conflict within my faith and in fact I find encourage¬ment within my faith.

I am going to use an analogy to the Islamic injunction against clergy. God states in the Qur’an, that he created natural needs of hunger, thirst, and intimacy and the clerical need to remain celibate is unnatural and violates the virtue of the sanctity of marriage. Free markets are the same. As long as we utilize our wealth in moral ways investment in capitalistic institutions is very Islamic and encouraged.

Some cite the prohibition of interest as anti-capitalistic. First of all, it is strictly usury which is discussed. Since lower interest rates could be interpreted as fees by simple semantic changes. But the intent of the theological argument is that all parties in a financial capital risk in fact share the risk. There should be no involved parties insulated from risk in the free market. For example, Islamic charity is prescribed to be 2.5% of one’s savings (assets). Thus, the more one spends and the less one hoards, the less charity God commands us to spend. This seems to be a resounding endorsement of the free market and concept of ‘virtue of selfishness’.

It is interesting to also note that Rose Wilder Lane in her book, Islam and the Discovery of Freedom cites the period of the introduction of Islam into the Arabian peninsula as one of the three major revolutions in man toward capitalism and free markets.

Libertarianism and Islam

Is Islam, is this a system of government? Islamism most certainly is while Islam most certainly is not. Islam does carry a set of laws and thus has an inherent rule of law which is inherent also within that which we understand as classical liberalism or libertarianism. But this is separate and without government.

Religion is negated by the abrogation of free will to the state. Actions prescribed by God, once they are prescribed by the state no longer become actions of faith but are actions of slavery imposed by a state. From charity to civic service to morality in dress and conduct, freedom and liberty allow one to exercise a moral faith. Just as libertarianism is abrogated by governmental control so to is a pious individually practiced Islam.

The concept of inalienable rights is a deeply religious one which without this foundation one could argue we should rather have a Darwinian society of the survival of the fittest rather than the freest.

Predicated upon the Muslim belief of God passing judgment is that this judgment is not only over the test of life’s challenges and of one’s moral failures and successes as an independent soul but upon the specific utilization of an individual’s gifts. Society if it were to make rules could never create a situation other than in complete liberty where an individual’s gifts from God are tested without encumbrance.

The actions of prayer, fasting, paying alms to the poor, pilgrimage to Mecca, and bearing witness to one God must be entirely free in order to be real. Coerced virtues are no longer virtues.

A society based upon liberty and free markets is predicated upon the presence of a moral code and the inherent trust of all of the participants (as Fukayama eloquently writes about in Trust). Thus, the more individually pious a society is, the more able they are to practice a libertarian philosophy within the society. The less pious and thus, the less ethical they are, the more autocracy they may need.

Working within the acts of this earth—studying this earth and its sciences is equivalent in Islam to reading the book of God. Both are in fact felt to be a form of communicating with God, the God of Abraham. This stimulation of human creativity is at its depth very free market, very libertarian and very Muslim. For Muslims are taught that creativity in science, nature, technology, art is equivalent to communicating with God.

This is one Muslim’s view of his own faith. It is not only of interest because it is compelling to me, but the spread of a libertarian ideology within the Muslim community, the ummah, is one of the primary issues of the day. As we look at the threats to American and western security, the radical Islamists do not hate the west because of our affluence or of our free markets. They have been able to form an image of America and the west which the rank and file Muslim views as “godless”.

The Islamists of the Muslim community (perhaps the majority of the ummah) have equated the separation of religion and state with the absence of religion. I believe it is rather the contrary—the most pious system for a society. They have equated the separation of religion and state as immoral. I believe it is rather the contrary—the most moral system for society. They have equated the separation of religion and state with a distance from God. I believe there is no society which permits a closer more genuine un-coerced relationship with God than one founded upon libertarian principles.

It is for this reason that my parents fled the oppression of the Syrian government in the 1960’s in order to come to America and live the American dream. I was raised believ¬ing and experiencing the fact that in no other place on earth do I have the freedom and the liberty to practice my faith unencumbered by government as I do in the United States. While we do see a sadly increasingly interventional government into our daily lives, the fact is until this very day, that scriptural and theological argumentation are not part of our governmental lawmaking in America. We simply use the logic of our human interactions to enact our values. It is this system which political Islam detests and it is this system which I as a freedom-loving classically liberal Muslim love.

