CDZ What do American Muslims want?

[Mudda]

I am giving up on responding to the trolls who just want to attack the beliefs of Muslim Americans- those posters have deep abiding faith in their bigotry and rational thought will not move them.

I will attempt instead to address the topic of the thread in the best way I can as a Non-Muslim.

What do American Muslims want?

They want appeasers xxxxxxxx to fight their way in for them to get the thin edge of the sharia wedge into the US. Or is it the slippery slope of sharia? I guess take your pick.

Muslim women need to burn their bras, or in their case, burn their burqas.

 

[elektra]

The points I'd like to look at are:
What do Muslims in AMERICA want?
Are they any different than other religious groups in America?
What does this say about Muslim immigration in America vs other countries?

With all due respect, Coyote, this thread cracks me up. Not because it's funny, because truly I haven't been reading the posts in it (I've instead been reading the works cited below) but because there are nearly 600 posts that attempt to address three questions, all of which there is ample objective, neutral information in existence and widely available.

• What do Muslims in AMERICA want?
  I am sure if you ask Shahid Khan, the answer will be to win football games. Ask Muslim American students and the answer will be much the same as what one gets from any other students, perhaps with the additional wish that Muslims and being Muslim weren't such a big deal to non-Muslims. From what I've read, Muslim Americans in substance want the same things non-Muslim Americans want. Heck, there are even pro-Israel Muslims in the U.S.
  • Muslim Americans -- Topics covered include:
    • A Demographic Portrait of Muslim Americans
      
    • Religious Beliefs and Practices
      
    • Identity, Assimilation and Community
      
    • Challenges, Worries and Concerns
      
    • Political Opinions and Social Values
      
    • Terrorism, Concerns about Extremism and Foreign Policy
  • Muslim Immigrants in the United States
    
  • Political paranoia v. political realism: on distinguishing between bogus conspiracy theories and genuine conspiratorial politics
    
  • Arab and Muslim Political Attitudes: Stereotypes and Evidence from Survey Research
    
  • Islam, Democracy, and Constitutional Liberalism
    
  • ARE MUSLIM IMMIGRANTS DIFFERENT IN TERMS OF CULTURAL INTEGRATION?
• Are they any different than other religious groups in America?
  • Language Matters: Talking About Islam and Muslims
  • Islamo-Christian Civilization
    
  • Acculturation Process of Arab-Muslim Immigrants in the United States
• What does this say about Muslim immigration in America vs other countries?
  
  There are to my thinking two possible and rational ways to interpret the question above, and I don't frankly know which of them, if either, you mean. Here're what strike me as the possible interpretations of the question:
  • "What do the differences between Muslims in American and other religious groups in America say about Muslim immigration to [?] American versus Muslim immigration to other countries?"
    
    My initial thoughts:
    I don't see how anyone can credibly state how differences between and similarities with Muslims in America and the American (citizen or RAs) adherents to other religions logically says or can say much worth saying about:
    • Muslim immigration to any destination other than America, and
    • Immigration in general.

Moreover, I'm hard pressed to think those similarities and differences can rationally be used to say anything at all other that the similarities and differences exist. Indeed, absent exploring Muslim immigration to other countries, which is outside the scope of your two prior questions, I don't see how to answer the third question.

If there's anything to be said, it's that Muslims like every other immigrant see the promise and potential that America as a nation offers, and that more than anything else impacts their desire to immigrate to the U.S. I cannot imagine it being it anything but that for the animosity between Muslims in the U.S. and the right wing in the U.S. is no secret. Immigrants know about long before they get to the U.S., yet they still come and want to come.​

• "What do the things that Muslims in America want, combined with the differences between Muslims in America and other religious groups in America, say about Muslim immigration to [?] America versus Muslim immigration to other countries?
  
  I see the same impediments as those noted above in trying to answer this interpretation of your question.

For the sake of attempting to keep with the theme with which I began this post -- there is ample excellent content on the WWW to answer the OP questions that it's bizarre that there would be ~600 posts addressing the matter -- I'll offer this:

• Middle Eastern and North African Immigrants in the United States
• Muslim Integration into Western Cultures: Between Origins and Destinations
  
• The Impact of Immigration on Germany’s Society
  
• Muslims and the Future of Europe
  
• The Integration of Islam in Europe: Preventing the radicalization of Muslim diasporas and counterterrorism policy
  
• Immigration into Europe: Economic Discrimination, Violence, and Public Policy
  
• Are Muslim Immigrants Different in Terms of Cultural Integration? -- (UK)
  
• Research Paper on Migration
  
• Comparing Immigrant Integration in Britain and the US
  
• Assimilating Immigrants: Why America Can and France Cannot
  
• Do We Really Want Immigrants to Assimilate?

"51% of U.S. Muslims want Sharia; 60% of young Muslims more loyal to Islam than to U.S."

51% of U.S. Muslims want Sharia; 60% of young Muslims more loyal to Islam than to U.S.

And don't forget to add all the liars to the 51%, and all the people too afraid to say it to a census person... And the question "would you mind if the US was sharia?" wasn't asked, which would have added a whole bunch of Islamists.

Take a hour to read what is said in these copy/paste you have provided? If you think it only takes one hour you have not read your own copy/paste. Nor have you followed up on what is inside them.

I presume it takes an hour because I read it in 35 minutes. I presume you didn't get past the abstract and only noticed the total document page count. Had you begun to read the document, you'd have found that few of those pages are more than three fifths full, the remainder being footnotes, on pages having 1.5 - 2 inch margins on the left and right. So what appears ostensibly to be 31 pages is in fact far less than that. Even so, ~30 pages of reading in an hour isn't a particularly rapid reading rate for a document such as the first paper I cited.

You are wrong, as anyone could see I quoted way past the abstract. So what does that link teach us about sharia? Not a thing other than we are called bigots and racists for not accepting it.

People should read if the stuff they link to.

Red:
That simply is not the thesis of that paper.

Red? That is a color?

I red the paper in your link.
I linked again to your paper.
I quoted your paper.
I commented on what was in your paper.

You did not quote or link or comment.

You can not say what the paper states, you refuse to quote and comment on your link.

I did!

Quote, it is nothing more than an opinion piece calling Americans xenophob bigots that hate Muslims.

I will quote much more, once I fire up the laptop and get off my phone.

But I see you ignored the quotes I posted from your link.

I do all the work and you simply argue that what I quote is not in your link?

 

[320 Years of History]

You can not say what the paper states, you refuse to quote and comment on your link

I'm not going to quote excerpts from any of the papers to which I linked because all that needs to be said is in the papers, and because in terms of this thread's topic, the paper's morphology doesn't lend itself to contextually accurate "sound bite" quoting as will be apparent to anyone who actually reads and comprehends the paper. I, moreover, won't quote excerpts from the papers because the point of providing those links was not to entreat a discussion about the papers, but rather to provide information about Sharia Law, and its intended jurisprudential use by Muslim Americans, that is neither specious nor sophistic, information and assertions that come from credible sources -- not an editorialist who references no credible sources and who points readers to precisely one data source that doesn't even exist -- about what Sharia Law is and is not.

