How is Islamic law different from American law? Here’s an example:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=87&art_id=nw20100717180801519C695072

Mogadishu – Radical Islamists in Somalia cut off the right hands of two men who admitted theft as hundreds of people, including women and children, looked on, a judge said Saturday.

“The court handed down its verdict according to Islamic sharia law after the two accused admitted their guilt,” judge Abu Yusuf Sheik Hasan told journalists Saturday.

The sentence was carried out by a hooded executioner with a long knife late Friday in the small town of Balad, 30 kilometres north of Mogadishu, which is controlled by the Shebab movement, witnesses said.

Hassan Omar Mohamed, 18, and Murshid Ahmed Adan, 22, confessed to having burgled shops, stealing 45 million and two million Somali shillings (1,350 and 60 dollars).

*** SIXTY DOLLARS!!!***

A witness who gave his name as Muktar described how three men restrained each amputee, one of them holding the right arm while it was cut off.

While the pair had been drugged, “It seemed really painful,” he added.

Another witness, Adan Yusuf, said, “Women and children were watching this horrible punishment and I saw a woman vomit” while it was being carried out.

The Shebab movement, which controls most of central and southern Somalia, has imposed an extreme interpretation of sharia, including amputation and other corporal punishment.

In addition, music and most other forms of entertainment have been banned and a strict dress code is in force.. – AFP (end)

You can find similar themes in many other news stories. Extreme punishments that were used in 630 AD to spread terror. Public executions and mutilations. A different set of laws for Muslims and non-Muslims.

How do we tell American children that we don’t want ‘extreme interpretations of sharia’ in the United States? While such a conversation would be difficult, it’s certaintly worthwhile. Americans need to understand that our liberties are under attack by groups who want to replace our laws with their laws, at least for members of their religion living in the US.

How is Islamic law different from American law? Here’s an example:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=87&art_id=nw20100717180801519C695072

Mogadishu – Radical Islamists in Somalia cut off the right hands of two men who admitted theft as hundreds of people, including women and children, looked on, a judge said Saturday.

“The court handed down its verdict according to Islamic sharia law after the two accused admitted their guilt,” judge Abu Yusuf Sheik Hasan told journalists Saturday.

The sentence was carried out by a hooded executioner with a long knife late Friday in the small town of Balad, 30 kilometres north of Mogadishu, which is controlled by the Shebab movement, witnesses said.

Hassan Omar Mohamed, 18, and Murshid Ahmed Adan, 22, confessed to having burgled shops, stealing 45 million and two million Somali shillings (1,350 and 60 dollars).

*** SIXTY DOLLARS!!!***

A witness who gave his name as Muktar described how three men restrained each amputee, one of them holding the right arm while it was cut off.

While the pair had been drugged, “It seemed really painful,” he added.

Another witness, Adan Yusuf, said, “Women and children were watching this horrible punishment and I saw a woman vomit” while it was being carried out.

The Shebab movement, which controls most of central and southern Somalia, has imposed an extreme interpretation of sharia, including amputation and other corporal punishment.

In addition, music and most other forms of entertainment have been banned and a strict dress code is in force.. – AFP (end)

You can find similar themes in many other news stories. Extreme punishments that were used in 630 AD to spread terror. Public executions and mutilations. A different set of laws for Muslims and non-Muslims.

How do we tell American children that we don’t want ‘extreme interpretations of sharia’ in the United States? While such a conversation would be difficult, it’s certaintly worthwhile. Americans need to understand that our liberties are under attack by groups who want to replace our laws with their laws, at least for members of their religion living in the US.

Again, from The Daily Mail:

French parliamentarians voted last week to outlaw full-face veils, including burkas, in public. Under the French ban, a woman wearing the burka can be stopped on the street by police and ordered to a police station, where she will be compelled to remove the veil.

The woman faces a possible fine. Muslim men who are deemed to have ‘forced’ their wives or daughters to wear the burka will also be fined.

President Sarkozy has said that the burka ‘is not welcome’ in his country. He claims that

*** it is ‘oppressive’ to women and reduces them to ‘servitude’. ***

He said: ‘The burqa is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience. ‘

The question was raised, should Great Britain pass a similar ban: ‘There are times, clearly, when you’ve got to be able to identify yourself, and people have got to be able to see your face, but I think it’s very unlikely and it would be undesirable for the British Parliament to try and pass a law dictating what people wore.

‘I think very few women in France actually wear the burka. They [the French parliament] are doing it for demonstration effects.

‘The French political culture is very different.

*** The French are an aggressively secular state. They can ban the burka, they ban crucifixes in schools and things like that. ***

The new head of the Muslim Council of Britain, Farooq Murad, said that Britain was the most welcoming country in Europe for Muslims.

