Islam: A Religion of Peace?: Part One

Not a member? Sign-up

Forgot your password?

SEARCH FSM

Ask Willa - Former CIA Operations Officer

IN THIS SECTION

View results

October 13, 2008

The Editors

The following is a transcript of a debate sponsored by The Harbour League on the subject, “Islam: a Religion of Peace? Is Islamic Law (“Shariah”) Consistent With A Religion Of Peace – And The U.S. Constitution?” Eli Gold, president of The Harbour League, introduced the participants. Moderating was Mark Hyman; for the affirmative was Suhail Khan and presenting the negative was Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy.

The Harbour League was founded in 2005 as an organization to promote conservative and free market dialogue on the state level. In looking at this question, “Is Islam a Religion of Peace”, the League wanted specifically to look at whether Islamic law, Shariah, is consistent with a religion of peace and with the US Constitution.

Let’s begin with the opening statements.

MARK HYMAN: Thank you, Eli. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to The Harbour League's debate. Islam: A Religion of Peace. Is Islamic law consistent with a religion of peace and the U.S. Constitution.

I first wanted just to offer a couple of words before we get into the actual debate. I was flattered when I was asked earlier this year to join the board of trustees at the Harbour [League] and that's primarily because of the mission of the organization itself – that's to research, analyze and promote conservative public policies related to Maryland and the nation. And it's work grounded in intellectual discussion and debate. Which is refreshing when you consider the silliness we see in today's cable news shows, the national news networks, or in the daily pages of the newspapers and the weekly news magazines that treat conservatism with ridicule and derision.

Tonight is an example of the type of program that the Harbour League offers. Two gentlemen, informed, impassioned about their respective positions take center stage tonight in front of a standing room only audience. It is a topic worthy of debate, evidenced by the fact that we have media presence. This is why I ask of you tonight, each of you found on your chair an application form. We certainly encourage all of you to join the Harbour League. We also encourage all of you to make a charitable, tax-deductible contribution to the Harbour League. Two weeks ago, we'd have gladly accepted your stock offers. [LAUGHTER] Tonight, that's all up in the air.

This is the format for tonight's debate. Mr. Frank Gaffney, Mr. Suhail Khan will each have ten minutes for their opening remarks. Each will have five minutes for rebuttal. Then, there will be opportunity for Q and A. I may or may not ask any questions. But I certainly as the moderator reserve the right to ask follow [up] questions for the audience if they ask. After the Q and A session is done, each individual will have five minutes for closing remarks.

Now, this is the very important part for you, the audience. I will recognize people for Q and A one at a time. And when you ask your question, the first thing I want to see is a little thought bubble forming over your head and it will be filled with no more than two sentences and a question mark at the end of it. No statements, no arguments, no debate, no soliloquy, simply a question. If you fail to follow the rules, we'll pass you by and go to someone else. I also ask the audience to refrain from applause or outbursts. Unless it's applause and outbursts of adulation for the moderator, for that's acceptable. [LAUGHTER]

In the interest of time, I will give a brief biography for each of our speakers for this evening. Originally from Boulder, Colorado, Suhail Khan graduated with a BA in political science at the University of California at Berkeley in 1991. He received his JA from the University of Iowa in 1995. He is a veteran Capitol Hill staffer and is currently serving as assistant to the secretary for policy under US Secretary Mary Peters at the US Department of Transportation where he was awarded the Secretary's Team Award for 2005 and the Secretary's Gold Medal for Outstanding Achievement in 2007. He served on the Board of the American Conservative Union, Indian-American Republican Council, and the Islamic Free Market Institute.

Frank Gaffney is the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. He holds a Master of Arts degree in international studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. And he has a bachelor of science in foreign service from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. From August of 1983 until November 1987, Mr. Gaffney was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy under Assistant Secretary Rich Pearl. He is the lead author of the book War Footing: Ten Steps America Must Take To Prevail In The War For The Free World.

And now for our debate. Islam: A Religion of Peace? Mr. Suhail Khan, will start with the affirmative.

SUHAIL KHAN: Thank you, Mark, for the introduction and I want to say I'm very grateful to all of you at the Harbour League and to my friend, Eli Gold, for the opportunity to speak to you this evening.

My name is Suhail Khan. I'm a Reagan conservative, a Muslim, and I'm an American. I believe that every American has a right to live their life as they see fit. Free from government interference or dictators. I believe the government should not discriminate against anyone because of their color of their skin, because of their ethnic heritage, or their faith or their religious beliefs. Last May, Eli kindly invited me to attend an event featuring Herb London. And while the evening's topic was America's Secular Challenge, regrettably, Mr. London attacked Islam and Muslims using the very argument the secular left uses to attack religion in general.

