Monday, May 11, 2009

Sharia and US law

American Muslim Zuhdi Jasser takes issue here with the idea that traditional Islamic sharia law is "God's law, and it is not that far from what we read in the Declaration of Independence." In his view, any time 'God's law' is incorporated into a political system, that system simply becomes a theocracy: "once it is interpreted and enacted by Muslims it becomes human law regardless of what we may call it." And there is no way that the rights of non-Muslims, or of women, are protected in the same way as they are under U.S. constitutional law.

Jasser's conclusion: "There must be a clear demarcation between the domain of the cleric's laws and the domain of our government's laws -- i.e. our Establishment Clause."

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