Islam on the March

This is an interview between an Arab woman who is not Muslim, Christian or Jewish taking on a radical jihadist, or if he isn't, he should be designated as one.



Isn't that interesting? A clash between the 21st Century and medieval times . . . that is exactly what it is. The clash between Muslims and the rest of the world which is driven by Muhammed's insistence he'd been commanded to fight until every person on the earth believed as he did. That's what he did, he terrorized and pillaged cities if they did not accept him as a prophet.

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known as the Mormons, we recognize this as Satan's plan. Heavenly Father's plan was to teach and let each of us choose for ourselves. Now, obviously we can't choose the consequences, those are written in stone, but we are allowed to choose what to believe and who to follow. He sent His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to be a redeemer for all of mankind, be they Christian, Jew, Hindu, Buddhists, Muslim or any of the myriad of other religions which exist in this world. Jesus Christ is our Savior.

You can follow a God of love, peace, humility, strength and courage or you can follow a god who commands you to kill innocents across the world, be they man, woman or child. With my western mind and deep and abiding belief in Jesus Christ and His Father, I will never understand the choice to rape, murder and pillage the world, nor do I understand the world just standing back and allowing it.

The Telegraph, a U.K. newspaper reported the following:

Sharia law is spreading as authority wanes

By Joshua Rozenberg, Legal Editor
Last Updated: 1:59am GMT 30/11/2006

Islamic sharia law is gaining an increasing foothold in parts of Britain, a report claims.

Sharia, derived from several sources including the Koran, is applied to varying degrees in predominantly Muslim countries but it has no binding status in Britain.

However, the BBC Radio 4 programme "Law in Action" produced evidence yesterday that it was being used by some Muslims as an alternative to English criminal law. Aydarus Yusuf, 29, a youth worker from Somalia, recalled a stabbing case that was decided by an unofficial Somali "court" sitting in Woolwich, south-east London.

Mr. Yusuf said a group of Somali youths were arrested on suspicion of stabbing another Somali teenager. The victim's family told the police it would be settled out of court and the suspects were released on bail.

A hearing was convened and elders ordered the assailants to compensate their victim. "All their uncles and their fathers were there," said Mr Yusuf. "So they all put something towards that and apologised for the wrongdoing."

Although Scotland Yard had no information about that case yesterday, a spokesman said it was common for the police not to proceed with assault cases if the victims decided not to press charges.

However, the spokesman said cases of domestic violence, including rape, might go to trial regardless of the victim's wishes.

Mr. Yusuf told the programme he felt more bound by the traditional law of his birth than by the laws of his adopted country. "US Somalis, wherever we are in the world, we have our own law," he said. "It's not sharia, it's not religious — it's just a cultural thing."

Sharia's great strength was the effectiveness of its penalties, he said. Those who appeared before religious courts would avoid re-offending so as not to bring shame on their families.

Some lawyers welcomed the advance of what has become known as "legal pluralism".

Dr. Prakash Shah, a senior lecturer in law at Queen Mary University of London, said such tribunals "could be more effective than the formal legal system".

In his book Islam in Britain, Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, says there is an "alternative parallel unofficial legal system" that operates in the Muslim community on a voluntary basis.

"Sharia courts now operate in most larger cities, with different sectarian and ethnic groups operating their own courts that cater to their specific needs according to their traditions," he says. These are based on sharia councils, set up in Britain to help Muslims solve family and personal problems.

Sharia councils may grant divorces under religious law to a woman whose husband refuses to complete a civil divorce by declaring his marriage over. There is evidence that these councils are evolving into courts of arbitration.

Faizul Aqtab Siddiqi, a barrister and principal of Hijaz College Islamic University, near Nuneaton, Warwicks, said this type of court had advantages for Muslims. "It operates on a low budget, it operates on very small timescales and the process and the laws of evidence are far more lenient and it's less awesome an environment than the English courts," he said.