After the lecture, Eli suggested I give a talk about Islam and Muslims and we both agreed a debate would generate the most interest and open discussion. But I was disappointed that so many were unwilling to participate in our honest debate. A local radio show host who rants for hours on how Islam is evil backed out on participating in a discussion, admitting he didn't know enough about the subject. He knew enough to hate, but not enough to learn. Funny enough, he offered to moderate the discussion. Robert Spencer, who has written hate-filled screed after screed on Islam and Muslims, after initially agreeing to debate, soon backed out.

When I spoke at the Council for National Policy last year, a woman asked me whether my religious beliefs and practice was consistent with our Constitution. Her question was sad. The first amendment is quite clear, that all Americans are free to worship as they wish. No one is disqualified from citizenship or high office because they are Catholics, Jews, Muslims, or Mormons. During the great immigrant waves of 1900, a rabbi once said of our melting pot, all names are American names. How wonderfully true. So, too, are all faiths. All are American faiths. Every faith in the world is found in our nation. All are protected by the constitution. Bigotry is un-American. Racism is un-American. America is made up of men and women of all faiths. Women have lived in America--Muslims have lived in America before we were America. More than one in ten African slaves brought to the colonies were Muslim. Alex Haley's Roots tells the story of Kunta Kinte, a Muslim slave brought to Maryland in 1767. Morocco, a Muslim nation, was the first country in the world to recognize American independence from Britain. Muslim doctors, scientists, businessmen and farmers have immigrated to the United States over the past two hundred years. Many like me have been blessed to have been born here.

The founding fathers excluded religious texts from the constitution, knowing fully that one day, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and even atheists could conceivably secure a good office. Indeed, when the first Muslim was elected to Congress last November, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, a descendant of slaves, he swore his Oath of Office on a copy of the Koran, the Muslim scripture that belonged to Thomas Jefferson. Today, more than six million Muslim-Americans are proud to live, work and serve our country. And like their fellow Americans, they serve in uniform. Both in the armed forces and as first responders. Arab and Muslim-Americans have served their country in every war since the American Revolution. And over six thousand serve today and have done so with honor. In the audience, I want to recognize company first sergeant Jamal Bidahi [SPELLED PHONETICALLY] who has served over twenty years in the US Marines and has done so with distinction, defending our country in missions from Beirut in 1983 through Enduring Freedom.

American-Muslims share much in common with their fellow Americans of the Jewish and Christian faith, people who are honored as people of the book in the Koran, having received divine revelation, including the Torah, the Psalms, the Gospel and answering all to the same God, the God of Abraham. The late Pope John Paul the Second and Pope Benedict have reached out to the Muslim world to condemn religious bigotry. So have the National Association of Evangelicals. Over the years, I've had the opportunity to work with Catholics and Evangelical Protestants, Orthodox Jews and others on issues of shared concern, including free religious expression, education, and national security.

Is Islam a religion of peace? For the vast majority of the faithful in the Muslim mainstream, living their lives, raising their families, going to work, serving the uniform, starting small businesses, paying their taxes, playing by the rules, the answer is a resounding yes. In recent years, and especially since the horrifying events of 9-11, racists have falsely claimed that my faith commands its followers to violence. Some, like Spencer, have taken [UNCLEAR] and out-of-context quotations from the Koran to suggest that Islam sanctions violence or terrorism. Certainly Bin-Laden has tried to make the same claim.

The good news is that there are over a billion Muslims and a relatively small number of extremists. In my faith, as in the Jewish tradition, the taking of even one innocent life is akin to the murder of all humanity. Suicide, as in Christianity, is strictly forbidden. Some Americans believe that the Muslims did not condemn the terrorism of 9/11. In fact, there were many strong condemnations. But you won't find them on the websites that promote hate against Muslims. That would muddle their message. I have passed out a compilation of a series of denunciations of terrorism by Muslims.

Sadly, demonizing Muslim-Americans is a threat to our national security and indeed our American way of life. Some have questioned the loyalty of Muslim-Americans. Some have called for the barring of all Muslim-Americans from public service. And others have even proposed that we criminalize the practice of Islam with twenty years in prison.

This has affected me in a very personal way. For some years now, these racists have tried to invade, to publish outright lies and falsehoods about me, my family, and other Muslim-Americans serving in our country. Not [UNCLEAR] attacked my father's memory, for example, had the decency to even try and call me and get the facts straight. They wanted their hate. Not the truth. While honest journalists have dismissed this smear campaign, some have been fooled into publishing these lies. And in most instances have published retractions or simply removed the falsehoods outright from their webpages.