My hope is that other libertarian Muslims wherever they may be wake-up and realize that their day has come now to be accounted and lead the ideological battle waged by Islamists against Muslims who separate the affairs of religion from the affairs of the state.

Thank you for your time and attention.


This speech was delivered to the Economics Discussion Group of Phoenix, Arizona on October 19, 2005.

It was published recently in Vital Speeches of the Day, May 2006, VOL. LXXII, No. 14-15. Subscriptions and copies can be obtained from the publishers website.

Death Threats Against a list of Moderate Muslims in the West

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An Egyptian group calling itself the ‘al-Jama’ah Consultative Council” has disseminated a hit list of moderate Muslims felt by their radical group to be apostates on April 10, 2006. They gave the list three days to disavow their stances or they will be killed. Their threat said the following:

“We will follow them everywhere they go and at anytime; and they can never be far from the swords of truth, and they are closer to us that our shoelaces. They are monitored day and night. We are fully aware of their hiding places, their houses, their children’s schools, and the times when their wives are alone at home. We gave our rules to the soldiers of God to execute the rule of God so that their blood can become close to God [to kill them] and burn their houses. And we thank God that many of those infidels and atheists do not exist in the land of Islam, so that they do not defile the Islamic land with their rotten blood. They are in the land of infidelity, the land of idols, pagans, and Cross worshippers: in America, Canada, Switzerland, and Italy. If they existed on a spot in the Islamic land, let us wash the places of their slaughter and beheading seven times to purify the Islamic land of the impurity of their blood. And let us captivate their women and enslave their children loot them. Let us apply the Islamic rule to them; and whoever kills one of them, will get his loot.”

This satanic message also names their families and children as targets with a list of their names.

Stephen Schwartz, executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism in Washington D.C. has released the following statement:

The Center for Islamic Pluralism vigorously protests the dissemination of death threats against a group of Arab intellectuals living in the West, including one of our founders, Imam Ahmed Subhy Mansour, and the distinguished liberal social critic Saad Eddin Ibrahim. We commit our utmost efforts to protection of those at risk. CIP provides a translation of the list and some relevant notes.

Issuers of such death threats are truly our greatest enemies in the war against militant Islamism. While some may dismiss such threats, we must take them seriously until this so called ‘al-Jama’ah Consultative Council is apprehended and brought to justice.

This threat is exemplary of the same old tired method used in the Middle East for over half a century to silence many of the moderates of Islam who work to directly combat fanaticism, extremism, and militancy among our fellow Muslims.

And in effect, by silencing through fear Muslim moderates who preach pluralism, they strengthen other Muslim organizations who refuse to engage the radicals and simply speak of victimization.

Our first priority in the War on Terror should be to harness our resources as quickly as possible in making our lands of freedom and liberty in the West safe havens for all those Muslims who are strong enough to wage the war of words against Islamists.

We cannot overstate the importance of making it painfully clear to this organization in Egypt and every other one across the planet which chooses to threaten and intimidate those who speak out that we will all rush to the defense of those Muslims and freedom fighters who are threatened. We will bring each and every one of their satanic voices to justice, and we will strengthen the voices of Islam which preach moderation, pluralism, freedom, and liberty for all.

Moreover, strategically, in the war against militant Islamism, nothing is more central than amplifying the Muslim voices of pluralism and freedom against these voices of oppression and theocracy. Our security agencies, our diplomatic corps, our military on the ground, and our administration should spare no words or action in identifying these individuals, their group, and others like them as being one of the main heads of the snake we fight abroad.

