DiversityInc - Winter 2012

DIVERSITYINC LEARNINGS
CULTURAL
COMPETENCE

American Muslims. The Muslim world is not a monolith. It’s divided into nations and sects and histories that are totally different, and their interpretation of Islam is completely different.

When we have fear, we’re really reflecting something in ourselves. We are reflecting our own inse-curities, and that communicates itself to the whole world. Think of the trauma of 9/11 and the impact. Therefore, you have the need to overcome that. Fear, in the end, is just something that you poison your own system with.

I may be idealistic, but America— and I’m talking about America in the clearest, most positive sense, going back to the vision and example of the founding fathers—to me really represents something very different. Something that is almost transcendental—people who are on this different level, almost, of human society.

Were they fearful? I don’t get a
hint of fear. They’re in the middle
of the birth of the nation. When
Washington’s soldiers captured
British soldiers who tortured
Americans and brought these
British soldiers to Washington
and said, “We are going to do the
the way they are behaving with the
rosary—what are we saying about
ourselves? Are we the superpower
that has a role to play on the world
stage? Or are we all going to retreat
into our fears and prejudices, caus-
ing hurt to our own people?

Sharia means Islamic jurisprudence. Like Jewish law, like Christian law, it is a form of interpretation of how we govern our lives, and that is it. I don’t think we should be that frightened of it. We really need to talk about it and hopefully work it out of our system. What Muslim wants to give that up and bring the religious figures from Iran and Saudi Arabia to rule over us?

Americans and Sharia Law VISCONTI Should Americans be afraid of sharia law? How does it fit in with American jurisprudence and governance?

DR. AHMED Many Americans believe that the sharia is about to be imposed. I ask you, even if all the American Muslims, 2 percent of the population, said, “We want the sharia,” can they impose their will on 98 percent in a democracy? It is such an absurd idea.

These Muslims are coming from countries that are 90–95 percent Muslim. They don’t have the sharia.

American Muslims are the classic moderates. They are the guys who should be your bridges and ambassadors to the Muslim world except that they are being demonized as potential terrorists.

DR. AKBAR AHMED

same thing that they did to us,” Washington said, “Absolutely not. We cannot behave like the enemy because we must maintain a higher moral standing.” That is American.

If we are going to behave like
neurotic people—if someone sits and
you don’t like his face or his color or
They can impose sharia through
the constitution. Why should they
escape their countries, escape the
chaos of Islamic laws, to come here
and impose it on Americans? This
really is to me something so breath-
takingly stupid because I just don’t
know how to answer it.

DR. POLLACK We tend to have in mind a notion that the sharia is a very clear, well-established set of principles, which is also unbelievably harsh and tolerates no interpretation. That is not the case. There were certainly things in the Quran, which are applied literally in Saudi Arabia, about what constitutes an offense and what the punishment for that offense is.

In other aspects, it is unbelievably vague. In terms of how women should dress, the Quran simply states that women should dress modestly. It doesn’t say what percentage of the body needs to be covered, and different Muslim societies have interpreted that injunction very differently.

The sharia is actually much more flexible than most think, and what we often do is substitute the very extreme, inflexible interpretations of certain countries that do not necessarily reflect the larger concept of sharia for this notion.

When you speak to Muslims, you find that many of them do believe that sharia ought to be part of their legal system. Overwhelmingly, Americans believe that our foreign policy ought to be informed by our common Judeo-Christian values. Yet when we hear Muslims saying that they would like their foreign policy to be informed by their Muslim values, we panic. We are terrified.