The first of the three noted papers, the one you keep prattling on about, addresses, using a standard three-pronged compositional approach, whether Sharia law merits comity with U.S. law and what bases exist for that to be so. After its Introduction, the first major part of the paper, Background, which is further divided into four subsections, describes what Sharia law is and, by inference, what it is not, along with how Sharia Law is differently approached by Sunni and Shia, and what segments of Sharia Law are relevant to American Muslims and what segments merit comity in U.S. jurisprudence. The author provides these temporal and situational contexts by dividing the Background section of the paper into four subsections:

• Muslims in the United States: A Brief History -- tells the history of Muslims in America and identifies various types of Muslims in America and the proportion of the population they comprise
  
• What is Sharia Law? -- explains what Sharia Law is and how it's viewed and used by the two major Muslim sects, Shiite and Sunni.
• Anti-Muslim Sentiment in the United States -- traces the history of American disdain for Muslims as part of an overall exposition on how came to be the national scorn for Muslims embraced by American non-Muslims. It is in this section that Ms. Fallon makes her sole reference to racism and xenophobia, and she mentions those sentiments with regard to 19th century America(ns) in one sentence at the beginning of the this subsection, the purpose of which is to expressly recount the evolution and nature of the concomitant contemptuousness for Muslims and Sharia Law by Americans.
  
  The author's summarization of historic events in this section is where from you selected your three non-Abstract quotes. Did you even notice they were part of a section of the paper that merely recounts history? One need not even take Ms. Fallon's word for it; she provides credible references -- scholarly history texts and U.S. Appeals Court decisions -- for every single one of the historic facts she mentions.
  
  In light of that, and more importantly, I ask, "Who the hell, as you did, misconstrues as being the theme of an author's paper events from the past the writer mentions to provide factual information to readers?" I'll tell you who....people who either (1) don't understand what they read, (2) didn't actually read the entirety of the publication from which they snipped blurbs, or (3) people consumed by confirmation bias and who revel in taking things out of context to make their points. In short, people who put the "e" in "ig-nernt."
  • Post 602
  • Post 601
  • Post 600
• Banning Sharia: Successes and Failures -- briefly notes the history of efforts in America to ban comity for Sharia Law in U.S. jurisprudence.

At the outset of the post I noted the paper's infelicity for contextually veracious "sound-bite" quoting. Clearly based on the quotes you have taken from it and the inferences you've taken from them, the paper doesn't lend itself to your general comprehension either insofar as you've inaccurately attested to the paper's thesis, and you've cited passages -- and without one credible iota of substantiation claimed they are lies -- that are in fact summarizations of then extant events and emotions for literally millions of Americans.

You asked why I didn't respond with quotes from the paper to your remarks about the quotes you extracted from Ms. Fallon's paper. The ultimate reason is quite simple: I was too reticent to impugn the joy of a dead pig in the sunshine you seemed (connotatively) to have derived from having written those posts. (And only because I doubt you'd realize it," yes, the double entendre in the preceding sentence is intended.) Then as now, I am perfectly happy to let the skilled readers here who take the time to read the paper, and your snippets from it, see your thought processes for what they are. I don't need to quote the paper.

 

[Mudda]

I am giving up on responding to the trolls who just want to attack the beliefs of Muslim Americans- those posters have deep abiding faith in their bigotry and rational thought will not move them.

I will attempt instead to address the topic of the thread in the best way I can as a Non-Muslim.

What do American Muslims want?

They want appeasers like you.

And by 'appeasers' you mean those of us who support and believe in the United States Constitution.

No, those of you who support sharia.

 

[elektra]

It is a bit late for you to make that claim, maybe next time read your link and quote with a comment.

You could actually do that now, yes?

??? Say what? The thesis of the paper isn't going to change no matter what I claim or when. That we are bigots and racists is not the thesis of any of the papers I cited. What do you think you are trying to say?

Not the thesis? I did not state it was the thesis (bigotry and hate), I simply showed multiple instances where your link stated we are. But now that you point it out, that is the Thesis, albeit thinly disguised as "justice for all", which begins by insinuating Muslims do not have Justice in our courts without Sharia Law ruling the courts.

http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1693&context=iclr

JUSTICE FOR ALL: AMERICAN MUSLIMS, SHARIA LAW, AND MAINTAINING COMITY WITHIN AMERICAN JURISPRUDENCE

Those of us who stand up for the constitution are simply "misunderstanding and fear", the Muslims.

Muslim Americans are largely assimilated, happy with their lives, moderate with respect to divisive issues, and opposed to violence. Nonetheless, in recent years, a growing misunderstanding and fear of Muslims has led some activists to seek to ban the application of Islamic law, or Sharia, in American courts,

That is taken from the abstract, and immediately followed by this comment, in which we are told that again we are the problem, this time because we do not accept Muslims. We have created a "psychological ghetto".

[M]any [American Muslims] live in a psychological ghetto caused by the lack of acceptance they feel from their neighbors and colleagues, especially in the post-Sept. 11 era. This psychological ghetto may prove the largest challenge in the war on terrorism.

It seems every paragraph is an attack on Americans, explain how we are fearful and simply full of misperseptions but the article has yet to give an expample and explained Sharia law in context.

Initiatives like Oklahoma’s arise from misconceptions about Sharia and its application in the United States, as well as widespread JudeoChristian wariness of Muslims, both within and outside the United States.6 A number of factors have led to this pervasive fear and distrust of Muslims and Islamic law, including military conflicts (particularly those regarding oil), sour diplomatic relations with several predominantly Muslim countries, and a misunderstanding of differences between belief structures.7 Although Muslims make up less than one percent of the U.S. population, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 led some Americans to associate Muslims and Islamic law with terrorism, encouraging many non-Muslims to fear the unknown. Therefore, an inclusive approach should lead to greater mutual understanding and serve to reduce tensions with the Muslim community domestically and abroad.12

The article goes on to tell us we are likely creating the terrorism ourselves, by shunning Muslims.The article goes so far as to state how us Americans shunned our neighbors has caused terrorism in the Middle East? Africa? Europe?

Although many Americans have reacted to this fear of Muslims by shunning them, such a response is likely to exacerbate tensions; at worst, it could lead to a greater level of Muslim extremism.9 Shunning any group tends to create a feeling within that group of exclusion from the broader society.10 The more excluded a group feels, the more likely some members are to tend toward extremist views.11 Therefore, an inclusive approach should lead to greater mutual understanding and serve to reduce tensions with the Muslim community domestically and abroad.12

The Solution, to allow Sharia law to rule above and beyond the Constitution! Otherwise is simply offensive!

Reversing the trend of attempting to ban the consideration of Sharia in American courts would be a strong step in the direction of eliminating anti-Muslim bias.13 Attempts to ban Sharia likely violate the U.S. Constitution and are particularly offensive in light of the absence of parallel bans on the consideration of other religious codes in American courts.

The next section explains that Muslims came, the first groups as slaves? It takes a long time to go through this one article, or study, it was suggested it took 1 hour to read all 3? Which if someone skims through and does not read, I am sure that is the case, for this article does nothing but defend Muslims and attack the USA. So we owned Muslim slaves! I am sure it is fiction, based on a tiny bit of fact. 10% of all slaves were Muslims? That needs verifying.

The first significant group of Muslims to enter the United States consisted of slaves from West Africa.28 Approximately ten percent of slaves in the Americas were Muslim.2

The article goes on to tell us how Muslims work hard, are happy, no different than Americans and the least likely of any religious group to want violence! More research needed to see how the authors concluded this from a poll, and to see how the poll was conducted.

Indeed, a 2011 Gallup poll found that among major religious groups in the United States, Muslim Americans are “the least likely . . . to say there is ever a justification for individuals or small groups to attack civilians.”4

The article goes on to describe Sharia law, and I stress describe, it does not actually list the law within Sharia and explain that law.