Mr. Siddiqi predicted that there would be a formal network of Muslim courts within a decade.

"I was speaking to a police officer who said we no longer have the bobby on the beat who will give somebody a slap on the wrist.

"So I think there is a case to be made under which the elders sit together and reprimand people, trying to get them to change."

and then there is the following, also from the Telegraph:

Bonds to fit sharia law backed by Chancellor

By Katy Hastings
Last Updated: 11:41pm GMT 17/02/2008

The row over sharia law was reignited on Sunday with the emergence of plans for the Chancellor to approve "Islamic bonds" which would raise money for public spending from the Middle East.

Britain would be the first Western nation to issue the bonds, which meet Islamic rules by avoiding interest payments, classed as "sinful".

The move could lead to wealthy Middle Eastern businessmen and banks taking ownership of Government buildings and other British assets.

The Treasury said last April that it was interested in exploring the possibility of borrowing funds through bonds compliant with Islamic law, known as sukuk.

A consultation exercise on the issue, launched in November, ends on Thursday.

MPs are expected to be updated on progress in the Budget next month.

But treasury officials have reportedly been working on the proposal for months. The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, is said to be ready to approve the proposal.

A Treasury spokesman said: "We want the City of London to be one of the gateways globally for Islamic financial products and we want it to be competitive on all products you can imagine, so we should be competitive on Islamic finance as well as any other."

Critics have hit out at the move saying it would undermine Britain's financial systems.

The senior Conservative MP Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons public accounts committee, said: "I am concerned about the signal this would send - it could be the thin end of the wedge.

"British common law must be supreme and should apply to everyone."

A spokesman for the National Secular Society said: "Constructing financial instruments to be sharia-compliant seems to involve unnecessary complication, which will only make a lot of lawyers rich."

The bonds have been designed to comply with the demands of sharia, and sukuk is estimated to be worth £5.5 billion in a £125 billion global market.

Unlike a conventional bond which is debt-based, a sukuk is asset-based. Instead of receiving interest, bond holders receive "rent" on the asset, complying with sharia.

It is believed that Government assets such as "buildings or a piece of infrastructure" would be switched to a "special-purpose vehicle" set up to administer the bond. This would be carried out by a contract known as an ijara.

The asset would then be leased back by the Government, generating rental payments for the Islamic bond holders.

When the sukuk matured, the Government would guarantee to buy back the asset, allowing the bond-holders to get redemption payments.

The proposal follows a row over comments by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who said it "seemed inevitable" that aspects of sharia law, such as divorce proceedings, would be adopted in Britain.

As if that were not enough, we also read from PendleToday:

Sharia law debate - Archbishop should stop pandering to minority

THE Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, certainly stirred up a hornets' nest when he called for sharia (Islamic) law to be recognised in Britain.

In one fell swoop, he would destroy the idea that has been one of the foundations of our country since Magna Carta – that there should be one law for everyone, and that all people are equal before that law.

Dr. Williams should stop pandering to the minority.

The vast majority of Muslims living in this country do so because they want to live somewhere where they are protected by the rule of law – and the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips, has it right when he says that having two systems of law alongside each other in this country is a recipe for chaos.

"If people choose to live in this country, they choose to abide by that law and that law alone," he said after the Archbishop's speech. "It has got to be fundamental and a cornerstone of our country and our democracy that everybody is equal before that one system of British law."

That is the way it has been since 1215 – and, after nearly 800 years without any radical changes, it is the way it should remain into the future. . .

More on this from Australia was written in the Sydney Morning Herald:

Grim picture of sharia hides its useful aspects
Ghena Krayem and Haisam Farache
February 18, 2008

The recent words of the Archbishop of Canterbury have caused consternation all over the world, including in Australia, and why shouldn't they? After all, the archbishop did suggest it was unavoidable that sharia law would be implemented in the English legal system.

