The late respected British scholar of Islam, Dr. Mervyn Hiskett, in his Some to Mecca Turn to Pray, noted then (i.e., in 1993) the prevailing opinion among leaders of the British Muslim community that unless Muslim immigrants to Britain were allowed unrestrained access to Islamic law, Sharia, in all aspects, Britain was to be regarded, Dar-al-Harb, or the House of War, that is, the target of jihadism. Citing what he characterized as “a more urbane but some may consider ominous statement of the Muslim intention to brook no opposition,” Hiskett quoted Zaki Badawi (d. 2006), a Muslim scholar and former director of the Islamic Cultural Center, London, who was made an honorary Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) in 2004, and also appointed by the Duke of Castro as a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Francis I. Incidentally Badawi, an Egyptian Muslim, never became a British subject although he had lived in the country for more than thirty years and had received all manner of honors there. Badawi opined,
A proseltyzing religion cannot stand still. It can either expand or contract. Islam endeavors to expand in Britain. Islam is a universal religion. It aims at bringing its message to all corners of the earth. It hopes that one day the whole humanity will be one Muslim community, the “Umma.”
Just over a decade later, polling data from six hundred British Muslim college students (disclosed in a U.S. Embassy cable) indicated that one-third supported killing in the name of Islam, while 40 percent wanted the sharia to replace British law. And sharia indoctrination of British Muslim youth began well before college entry. A BBC Panorama investigation has revealed the presence in Britain of forty “weekend schools” attended by some five thousand Muslim children aged 6-18. Such schools teach the British Muslim youth who attend them, for example, traditional Islamic motifs of Jew-hatred and mutilating sharia punishments—as per the Saudi National Curriculum—under the rubric of “Saudi Students Clubs and Schools in the UK and Ireland.”
These revelations validate Hiskett’s prescient warnings from 1993, which framed the predicament not only of Britain, but all Western societies when confronted with the relentless advance of the Sharia agenda by Muslim immigrants.
Which does one prefer? Western secular, pluralist institutions, imperfect as these are? Or the Islamic theocratic alternative? And if one decides in favor of one’s own institutions, warts and all, one then has to ask again: How far may the advocacy of Islamic alternatives go, before this becomes downright subversive? And at that point, what should be done about it?
Hiskett concluded by asking whether political elites—but I would add those in the media and academy as well—possessed
the moral guts to do what is needed, or will they simply give way, bit by bit and point by point, to insistent and sustained pressure from the Muslim ‘Parliament’ and other Muslim special-interest lobbies like it?
The same phenomena Hiskett warned of—and decried—are taking place in the U.S. as underscored by the jihadist attack on the Garland, Texas free speech conference, and mainstream media—including prominently Fox News’s—reaction to these events (which I have described in 4 previous posts: here; here; here; and here).
The Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA), is well-accepted by the mainstream American Muslim community. The Islamic scholars affiliated with this group have attained influential positions in universities, Islamic centers, and mosques throughout the United States, and train American imams. Should the mainstream AMJA accomplish its goal of implementing Sharia in North America, the organization has already issued a ruling which sanctions the killing of non-Muslim “blasphemers,” courtesy of AMJA Secretary General Salah al-Sawy:
(Dr. Salah Al-Sawy, 1/21/2009)-[F]or those scholars who say that repentance of a person who insults Allah or His Messenger shall not be accepted, [they] mean that repentance does not lift up the set punishment for cursing and insulting the Prophet, i.e., execution. Because the Prophet is the one who was actually wronged and insulted and he is no longer alive, therefore, he is not alive to practice his right to forgive him [the blasphemer] for what he did. Also, no Muslim is ever is entitled or authorized to forgive on the Prophet’s behalf.
Mirroring a shared communal understanding of their clerical leadership with regard to “blasphemy,” the results of polling data collected by Wenzel Strategies during October 22 to 26, 2012, from 600 U.S. Muslims, indicate widespread support among American votaries of Islam for this fundamental rejection of the basic freedom of expression, as guaranteed under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. When asked, “Do you believe that criticism of Islam or Muhammad should be permitted under the Constitution’s First Amendment?, 58% replied “no,” 45% of respondents agreed “…that those who criticize or parody Islam in the U.S. should face criminal charges,” and fully 12% of this Muslim sample even admitted they believed in application of the draconian, Sharia-based punishment for the non-existent crime of “blasphemy” in the U.S. code, answering affirmatively, “…that Americans who criticize or parody Islam should be put to death.”
Fox News’s reportage and analysis of the Garland jihadist attack willfully ignored these U.S. data, while repeatedly questioning the motives and judgment of free speech conference organizer Pamela Geller. In essence, Fox News submitted to Sharia mores, if not the fully implemented theocratic “law”—a form of self-imposed dhimmitude.
The 18th century Moroccan Sufi “master” Ibn Ajibah described unabashedly the purpose of the humiliating Koranic poll tax (as per Koran 9:29) of submission for non-Muslim “dhimmis” made subservient to the Sharia, by jihad. He made clear the ultimate goal of its imposition was to achieve what Ibn Ajibah called the death of the “soul”, through the dhimmi’s execution of their own humanity—exactly what has transpired at Fox News, vis-à-vis its overall coverage of the Garland, TX free speech event.
[The dhimmi] is commanded to put his soul, good fortune and desires to death. Above all he should kill the love of life, leadership and honor. [The dhimmi] is to invert the longings of his soul, he is to load it down more heavily than it can bear until it is completely submissive. Thereafter nothing will be unbearable for him. He will be indifferent to subjugation or might. Poverty and wealth will be the same to him; praise and insult will be the same; preventing and yielding will be the same; lost and found will be the same. Then, when all things are the same, it [the soul] will be submissive and yield willingly what it should give. [Tafsir ibn ‘Ajibah. Commentary on Q9:29. Ahmad ibn Muhammad Ibn `Ajibah]