And after explaining Sharia Law as nothing to fear, the article continues its attack on Americans, describing us as bigots, racists, xenophobes

Muslims have long faced fear and distrust by North Americans.68 Such fear originated with a long-held European Christian bias against Islam, and worsened in the nineteenth century as Americans became increasingly racist and xenophobic

Most recently, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States resulted in increased discrimination against, and fear of, Muslims.75 Anti-Muslim and anti-Sharia sentiment was further aggravated by post-September 11 debate over the proposal to build an Islamic center near the site of Ground Zero in New York City.76 The events of September 11 also led to increased fear of terrorists working from within the United States.77 In essence, September 11 may have brought Islam to the forefront of many Americans’ minds while simultaneously creating negative associations with Islam.78

This is just a small portion of the Study. It goes on and on, and it gets into the more of an editorial about Sharia law in the Courts and how it is unjust.

I say thanks for the great Link, it proves our point, Sharia Law has no business in the US courts and there is a disinformation campaign that denigrates the citizens of the USA as bigots for not allowing Sharia Law.

Great to know this kind of attack on us citizens is conducted in our colleges.

 

[elektra]

You can not say what the paper states, you refuse to quote and comment on your link

I'm not going to quote excerpts from any of the papers to which I linked because all that needs to be said is in the papers, and because in terms of this thread's topic, the paper's morphology doesn't lend itself to contextually accurate "sound bite" quoting as will be apparent to anyone who actually reads and comprehends the paper. I, moreover, won't quote excerpts from the papers because the point of providing those links was not to entreat a discussion about the papers, but rather to provide information about Sharia Law, and its intended jurisprudential use by Muslim Americans, that is neither specious nor sophistic, information and assertions that come from credible sources -- not an editorialist who references no credible sources and who points readers to precisely one data source that doesn't even exist -- about what Sharia Law is and is not.

The first of the three noted papers, the one you keep prattling on about, addresses, using a standard three-pronged compositional approach, whether Sharia law merits comity with U.S. law and what bases exist for that to be so. After its Introduction, the first major part of the paper, Background, which is further divided into four subsections, describes what Sharia law is and, by inference, what it is not, along with how Sharia Law is differently approached by Sunni and Shia, and what segments of Sharia Law are relevant to American Muslims and what segments merit comity in U.S. jurisprudence. The author provides these temporal and situational contexts by dividing the Background section of the paper into four subsections:

• Muslims in the United States: A Brief History -- tells the history of Muslims in America and identifies various types of Muslims in America and the proportion of the population they comprise
  
• What is Sharia Law? -- explains what Sharia Law is and how it's viewed and used by the two major Muslim sects, Shiite and Sunni.
• Anti-Muslim Sentiment in the United States -- traces the history of American disdain for Muslims as part of an overall exposition on how came to be the national scorn for Muslims embraced by American non-Muslims. It is in this section that Ms. Fallon makes her sole reference to racism and xenophobia, and she mentions those sentiments with regard to 19th century America(ns) in one sentence at the beginning of the this subsection, the purpose of which is to expressly recount the evolution and nature of the concomitant contemptuousness for Muslims and Sharia Law by Americans.
  
  The author's summarization of historic events in this section is where from you selected your three non-Abstract quotes. Did you even notice they were part of a section of the paper that merely recounts history? One need not even take Ms. Fallon's word for it; she provides credible references -- scholarly history texts and U.S. Appeals Court decisions -- for every single one of the historic facts she mentions.
  
  In light of that, and more importantly, I ask, "Who the hell, as you did, misconstrues as being the theme of an author's paper events from the past the writer mentions to provide factual information to readers?" I'll tell you who....people who either (1) don't understand what they read, (2) didn't actually read the entirety of the publication from which they snipped blurbs, or (3) people consumed by confirmation bias and who revel in taking things out of context to make their points. In short, people who put the "e" in "ig-nernt."
  • Post 602
  • Post 601
  • Post 600
• Banning Sharia: Successes and Failures -- briefly notes the history of efforts in America to ban comity for Sharia Law in U.S. jurisprudence.

At the outset of the post I noted the paper's infelicity for contextually veracious "sound-bite" quoting. Clearly based on the quotes you have taken from it and the inferences you've taken from them, the paper doesn't lend itself to your general comprehension either insofar as you've inaccurately attested to the paper's thesis, and you've cited passages -- and without one credible iota of substantiation claimed they are lies -- that are in fact summarizations of then extant events and emotions for literally millions of Americans.

You asked why I didn't respond with quotes from the paper to your remarks about the quotes you extracted from Ms. Fallon's paper. The ultimate reason is quite simple: I was too reticent to impugn the joy of a dead pig in the sunshine you seemed (connotatively) to have derived from having written those posts. (And only because I doubt you'd realize it," yes, the double entendre in the preceding sentence is intended.) Then as now, I am perfectly happy to let the skilled readers here who take the time to read the paper, and your snippets from it, see your thought processes for what they are. I don't need to quote the paper.

3? I am one of those millions of Americans, as are the people who disagreeing with you, in this thread, I attest to the fact that the paper is wrong, and not just in 3 select quotes, but the theme of it is the, "Americans fault because they are racist bigots" is throughout the entire paper.

I lived through the events and times in history that the authors use to state, "Americans are fearful, racists" which is the cause of bia and hatred against Muslims, the fact is, the Author's are flat out wrong.

I remember the long lines during the Gasoline emargo by Saudi Arabia and the OPEC countries, we never talked among ourselves about hatred towards Muslims, in the early 70's we did not even consider their religion, it was not hardly reported on. It was simply the Arabs in the Middle East.

The paper is wrong and is designed to ease Sharia Law into the United States of America, to do so it must malign Americans and portray injustice.

Americans are injustice! That is simply a lie.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

The Muslims and their supporters call us racists for not accepting rule by Sharia Law.

.

It's a very tired ruse used by useful idiots and fifth columnists to show their support for the least liberal ideology on the planet.

In Britain, the level of abuse has become such that people allow British children to be raped rather than face the wrath of these Islam supporters.

Our country should have one law for all its people. We are not a theocracy, so there is no place for a parallel legal system administered by those steeped in misogynistic theocratic jurisprudence. Those who advocate such are nothing less than traitors to the principle of justice for all.

 

[Coyote]

It's time for a reminder on CDZ rules here - this thread has been cleaned of posts insulting, trolling etc. Discuss the topic - which can be found in post #1 - not each other, the quality of cut and pastes, or reading abilities or intellectual capabilities - discuss the ideas presented.

This is the only warning you will get.

For those that need a reminder:

This forum will be heavily moderated to protect the integrity of the content within.

Warnings, infractions, and bannings will be enforced at the discretion of the moderators. A 3 strike rule will apply. After 3 warnings for failing to follow the guidelines posted below a members privileges will be PERMANENTLY revoked in this forum section. This is done to protect the integrity of this forum. Do NOT respond to a member who violates the guidelines with a like minded post; REPORT IT.


No Name Calling Or Putting Down Posters
No Trolling and/or Troll Threads
No Hijacking
No Personal Attacks


The Focus of the CDZ is Civil Discourse, regardless of the topic matter.

 

[Coyote]

Since Sharia seems to be at the heart of some of the discussion here - and relates to the OP "what do American Muslim's want", perhaps we ought to at least define it - what IS Sharia?

From the dictionary:

Islamic canonical law based on the teachings of the Koran and the traditions of the Prophet (Hadith and Sunna), prescribing both religious and secular duties and sometimes retributive penalties for lawbreaking. It has generally been supplemented by legislation adapted to the conditions of the day, though the manner in which it should be applied in modern states is a subject of dispute between Islamic fundamentalists and modernists.​

From: BBC - Religions - Islam: Sharia
This particular article explores Sharia from a variety of Muslim view points.

Sharia law comes from a combination of sources including the Qur'an.
Sharia is a now a familiar term to Muslims and non-Muslims. It can often be heard in news stories about politics, crime, feminism, terrorism and civilisation.


