Shariah and Western Democracy

To be an Islamic nation requires Shariah Law, and Shariah Law requires penalties for criticizing Islam. This fact has once again come to light, this time in conjunction of the sentencing to death of a Pakistani Christian woman for the crime of “blaspheme.” However, this sentenced had been opposed by at least one Pakistani:

• In an editorial today entitled “Under Siege,” the New York Times laments the recent violence committed by radical Islamists against Christians in Egypt and Iraq. Yesterday, the Times ran an editorial entitled “A Brave Man Killed,” in which it lamented the assassination of Salman Taseer, the governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province who had called for the repeal of Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy law. This law, popular with Pakistan’s Muslim majority, imposes a mandatory death sentence on anyone convicted of insulting Islam.

Blaspheme laws are not the product of Islamic extremists. They find their basis within the Koran itself:

• [33:57-58] Those who insult [aa-dh-aa] God and His Messenger will be rejected by God in this world and the next—He has prepared a humiliating punishment for them— and those who undeservedly insult [aa-dh-aa] believing men and women will bear the guilt of slander and obvious sin.

Although the Koran doesn’t specify the here-and-now penalties against the blasphemer, all Islamic nations impose penalties. In the “moderate” nation of Malaysia, Christians had even been prohibited from using their traditional name for God – “Allah.” However, legal petition was made, and this right was granted to the churches. Immediately, 10 churches were burned to the ground. The case was then appealed to the higher court, where the privilege to use the name “Allah” was retracted.

All of this suggests that if there is such a thing as “moderate” Islam, it lacks any meaningful voice in the Islamic world. Not only was the reformer Taseer murdered, but a great number of clerics applauded it:

• As reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute, on January 4, 2011, just a few hours after the assassination of Salman Taseer, more than 500 Pakistani religious scholars and clerics issued a statement lauding the assassin, who was Taseer’s bodyguard. They praised the assassin for keeping alive a “tradition of 1,400 years in Islam” which requires the killing of anyone committing an act of blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad. (Quoted from an article by Joseph Klein: http://www.newsrealblog.com/2011/01/06/the-global-radical-islamic-threat-to-freedom-ignore-or-excuse-at-our-peril/)

Daniel Pipes, founder of the Middle East Forum in 1994, laments that Western resolve to stand against Shariah is crumbling, even in the USA. When the Ayatollah Khomenei issued a death edict against the writer Salman Rushdie,

• The U.S. Senate voted unanimously for a resolution asserting the right to write whatever you want. Well, 21 years later, people are being threatened and the Senate is not responding. Before 1989 anyone could write or draw whatever they wanted about Islam. Now if you do this, you are taking your life in your hands. If those of us who critique Islam and Muhammad are not allowed to speak or are intimidated from speaking, Islamists prevail…The real issue here is: Are we allowed to defend our civilization or not?” (From an interview, WORLD, Jan. 15, 2011, 28)

Pipes claims that polygamy is already here, but no one is saying anything. How can they, if they are promoting same-sex marriage! Where choice has become the highest “truth,” any moral rationale to resist Shariah is diminished.