They just don’t get it

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Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR rushed in his letter to the editor on March 31, 2006 to a list of programs and statements of condemnation which his organization has made in the recent past concerning terrorism and hate. He seems to either conveniently or carelessly miss the entire point of my March 30, 2006 column, Cancer in its Midst in the Washington Times. Let me make my points more direct. CAIR (Council for American-Islamic Relations) and other Muslim organizations gain their public notoriety as supposed Muslim responses to the darkness cast over our community from radical Islamists. Its response, however, is all about victimization and little else. And yet again, in Mr. Hooperﾒs response to my column he still could not get himself to answer these questions which I all but spelled out: 1- Will they directly help to dismantle and lead an organized effort against terrorist organizations and individuals by name beginning with Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, and HAMAS to name just a few of the radical Islamist enemies of America? Will they name and ideologically engage the extremism of the Wahhabists of Saudi Arabia, the theocrats of Iran, Sudan, and the litany of other despots and theocrats in the Muslim world in their so far empty nameless condemnations of terrorism? 2- Will Mr. Hooper acknowledge that political Islam (Islamism) is the toxin which feeds the terrorism committed by radicalized Muslims? 3- If so, is it not the primary role of Muslim American organizations to lead the ideological war against radical Islamists? Non-Muslims can do nothing to deconstruct this poisonous ideology. Our fellow Americans living in fear for their security are looking for us to lead this fight. The credibility of Muslims is suffering deeply as a result of the complete denial of this responsibility by the likes of Mr. Hooper. 4- As a fellow Muslim, will Mr. Hooper join me in the call to my fellow co-religionists to fully and unequivocally separate the spiritual from the political? If not, then Mr. Hooper just doesnﾒt get it. Opinion polls continue to fall concerning the credibility of Muslims and their stance in this war against radical Islamists. Our community needs organizations with a new paradigm in this global conflict. Unless, leading Muslim organizations primarily and frontally engage ideological Islamism (political Islam), in an effort to cure the cancer from our midst, all of their other efforts will remain, pure and simply, self-serving and far from embodying the Golden Rule.

Cancer in its Midst

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‘Cancer in its midst’

By M. Zuhdi Jasser

Published March 30, 2006

Washington Times

During the dark days of our Revolution, Thomas Paine wrote, “That these are the times that try men’s souls.” As an American Muslim, I feel the sentiment of these words like a red-hot brand on my brain.

I have watched horrified as assassins have read out the words from my Holy Koran before slitting the throats of some poor innocent souls. To my non-comprehending eyes, I have seen mothers proudly support their sons’ accomplishment of blowing up innocent people as they eat or travel. It shatters some part of me, to see my faith as an instrument for butchery.

It makes me hope and pray for some counter-movement within my faith which will push back all this darkness. And I know that it must start with what is most basic — the common truth that binds all religions: “Do unto others, as you would have them do onto you.” The Golden Rule.

But that is not what I am seeing taught in a great deal of the Muslim world today, and, unfortunately, in America it’s just not much better.

Night after night, I see Muslim national organizations like the Council for American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, cry out over and over about anecdotal victimization while saying and doing absolutely nothing about the most vile hate-speak and actions toward Jews and Christians in the Muslim world. It is the most self-serving of outrage.

The question I ask myself in the darkness of my own night is, “How did my beautiful faith become so linked with such ugliness.” To me, the answer is both deep and simple. A spiritual path must be only about the spiritual while a worldly path must be about this world. When the two get mixed together, it brings out the very worst in both.

Much of what passes today for religious thought and action is actually political. When I hear a sermon in a mosque about the horrors of Israeli occupation, I know that the political arena has taken over the spiritual one. When I see the actions of suicide bombers praised or excused by religious leaders, I know that this politicization is complete. But the current Muslim leadership in groups like CAIR and others want only to talk of victimization. So, it is now high time for a new movement by Muslims in America and the West.

We in the Muslim community need to develop a new paradigm for our organizations and think tanks which holds Muslims publicly accountable for the separation of the political from the spiritual. Gone should be the day where individuals and their organizations can hide behind the cloak of victimization as a smoke screen for what they really believe.

I do believe that religions have cycles that they go through. Christianity was once a highly intolerant faith. Jews were labeled as “Christ killers” and the colored peoples of the Third World were people whose native faith was like ragged clothes to be torn off their bodies.

Thank God those days are over. Now my faith community must do the same. It should be the true test of a Muslim, not so much how he treats a fellow Muslim but how he treats someone of another faith.