All aspects of a Muslim's life are governed by Sharia. Sharia law comes from a combination of sources including the Qur'an (the Muslim holy book), the Hadith (sayings and conduct of the prophet Muhammad) and fatwas (the rulings of Islamic scholars).


Many people, including Muslims, misunderstand Sharia. It's often associated with the amputation of limbs, death by stoning, lashes and other medieval punishments. Because of this, it is sometimes thought of as draconian. Some people in the West view Sharia as archaic and unfair social ideas that are imposed upon people who live in Sharia-controlled countires.


Many Muslims, however, hold a different view. In the Islamic tradition Sharia is seen as something that nurtures humanity. They see the Sharia not in the light of something primitive but as something divinely revealed. In a society where social problems are endemic, Sharia frees humanity to realise its individual potential.​

From: What is Sharia and how is it applied? - BBC News

Sharia law is Islam's legal system. It is derived from both the Koran, Islam's central text, and fatwas - the rulings of Islamic scholars.

Sharia literally means "the clear, well-trodden path to water".

Sharia law acts as a code for living that all Muslims should adhere to, including prayers, fasting and donations to the poor.

It aims to help Muslims understand how they should lead every aspect of their lives according to God's wishes.

What does this mean in practice?

Sharia can inform every aspect of daily life for a Muslim.

For example, a Muslim wondering what to do if their colleagues invite them to the pub after work may turn to a Sharia scholar for advice to ensure they act within the legal framework of their religion.


Other areas of daily life where Muslims may turn to Sharia for guidance include family law, finance and business.

Sharia law divides offences into two general categories: "hadd" offences, which are serious crimes with set penalties, and "tazir" crimes, where the punishment is left to the discretion of the judge.

Hadd offences include theft, which can be punishable by amputating the offender's hand, and adultery, which can carry the penalty of death by stoning.

Some Islamic organisations have argued that there are many safeguards and a high burden of proof in the application of hadd penalties.

The UN has spoken out against death by stoning, saying it "constitutes torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and is thus clearly prohibited".

Not all Muslim countries adopt or enforce such punishments for hadd offences, and polling suggests attitudes of Muslims to harsh penalties for such offences vary widely.

Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Muslim thinker in Europe, has called for a moratorium on corporal punishment, stoning and the death penalty in the Muslim world.

He argues that the conditions under which such penalties would be legal are almost impossible to re-establish in today's world.
​

Sharia is not just a code of laws, but a way of living and the way it's interpreted and practiced around the world varies a great deal.

That brings me to a second point, which I'll put in a second post: Sharia is being singled out uniquely, amongst bodies of law, as something that should not in any way be allowed in this country with a blanket denunciation.

That brings me to a second point: Sharia is being singled out uniquely, amongst bodies of law, as something that should not in any way be allowed in this country with a blanket denunciation. This is why examples of OTHER RELIGIOUS law currently allowed in this country was brought into the conversation: Catholic, Morman, Jewish. Jewish religious law (Halakah) is in many ways close to Sharia - which should be no surprise since both Judaism and Christianity are part of the foundation for Islam.

Therefore, it's reasonable to ask - what is Halakah (Jewish Law):

From the dictionary: the entire body of Jewish law and tradition comprising the laws of the Bible, the oral law as transcribed in the legal portion of the Talmud, and subsequent legal codes amending or modifying traditional precepts to conform to contemporary conditions.

From: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/jewfaq/halakhah.html

What is Halakhah?
Judaism is not just a set of beliefs about God, man, and the universe. Judaism is a comprehensive way of life, filled with rules and practices that affect every aspect of life: what you do when you wake up in the morning, what you can and cannot eat, what you can and cannot wear, how to groom yourself, how to conduct business, who you can marry, how to observe the holidays and Sabbaths, and perhaps most important, how to behave towards God, other people, and animals. This set of rules and practices is known as halakhah.

The word "halakhah" is usually translated as "Jewish Law", although a more literal translation might be "the path that one walks". The word is derived from the Hebrew root Heh-Lamed-Kaf, meaning to go, to walk, or to travel.


Some non-Jews and non-observant Jews criticize this legalistic aspect of traditional Judaism, saying that it reduces the religion to a set of rituals devoid of spirituality. While there are certainly some Jews who observe halakhah in this way, that is not the intention of halakhah, and it is not even the correct way to observe halakhah.


On the contrary, when properly observed, halakhah increases the spirituality in a person's life, because it turns the most trivial, mundane acts, such as eating and getting dressed, into acts of religious significance. When people write and ask how to increase their spirituality or the influence of their religion in their lives, the only answer we can think of is: observe more halakhah. Keep kosher or light sabbath candles, say the grace after meals, or pray once or twice a day. When you do these things, you are constantly reminded of your faith, and it becomes an integral part of your entire existence.

Halakhah is made up of mitzvot from the Torah as well as laws instituted by the rabbis and certain customs. All of these have the status of Jewish law and all are equally binding. The only difference is that the penalties for violating laws and customs instituted by the rabbis are less severe than the penalties for violating Torah law, and laws instituted by the rabbis can be changed by the rabbis in rare, appropriate circumstances.
​

From: Halakha - New World Encyclopedia

Halakha (Hebrew: הלכה, also spelled Halacha) is the collective corpus of Jewish religious law, including biblical law (the 613 biblical commandments) and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions. Halakha guides not only religious practices and beliefs, but numerous aspects of day-to-day life. Often translated as "Jewish Law," a more literal rendering of the term is "the path" or "the way of walking."


Orthodox Jews still adhere fairly strictly to traditional halakhic rules. Conservative Judaism also holds Halakha to be binding, but believes in a progressive tradition by which Halakha can be adjusted to changing social norms in some cases. Reform and Reconstructionist Jews believe that Jews are no longer required by God to adhere to Halakha. Reflecting the cultural diversity of Jewish communities, slightly different approaches to Halakha are also found among Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Sephardi, and Yemenite Jews.


Historically, Halakha served many Jewish communities as enforceable civil, criminal, and religious law, but in the modern era Jews are generally bound to Halakhah only by their voluntary consent. Religious sanctions such as excommunication may be imposed by religious authorities, however, and in the state of Israel certain areas of family law are governed by rabbinic interpretations of Halakha.​

Like Sharia, Halakah is viewed as the product of divine inspiration gifted to a particular people from God and observing it's rules and structures is a way of increasing spirituality in daily life and expressing one's love for God: Judaism 101: Halakhah: Jewish Law

On the contrary, when properly observed, halakhah increases the spirituality in a person's life, because it turns the most trivial, mundane acts, such as eating and getting dressed, into acts of religious significance. When people write to me and ask how to increase their spirituality or the influence of their religion in their lives, the only answer I can think of is: observe more halakhah. Keep kosher or light Shabbat candles, pray after meals or once or twice a day. When you do these things, you are constantly reminded of your relationship with the Divine, and it becomes an integral part of your entire existence.


Are these laws sometimes inconvenient? Yes, of course. But if someone you care about -- your parent, your child, your spouse -- asked you to do something inconvenient or unpleasant, something you didn't feel like doing, you would do it, wouldn't you? It is a very shallow and meaningless kind of love if you aren't willing to do something inconvenient for the one you love. How much more so should we be willing to perform some occasionally inconvenient tasks that were set before us by our Creator, who assigned those tasks to us for our own good? ​

Like Sharia, Halakah has a penal code, with capital punishment requiring a very high burden of proof: Capital Punishment | Jewish Virtual Library

The US has a long established tradition of allowing for voluntary religious arbritration in civil matters, in fact, the US courts have specifically said they can not rule in religious matters so while a secular court can grant a secular divorce, it CANNOT grant a religious divorce. An observant Jew, Catholic, or Muslim that wishes to obtain a religious divorce must go to his or her religious authorities in order to do that, and remain within his or her religous community's good standing. This may not matter to those of us who are secular (which I am) but it matters to observant followers of certain faiths, and in a country where freedom of religion is a founding pillar - is it apropriate for us to deny them this as long as US law is not violated?

