Through the years, Americans have welcomed immigrants from all over the world to our shores: Swedes, Norwegians, Irish, Germans, Poles, Russians, Scots, Central Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, South Americans – all of us are born from these groups unless our descendants were among the English, French or Spanish first settlers of America. And even they were immigrants in a sense, strangers to these shores. Only those of 100% native American blood can claim to be truly and only American.
And all of these groups gradually assimilated into the “American” culture to the extent that only those of us whose ancestors did not immigrate to the U.S. in the last two or three generations can claim to be purely German or purely English in origin. Descended from three Swedish grandparents and one Norwegian grandmother, I come close, but my husband has genetic ties to Scotland, Germany, Switzerland, England, France, Wales, Ireland and Norway. We are, as Americans, truly a hodgepodge, a melting pot, as we have been called.
But the very term “melting pot” has been so appropriately applied to our national identity because it so clearly defines what has happened here. If a baker were making fudge, for example, he or she might put chocolate, sugar, butter, and perhaps some milk into a pot on the stove. Then as the baker stirs, those ingredients melt and mix together into something that is no longer chocolate, sugar, butter or milk, but a wondrous combination of all four. Something new. Something infinitely better than any of the four alone.
So it has always been in America. We welcome others to our shores and wish them every success in building the lives that we have been able to live, and we only ask one thing of them – that they love our country as we love it, as it is, with all of its foibles and failings.
But in recent years we have seen the influx of Muslim immigrants into the United States as into Europe and there is something profoundly different with them. While some of them have assimilated well into our culture, many have not, and in European countries, vast numbers of them have gathered in portions of major cities where even the police are loath to venture. They practice their own law, there, Sharia Law, and many in the U.S. would like to see that law be accepted here, at first, as equal to the laws of the land when applied to Muslims, and eventually, the only law in America, applied to everyone.
Immediately the liberals among you, if any liberals bother to read this, will shout “alarmist,” “liar” “where’s your proof?” Well, let us begin with a survey of Muslims on the streets of Minneapolis conducted by Ami Horowitz and played on Hannity in 2015. He found that the majority of those he talked to wanted to see Sharia law as the land and an even more surprising majority of these young men claimed they would rather live in Somalia (from which they or their parents had emigrated) than in the United States.
Several studies conducted of Mosques in the U.S. in the past few years have all concluded that about 80% of all Mosques teach the superiority of Sharia law to the U.S. Constitution and that Sharia law should become the law of the United States.
51% of Muslims living in the U.S. told Polling Co. this June that they preferred having “the choice of being governed according to Shariah,” or Islamic law. And 60% of Muslim-Americans under 30 told Pew Research they’re more loyal to Islam than America.
Muzammil Siddiqi, chairman of both the Fiqh Council of North America, which dispenses Islamic rulings, and the North American Islamic Trust, which owns most of the mosques in the U.S. states, “As Muslims, we should participate in the system to safeguard our interests and try to bring gradual change, (but) we must not forget that Allah’s rules have to be established in all lands, and all our efforts should lead to that direction.”
Omar Ahmad, co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the top Muslim lobby group in Washington is reported as saying, “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Quran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.
Imam Siraj Wahhaj, director of the Muslim Alliance in North America: “In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing. And the only thing that will remain will be Islam.”
Imam Zaid Shakir, co-founder of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, Calif.: “If we put a nationwide infrastructure in place and marshaled our resources, we’d take over this country in a very short time. . . . What a great victory it will be for Islam to have this country in the fold and ranks of the Muslims.”
Asifa Quraishi-Landes, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Law, argues that what we in the west view as Sharia law is simply a man-made interpretation of Sharia and not an accurate reading of it. But it is the man-made interpretation that rules Arabic countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia and guides such groups as Al-Shabab, Boko Haram, and ISIS. Unfortunately, contrary to what he would have you believe, those interpretations are also held by most Muslims, moderate Muslims.
But at a conference in 2013, Fahad Qureshi, the founder of Islam Net, and a leader in Norway’s Muslim community asked a series of questions of his normal, every-day Norwegian citizen Muslim audience. He asked them if they believed men and women should sit separately. Then he asked, “How many of you agree that the punishments described in the Koran and the Sunna – whether it is death, whether it is stoning for adultery, whatever it is — if it is from Allah and His Messenger, that is the best punishment ever possible for humankind, and that is what we should apply in the world. Who agrees with that?” And every hand in the room went up.
So what are soe of the tenets of Sharia law as most Muslims understand it? Well, for one, the consumption of alcohol is strictly forbidden. No more cold beer at the ball game, fellas! And pre-marital sex is punished by the public caning of both parties, a tough rule in a country where so many young adults choose living together over marriage these days! Here are some others:
•Theft is punishable by amputation of the right hand or sometimes the right hand and left leg both.
•Criticizing or denying any part of the Quran is punishable by de •Criticizing Muhammad or denying that he is a prophet is punishable by death.
•Criticizing or denying Allah is punishable by death.
•A Muslim who becomes a non-Muslim is punishable by death.
•A non-Muslim who leads a Muslim away from Islam is punishable by death.
•A non-Muslim man who marries a Muslim woman is punishable by death.
•A man can marry an infant girl and consummate the marriage when she is 9 years old.
•Girls’ clitoris should be cut (Muhammad‘s words, Book 41, Kitab Al-Adab, Hadith 5251).
•A woman can have 1 husband, who can have up to 4 wives; Muhammad can have more.
•A man can beat his wife for insubordination. •A man can unilaterally divorce his wife; a woman needs her husband’s consent to divorce.
•A divorced wife loses custody of all children over 6 years of age or when they exceed it.
•Testimonies of four male witnesses are required to prove rape against a woman.
•A woman who has been raped cannot testify in court against her rapist(s).
•A woman’s testimony in court, allowed in property cases, carries ½ the weight of a man’s.
•A female heir inherits half of what a male heir inherits.
•A woman cannot drive a car, as it leads to fitnah (upheaval).
•A woman cannot speak alone to a man who is not her husband or relative.
•Meat to eat must come from animals that have been sacrificed to Allah – i.e., be “Halal“.
•Muslims should engage in Taqiyya and lie to non-Muslims to advance Islam. *Homosexuality is punishable by death.
Muslims, like any other immigrant group should be welcome in our country only if they wish to become Americans in every sense, adapting to our culture, accepting our values, respecting our laws – including the law which grants each of us the freedom to practice our own religion or to abstain from religion entirely. Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, got it right when she told Muslims in her country in 2013, “Immigrants, not Australians, must adapt. . . .Take it or leave it. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture.”