Time is not on our side and the volatile radical minority of Muslims could strike again at any time. But, while true change among Muslims may take generations, our history teaches us that once we start the ideological battle, nothing can counter the power of freedom, pluralism and the desire for human rights.

There are some small signs that my community is finally beginning to wake up to the cancer in its midst. We are learning something that was the central lesson of World War II — that once aroused, evil never stays self-contained.

For many in my faith, it was all right to blow up innocent Israelis as they sat in their cafes and pizza parlors. Through some tortured act of logic, these suicide bombings were seen as some sort of legitimate religion-sanctioned acts. (All the while, notice how few Muslim organizations like CAIR will denounce Hamas by name). But, as evil always does, it migrates, and soon radical Muslims were blowing up little children in Russia, commuters in Spain and worshippers in one of Iraq’s holiest mosques.

Maybe our first true wake-up call was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s homicide attack on the wedding party in Jordan. Because now, the evil unleashed on the occupying Jews had landed on the doorstep of Muslims as they partook in a joyous wedding day.

That is the lesson that we in the Muslim community are now learning. Do evil to anyone and eventually it will boomerang on you. Perhaps, that’s a good place to start. Let the barometer of our faith be how we treat our Jewish friends, because in the end, that is how we will eventually treat ourselves.

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M. Zuhdi Jasser is chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. A former Navy lieutenant commander, he currently is an internist in private practice in Phoenix.

Can Muslims Separate Religion and State?