He pointed to

*** the spread of mosques and sharia, or Islamic law, ***

as positive signs of the greater freedom Muslims are given in this country.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1295665/Banning-burkas-UK-British-says-Green.html#ixzz0u6IGibbG

This last statement, by the head of the Muslim Council of Britain, was disturbing to me.

He thinks “the spread of sharia law” is a postive sign.

Islam wants to replace the existing laws of countries with Islamic law. And their laws are based on ideas that froze when Mohammed died in 632 AD.

The idea that ‘all men are created equal’ does not exist in Sharia law. Instead, they have one law for Muslims, and a different set of laws for non-Muslims, with the clear motive being to convince everyone to convert to Islam.

that’s un-american. Islam is un-american. Muslims can’t see that, but it’s why the oppressed in so many Muslim countries think the United States is their only hope.

Again, from The Daily Mail:

French parliamentarians voted last week to outlaw full-face veils, including burkas, in public. Under the French ban, a woman wearing the burka can be stopped on the street by police and ordered to a police station, where she will be compelled to remove the veil.

The woman faces a possible fine. Muslim men who are deemed to have ‘forced’ their wives or daughters to wear the burka will also be fined.

President Sarkozy has said that the burka ‘is not welcome’ in his country. He claims that

*** it is ‘oppressive’ to women and reduces them to ‘servitude’. ***

He said: ‘The burqa is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience. ‘

The question was raised, should Great Britain pass a similar ban: ‘There are times, clearly, when you’ve got to be able to identify yourself, and people have got to be able to see your face, but I think it’s very unlikely and it would be undesirable for the British Parliament to try and pass a law dictating what people wore.

‘I think very few women in France actually wear the burka. They [the French parliament] are doing it for demonstration effects.

‘The French political culture is very different.

*** The French are an aggressively secular state. They can ban the burka, they ban crucifixes in schools and things like that. ***

The new head of the Muslim Council of Britain, Farooq Murad, said that Britain was the most welcoming country in Europe for Muslims.

He pointed to

*** the spread of mosques and sharia, or Islamic law, ***

as positive signs of the greater freedom Muslims are given in this country.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1295665/Banning-burkas-UK-British-says-Green.html#ixzz0u6IGibbG

This last statement, by the head of the Muslim Council of Britain, was disturbing to me.

He thinks “the spread of sharia law” is a postive sign.

Islam wants to replace the existing laws of countries with Islamic law. And their laws are based on ideas that froze when Mohammed died in 632 AD.

The idea that ‘all men are created equal’ does not exist in Sharia law. Instead, they have one law for Muslims, and a different set of laws for non-Muslims, with the clear motive being to convince everyone to convert to Islam.

that’s un-american. Islam is un-american. Muslims can’t see that, but it’s why the oppressed in so many Muslim countries think the United States is their only hope.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1293232/Sakineh-Mohammadi-Ashtiani-How-Iran-legally-stone-women-death.html

Though poor in quality, the video is sufficiently clear to reveal the horror that is unfolding.

We see a patch of open ground in front of a low building.

A crowd of men stand and stare as two figures, shrouded from head to toe, are carried into their midst.

Some of the spectators produce spades and begin to dig.

Soon there are two holes into which the trussed figures are planted upright, as far as their waists. Then the diggers fill in the space around them; they are trapped.

An older man has the ‘honour’ of throwing the first stone. Then everyone joins in; stooping, hurling and stooping again.

Their targets, only a few metres away, are the heads of the two helpless human beings buried in the dirt. Within minutes, the white cloth swathing them is soaked red with blood. Gore spreads across the ground as the writhing figures slump into merciful unconsciousness amid the mob’s continuing fusillade of small rocks

There was a confusion among sources about the pair’s gender. But the depth at which the victims were buried suggests they were males – after all, the law states that women should be buried up to their necks.

(same article:) Mrs Ashtiani, a widow, was first arrested five years ago and convicted of having an ‘illicit relationship’ with two men, for which they were all flogged. That punishment was witnessed by her son, then aged 17.

But the authorities had not finished with her. A ‘review’ of her case led to her being charged, along with one of her alleged lovers, with the murder of her husband.

She was also charged for a second time with adultery. Mrs Ashtiani denied any wrongdoing.

At trial she was cleared of murder. But three out of the five male judges decided she was guilty of adultery. Death by stoning was the sentence.

Since then, she has languished in a prison in the northern city of Tabriz, along with at least two other women, one aged only 19, who are awaiting similar executions.

Meanwhile, her son lobbied the highest authorities in Iran for his mother’s conviction to be thrown out…This open defiance of a harsh regime – and the cultivation of support from its enemies abroad – was a desperate gamble for an Iranian citizen. But up to a point it has worked (End.)

