On Sharia Law in the US

Shireen Qudosi

I don't normally include material relating to Islam and ISIS on here, but this series of sixteen tweets from Shireen Qudosi, a tweeter I follow, needs to be more accessible. (It's difficult following sixteen tweets in a row on Twitter: other tweets interrupt the flow!).

The series started as a result of this tweet from Isaac Cohen @IHWCo on the activist, Linda Sarsour.

Ms.@lsarsour claims having anti-Sharia bills or laws that forbid it from being made as US laws, prevents Muslims from practicing their faith

SHIREEN QUDOSI‏ @ShireenQudosi replied:

1. Anti-sharia bills look at sharia as it is practiced today, which isn't even original Islam. So anti-sharia bills are rightfully...

2. ...tackling an innovation in Islam. In original Islam, sharia was meant to be a pathway. It was never meant to be the Matrix.

3. Basically over course of 1400 years, bunch of Islamic philosophers sat around & talked about Islam. Their ideas got added onto the faith.

4. Since their ideas are codified into faith, sharia went from being, let's say, different currents in the ocean you could use to...

5. ...this rigid draconian anti-feminist legal system that is a thought-tentacle controlled by people who act like minions of God.

6. So if someone wants to propose an anti-Sharia bill, go for it. You're doing original Islam a favor.

7. Muslims will still be Muslims because being a Muslims is a simple thing. Sharia is not simple. Sharia today is in violation of Islam...

8. And sharia today is in violation of U.S. Constitution which should never be undermined, supplemented or run parallel to another system.

9. Truth is, no society can function with two separate codes of law. One law for all. American law based on American values. Because...

10. We don't compromise or negotiate the United States Constitution. Don't like it? There are 194 other countries to choose from.

11. Allowing Sharia to gain any ground in the U.S. is the day we give up on America. It's VITAL Americans understand how Islamism works.

12. Every single disgusting supremacist action allowed under Islam as it developed through scholarship and mutation of the faith....

13. ...is permissible in a nation that follows Muslim law. A Muslim nation. Sharia is a huge HUGE win in that fight. So ask yourself...

14. What comes next? Because all this Islamist talk of "America" is not about America as you and I see it. It's about....

15. ...whatever America looks like, today is one thing. Tomorrow through Islamism isn't another form of America. Their America.

16. And that is why we need to fight people like Linda Sarsour and every single thing she stands for. No negotiation. No compromise.

The same information could easily apply to the UK. 

Linda Sarsour

Some notes on current reading

My Goodreads 'currently reading' page has eleven items on it - there were ten until I realised one was missing. I'm not actually reading them all simultaneously. In fact I've (temporarily) given up on some of them.

Those on the back burner: 
Saint Francis of Assisi, by G K Chesterton. I started to read this after finishing Chesterton's book on Thomas Aquinas, which was great. For some reason, Francis just isn't cutting the mustard in the same way, and I only got about halfway through.

Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship. One of those books I feel I should read. I haven't managed to get very far into it. Whether it's the translation, or Bonhoeffer's style, it's just not getting across to me.

Christian Wiman's My Bright Abyss. I've started this twice, and did get further the second time. But currently it's circling the airport waiting for instructions to land again.

Coming to Peace with Science, by Darrel Falk. I began this after reading Tim Stafford's The Adam Quest, in which Falk's book is mentioned. Sorry, Mr Falk, I think you're trying to do a good job, but I couldn't hold onto both sides of the argument the way you seem to be able to. Still to be finished...

Those making progress (albeit slowly)
Hatred: Islam's war on Christianity, by Michael Coren. I'd like to keep on with this one, but the part I've read seemed mostly to consist of long lists of deaths of Christians at the hands of Muslims. Grisly details. Time will tell whether this one stays on this part of the list.

Did God Really Command Genocide? by Paul Copan and Matt Flanagan. I've read a good deal of this, but it's hard work for my kind of brain, and it seems at times as though there's a lot of semantic nit-picking which has its points, but doesn't help me keep up.

ISIS: Inside the army of terror, by Michael Weiss. This is worth pursuing, but has just got side-swiped at the moment.

Climate Change, by Alan Moran et al. This is good, sometimes too technical for me, but overall worth reading. However, it's temporarily come to a halt.

Books I am reading: 
The Intolerance of Tolerance, by D A Carson. This is very good, and I'm close to finishing it.

Thomas Aquinas: a Portrait, by Denys Turner. Again, very good, though at times I have to read very slowly to understand the arguments. But keeping on with this.

Sermons Preached at Brighton: Third Series, by F W Robertson. Robertson was a 19th century preacher, and these sermons (not actually recorded while he was speaking, but taken from his notes) are very helpful, and insightful. I've been reading these bit by bit in the evenings, and am nearly finished. (I've already read some of the sermons twice, so it's taken me longer than it might.)

The Four Books, by Yan Lianke. I'm reading this to review it, and it's hard work. Not hard to read, but just hard to keep focused. On one hand it's very grim, and Lianke's style, intentionally, is repetitive, so that what's said in one paragraph will be repeated further down the page in a slightly different way, or in one of the other 'books.' It's a satire, but very dour, and you have to wonder again and again why the Chinese seem to have so willingly allowed themselves to be led up the creek by Moa and his terrorists. Yes, perhaps it being terrified that was the problem. But so often in the book the people being 're-educated' are actually offered a way out...and they don't take it.

Alert readers will notice that there are actually 12 books here. I kept remembering other ones I hadn't included on Goodreads initially. So that was good. Updated!