Oklahoma citizens had it right when they voted to prevent Oklahoma judges from using Sharia law to decide Oklahoma cases.\u00a0 Sharia law contradicts rights granted to Americans in the Declaration of Independence and rights protected from government encroachment in the Constitution.\u00a0 When Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange grants CAIR’s claim that the practice of Sharia law is a constitutional right, she demonstrates ignorance of either the Constitution or Sharia law or both.<\/p>\n
The Closing of the Muslim Mind (Robert Reilly)<\/strong>
\n – Highlight Loc. 2211-48 | <\/strong>
\nNothing makes clearer how un-Islamic the notion of equality is than \u201cThe Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam,\u201d signed by forty-five foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference on August 5, 1990. The Cairo Declaration was issued as an appendix to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights to make explicit Muslim differences with the UN declaration, which espouses universal, equal rights. The last two articles in the Cairo Declaration state that \u201call rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari\u2018a\u201d (Article 24) and that \u201cthe Islamic Shari\u2018a is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification [of] any of the articles of this Declaration\u201d (Article 25).<\/p>\nElsewhere it declares that \u201cno one in principle has the right to suspend . . . or violate or ignore its [Islam\u2019s] commandments, in as much as they are binding divine commandments, which are contained in the Revealed Books of God and were sent through the last of His Prophets. . . . Every person is individually responsible\u2014and the Ummah collectively responsible\u2014for their safeguard.\u201d23<\/p>\n
The source of human dignity, according to the Cairo Declaration, is God\u2019s bestowal of a vice regency upon man (Qur\u2019an 2:30). However, this is a delegated authority, not one inherent in man\u2019s nature, and it is not clear that it obtains to anyone other than the vice regent (caliph). This understanding comports with the only other use of the word in the Qur\u2019an, when God says, \u201cO David, We have made thee a vice regent in the earth\u201d (Qur\u2019an 38:26).<\/p>\n
The vast distance between this Muslim vice regency and the Judeo-Christian notion of man \u201ccreated in the image and likeness of God\u201d explains the gulf between the UN\u2019s and the Cairo Declaration\u2019s understanding of human rights.<\/p>\n
Under the dispensation of the Shari\u2018a, what does respect for human rights look like? In June 2000, the grand sheikh of al-Azhar, the highest jurisprudential authority of the Sunni world, Muhammad Sayed Tantawi, offered Saudi Arabia as the model. He said: \u201cSaudi Arabia leads the world in the protection of human rights because it protects them according to the shari\u2018a of God. . . .Everyone knows that Saudi Arabia is the leading country for the application of human rights in Islam in a just and objective fashion, with no aggression and no prejudice.\u201d24<\/p>\n
This is a stunning statement, because as Dr. Muhammad al-Houni, a Libyan intellectual living in Italy, says, \u201cIslamic law was not familiar with equality or civil rights, because it was a product of its times.\u201d25<\/p>\n
How then is Shari\u2018a their protector? Shari\u2018a does not contain the concept of citizenship, for which there was no word in Arabic. In its terms, the inequality between believers and unbelievers appears to be unbridgeable. This is evident from the rigid discrimination against non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia, a Shari\u2018a state, and in the vulgarly expressed opinions of Islamists like Abu Hamza, who wishes to impose Shari\u2018a in Great Britain.<\/p>\n
He declared, \u201cOnly the most ignorant and animal minded individuals would insist that prophet killers ( Jews) and Jesus worshipers (Christians) deserve the same rights as us.\u201d26<\/p>\n
As mentioned before, Islam is considered the din al-fitra, the religion that is \u201cnatural\u201d to man. It was Adam\u2019s religion and would be everyone\u2019s religion were they not converted as children to apostasy in their upbringing by Christians, Jews, Hindus, or others. Therefore, restoring everyone to Islam is the only path to true \u201cequality.\u201d<\/p>\n
An article by Dr. Ahmad Al-Baghdadi, titled \u201cDefending the Religion through Ignorance,\u201d gives a practical example of the consequences of the Shari\u2018a understanding of human rights. The author noted the intention of \u201cthe Kuwaiti Ministry of Education to omit Article 18 of the International Declaration of Human Rights from the human rights curriculum for high school students, since it stipulates that every individual has freedom of thought, which includes the freedom to change one\u2019s religion and beliefs. The head of the technical council for the curriculum and professor of law, Rashid al-\u2018Anzi, said that the reason why Article 18 of the [Declaration of] Human Rights will no longer be taught is that it is contrary to the Islamic Shari\u2018a, saying that we [in Kuwait] are a conservative Islamic society, in which we must instill religious, Islamic beliefs in accordance with the Islamic Shari\u2018a, and thus this article is not in keeping with how we want the students to be.\u201d27<\/p>\n
Notes – Highlight Loc. 3819-30 | <\/strong>
\n23. The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, at http:\/\/www.religlaw.org\/interdocs\/docs\/cairohrislam1990.htm.
\n24. Laurent Murawiec, Princes of Darkness (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), 56.
\n25. \u201cLibyan Intellectual Dr. Muhammad al-Houni: The Arabs Must Choose Between Western Civilization and the Legacy of the Middle Ages,\u201d Middle East Media Research Institute Inquiry and Analysis No. 240, September 12, 2005, at http:\/\/www.memri.org\/bin\/articles.cgi?Area=ia&ID=IA24005&Page=archives.
\n26. Abu Hamza, \u201cAre They the People of the Book? Questions and Answers,\u201d Al-Jihaad, no. 2, at http:\/\/www.shareeah.com\/Eng\/aj\/aj2.html.
\n27. MEMRI, at http:\/\/memri.org\/bin\/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP146007#_ednref2.
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