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Warrior-Mentor · 09-26-2009, 15:10

Allow someone much smarter than me on this topic to respond...

David Yerushalmi nails the issue of Sharia -vs- Jewish Law Christian Dogma and Catholic Canon:

http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2008/10/s...ewish-law.html
_____________________

October 10, 2008

Mr. Suhail Khan
U.S. Department of Transportation
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy
1200 New Jersey Ave, SE
Washington, D.C. 20590

Re: Your debate with Frank Gaffney, Baltimore, MD

Dear Mr. Khan:

In your debate with Mr. Gaffney in Baltimore on Tuesday evening, October 8, 2008, beyond your ad hominem attacks against Robert Spencer and me, you spent a great deal of time attempting to create the appearance of a moral and logical equivalence between Shariah and Jewish law. This of course follows a long tradition of Muslim Brotherhood agents in the West and other apologists for the brutality of Shariah. For example, just recently, many of the press reports announcing that England has recently granted Shariah courts on its home soil formal authoritative status as a recognized arbitration panel concluded identically as follows: “Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: ‘The MCB supports these tribunals. If the Jewish courts are allowed to flourish, so must the sharia ones.’”

Because you attempted to make this equivalency argument during the debate with Mr. Gaffney as if you understood the subject upon which you were opining, please consider this a tutorial on why the active and purposeful pursuit of Shariah in the U.S. has implications for the federal criminal law of sedition (notably Title 18, Section 2385 of the U.S. Code) and why Jewish law and Christian dogma or Catholic canon do not.

Specifically, I present here a brief discussion of whether such application of federal criminal law to Shariah would have an impact on the practice of Jews who observe Jewish law and the private adjudication of religious and commercial matters before a bais din or Jewish court of law (or, for that matter, Christians or Catholics submitting arbitral matters before private ecclesiastical boards or panels).

To begin, by Shariah we mean the authoritative and authoritarian corpus juris of Islamic law as it has been articulated by the recognized Shariah authorities over more than a millennium. The term Shariah as used herein, therefore, does not refer to a personal, subjective, pietistic understanding of the word or concept of Shariah. This latter understanding of the word Shariah is closer to its literal meaning in Arabic without any of the legalistic connotations it has developed as an authoritative institution in Islamic history; as it is currently practiced in such countries as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan; and as it is meant when referred to in the various laws and constitutions of most Muslim countries.

As you know, I have written extensively on the question of the practice or advocacy of Shariah by Shariah authorities as a violation of the primary federal sedition statute (i.e., 18 U.S.C. § 2385) on the grounds that throughout the long 1200-year history of the development of Shariah, and across all five major schools of Shariah jurisprudence, five salient facts are embedded in a deep consensus among all authoritative Shariah authorities:

[1] The telos or purpose of Shariah is submission. Shariah seeks to establish that Allah is the divine lawgiver and that no other law may properly exist but Allah’s law.

[2] Shariah seeks to achieve this goal through persuasion and other non-violent means. But when necessary and under certain prescribed circumstances the use of force and even full-scale war to achieve the dominance of Shariah worldwide is not only permissible, but obligatory. The use of force or war is termed Jihad.

[3] The goal of Shariah is to achieve submission to Allah’s law by converting or conquering the entire world and the methodology to achieve this end (by persuasion, by force and subjugation, or by murder) is extant doctrine and valid law by virtue of a universal consensus among the authoritative Shariah scholars throughout Islamic history.

[4] The doctrine of Jihad is foundational because it is based upon explicit verses in the Qur’an and the most authentic of canonical Sunna and it is considered a cornerstone of justice: until the infidels and polytheists are converted, subjugated, or murdered, their mischief and domination will continue to harm the Muslim nation. And,

[5] Jihad is conducted primarily through kinetic warfare but it includes other modalities such as propaganda and psychological warfare.

Much of my work in this area has drawn upon original Shariah-based works and the academic scholarship relating to that body of work, but also includes the scholarship of others. I especially owe much to Stephen Coughlin (Major U.S. Army Reserves, military intelligence) and his work for the Joint Chiefs while assigned to USCENTCOM.

Because Jihad necessarily advocates violence and the destruction of our representative, constitution-based government, the advocacy of Jihad by a Shariah authority presents a real and present danger. This is sedition when advocated from within our borders; an act of war when directed at us from foreign soil.

This is especially true because a Shariah authority commands the absolute allegiance of the Shariah faithful Jihadist. As Professors Frank Vogel and Samuel Hayes explain, both distinguished professors at Harvard University and proponents of Shariah-compliant finance, Shariah is not some personalized, subjective, pietistic approach to Islam but an institutionalized legal-political-normative doctrine and system:

Islamic legal rules encompass both ethics and law, this world and the next, church and state. The law does not separate rules enforced by individual conscience from rules enforced by a judge or by the state. Since scholars alone are capable of knowing the law directly from revelation, laypeople are expected to seek an opinion (fatwa) from a qualified scholar on any point in doubt; if they follow that opinion sincerely, they are blameless even if the opinion is in error.[1] (Emphasis added.)

Shariah, as it is described on its own terms, is fundamentally and critically unlike Jewish law and any form of Christian canon or ecclesiastical law. Specifically, because neither Jewish law (halacha) nor Christian canon or ecclesiastical law obligates the Jew or Christian, respectively, to violently impose theo-political tenets in lieu of the Constitution, there is simply no basis to apply the laws of sedition to the application of Jewish law or Christian dogma within private religious or commercial contexts. While Jews and Christians may advocate and petition their government for laws that reflect their moral and theological worldview (as may Muslims or atheists), neither Jewish law nor Christian dogma permits the forceful imposition of a theocracy in lieu of representative government or the replacement of our constitution with theocratic legislation.