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Time to circumscribe the interpretation and applications of sharia This week the press has reported widely about the case of Abdul Rahman, an Afghani Christian on trial in Afghanistan for the so-called high crime of leaving the religion of Islam. He converted to Christianity over fifteen years ago while working with a Christian aid group. It is actually hard to believe that such archaic laws are instituted under the guise of ﾓIslamicﾔ law, the rule of law, and most absurdly under a new democracy of a people we liberated. This is not a case which can be easily dismissed by any Muslims or our foreign policy makers. This is our business as Americans and as Muslims since America has recently invested so much in liberating Afghanis from the stranglehold of the Taliban. If that investment includes some strings demanding religious freedom for all, so be it. While in many ways the Afghani Constitution was rightly heralded as a ﾓprogressive documentﾔ for a previously devastated and oppressed Muslim society, it is incredulous that we missed the residual groundwork in its language which permitted the continuation of laws that allowed the courts to question Mr. Rahmanﾒs choice of faith. Did the Afghani Muslims involved in this case forget the Golden Rule when treating those of other faiths? Did they forget that the faith of the vast majority of their liberators was the same as that which Mr. Rahman chose to adopt? To accept their liberation from the Taliban with open arms only to turn around and leave laws which lift up Islam over other faiths is hypocrisy and in fact un-Islamic. Specifically, the Afghani Constitution, while supposedly guaranteeing religious freedoms, established Islam in Article 2 as the official religion of the state but allows other religions to perform their ceremonies ﾓwithin the limits of the lawﾔ. Then, in Article 130, the Constitution states that Islamic law takes over when no other laws apply. Thus, we find the continuation of many draconian ﾓIslamicﾔ laws. Perhaps, we should have been more clear, more public, and more critical as liberators about the meaning of liberty and which rule of law the world community would find acceptable from a human rights perspective for the new Afghani nation. If the principles of their nation are not made clear in their Constitution, tribal theocratic propensities will often return to rule. This type of apostasy trial is in the eyes of many Muslims not Islamic and in fact anti-Islamic. It begs the question of what type of debate and public accounting their framers had when they left their constitution vague about freedom of religion and pluralism. While their courts have yet to ultimately decide this case and while today it appears he may be released due to the wise intervention of President Bush and Secretary of State Rice, the apparent public acceptance of this trial and the legal permissiveness of the question of apostasy raise some significant concerns over Afghanistanﾒs so-called democratic formula and its version of Islam. It should certainly be abundantly clear that Afghanistanﾒs system does not represent a modernized or moderate Islam. All freedom-loving Muslims have responded to this case with disgust and calls to free Mr. Rahman immediately. It is clear in the faith of Islam that decisions of personal conscience have nothing to do with the state. The Qurﾒan states clearly ﾓLet there be no compulsion in matters of faithﾔ (2:256). The sheer ignorance of such apostasy laws is that faith is a personal decision of conviction which could never be forced upon an individual regardless of what the government makes them say or fear in the end. For, their heartfelt faith is only theirs and Godﾒs to ever truly know. While the Afghani society is certainly beleaguered by tribalism, militarization, and massive deconstruction, Stephen Suleyman Schwartz and the Center for Islamic Pluralism note poignantly in their release on the subject yesterday, ﾓevents transpiring there should not be taken by non-Muslims as representative of Islam as a whole or as evidence regarding the wisdom of U.S. policies in the Islamic world. ﾓ Mr. Rahmanﾒs unfortunate apostasy case is not only about whether this Afghani interpretation of sharia law is correct or not in Islam —which it clearly is not. It is not even about whether the law is outmoded. Historically, the only even remote example of such laws can be found at Islamﾒs inception. This example did not apply to all Muslims but only to those who fought in the military. For those who chose to fight in the Muslim military against the pagan enemies who had declared war on Muslims, loyalty to the Muslim army and its nation under the leadership of the Prophet Mohammed was an obvious prerequisite. Thus, a soldier who subsequently chose to leave the army and leave Islam would be violating his oath to his nation and his military. As such, only at that specific time in history when Muslims were threatened at extermination by pagan Arab tribes, did a concept of desertion and treason apply. This was not about leaving one’s faith but about leaving a military and the community it was protecting. This was certainly a mixture of religion and nation which we may find abhorrent today, but such were the realities of mankind in the seventh century. Christian Europe took until the eighteenth century to fix this toxic mixture. Muslims now need to get around to doing so ourselves. Yet, despite this mixture, the penalty for departure was not meant for all Muslims but only those who were part of the military. This was not a system of rules which punished individuals just for leaving the faith. It only related to the Muslim military which was struggling to survive against its military enemies. Islamists and historical revisionists may choose to interpret these rules as apostasy laws, but the same faith which preached pluralism, free will, and religious choice, cannot also enact apostasy laws. Strict rules about military allegiance which are also a part of all codes of military justice in democracies today should not be confused with belief in God and personal faith. The unique nature of loyalties in this history of pagan Arabia and the new Muslim community at the time of Mohammed has been irrelevant for over a thousand years. Muslims who have to this day continued to mix national security issues and its loyalty issues with personal issues of faith are simply Islamists with political agendas. So, in essence the greater question for today in 2006 and the one at the core of our ideological battle against the Islamists is why a government which happens to be majority Muslim is even contemplating the vagaries of sharia and all of its complex interpretations from the fundamentalist and archaic to the most moderate and modern. There are many interpretations of what exactly is meant by the separation of religion and state. But the one which I believe most applies in this case and in the war against Islamism