What Is ‘Shariah’?

Posted by Team B Sep 17th 2010 at 9:37 am
The United States is under attack by foes who are openly animated by what is known in Islam as shariah, or Islamic law. According to shariah, every faithful Muslim is obligated to wage jihad – whether violent or not – against those who do not adhere to this comprehensive, totalitarian, political-military code. A team of experts coordinated by the Center for Security Policy has recently produced a ground-breaking report, Shariah: The Threat to America, describing in detail precisely what shariah is and what it means for all of us. What follows is extracted from that report, issued on September 15.

Adherents to shariah are fundamentally and unalterably opposed to the survival of the Constitution of the United States. Shariah is based on the Quran, which Muslims believe is the “uncreated” word of Allah as dictated to the prophet Mohammed; hadiths, the sayings of Mohammed; and agreed interpretations by Islamic scholars. Shariah commands that Muslims carry out jihad indefinitely until the Dar al-Harb, or House of War, where shariah is not enforced, is brought under the domination of the Dar al Islam, or House of Islam (literally the House of Submission), where shariah is enforced.

Shariah commands both Islamic terrorism and pre-violent, “civilizational jihad” or “stealth jihad,” depending on necessity and circumstances. Those who work to insinuate shariah into the United States are conspiring to subvert and replace the Constitution, because under shariah, freedom of religion and other civil liberties enshrined in the Constitution – and the very concept of man-made law – are incompatible with Islam.

Any system of man-made law is considered illicit under shariah, where Allah and only Allah has provided the law.

This is not a radical concept in Islam, but a fundamental tenet of the faith. Shariah is held by mainstream Islamic authorities – not simply fringe extremist elements who have supposedly “hijacked” the religion – to be the perfect expression of divine will and justice. All Muslims, regardless of where they live, must submit to be governed by shariah, a cradle-to-grave “complete way of life” that mandates social, cultural, military, religious and political norms.

Millions of Muslims around the world do not practice their faith in a manner consistent with shariah, but those who do submit to shariah have grounds for arguing that their version of Islam is the authoritative one. By offering little, if any, meaningful opposition to the shariah agenda and by meekly submitting to it, a large number of Muslim communities and nations generally exhibit an unwillingness to face the consequences of standing up to shariah’s enforcers within Islam.

Shariah is a totalitarian ideology that controls all aspects of life. All are forced to submit to Islamic law as defined by theologians. Shariah institutionalizes discrimination against women, deprives people of freedom of expression and association, criminalizes sexual freedom, and incites hatred and violence against people of certain social groups. As manifested in countries officially ruled by Islamic law, shariah condones or commands abhorrent behavior, including underage and forced marriage, “honor killing” (usually of women and girls) to preserve family “honor,” female genital mutilation, polygamy and domestic abuse, and even marital rape.

Islam requires all Muslims to wage jihad. Some interpret jihad as a personal struggle of self-discipline and self-sacrifice to improve oneself to glorify God. Others interpret it as holy war in pursuit of a global Islamic state known as a caliphate, ruled in accordance with shariah.

Islamic jurisprudence, known as fiqh in Arabic, forms the legal context for shariah and its rulings. Shariah scholars typically cite as authority for jihad any of the 164 verses of the Quran that specifically refer to jihad against non-Muslims in terms that include military expeditions, fighting enemies, or distributing the spoils of war. Among the most categorical of such Quranic entries and the most often cited as authoritative by the shariah scholars is the “Verse of the Sword.” That verse says, “So when the sacred months have passed, then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war; but if they repent and establish regular prayers, and practice regular charity, then leave their way free to them; for surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.” (Quran 9:5)

Under the terms set down in the Quran, pagans or polytheists must convert or die. As for Jews and Christians, known in the Quran as the “People of the Book,” the definitive prescription for their treatment is as follows: Fight them “until they pay the Jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.” (Quran 9:29) Thus, Jews and Christians need not convert or be killed. They have a third option: Submit to Islam as second-class citizens or “dhimmis.”

We inadvertently submit as dhimmis when we censor ourselves or one another to avoid “offending” Islam or Muslims. When we change our customs, rules and laws to conform with demands of Muslims who immigrate to our country. When we apologize unnecessarily for our country and our culture. We become dhimmis when we go along with demands by, say, a cleric who insists on offending the vast majority of our countrymen by building a mosque next to Ground Zero.

When we lose the ability to define our wartime enemy since 9/11, we become dhimmis. Our leaders do. Each of us does.

Little by little, we erode away our own rights, laws, customs and civilization by submitting as dhimmis. We eat away at our own national ideals, our own personal dignity, and the rights of those around us when we practice shariah-ordained dhimmitude.

Think this can’t happen in America? Look at Europe, where a number of nations have become dhimmified to the point where shariah law is now practiced in enclaves or more broadly, side by side with the national law awaiting the day when – through demographics, political action, financial subversion or other means, the West’s total submission is achieved.

In the next installment from Shariah: The Threat to America, we’ll take a look at the connection between shariah and jihad – and how together they threaten each and every one of us.