But we've seen this before. The same things that are being said about Muslims were said about Catholics. About people of the Jewish faith. And about Mormons. Anti-Catholic sentiment became so bad in the 1840s and 50s that the Davidist movement of the time whipped anti-Catholic mobs to violence. The burning of Catholic businesses and the killing of Catholics. As recently as even 1950, Paul Branchard wrote American Freedom and Catholic Power, a book where he ominously warns of a Catholic plan to take over America and the world. The oldest hatred, of course anti-Semitism has been present since the Roman Empire and we've seen anti-Semitism, as well.

And now the haters are attacking Muslims and Islam. Like those who warned against a nefarious plot by Papists to control American schools, banks and the government, the haters ominously warn us of the dangers of Shariah law. Or a cultural jihad where, God forbid, if you let Muslim TSA employees wear skirts, the next thing you know, we'll be stoning adulterers. I've handed out a column where Robert Spencer says exactly that. I guess we must protect the constitution from women wearing pantsuits.

I think it's good that America accommodates all faiths. Yesterday's bigots objected to a New York school giving students Jewish holidays off. Today's bigots object to Muslims working with employers to trade holidays to take Muslim holidays off. You can only imagine what the haters think of Congress taking two days off last week for Rosh Hashanah.

The newest target of hate is Islamic finance. Islam, like Catholicism, objects to usury or interest on loans. Europe and the U.S. have allowed Muslims to enter voluntary agreements where they pay the same taxes as everyone else, no special favors, the taxes are the same, but the haters don't like it because Muslims do it. The guy leading the charge is David Yerushalmi – a guy who hates Muslims, blacks, women, Asians and liberal Jews. Objecting to Islamic finance has nothing to do with terrorism or anything, but it has everything to do with hate.

And in their zeal to attack Muslims, some of them attack others. Spencer, for example, has said that Muhammad was betrothed to a girl when she was nine. Eli points out that Isaac was betrothed to Rebecca when she was three. Spencer's bigotry easily morphs into anti-Semitism. Spencer has written in celebration of the Crusades. [During] the first Crusade, you will recall, the Jews of Europe and the Middle East were murdered by the thousands. The fourth Crusade, the followers of the Greek Orthodox faith were killed along with the Muslims. Cal Thomas, in a recent column, asked how can the president say that we all worship the same god when Muslims deny the divinity of Jesus? In seeking to divide Muslims and Christians, Thomas attacks Jews as worshipping a different god.

MARK HYMAN: One minute.

SUHAIL KHAN: And after claiming we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity when referring to Muslims, Ann Coulter declared Jews need to be perfected by becoming Christians. Anti-Muslim bigotry is simply anti-Semitism on training wheels and we've seen this time and time again. And it should be no surprise that after a flood of books criticizing Islam, we now see a flood of books criticizing religion in general. Christopher Hitchens when asked, after 9-11, whether Islam was the enemy, said yes. And Judaism and Christianity are the others. And this anti-Muslim rhetoric leads to real violence. Time and time again, in California, in Texas, in Dallas, Muslims or people perceived to be Muslims have been attacked and many times because of some of the anti-Muslim rhetoric they've read in newspapers and columns. Such bigotry – and this is bigotry, plain and simply – is giving in to our terrorists, demonstrating to our enemies that we are willing to respond to their hate with hate of our own and giving in to the fear, succumbing, and succumbing into prejudice.

We should be thankful that our president has stood against this and may take to heart the words of President George Washington when he wrote in the 1790s to a Jewish congregation, that Americans would give to bigotry no sanction, to persecution, no assistance.

MARK HYMAN: Thank you, Suhail. [APPLAUSE] And the negative, Mr. Gaffney.

FRANK GAFFNEY: Good evening. Well, that certainly set the predicate for tonight's conversation. I was one of those who jumped at the chance to debate Suhail, so I hope I will do an adequate stand-in for those who were unable to make it. I come at [this topic], I'll be frank with you, from a national security perspective. I'm not a Koranic scholar. I doubt there are any Koranic scholars in this room. But I'm not one.

But I am one who I think has studied the subject enough to be able to identify a very significant nexus between the texts, the traditions, the practices of authoritative Islam and our national security interests and, yes, the constitution of the United States. The nexus comes about in the form of something Suhail touched on. A program that's theo-political-legal in character, that the authorities – the recognized authorities – in Islam call Shariah.

I am here to discuss the implications of Shariah for both our security and our Constitution which [as Slide 2 shows] makes very clear that it is the supreme law of the land in the United States. It does not countenance having other laws that supplant it or displace it, to say nothing of [any] that would have the effect of its violent overthrow.

The origins of Shariah are to be found in the Koran which Muslims regard as the word of God, or Allah – although much of it is, in fact, the product of scholars and caliphs who generated it hundreds of years after Muhammad's death.