That brings us to a third point which I'll go into in the next post.

 

[Coyote]

The third point I want to make: is there substantial differences in laws regarding women and divorce (which seems to be the MAIN point of contention in allowing Sharia in family law arbitration)? The gist of the accusation is related to domestic violence and forcing a woman to remain in a dangerous marriage.

Let's examine several points here:
What do Sharia and Halakah say about divorce and how is it applied?

Under Sharia - it's complicated for sure, with a lot of conditions. A general look offered below.

From the UK Islamic Councel: TALAQ
TALAQ

Due to the financial responsibilities which he has to bear, the right to divorce in Islam is primarily given to the husband. A Muslim who wishes to divorce his wife is therefore advised – in the first instance – to ask for an arbitration meeting, arranged by elders of the couple so that a reconciliation may be reached. If such efforts fail and the man sincerely thinks he cannot live a harmonious life with his wife, he may divorce her either verbally or in writing. In both cases, it is recommended for there to be two witnesses present on the occasion of the pronouncement of such a divorce.


A man should (a) divorce only once and (b) only during the time when his wife is not on her menses and (c) there has been no sexual contact with her since the time of her last menses.


After a divorce is pronounced by a husband, his wife must wait for a given period (‘iddat’). During this period, the wife is allowed to stay in the same house, but they can not have sexual relation amongst them.The man is allowed to take her back either verbally saying “I TAKE YOU BACK“, or physically, by having intimate relation with her. if, after this waiting period, the husband fails to take his wife back, then the wife is completely divorced, and must leave the matrimonial home immediately.


It is also recommended to have two witnesses present in the case, where the husband decides to take back (‘ruju’) his wife, before the end of the iddat.


Where a man has pronounced three divorces, on three different occasions, he can neither take back his former wife, nor remarry her.


The Council issues a divorce certificate on the basis of “talaq nama”, signed by the applicant in the presence of two witnesses. The man is required to pay the dower amount in full to the woman.
​

KHULA

The situation in which the wife initiates divorce proceedings is known as Khul’a. Once the husband agrees to divorce her i exchange for some money or the remission of her dower, the divorce is known as Talaq. It is as valid as the Talaq given by the man of his own initiative. Khul’a depends upon the agreement reached between the two parties. If the husband agrees to give Talaq provided that his wife either abandons her right to the dower (if the dower has not yet been paid) or return back the amount of the dower to the husband (if the dowry has been paid).


In the time of the Prophet (SAWS), the wife of Thabit b. Qais asked her to return back to him the garden he gave her at the time of marriage as dower. She accepted this demand and got the Talaq.

Once the husband agrees to Khul’a, he is asked to pronounce TALAQ in exchange for the above mentioned.​

Women's Rights in Islam regarding marriage and divorce: Women’s Rights in Islam Regarding Marriage and Divorce

Divorce existed before Islam, but the advent of Islam made the divorce process much more favorable to women. Women’s property is not divided during a divorce.[58] Whatever a woman earns or is given before and during the course of the marriage remains her property if the marriage ends.[59] This prevents men from taking advantage of women’s property or wealth through marriage. On the other hand, the man’s property is divided if a divorce occurs according to the couple’s marriage contract.[60] A woman is entitled to support and maintenance from her former husband if she requires.[61] There are also special instructions if divorce occurs before the marriage is consummated and before or after the dowry is set.[62]


Islam also instituted a three-month waiting period for women called Iddah.[63] During this three-month period women are not permitted to re-marry.[64] The basic reason for this rule is to determine whether the woman was pregnant before she remarried so the proper father could be ascertained.[65] This practice also ensures the child’s identity and lineage can be accurately determined.[66] A husband and wife are also allowed to attempt reconciliation during the waiting period.[67] However, men are specifically instructed not to take back their wives to “injure or take undue advantage” of them.[68]


Determining the proper procedure for divorce is highly dependent upon the timing of the divorce, the reasons for divorce, the client’s Islamic School of Thought (Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki, and Shafi), whether he or she is Sunni or Shiite, and the circumstances surrounding the divorce.[69] The scope of this article cannot cover all the conceivable scenarios or grounds for divorce but will seek to address the basic requirements for divorce. [70] It is important to keep in mind different schools of thought can cause some variances in the basic structure described below.​

Unlike sharia, divorce in halakah is is a little less complicated, in that there are fewer conditions necessating different rules:

From: Judaism 101: Divorce

Judaism recognized the concept of "no-fault" divorce thousands of years ago. Judaism has always accepted divorce as a fact of life, albeit an unfortunate one. Judaism generally maintains that it is better for a couple to divorce than to remain together in a state of constant bitterness and strife.


Under Jewish law, a man can divorce a woman for any reason or no reason. The Talmud specifically says that a man can divorce a woman because she spoiled his dinner or simply because he finds another woman more attractive, and the woman's consent to the divorce is not required. In fact, Jewish law requires divorce in some circumstances: when the wife commits a sexual transgression, a man must divorce her, even if he is inclined to forgive her.


This does not mean that Judaism takes divorce lightly. Many aspects of Jewish law discourage divorce. The procedural details involved in arranging a divorce are complex and exacting. Except in certain cases of misconduct by the wife, a man who divorces his wife is required to pay her substantial sums of money, as specified in the ketubah (marriage contract). In addition, Jewish law prohibits a man from remarrying his ex-wife after she has married another man. Kohanim cannot marry divorcees at all. ​

In Halakah, the man MUST initiate the divorce, but he can not divorce with out the wife's consent; in Sharia there either can initiate the divorce. Both include payments according to the women's dowry or marriage contract, both also require support to the woman if initiated by the man. Both incorporate certain inequalities in regards to women in the process. Both seek to preserve the marriage. I'm not going to go into Catholocism for this, but I suspect there are similar points.

So - how do religious divorces really work in these communities, how disproportionately affected are women's rights? What is happening here? Again, it's complicated. In many ways, the growth of the Muslim community in western countries is a recent phenonanum, and involves immigration from extremely conservative traditinal religious cultures into very liberal ones. One of the consequences is increase in divorce. Traditional cultures and their associated religions place a high value on the sanctity and preservation of marriages and frequently, an associated devaluation of women within a marriage - something women can more easily escape from in western countries.

Divorce among American Muslims: Statistics, challenges & solutions | SoundVision.com
As Jewish Divorces Multiply, So Does Bitterness

Lastly - can religious divorce laws complicate abusive marriages? Absolutely.
Muslim women left to 'shop' for an imam when they need a religious divorce


So how does all this relate to the OP?

First, what do American Muslim's want? The leading question and an examination of the often repeated claim that they "want Sharia to be the law of the land". The implication of the claim is that they don't want the Consitution or a secular legal system.

This leads to the next set of questions - what is Sharia? What does it mean to Muslims and how is it practiced, and specifically what does it mean to AMERICAN Muslims? This led to examining how Sharia is used in the US by American Muslims - specifically, in religious councils that provide religious divorces or marriages, or in civil matters such as contracts, banking, family law.

This led to further claim that allowing such uses of sharia supported domestic violence of women and eroded women's rights.

