Peloni: Nice analysis of the dichotomy which exists between Islam and Judeo-Christian Heritage. Well Done!
Dr. Norman Berdichevsky
What is meant by “Our Judeo-Christian-Heritage”? What upset both many Jews and Christians when President Obama reversed the order traditionally used by public figures and spoke of the United States as “A Country of Christians and Muslims,”? Is not Islam one of the “Three Abrahamic Religions” as many Muslims claim? Both terms stress the importance of integrating new knowledge into an acceptable framework that confirms a group’s most cherished values.
The Torah and the Constitution were elevated by Jews and Americans respectively as the final recourse and supreme arbiter of political disputes and moral conflicts. The “LAW” rather than any President or King was acknowledged as the source of power in the state.
A King Solomon and a President Clinton even if not impeached or deposed, suffered the scorn and humiliation of having betrayed their sacred trust. Nowhere else but in ancient Israel and modern America is there a document that is so respected and carries such weight. The designation in modern Hebrew for The United States is “Artzot haBrit” literally means “The Lands of the Covenant.” For Hebrew speakers, this name struck an immediate responsive chord that America was a country that placed the rule of law foremost above all persons and privileges. “Brit” means covenant and was also the term used for “circumcision”, the act that made the covenant a visible sign in the flesh between God and the descendants of Abraham and Isaac.
This covenant – The Torah, constituted the voluntary acceptance of a righteous moral code. The American Revolution which established the system of federal and state government in the United States promulgated a respect for equality of individual citizens before the law — a cardinal point that rejects monarchy and above all places ultimate reliance on a fixed document — the Constitution — rather than a monarch held in great reverence. In this regard, the United States, a Republic from its inception, developed a written code which was the final arbiter of all problems and conflicts. It is the means to decide what is legal and what is illegal.
The Utter Contrast with Islam and Sharia Law
What came to be known as Sharia codified seventh century Arab culture from the Arabian peninsula and became imbedded in the new faith of Islam. Under the first Caliphate of the Umayyad rulers, caliphs enacted laws reflecting the jurisprudence of imams in which, from the very start, they were specifically exempted from theft, adultery (in spite of the legality of plural marriage and numerous concubines), killing, and drinking alcoholic beverages. An Islamic head of state could not be charged with these crimes (codified Islamic Law, vol. 3, no. 914 cited in Cruel and Usual Punishment; Nonie Darwish, 2008 (Thomas Nelson publishers, 20008, IBN 9781595551610
Abu Hanifa (699-767), the imam who granted immunity to Muslim political leaders and was the author of one of the major codes of the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence, was himself killed by the reigning caliph!
This tradition has continued to the present day explaining the absence of fundamental democratic institutions allowing for political debate and respect for the equality of citizens under the laws. Individuals enjoy no protection from despotic rule, Kaffirs (non-believers) and women are not the equal of men and it is taken from granted that leaders will be corrupt and that this is part of the established order of society. Fourteen hundred years after the death of Muhammad and the codification of Sharia, the spectre of 7th century Arabia with its tribal way of life rules over more than two billion people.
Death for apostasy continues to be the accepted ruling in many Muslim majority states and in places such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iran, any other the public worship of any other religion is either totally forbidden or severely restricted. Not one member of the 57 member Organization of Islamic Conference of Nations (OIC) qualifies as a truly functioning democracy providing protection for ordinary citizens from the power of the state.
In his June 4, 2009 Cairo speech, President
“…I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed, confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice, government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people, the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas. They are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere.”
Yet this unyielding belief that these values exist or are respected in the Muslim world must be based on ignorance that NOT ONE of the majority Muslim countries has signed the U.N. Declaration of Huma Rights but subscribes to their own “Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights” (UIDHR), signed at Cairo in which predominantly Muslim countries take noy expressed issue with the U.N. Declaration for its perceived failure to take into account the cultural and religious context of Non-Western countries.