At the bottom of the article, 473 comments from readers of The Daily Mail. Here’s an interesting one:

I am living in iran but we dont want to do like this … it is a wild work .. I wish we had strong to stop them … they are ” sepah e pasdaran ” group that doing this work in iran , and are so strong because they have so many guns and killing people on the streets of iran against the cameras .. please … the people of the free world , PLEASE HELP US … WE ARE ALONE .. PLEASE HELP US .. PLEASE
- yashar, tabriz , iran,

I know you don’t understand what Islam does to people under their governments. but the idea is, government comes from the authority of Mohammed and the Qur’an rather than from the ballot box. If they can find a statement by Mohammed that stoning is the appropriate punishment for a crime, it doesn’t matter than Mohammed died in 632 AD or that the world has moved on. By claiming authority based on a revealed word of God, they will always be limited and restricted by those words. The words can’t change. There can be no reform or progress. Islam is a political force trying to spread a “rule of law” based on ideas that were considered ruthless in the year 632 CE to maybe 780 AD, I’m trying to allow for new ideas that crept in before the Qur’an was written down. But at a certain point, progress stopped.

When the US constitution was written, the framers were trying to create a BETTER form of government. Islam wants to take the world back before that happened, to a time when a revelation from God would guarantee that a government did the right thing. And the result is… stoning as a legal punishment for adultery.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1293232/Sakineh-Mohammadi-Ashtiani-How-Iran-legally-stone-women-death.html

Though poor in quality, the video is sufficiently clear to reveal the horror that is unfolding.

We see a patch of open ground in front of a low building.

A crowd of men stand and stare as two figures, shrouded from head to toe, are carried into their midst.

Some of the spectators produce spades and begin to dig.

Soon there are two holes into which the trussed figures are planted upright, as far as their waists. Then the diggers fill in the space around them; they are trapped.

An older man has the ‘honour’ of throwing the first stone. Then everyone joins in; stooping, hurling and stooping again.

Their targets, only a few metres away, are the heads of the two helpless human beings buried in the dirt. Within minutes, the white cloth swathing them is soaked red with blood. Gore spreads across the ground as the writhing figures slump into merciful unconsciousness amid the mob’s continuing fusillade of small rocks

There was a confusion among sources about the pair’s gender. But the depth at which the victims were buried suggests they were males – after all, the law states that women should be buried up to their necks.

(same article:) Mrs Ashtiani, a widow, was first arrested five years ago and convicted of having an ‘illicit relationship’ with two men, for which they were all flogged. That punishment was witnessed by her son, then aged 17.

But the authorities had not finished with her. A ‘review’ of her case led to her being charged, along with one of her alleged lovers, with the murder of her husband.

She was also charged for a second time with adultery. Mrs Ashtiani denied any wrongdoing.

At trial she was cleared of murder. But three out of the five male judges decided she was guilty of adultery. Death by stoning was the sentence.

Since then, she has languished in a prison in the northern city of Tabriz, along with at least two other women, one aged only 19, who are awaiting similar executions.

Meanwhile, her son lobbied the highest authorities in Iran for his mother’s conviction to be thrown out…This open defiance of a harsh regime – and the cultivation of support from its enemies abroad – was a desperate gamble for an Iranian citizen. But up to a point it has worked (End.)

At the bottom of the article, 473 comments from readers of The Daily Mail. Here’s an interesting one:

I am living in iran but we dont want to do like this … it is a wild work .. I wish we had strong to stop them … they are ” sepah e pasdaran ” group that doing this work in iran , and are so strong because they have so many guns and killing people on the streets of iran against the cameras .. please … the people of the free world , PLEASE HELP US … WE ARE ALONE .. PLEASE HELP US .. PLEASE
- yashar, tabriz , iran,

I know you don’t understand what Islam does to people under their governments. but the idea is, government comes from the authority of Mohammed and the Qur’an rather than from the ballot box. If they can find a statement by Mohammed that stoning is the appropriate punishment for a crime, it doesn’t matter than Mohammed died in 632 AD or that the world has moved on. By claiming authority based on a revealed word of God, they will always be limited and restricted by those words. The words can’t change. There can be no reform or progress. Islam is a political force trying to spread a “rule of law” based on ideas that were considered ruthless in the year 632 CE to maybe 780 AD, I’m trying to allow for new ideas that crept in before the Qur’an was written down. But at a certain point, progress stopped.

When the US constitution was written, the framers were trying to create a BETTER form of government. Islam wants to take the world back before that happened, to a time when a revelation from God would guarantee that a government did the right thing. And the result is… stoning as a legal punishment for adultery.