There are devout American Muslims who wish to live by Sharia. The best way of understanding what that means is to look at a very similar religious system already in use in a more familiar community: the American Jewish community. That is why I brought Halakah which has many similarities to Sharia; which includes both penal and civil aspects of law, which encompasses an entire way of life that expresses the followers spirituality and devotion to God, and which can be interpreted and followed in many different ways. Last, but not least, both are based on ancient cultures where women had a lesser value then men.

Given that, I have to ask:

Why is Sharia and the American Muslim community specifically singled out for condemnation and why is there an adament refusal to allow it's use in civil matters when it's close brother, Halakah is accepted in our communities and no one says anything about it supporting abuse of women, or defying the Constitution?

In no cases, do any of these systems enroach on or over turn the constitution, or go against US law. When it comes to marriage and divorce - their sole jurisdiction is in giving a religious marriage or divorce. The couple still must get a secular one.

Both Halakah and Sharia are extremely important to observant Jews and Muslims in America. Does the fact that they wish to follow their rules, within the context of modern society and the country's prevailing legal system (which many of them do) mean they have no "business being in America" as one poster claimed?

Lastly - by banning the use of Sharia, as defined in it's entirety, how can you balance that with the American right of religious freedom? Domestic abuse occurs in all religions and societies, religion can make it harder to get free of it, but even without religion, in all too many cases there is an unhealthy dynamic going on that keeps the woman within the abusive relationship. Is it more appropriate to simply ban Halakah and Sharia, and leave religious people with no acceptable means of getting a religious divorce or, to support ending domestic abuse of women in these communities by other means that don't infringe on THEIR religious beliefs?

 

[Arianrhod]

Since Sharia seems to be at the heart of some of the discussion here - and relates to the OP "what do American Muslim's want", perhaps we ought to at least define it - what IS Sharia?

From the dictionary:

Islamic canonical law based on the teachings of the Koran and the traditions of the Prophet (Hadith and Sunna), prescribing both religious and secular duties and sometimes retributive penalties for lawbreaking. It has generally been supplemented by legislation adapted to the conditions of the day, though the manner in which it should be applied in modern states is a subject of dispute between Islamic fundamentalists and modernists.​

From: BBC - Religions - Islam: Sharia
This particular article explores Sharia from a variety of Muslim view points.

Sharia law comes from a combination of sources including the Qur'an.
Sharia is a now a familiar term to Muslims and non-Muslims. It can often be heard in news stories about politics, crime, feminism, terrorism and civilisation.


All aspects of a Muslim's life are governed by Sharia. Sharia law comes from a combination of sources including the Qur'an (the Muslim holy book), the Hadith (sayings and conduct of the prophet Muhammad) and fatwas (the rulings of Islamic scholars).


Many people, including Muslims, misunderstand Sharia. It's often associated with the amputation of limbs, death by stoning, lashes and other medieval punishments. Because of this, it is sometimes thought of as draconian. Some people in the West view Sharia as archaic and unfair social ideas that are imposed upon people who live in Sharia-controlled countires.


Many Muslims, however, hold a different view. In the Islamic tradition Sharia is seen as something that nurtures humanity. They see the Sharia not in the light of something primitive but as something divinely revealed. In a society where social problems are endemic, Sharia frees humanity to realise its individual potential.​

From: What is Sharia and how is it applied? - BBC News

Sharia law is Islam's legal system. It is derived from both the Koran, Islam's central text, and fatwas - the rulings of Islamic scholars.

Sharia literally means "the clear, well-trodden path to water".

Sharia law acts as a code for living that all Muslims should adhere to, including prayers, fasting and donations to the poor.

It aims to help Muslims understand how they should lead every aspect of their lives according to God's wishes.

What does this mean in practice?

Sharia can inform every aspect of daily life for a Muslim.

For example, a Muslim wondering what to do if their colleagues invite them to the pub after work may turn to a Sharia scholar for advice to ensure they act within the legal framework of their religion.


Other areas of daily life where Muslims may turn to Sharia for guidance include family law, finance and business.

Sharia law divides offences into two general categories: "hadd" offences, which are serious crimes with set penalties, and "tazir" crimes, where the punishment is left to the discretion of the judge.

Hadd offences include theft, which can be punishable by amputating the offender's hand, and adultery, which can carry the penalty of death by stoning.

Some Islamic organisations have argued that there are many safeguards and a high burden of proof in the application of hadd penalties.

The UN has spoken out against death by stoning, saying it "constitutes torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and is thus clearly prohibited".

Not all Muslim countries adopt or enforce such punishments for hadd offences, and polling suggests attitudes of Muslims to harsh penalties for such offences vary widely.

Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Muslim thinker in Europe, has called for a moratorium on corporal punishment, stoning and the death penalty in the Muslim world.

He argues that the conditions under which such penalties would be legal are almost impossible to re-establish in today's world.
​

Sharia is not just a code of laws, but a way of living and the way it's interpreted and practiced around the world varies a great deal.

That brings me to a second point, which I'll put in a second post: Sharia is being singled out uniquely, amongst bodies of law, as something that should not in any way be allowed in this country with a blanket denunciation.

That brings me to a second point: Sharia is being singled out uniquely, amongst bodies of law, as something that should not in any way be allowed in this country with a blanket denunciation. This is why examples of OTHER RELIGIOUS law currently allowed in this country was brought into the conversation: Catholic, Morman, Jewish. Jewish religious law (Halakah) is in many ways close to Sharia - which should be no surprise since both Judaism and Christianity are part of the foundation for Islam.

Therefore, it's reasonable to ask - what is Halakah (Jewish Law):

From the dictionary: the entire body of Jewish law and tradition comprising the laws of the Bible, the oral law as transcribed in the legal portion of the Talmud, and subsequent legal codes amending or modifying traditional precepts to conform to contemporary conditions.

From: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/jewfaq/halakhah.html

What is Halakhah?
Judaism is not just a set of beliefs about God, man, and the universe. Judaism is a comprehensive way of life, filled with rules and practices that affect every aspect of life: what you do when you wake up in the morning, what you can and cannot eat, what you can and cannot wear, how to groom yourself, how to conduct business, who you can marry, how to observe the holidays and Sabbaths, and perhaps most important, how to behave towards God, other people, and animals. This set of rules and practices is known as halakhah.

The word "halakhah" is usually translated as "Jewish Law", although a more literal translation might be "the path that one walks". The word is derived from the Hebrew root Heh-Lamed-Kaf, meaning to go, to walk, or to travel.


Some non-Jews and non-observant Jews criticize this legalistic aspect of traditional Judaism, saying that it reduces the religion to a set of rituals devoid of spirituality. While there are certainly some Jews who observe halakhah in this way, that is not the intention of halakhah, and it is not even the correct way to observe halakhah.


On the contrary, when properly observed, halakhah increases the spirituality in a person's life, because it turns the most trivial, mundane acts, such as eating and getting dressed, into acts of religious significance. When people write and ask how to increase their spirituality or the influence of their religion in their lives, the only answer we can think of is: observe more halakhah. Keep kosher or light sabbath candles, say the grace after meals, or pray once or twice a day. When you do these things, you are constantly reminded of your faith, and it becomes an integral part of your entire existence.

Halakhah is made up of mitzvot from the Torah as well as laws instituted by the rabbis and certain customs. All of these have the status of Jewish law and all are equally binding. The only difference is that the penalties for violating laws and customs instituted by the rabbis are less severe than the penalties for violating Torah law, and laws instituted by the rabbis can be changed by the rabbis in rare, appropriate circumstances.
​

From: Halakha - New World Encyclopedia

Halakha (Hebrew: הלכה, also spelled Halacha) is the collective corpus of Jewish religious law, including biblical law (the 613 biblical commandments) and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions. Halakha guides not only religious practices and beliefs, but numerous aspects of day-to-day life. Often translated as "Jewish Law," a more literal rendering of the term is "the path" or "the way of walking."