The document was adopted on August 5, 1990 by 45 foreign ministers of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to serve as a guideline for the member states in matters of human rights. In 1981, the Iranian delegate to the U.N. Said Rajaie-Khorassani articulated the Muslim position by criticizing the U.N. document as “a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition”, which could not be implemented by Muslims without trespassing Islamic law. What this means in essence is that the fundamental rights of individuals, women and children for protection from abuse and the right to their freedom of conscience as understood in both Israel and the United States as well as all the other non-Muslim countries who signed the document, are all denied.
Article 10 of the UIDHR states: “Islam is the religion of unspoiled nature. It is prohibited to exercise any form of compulsion on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to convert him to another religion or to atheism.”
Article 10 thus explicitly states that it is forbidden to convert someone from Islam to another religion or to atheism. Exploitation of “ignorance” is one of the forbidden ways. Since in an Islamic state, “ignorance” can be attributed to anyone who is non-Muslim, Article 10 can be used to outlaw apostasy from Islam whatever the circumstances. This result accords with all the main schools of Islamic law, which prescribe the death penalty for sane, adult males (the judgment regarding women apostates is however more debatable) who leave the Islamic faith.
In a joint written statement submitted by the International Humanist and Ethical Union, a non-governmental organization in special consultative status, the Association for World Education and the Association of World Citizens have declared that the “The Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam is clearly an attempt to limit the rights enshrined in the U.N. Declaration of Universal Human Rights and International Covenants.”
ISLAM AND AMERICAN HISTORY
Obama’s attempts to expand on Muslim tolerance and achievement are faulty to say the least but his linking the “Muslim World” to American history is simply absurd when he quoted John Adams.
…”The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second president, John Adams, wrote, The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquillity of Muslims.”
This 1796 quote was written when Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe had no direct knowledge whatsoever with Islam or any familiarity with Muslim societies. All of them later, during the period 1801-1815, subscribed to the absolute necessity to confront the Barbary Pirates to end the scourge of piracy and the unprovoked attacks on American and European merchant vessels, the capture and the enslavement of their crews for ransom by the various vicious Muslim “Deys” — the rulers of the North African states.
All four of these American presidents, despite their initial reluctance to raise taxes, empower a modern navy and send thousands of American sailors and marines across the Atlantic to fight a protracted war, became aware of the utter hopelessness of dealing with Muslim rulers who proclaimed their inherent right to act in this aggressive manner because the Koran commanded them to do so against infidels who under the Koran enjoyed no rights whatsoever.
It was clear that the two civilizations, ways of life, and basic concepts of law, self-government and the rights of citizens were directly opposed.
Chocopot is absolutely correct. Islam is dressed in the robes of religion, but is a political ideology with no humanitarian or moral guidelines. Murder and theft are condoned and expected of muslim leaders to maintain their power over ignorant masses. Apostasy is punishable by murder to safeguard the power of a totalitarian regime.
The problem with islamic immigration is that it should not and never should have happened
A good article, clarifying the relationship between religion, monarchy and the law, as they differ between democracies and totalitarian, Islamic regimes. I would add that in Western democracies the law of the land was, first of all, based on the Ten Commandments of the Bible, which Islam does not have. Therefore, Muslims are allied to lie in the interest of furthering Islam, something the Ten Commandments express forbid Jews and Christians to do. The failure to understand this distinction is what leads so many Western leaders to trust the empty promises of Islamic rulers.
@chocopot
Everything you say is correct, except that Islam does not masquerading as a religion. It is a religion. It is also all the other things you say it is. The distinction between Islam as religion and Islam as totalitarian system is tangentially made in the article itself:
For those who are not “imams”, i.e., lay Muslims, Islam is a religion, codified as such within the jurisprudence of imams, i.e., Shari’a, where the religion’s relation to, and interaction with, the totalitarian system is also set out in great detail.
To assert that Islam is not a religion makes it impossible to understand the contradictory behaviour of Muslims as people.
I’m really glad, and thankful, that Dr. Norman Berdichevsky published this article, which I hope will be the start of a serious debate.
As I have been putting it for many years: Islam is a racist, supremacist, totalitarian political ideology masquerading as a religion.