is that representative governments and their elected lawmakers should not get into theological law and its encumbered language. This exclusion is what Islamists fear the most. Regardless of the percentage of the majority faith in a nationﾒs population, to write law based upon scriptural language and its interpretation is to effectively eliminate all those of other faiths from being able to argue the validity of law. No matter how egalitarian is the sharia, once it is used to govern non-Muslims it excludes them. It excludes non-Muslims from the development, interpretation, and modification of that law since they do not personally follow Muslim code and have never been students of that faith. Certainly, the values, ethics, and morals of a government can be driven by a love and respect for the Creator which all faiths share. So, a mention of God in our Pledge of Allegiance or an ecumenical prayer in the legislature of our government is still in keeping with this separation since it does not inscribe a specific faithﾒs theological law. It is in keeping with the spirit of piety which all faiths respect and is vitally necessary to a successful democracy. In fact, as I have argued before, an openly pious majority (i.e. Christians in America or in Europe) can help empower minorities to feel comfortable to publicly practice their faith. But this public comfort can come only when the public space of government and their legal institutions which govern all people of all faiths or those of no faith for that matter, is entirely free of theological language. Once the majority, however, begins to articulate a specific theological language (i.e. sharia) in the space and House of a nationﾒs People, it automatically oppresses the minorities of other faiths regardless of their good intentions. Sharia is, simply put, a religious legal manifestation of the interpretation of the word of God in the Qurﾒan and the tradition of the Prophet. It is in fact analogous in its theological derivation to Talmudic law in the Jewish tradition. To describe the sharia as a static or fixed body of laws is to misrepresent it. It is, and should be, an evolving body of laws much as other religious and civil law has evolved in our national and religious communities. In the past five to six centuries for Islam this law has been basically fixed if not regressive. This has been due to an absence of a legitimate ijtihad (critical interpretation of scripture in light of modern day understanding). This is a manifestation of the state of Muslim culture not of Islam. An appropriate discussion of the sharia and its evolution and devolution past, present, and future fills texts and is the basis for many schools of graduate study. I could not do it justice here. In the case of rules against apostasy, or leaving a faith, it is clear to many Muslims that these laws are not only barbaric and draconian but a profoundly malignant interpretation of Islam which is not born out in the moderate tradition practiced by most Muslims. A faith in God is no longer a faith when coercion is involved. Muslims who utilize these laws in actuality negate their faith. The faith of Islam which I know would never be so insecure and feel so inferior as to be threatened by the departure of any believers regardless of what they may say about the faith of Muslims. If Muslims believe in complete freedom of religion and pluralism, they must begin to pronounce a resounding enmity with those who in positions of power enact laws which coerce belief. This enmity must go beyond a simple declaration of the outmoded nature of laws of apostasy. We need to begin a public discourse within the Muslim community about the role, place, and limitations of implementation of sharia in Muslim majority nations. It is time to begin the process of dismissing sharia which is outside the few areas which can be limited to only Muslim-Muslim interactions (i.e. family law, religious charities, mosque administration, religious education, and any arbitration between mutually agreeable Muslim parties). A government which begins to dabble in the language of sharia becomes a theocracy no matter how moderate they try to be. Such is the wisdom of our American democracy. Some have contrarily argued that the solution really lies in only the advancement and modernization of religious law (sharia) which when applied to all society remains democratic. This modernization is certainly a necessary step for the ivory towers of Islam but irrelevant to the question at hand in as far as government is concerned. When it is applied to all society, it becomes a theocracy moderate or not. The real question remains what type of government a majority Muslim nation would choose to empower. Afghanis may not be ready to answer this question in a way palatable to Muslims in the west, but Muslim in America and Europe need to make it clear where we stand on this issue. As long as Muslim majority nations keep the sharia out of their legislative language and refrain from identifying the state as a ﾓMuslimﾔ nation, the hope for liberty, freedom, and democracy will thrive. Sharia can then take its time in evolving for those very limited areas (i.e. family law) where it can exist side by side (as many other arbitration systems do) with the nationﾒs constitutionally derived civil and criminal law. All faiths should have the opportunity when dealing with internal practices to practice their faith within the sanctity of their families, charities, houses of worships and schools with rules they agree to and judges they choose. But an entire nation should not be subjected to a faithﾒs rules. We, Muslims, can learn from American history. The westﾒs system my family came to America to enjoy is not in any way just a modernized Christian theocracy which recognizes freedoms and liberty. Rather, America through its revolution dismissed theocracy in exchange for a system of government which eliminated theocratic language from our legislatures so that no single religion would be endorsed by the state. I hope that no matter whether Muslims are a majority or not, that they should establish a clear religious consensus opinion that in Islam sharia can drive our own personal code of life, but that our government should never entertain the language of sharia. We should prohibit the governmental implementation of any explicit sharia language and relegate such theological language to non-governmental very limited situations involving very circumscribed areas of religious practice. Moreover, my hope is also that Muslims deconstruct the concept of the ﾓIslamic stateﾔ and begin to build an ethos of allegiance to governments which are pious but not identified with one faith regardless of a Muslim majority population. This would do more to save the lives of individuals like Mr. Rahman than any single denunciation of a backward interpretation of sharia. M. Zuhdi Jasser is chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. He can be reached at zuhdi@aifdemocracy.org