THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 172, August 26, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
IS NEWT GINGRICH WRONG TO TALK ABOUT SHARI'A?
By Raymond Ibrahim
SHARI'A & THE THREAT POSED BY ISLAMISTS IN AMERICA & THE WEST: THE ISLAMIST PERCEPTION OF SHARI'A AS
A KNOWABLE & IMPLEMENTABLE CODE OF ISLAMIC LAW -- THE INTENTION OF THE ISLAMIST MOVEMENT TO SUBVERT &
CONQUER ALL NON-MUSLIM SOCIETIES & IMPOSE SHARI'A ON THEM -- THE STEALTH JIHAD & HOW IT COULD BRING DOWN
THE U.S.A. & OTHER WESTERN SOCIETIES
FULL STORY:
In a recent article appearing in Tablet, Lee Smith takes former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich to task for the
latter's focus on Shari'a (i.e., Islamic law). The thrust of Smith's argument is that Sharia is a "hopelessly abstract concept"
and "a highly idealized version of reality that has little basis in fact"; that Shari'a is "a catchall phrase for legal principles
that have rarely, if ever, existed in actual Muslim societies"; and that "the notion that something called 'Shari'a' was
widely imposed throughout the lands of Islam is an Orientalist fantasy."
My first observation is even if all these charges were perfectly true so? It hardly matters what Shari'a really is; all
that matters is what today's Muslims believe it is. And a great many believe Shari'a is tangible and codified, and that it
can, and should, be implemented in society. More to the point, telling apostates and adulteresses who are regularly
executed "according to Shari'a" that they are really being murdered by "principles that have rarely, if ever, existed in
actual Muslim societies," is hardly reassuring.
Smith does acknowledge Islam's famous draconian punishments; he just prefers to call them hudud, and limits them to
"Islamist outfits like the Taliban." Similarly, Smith offers a blitz tour on Islamic jurisprudence including the Hanbali,
Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafi'i madhahib, the differences between usuli and akhbari, fiqh, ijma, 'aql, qiyas, and ahkam
sultaniyya even as the reader wonders how these concepts are relevant to the discussion at hand: Islam in America,
from a national security context.
Should Newt Gingrich be required to earn a doctorate in fiqh from Al Azhar before he can utter the word Shari'a? Or
should we understand that he is simply referring to what Muslims themselves, especially Islamists, constantly refer to as
Shari'a? Indeed, if Muslims use the word Shari'a as a "catch all phrase" (as Smith correctly asserts) should we not, too
if only to ensure that we are all talking about the same things?
In short, Smith's position is purely academic and, far from clarifying things to the layman, pedantically convolutes matters.
That said, it does offer one advantage: it helps differentiate "Muslims" from "Islamists." Consider: Islamists are precisely
those Muslims who insist that Shari'a is knowable, and that they are obligated to uphold its every minutia, whereas
socalled "moderate Muslims" acknowledge, at best, the most general demands of Islam, namely, the Five Pillars. This
division also explains the lure of Islamism: surely, the idealistic or zealous devotee will be attracted to the tangible, the
implementable, the clear-cut, whereas the indifferent and possibly secularized Muslim will be quite content to conclude
that anything beyond the basics is "an Orientalist fantasy" to be devoutly ignored.
Smith continues:
"When Gingrich argues that 'radical Islamists want
to impose Shari'a on all of us,' I can't imagine how
he sees that happening, short of the largest land
invasion in human history of foreign Muslim
soldiers
. The stealth scenario is slightly less
preposterous jihadis insinuating their way
through our legal and political systems to slowly
Islamize a credulous U.S. public degree by degree
but many times more repugnant. It is necessarily
premised on the idea of a United States that has
lost all faith and confidence in its own values and
an intellectual and political elite too stupid to tell
the difference between our founding principles
and Islamic obscurantism."
First, Gingrich's point that "radical Islamists want to impose Sharia on all of us" is perfectly valid, as it deals with intention,
not necessarily capacity, though Islamist chances obviously increase when we ignore the threat they pose (through, say,
semantic quibbling). As for Smith's "repugnancy" towards the efficacy of the "stealth scenario," he seems to overlook how
the vicissitudes of time and chance are apt to slowly and subtly alter the face of society.
Consider how radically changed Western society has already become in comparison to earlier generations. Couple this
with the fact that the whole point of the stealth jihad is to operate slowly, eroding Western values chip by chip; that
today's predominant philosophies of postmodernism ("there are no absolute rights or wrongs") and multiculturalism ("no
culture is better than the other") are especially conducive to the introduction of Muslim mores in society and "the
largest land invasion in human history of foreign Muslim soldiers" may not so be necessary, after all.
Thus, just as the old timers of previous generations marvel agape at today's notions of right and wrong, years from now, it
may be you who well wonders how did it come to this? Yet, such is the way of time: small concessions today lead to
great, and often unexpected, changes tomorrow. And such is the way of the stealth jihad.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
The Islamist Fifth Column -- America's Internal Enemies:
Disloyalty, Subversion, Sedition, & Treason
Lawfare -- The Use of Law as a Weapon in War & Politics:
Islamist Lawfare & the "Legal" Jihad Against America & the West
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Raymond Ibrahim, a historian of Islam, Islamism and the Middle East, is the Associate Director of the Middle East Forum,
a guest lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College, and the editor of The Al-Qa'ida Reader, a collection
of tranlations of key texts and documents of the Islamist movement. Ibrahim's translations of the religious texts and
political propaganda comprising this collection help readers comprehend the origins, development, history, and serious
danger of the Islamist war doctrines of Usama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Founders of Al-Qa'ida and
implacable enemies of the U.S.A. and the West.
The foregoing article by Raymond Ibrahim was originally published in Pajamas Media, August 24, 2010, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-ΰ-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(URL: http://www.meforum.org/2730/is-newt-gingrich-wrong-to-talk-about- sharia)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
August 26, 2010
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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