(continued)

09-26-2009, 15:10	#42
Warrior-Mentor Quiet Professional Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: America, the Beautiful Posts: 3,193	Sharia = Sedition Allow someone much smarter than me on this topic to respond... David Yerushalmi nails the issue of Sharia -vs- Jewish Law Christian Dogma and Catholic Canon: http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2008/10/s...ewish-law.html _____________________ October 10, 2008 Mr. Suhail Khan U.S. Department of Transportation Office of the Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy 1200 New Jersey Ave, SE Washington, D.C. 20590 Re: Your debate with Frank Gaffney, Baltimore, MD Dear Mr. Khan: In your debate with Mr. Gaffney in Baltimore on Tuesday evening, October 8, 2008, beyond your ad hominem attacks against Robert Spencer and me, you spent a great deal of time attempting to create the appearance of a moral and logical equivalence between Shariah and Jewish law. This of course follows a long tradition of Muslim Brotherhood agents in the West and other apologists for the brutality of Shariah. For example, just recently, many of the press reports announcing that England has recently granted Shariah courts on its home soil formal authoritative status as a recognized arbitration panel concluded identically as follows: “Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: ‘The MCB supports these tribunals. If the Jewish courts are allowed to flourish, so must the sharia ones.’” Because you attempted to make this equivalency argument during the debate with Mr. Gaffney as if you understood the subject upon which you were opining, please consider this a tutorial on why the active and purposeful pursuit of Shariah in the U.S. has implications for the federal criminal law of sedition (notably Title 18, Section 2385 of the U.S. Code) and why Jewish law and Christian dogma or Catholic canon do not. Specifically, I present here a brief discussion of whether such application of federal criminal law to Shariah would have an impact on the practice of Jews who observe Jewish law and the private adjudication of religious and commercial matters before a bais din or Jewish court of law (or, for that matter, Christians or Catholics submitting arbitral matters before private ecclesiastical boards or panels). To begin, by Shariah we mean the authoritative and authoritarian corpus juris of Islamic law as it has been articulated by the recognized Shariah authorities over more than a millennium. The term Shariah as used herein, therefore, does not refer to a personal, subjective, pietistic understanding of the word or concept of Shariah. This latter understanding of the word Shariah is closer to its literal meaning in Arabic without any of the legalistic connotations it has developed as an authoritative institution in Islamic history; as it is currently practiced in such countries as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan; and as it is meant when referred to in the various laws and constitutions of most Muslim countries. As you know, I have written extensively on the question of the practice or advocacy of Shariah by Shariah authorities as a violation of the primary federal sedition statute (i.e., 18 U.S.C. § 2385) on the grounds that throughout the long 1200-year history of the development of Shariah, and across all five major schools of Shariah jurisprudence, five salient facts are embedded in a deep consensus among all authoritative Shariah authorities: [1] The telos or purpose of Shariah is submission. Shariah seeks to establish that Allah is the divine lawgiver and that no other law may properly exist but Allah’s law. [2] Shariah seeks to achieve this goal through persuasion and other non-violent means. But when necessary and under certain prescribed circumstances the use of force and even full-scale war to achieve the dominance of Shariah worldwide is not only permissible, but obligatory. The use of force or war is termed Jihad. [3] The goal of Shariah is to achieve submission to Allah’s law by converting or conquering the entire world and the methodology to achieve this end (by persuasion, by force and subjugation, or by murder) is extant doctrine and valid law by virtue of a universal consensus among the authoritative Shariah scholars throughout Islamic history. [4] The doctrine of Jihad is foundational because it is based upon explicit verses in the Qur’an and the most authentic of canonical Sunna and it is considered a cornerstone of justice: until the infidels and polytheists are converted, subjugated, or murdered, their mischief and domination will continue to harm the Muslim nation. And, [5] Jihad is conducted primarily through kinetic warfare but it includes other modalities such as propaganda and psychological warfare. Much of my work in this area has drawn upon original Shariah-based works and the academic scholarship relating to that body of work, but also includes the scholarship of others. I especially owe much to Stephen Coughlin (Major U.S. Army Reserves, military intelligence) and his work for the Joint Chiefs while assigned to USCENTCOM. Because Jihad necessarily advocates violence and the destruction of our representative, constitution-based government, the advocacy of Jihad by a Shariah authority presents a real and present danger. This is sedition when advocated from within our borders; an act of war when directed at us from foreign soil. This is especially true because a Shariah authority commands the absolute allegiance of the Shariah faithful Jihadist. As Professors Frank Vogel and Samuel Hayes explain, both distinguished professors at Harvard University and proponents of Shariah-compliant finance, Shariah is not some personalized, subjective, pietistic approach to Islam but an institutionalized legal-political-normative doctrine and system: Islamic legal rules encompass both ethics and law, this world and the next, church and state. The law does not separate rules enforced by individual conscience from rules enforced by a judge or by the state. Since scholars alone are capable of knowing the law directly from revelation, laypeople are expected to seek an opinion (fatwa) from a qualified scholar on any point in doubt; if they follow that opinion sincerely, they are blameless even if the opinion is in error.[1] (Emphasis added.) Shariah, as it is described on its own terms, is fundamentally and critically unlike Jewish law and any form of Christian canon or ecclesiastical law. Specifically, because neither Jewish law (halacha) nor Christian canon or ecclesiastical law obligates the Jew or Christian, respectively, to violently impose theo-political tenets in lieu of the Constitution, there is simply no basis to apply the laws of sedition to the application of Jewish law or Christian dogma within private religious or commercial contexts. While Jews and Christians may advocate and petition their government for laws that reflect their moral and theological worldview (as may Muslims or atheists), neither Jewish law nor Christian dogma permits the forceful imposition of a theocracy in lieu of representative government or the replacement of our constitution with theocratic legislation. (continued)
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