Mr. Carson, Republican Presidential contender, was pilloried over his response to the question "Should a President’s faith matter?"
Mr. Carson said that one’s faith only mattered "If it’s inconsistent with the values and principles of America.” When asked "So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the Constitution?" He answered, "No, I don’t, I do not.”
Mr. Carson is factually correct. But he is being crucified by the politically correct storm-troopers who have fallen so deeply into the morass of moral and cultural relativism that they will not accept facts. Islam is not open to democracy as we understand it. Islam does not sit on the same ethical foundation as Western civilization. I have written extensively on this topic in my forth-coming bood Back to the Ethic: Reclaiming Western Values published by Mantua Books.
“Islamists and many Muslims are unlikely to accept the Western practice of confining religion to the private sphere or to dilute their worldview so much that they cease to believe that Islam has a certain role to play in public affairs.” I am quoting Kamran Bokhari , Vice President of Middle Eastern and South Asian Affairs at Stratfor, USA, a visiting lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Westminster, UK and a fellow with the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, USA; and Farid Senzai, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Santa Cruz University, USA and Director of Research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. He is also the author of Educating the Muslims of America. They are the co-authors of Political Islam in the Age of Democratization.
This sentence I quoted is found on page 194 of a book that is 195 pages long. The book addresses the question “Does religion (Islam) impede or facilitate the transition from authoritarianism to democracy.”
I met Kamran Bokhari at a lecture he gave on this topic. He is a modern Muslim. There’s no question that he wants Islam to welcome democracy. He believes that Islamic countries can find their way toward a type of democracy. But “‘Muslim democracies’ may fall short of the ideal”(of democracy).
Islam from its inception taught that not all citizens are equal. There was formal set of rules created to govern the relationships between the conquering Muslims and the defeated infidels. The framework of these regulations was known as dhimmitude. "Dhimmitude was abolished from the Islamic world during the 19th and 20th centuries under European military pressure, or by direct European colonization, but it has recently made a resurgence. Non-Muslim minorities suffer severe discrimination in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, and countries that apply or recognize the shari’a law. Ultimately, dhimmitude is an outgrowth of the fact that Muslims consider themselves to be in a perpetual state of war with their non-Muslim neighbors."
Do Muslims in America believe this, today? You would have to ask.
Islam praises peace but the definition of peace in Islam is not the same as our definition. Shaykh Muhammad Sa'id Ramadan al-Buti, until his recent death, was the leading Islamic scholar in Syria, professor and retired Dean at the College of Islamic Law at Damascus University, and author of Jurisprudence of the Prophetic Biography, regarded as one of the best Prophetic biographies written in the 20th century. It is said that he goes beyond mere narration of the events of the Prophet's life to look at the lessons and "religious understanding" that can be gleaned from it.
He wrote: "The theory that our religion is a peaceful and loving religion is a wrong theory. The Holy war as it is known in Islamic jurisprudence is basically an offensive war, and it is the duty of all Muslims of every age...because our prophet Muhammad said that he is ordered by Allah to fight all people until they say 'No God but Allah,' and he is his messenger. It is meaningless to talk about the holy war as only defensive, otherwise, what did the prophet mean when he said, "from now on even if they don't invade you, you must invade them."
The late respected, oft quoted Egyptian scholar, Sayyid Qutb, wrote that western democracy is infertile of life-giving ideas, that obedience to Shari'ah is necessary to achieve harmony and peace for mankind and any place where Shari'ah is not enforced and Islam is not dominant is the abode of war (Dar-ul-Harb).”
He also wrote "The value of civilizations lay in what universal truths and worldviews they have attained."
The question I believe Mr. Carson was asking is “Does the worldview of Islam fit with the worldview of western democracy?”
The American constitution does not discriminate on the basis of religion. But Mr. Carson was answering a question truthfully. Islam as practiced, as taught even in the most modern sense, does not at its core embrace the freedoms that are taken for granted in the West. There is no separation of state and “church.” This is not a criticism. This is a statement of fact.
Diane Weber Bederman is a blogger for ‘Times of Israel’, a contributor to Convivium, a national magazine about faith in our community, and also writes about family issues and mental illness. She is a multi-faith endorsed hospital trained chaplain.