Orthodox Jews still adhere fairly strictly to traditional halakhic rules. Conservative Judaism also holds Halakha to be binding, but believes in a progressive tradition by which Halakha can be adjusted to changing social norms in some cases. Reform and Reconstructionist Jews believe that Jews are no longer required by God to adhere to Halakha. Reflecting the cultural diversity of Jewish communities, slightly different approaches to Halakha are also found among Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Sephardi, and Yemenite Jews.


Historically, Halakha served many Jewish communities as enforceable civil, criminal, and religious law, but in the modern era Jews are generally bound to Halakhah only by their voluntary consent. Religious sanctions such as excommunication may be imposed by religious authorities, however, and in the state of Israel certain areas of family law are governed by rabbinic interpretations of Halakha.​

Like Sharia, Halakah is viewed as the product of divine inspiration gifted to a particular people from God and observing it's rules and structures is a way of increasing spirituality in daily life and expressing one's love for God: Judaism 101: Halakhah: Jewish Law

On the contrary, when properly observed, halakhah increases the spirituality in a person's life, because it turns the most trivial, mundane acts, such as eating and getting dressed, into acts of religious significance. When people write to me and ask how to increase their spirituality or the influence of their religion in their lives, the only answer I can think of is: observe more halakhah. Keep kosher or light Shabbat candles, pray after meals or once or twice a day. When you do these things, you are constantly reminded of your relationship with the Divine, and it becomes an integral part of your entire existence.


Are these laws sometimes inconvenient? Yes, of course. But if someone you care about -- your parent, your child, your spouse -- asked you to do something inconvenient or unpleasant, something you didn't feel like doing, you would do it, wouldn't you? It is a very shallow and meaningless kind of love if you aren't willing to do something inconvenient for the one you love. How much more so should we be willing to perform some occasionally inconvenient tasks that were set before us by our Creator, who assigned those tasks to us for our own good? ​

Like Sharia, Halakah has a penal code, with capital punishment requiring a very high burden of proof: Capital Punishment | Jewish Virtual Library

The US has a long established tradition of allowing for voluntary religious arbritration in civil matters, in fact, the US courts have specifically said they can not rule in religious matters so while a secular court can grant a secular divorce, it CANNOT grant a religious divorce. An observant Jew, Catholic, or Muslim that wishes to obtain a religious divorce must go to his or her religious authorities in order to do that, and remain within his or her religous community's good standing. This may not matter to those of us who are secular (which I am) but it matters to observant followers of certain faiths, and in a country where freedom of religion is a founding pillar - is it apropriate for us to deny them this as long as US law is not violated?

That brings us to a third point which I'll go into in the next post.

Your absolutely relentless service to...

...facts in lieu of hysteria is commendable, IMO.

Why don't you exert a little effort and take one, just one, of those dictionary definitions and explain how it's not true?

 

[320 Years of History]

It takes a long time to go through this one article, or study, it was suggested it took 1 hour to read all 3?

You only mentioned one paper. I bid the other member read "take an hour and read any one" of the three. Why did you infer that I meant all three? Why is it that every remark I made about reading time was written with regard to "paper" singular, not "papers, abstracts," or "documents," plural, and you yet convinced yourself that I meant them with regard to reading all three papers?

I offer to you the following and dare to take an hour and read any one of them in their entirety.

I presume it takes an hour because I read it in 35 minutes. I presume you didn't get past the abstract and only noticed the total document page count. Had you begun to read the document, you'd have found that few of those pages are more than three fifths full, the remainder being footnotes, on pages having 1.5 - 2 inch margins on the left and right. So what appears ostensibly to be 31 pages is in fact far less than that. Even so, ~30 pages of reading in an hour isn't a particularly rapid reading rate for a document such as the first paper I cited.

​

I'll tell you why. You inferred I was talking about reading all three papers because your reading comprehension skills stink! And no, that is not an personal insult, it's an simple statement of what is patently obvious. What are the demonstrable facts that show as much to be so?

• You have misconstrued remarks I made about the time it takes to read one paper to be remarks pertaining to all three of the papers I cited.
• You have at length (in multiple other posts -- post 625 is the only one that seems to have survived "thread clearing") inaccurately asserted that statements in the background section of the "comity" document comprise the paper's thesis. Well, I have news for you, the background section of no paper contains the paper's thesis; that's why it's called "background."
  
• You have failed to recognize the thesis of the "Comity" paper even though it was presented twice in typical research paper fashion:
  • At the end of the introduction:
    • "This [paper] focuses on [the] violation of comity and its implications....[and] when properly applied, comity prevents Sharia from pre-empting the Constitution while encouraging mutual acceptance and understanding between Muslim and non-Muslim Americans."
  • At the end of the paper with slightly more detail since at that point the facts and inferences that support the thesis statement have been presented:
    • "Refusing to extend comity to Sharia, while granting comity to other religious laws, has dismaying policy implications. It undermines judicial integrity by suggesting that judges cannot be trusted to properly exercise their discretion in determining whether comity is appropriate. In addition, it demonstrates intolerance for a single religion, which threatens America’s tradition of religious tolerance, diversity, and assimilation. Finally, it likely alienates American Muslims, which may serve to breed hostility among them. These policy concerns may be avoided if Sharia is granted the same respect with regard to comity that has been granted to the laws of other religions, already embraced by American jurisprudence."
  • The thesis also appears in the abstract, yet you've completely ignored it, choosing instead to dwell on the extant history found in the background section of the paper.
    • "When properly applied, comity prevents Sharia from pre-empting the Constitution while encouraging mutual acceptance and understanding between Muslim and non-Muslim Americans."
• You have, in post 626, asserted, as you did in a prior post (I don't know if the earlier instance has been deleted), that the events you personally experienced and emotions you and the people known to you felt in the 1970s and 1980s are representative of the sentiments of a nation as a whole, and on that basis, imply that Ms. Fallon, in her background section, presents some sort of revisionist history of that time. Moreover, you've done so without bothering to check any one of the footnotes that point to the sources of corroborating factual information that Ms. Fallon presents for every one of her background statements of fact. (In case it escaped you, those numbers you've included in the passages are the footnote identifiers.)
• In writing, "The Solution, to allow Sharia law to rule above and beyond the Constitution! Otherwise is simply offensive!" (post 625), you have shown that you don't comprehend what comity is. This even as its definition is in myriad dictionaries. Indeed, the very passage from the "Comity" paper even gives readers a hint at the nature of what "comity" means, although that is not the only time the author does so. The very distinction is alluded to in the introduction of the paper wherein the author writes, "comity prevents Sharia from pre-empting the Constitution."
  
  For the record, "comity" does not in any way, shape for form mean "replace one thing with another," in this case the Constitution with Sharia Law.
• You write, "So we owned Muslim slaves! I am sure it is fiction, based on a tiny bit of fact. 10% of all slaves were Muslims? That needs verifying."
  
  Well, fine; verify it. Immediately following the remark you cite Ms. Fallon's footnoted statement, "The first significant group of Muslims to enter the United States consisted of slaves from West Africa. Approximately ten percent of slaves in the Americas were Muslim." Clearly you don't comprehend what a footnote is for. Did you check the source? It surely isn't a difficult thing to do insofar as the source document is available for free on the Internet in downloadable PDF form. Check it out. Literally 30 seconds after looking at footnote 28, I found the exact passage in the source document from which Ms. Fallon's statement is derived.
  
