Shari'a is nothing to fear

First of all, any mainstream Islamic religious scholar will tell you that there is no sin­gle monolithic definition of Sharia as it exists today any­where in the world. Very generally speaking, the concept of Sharia has come to be defined as “the ideal law of God according to Islamic tradition,” according to Professor Intisar Rabb, director of the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School. But as Professor Rabb has also made clear: “Sharia has tremendous diversity… It is not a monolithic doctrine of violence, as has been character­ized in the recently introduced [anti-Sharia] bills that would criminalize [basic Islamic] practices” like charity-giving and other benign legal matters like divorce and estate planning. Professor Rabb has also noted that Sharia “historically was a broad system that encompassed ritual laws, so in some ways it recalls Jewish law that has rules for how to pray, how to make ablution before prayers” as well as dietary rules involving kosher (or halal) food.

“Some of the biggest misconceptions about Islamic law are that it proposes a scheme of global domination,” Imam Zaid Shakir, a cofounder of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California—the first Muslim liberal arts college in America—explained during an interview for my latest book. He also pointed out that many Westerners mistakenly believe that Islamic law is not amenable to change in the face of changing circumstances, that it is a system that oppresses women and that by definition it is an enemy of western civilization. In fact, he stated that Islamic law actually categorically forbids many of the practices that the average person fearfully associates with some Muslims today, like killing innocent people (non-Muslims and Muslims alike) and stoning women.

“For example, Sharia forbids members of a Muslim minority [in Western societies] from engaging in clandestine acts of violence and paramilitary organiz­ing… or from acting as political or military agents for a Muslim-majority country,” he told me. “Islamic law also forbids the disruption of public safety.”