Let's be honest. The use of the term sharia conjures up images of a brutal, harsh and inhumane legal system, characterised by amputations, beheadings, and stoning to death. In fact these were the very images used as the background to a news report about the lecture delivered by the archbishop.

With such a grim picture of sharia in our minds, it is little wonder that the call made by the archbishop to consider ways of accommodating sharia law in certain areas of dispute resolution, in particular family law, was received with such animosity.

However, despite the hysteria and protesting comments, the reality is that sharia law in the context of family law is already being used by the Muslim community not only in Britain, but also in the United States, Canada and in Australia.

In our Australian legal system, two individuals can agree to any contract they like, as long as the contract does not abrogate the law or have an illegal purpose. This means that under existing law two people can use the laws of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism or even make up their own ideology and bind each other in a legally valid contract under Australian law.

By the same token two people can enter into a contract to abide by sharia law. Is that surprising? And if the contract was made in deed form it could even be registered with the Department of Lands.

Are you feeling hysterical yet?

The fact that in certain situations we can agree to be bound by any system or law is one of the strengths of our democracy. In an enlightened form, democracy has the capacity to take the best attributes of any system, ideology or practice and apply it to advance the humanity of its citizens.

This flexibility allows a truly democratic nation to remain resilient in adversity and flourish in prosperity.

Yes, there are some things that many Australians may find different or even offensive about sharia law, yet if we take our Prime Minister's recent advice and apply our Australian value of giving "a fair go to all", we may find there are many other aspects of sharia law we find intriguing and even useful.

It is also important to remember that what is being suggested is not the adoption of sharia laws as part of the Australian legal system, but rather the recognition of an alternative dispute resolution process.

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Hmmm, Sharia Law that allows for "honor" killing. In case you don't know what that is, if a woman is raped under Sharia Law, the rapist is not punished but the woman is. She is murdered by her father, uncles or her brothers who say her murder restores "honor" to the family. Yeah, that's just one aspect of Sharia Law. It can be prettied up all you want, but it is a vile and evil set of laws.

And in case you believe the Sydney Morning Herald is exaggerating about Sharia Law being instigated in the U.S., take a walk through a Muslim Detroit neighborhood and notice that honor killings and the like are going on right now in America. In America! Where this kind of criminal, evil, reprehensible behavior is in direct contrast to the laws and freedoms established by the Founding Fathers. Never forget, it was the Founding Fathers who studied the world at large and discarded all laws and practices which would lead to the type of countries which existed in Europe and the Middle East. There was a reason for that! Read up on European and Middle Eastern history and you see millennia of fighting. First the Muslims try to take over the world and are stopped by the armies of Spain lead by their king and driven back to the Middle East. Then the "Christians" tried to convert the Muslims by the sword . . . yes, it was called the Crusades.

And what have we now? Thirty years ago the Muslim extremists, which are gaining great ground in the Muslim communities, began attacking the world once again. I recommend you listen to a podcast I did with Jay Case, currently completing his doctorate on terrorism. It was an eye opener!

I am horrified that civilized countries are instilling Sharia Law into their local laws. I will fight with my last breath to insure this does not occur in America. But I ask you this . . . I am but one voice and liberal America is opening her arms to the enemy and welcoming them into our nation, pushing aside all those who are screaming: THOSE WHO DO NOT STUDY AND LEARN FROM HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT! Do we really want a repeat of medieval times? No!

There's a reason our ancestors fled their native countries: to avoid this type of unmitigated disaster. My ancestors and family have fought, bled and died to preserve this nation in every single war we have fought, including this one.

And so I say this: If you wish to live in a land where you may worship as you please, please come. But if your desire is to take your religion and shove it down our throats I will fight you and I will call upon every elected official in this land to bring the full weight and might of the American government and military against you. I will not stop. I will not fail.

I refuse to stand before my God and my ancestors, when the time comes, and admit I hid my head in a hole in the ground rather than stand and fight for freedom. My ancestors did their part, now it's my turn.