  Additionally, it's worth noting that by stating that you would need to verify such a discrete and objective assertion as the one noted above, you show that you don't comprehend the nature of scholarly research and writing. Academics are not politicians, and certainly not like politicians like Donald Trump; they will not, in their body of published works, literally say anything without regard to whether it is so or not. Quite simply, no scholar or researcher, or even essayist, of even the most fleeting degree of integrity is going to misrepresent such a simple and easily checked fact such as when Muslim slaves first arrived in the colonies and how many (in relation to all slaves) of them there were. To fabricate facts like that is tantamount to claiming water isn't wet.
• Lastly, you didn't even comprehend that the "Comity" paper has one author not "authors." There again we have yet another illustration of your failure to comprehend the difference between the singular and the plural forms of nouns. (See the next paragraph in this post for the specific remark.) Normally, I'd overlook that as just a simple typo mistake; however, given your repeated misinterpretation of the singular and plural as illustrated at the outset this post, I cannot confer to you the benefit of the doubt in that regard.

In addition to your demonstrating for the world to see that you have poor reading comprehension skills, you show that your integrity is at best questionable. Why do I make that statement and make in a tentative way rather than unequivocally concluding about your integrity as I have about your reading comprehension skills? Because upon seeing the latter shortcoming, I opted not to read the entirety of your diatribes in posts 625 and 626. In post 626, however, I did get to the part where you write, "I lived through the events and times in history that the authors [of the 'Comity' paper] use to state, 'Americans are fearful, racists' "

• A simple search of the "Comity" paper for the word "racist" reveals it appears once and the independent clause you've indicated (by quotes) that the author does not anywhere appear in the paper.

What I've listed above are but the most blatant indicators of your poor reading ability. I've not endeavored to point out the more subtle ones, in part because it's not clear to me that you'd understand if I were to do. Heck, I'm not entirely sure you'll have read the above with sufficient objectivity to understand those remarks.

In closing, I repeat, I didn't respond to your remarks from earlier in thread because it was immediately apparent to me -- because by the time I'd read your posts, I had read the whole paper and checked footnoted references to things I didn't already know to be so or that I didn't understand well -- that were I to do so, I would have been responding to someone who does not know what they are talking about. Frankly, I haven't time for that, and to that end, I won't respond to any more of your remarks that show, as do the ones noted above, that you don't know what you are talking about.

And, no, I would not normally put this much effort into showing how my comment about one's reading comprehension is not an insult but rather a statement for which there is ample evidence rather than being merely an unfounded and empty assertion. The only reason I've taken the time to make my point by citing your specific remarks that give verity to my assertion is because you are and remain a polite and civil person. I respect you, as a person, therefore, but I have no cause to put any value on the remarks you've made about the "Comity" paper, and that is I've written what I have above. My respecting you as a person and my being entirely dismissive of the merit in the thoughts you've thus shared re: the "Comity" paper and it's thesis are not the same things.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Baroness Cox: 'The Suffragettes will be turning in their graves'

Inside Britain's Sharia courts

http://www.bowgroup.org/sites/bowgroup.uat.pleasetest.co.uk/files/Bow Group Report - A Parallel World - Confronting the abuse of many Muslim women in Britain today 24 03 15.pdf

 

[Coyote]

I think it's important to recognize that the US is not Britain, for one - and that Muslims in the US come from different cultural backgrounds than many in the UK, where the majority is from Pakistan. Culture makes a big difference.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

I think it's important to recognize that the US is not Britain, for one - and that Muslims in the US come from different cultural backgrounds than many in the UK, where the majority is from Pakistan. Culture makes a big difference.

Yes -- we have many educated people from places like Iran who came here to ESCAPE this sort of thing.

Why people want to sell them down the river by giving Islamists the tool of oppression they seek is downright mystifying.

 

[Syriusly]

I am giving up on responding to the trolls who just want to attack the beliefs of Muslim Americans- those posters have deep abiding faith in their bigotry and rational thought will not move them.

I will attempt instead to address the topic of the thread in the best way I can as a Non-Muslim.

What do American Muslims want?

They want appeasers like you.

And by 'appeasers' you mean those of us who support and believe in the United States Constitution.

No, those of you who support sharia.

And who would those be? I haven't seen anyone here 'support Sharia'.

I have seen those like myself who support and believe in the United States Constitution, and the protections of freedom of religion contained therein.

Personally, I am as opposed to Sharia law as I am to Judaic law- but I support the right of individual Americans to worship as they will so long as they do not break the law.

You feel the opposite.

 

[Syriusly]

I think it's important to recognize that the US is not Britain, for one - and that Muslims in the US come from different cultural backgrounds than many in the UK, where the majority is from Pakistan. Culture makes a big difference.

Yes -- we have many educated people from places like Iran who came here to ESCAPE this sort of thing.

Why people want to sell them down the river by giving Islamists the tool of oppression they seek is downright mystifying.

So we have persons who flee Islamic oppression and come here to the United States- and therefore we should deny them the right to worship as they please (even if they are not breaking any American laws).

That makes sense to you?

 

[Dogmaphobe]

I think it's important to recognize that the US is not Britain, for one - and that Muslims in the US come from different cultural backgrounds than many in the UK, where the majority is from Pakistan. Culture makes a big difference.

Yes -- we have many educated people from places like Iran who came here to ESCAPE this sort of thing.

Why people want to sell them down the river by giving Islamists the tool of oppression they seek is downright mystifying.

So we have persons who flee Islamic oppression and come here to the United States- and therefore we should deny them the right to worship as they please (even if they are not breaking any American laws).

That makes sense to you?

You "syriously" believe that a legal system is the same thing as worshiping ?

There is nothing implicit in the right to worship that suggests that law is included.

Should scientologists have the right to practice according to a different legal system? How about Santoria? Raelianism, perhaps?

Heck, why not just let everybody follow whatever legal system they want, eh?

 

[Arianrhod]

I think it's important to recognize that the US is not Britain, for one - and that Muslims in the US come from different cultural backgrounds than many in the UK, where the majority is from Pakistan. Culture makes a big difference.

Yes -- we have many educated people from places like Iran who came here to ESCAPE this sort of thing.

Why people want to sell them down the river by giving Islamists the tool of oppression they seek is downright mystifying.

So we have persons who flee Islamic oppression and come here to the United States- and therefore we should deny them the right to worship as they please (even if they are not breaking any American laws).

That makes sense to you?

You "syriously" believe that a legal system is the same thing as worshiping ?

There is nothing implicit in the right to worship that suggests that law is included.

Should scientologists have the right to practice according to a different legal system? How about Santoria? Raelianism, perhaps?

Heck, why not just let everybody follow whatever legal system they want, eh?

Can you cite a single instance - in the United States - in which anyone other than Muslims has been affected by Sharia law? Take your time.

 

[Coyote]

I think it's important to recognize that the US is not Britain, for one - and that Muslims in the US come from different cultural backgrounds than many in the UK, where the majority is from Pakistan. Culture makes a big difference.

Yes -- we have many educated people from places like Iran who came here to ESCAPE this sort of thing.

Why people want to sell them down the river by giving Islamists the tool of oppression they seek is downright mystifying.

I think this where you are off base.

I know a educated people from Iran....in fact, I work with some of them. And, they are trying to find ways to stay in OUR country, because they don't get along with the Mullahs (no surprise). But despite that, they are STILL Muslims.

I disagree with your claim that ANYONE wants to "sell them down the river". This thread is melding a bit with the "regressive left thread" so I'm not sure which place to post things. Maybe both.

Instead of looking at it from a view point of complete condemnation vs complete denial (the other side) - what is there in the middle that is workable? You have religious people who want to be able to PRACTICE their religion in a way that INCLUDES the rights and equalities we value here. We should be SUPPORTING that.