Of particular importance to this debate is a principle found in the Koran and embedded in Shariah law. The principle called “abrogation.” [Slide 3] According to the recognized Islamic authorities, Allah made plain in the verse of the Koran known as Sura 2:106, the earlier passages of his revelations to Mohammed would be replaced by “something better.” Hence, the chronology of the Koran is all-important.

[Slide 4] This is a generally accepted breakout of the chronology of the Koran. There are four periods represented by these columns – early Meccan, middle Meccan, late Meccan and Medina. These periods, broadly speaking, are captured in the experience of Mohammed in Mecca for the first three and in Medina for the last. And it's interesting that in almost every case the texts that are referred to – Suhail mentioned some of them, at least in passing – that are peaceable, that are tolerant, that refer favorably to People of the
Book, fall into the three periods of the early part, the Meccan part.

But the problem is, according to the principle of abrogation, what counts is what came after. Namely, the Medina period. And by and large, the texts from the Medina period are not tolerant, are not peaceable and are not favorable or accommodating [to others], certainly to People of the Book.

Specifically, I'd like for the purposes of this brief overview to talk a little bit about the last two according to this generally accepted chronological breakout. [Sura] 9 and 5. Number 9 talks about something called “jihad.” [Slide 5] Note that [Sura] 3 talks about whoever seeks a religion other than Islam will never have it accepted of him which results in [Sura] nine, it's a directive which says “fight and slay unbelievers wherever ye find them and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war.” And “fight those who believe not in Allah nor the last day be that if they are People of the Book.” That's the last word of the Koran on the subject of jihad.

[What] about interfaith relations? This speaks to is there compulsion [in religion.] According to [Sura] 2 at the beginning of the Medina period, “Let there be no compulsion in religion.” Sounds okay. [Slide 6] [But Sura 5 says] “But whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, will never have it accepted of him.” “Take not the Jews and Christians for your friends and protectors. They are but friends and protectors to each other and he amongst you that turns to them for friendship is of them.” “Verily, Allah guideth not the unjust.”

[That is] the last word on interfaith relations. So as these slides make clear, the earlier passages that are often cited as evidence of Islam being a religion of peace and tolerant of other faiths, in particular those of People of the Book, [namely,] Christians and Jews, have in both cases been abrogated in favor of what are believed to be divine directives to use violent means where necessary to assure the triumph of Islam over other faiths and, indeed, the world.

This is not selected quotation of passages of the book. This is according to Shariah. According to the adherents to Shariah, according to the recognized authorities of Islam, all of them. All four schools of Sunni Islam and the one or two, depending on who's counting, of Shia Islam, all of them, agree on the principle of abrogation and its definitive, final words having been “something better” than the more peaceable stuff that was said [by Allah] under very different circumstances to Mohammed back in Mecca.

Those schools all agree on the following points:

One, that it is God's will that Islam will rule the world.

Second, that jihad is an obligation of all Muslims, whose purpose is to achieve the global governance of a caliph (or ayatollah in the cases of the Shia) pursuant to Shariah. Those who don't adhere to Shariah, to the Muslim community, are apostates. A crime punishable by death.

[Third,] where possible, jihad is to be pursued with terror-inducing violence. Where it is not practical, “soft” or “stealth” jihad is to be employed, backed where possible by the threat of violence – or, in fact, the use of it elsewhere.

MARK HYMAN: One minute, please.

FRANK GAFFNEY: I'm not going to get through all of this. But let me conclude with a key piece.

In 1928, an Egyptian by the name of Hussan al-Banna created an organization called the Muslim Brotherhood for the purpose of promoting on an international basis soft or stealthy jihad until such time as the conditions were ripe for violence.

His purpose was memorialized in a 1991 memorandum introduced into evidence by the U.S. government in the Holy Land Foundation trial. It's entitled "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group – the Brotherhood – in North America." It was written by a senior operative of the group. The essence of it is in this quote. “The Muslim Brotherhood must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western Civilization from within. And sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

MARK HYMAN: Time, please.

FRANK GAFFNEY: Interestingly enough, this memorandum identifies virtually every one of the prominent Muslim-American organizations in America as Muslim Brotherhood front organizations or friendly organizations. It is an enemy within, a Fifth Column, that is promoting an explicitly jihadist program aimed at the destruction, the seditious destruction, of the Constitution of the United States and its replacement by Islamic rule that we are up against, ladies and gentlemen, and we best be alive to that danger. Thank you.

Part Two will present the Rebuttals….

Brought to you by the editors of FamilySecurityMatters.org, and edited by Frank Gaffney.

Reader Comments: Submit Your Comment (0)

Print This E-mail This

Share It:

Ask Willa - Former CIA Operations Officer

Senior Intelligence Officials: Attempted Terror Attack "Certain"

Islam: A Religion of Peace?: Part One