I’m a child of the 80s.
I grew up watching and re-watching The
Princess Bride. I have two copies of
it on DVD (the special features on each new anniversary edition are always
different). I was thrilled to learn that
it was headed to Netflix. As a world
religions professor, I enjoy The Princess
Bride because it makes a rather excellent teaching tool. For example, when discussing the Four Noble
Truths of Buddhism: “Life is pain, Highness.
Anyone who says differently is selling something.” Or, when discussing the seven sacraments of
Catholicism: “Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togever tooday.” But my favorite use of The Princess Bride as teaching tool comes when we discuss Islam and,
specifically, Sharia. It typically
involves this video clip:
Since 9/11, pseudo-scholarship on Islam has
skyrocketed. As someone who has
dedicated years of my life to the study of Islam and the Middle East, I cringe
every time someone starts a diatribe on Islam with something like “Well, I’ve
never read the Qur’an, but….” The
problem only multiplies after a terrorist attack like the one in Nice last
night. We still don’t know much about
the attacker, except that his name was Mohammed which is enough to get the
Islamophobic rhetoric cranked up to an insanely high level.
Newt Gingrich, who was on the short list of potential vice
presidential candidates for the Trump campaign, said in an interview with Sean Hannity
on Fox News last night, “We should frankly test every person here who is of a
Muslim background and if they believe in sharia they should be deported.” I was on Twitter last night after the
interview and the collective response from Islamic Studies Twitter was a gigantic
face palm. My first thought was, “Oh,
Newt….Bless your heart (said in the most Southern way possible, by the
way). You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it
means.”
Allow me to describe for you a religious law: this law,
written centuries ago, contains 613 commandments that some practitioners of the
religion believe must be followed explicitly.
These commandments include sections on agriculture, ritual purity, marriage
and divorce, sacrifices, rituals and worship, and criminal and civil offenses. Those who do not follow all of the
commandments are seen by those who do as of lesser faith because they have
deviated from the true law. For those
who are confused, the religious law I’ve just described is the Halakha or
Jewish law and those who follow it explicitly are the Orthodox. In many ways, Sharia is analogous to Halakha
except that Sharia is much less explicitly stated in the Qur’an than Jewish law
is in the Torah.
The problem with pseudo-scholarship on Islam as it relates
to Sharia is that it all revolves around what we see as representative of
Sharia on television: stoning adulterers, cutting off the hands of thieves,
hanging apostates, etc. However, these
represent a very narrow interpretation of a very narrow portion of the Sharia
that, frankly, most Muslims are not terribly concerned about these days. Sharia means “the way” or “the path” in
Arabic. It is a mostly amorphous
collection of wisdom, teachings, rituals, customs, and rules that govern all
aspects of a Muslim’s life.
The rules that govern prayer times, when to start fasting
and to stop fasting during Ramadan, the correct order of events for the pilgrimage
to Mecca, and a whole host of rather mundane day-to-day events in a Muslim’s
life are covered by the Sharia. Funeral
rites, as well as wedding rituals, are governed by Sharia. Marriage, divorce, custody arrangements, and
inheritance are explored in the Sharia.
Sharia also discusses commerce and economic transactions, appropriate
slaughter of animals, modest dress, and yes, criminal offenses. The Sharia was given by God, but is
interpreted by men as fiqh or
jurisprudence. In modern times, Sharia
is a source of legislation in most Muslim countries, but exists alongside
elements of French or English law (a remnant of colonial times) and other legal
codes. Muslims are expected to obey the
laws of whatever country they reside in as long as such laws do not interfere
with their duties as a Muslim.
Having explained Sharia thusly, the problem with Gingrich’s
statement about Muslims and Sharia should be quite clear. To be Muslim is to believe in Sharia. To threaten deportation of Muslims who believe
in the Sharia then is Trump’s Muslim ban on steroids. Furthermore, the idea of deportation of
Sharia-believing Muslims is particularly problematic for the estimated 37% of the American Muslim population that is native-born. My friend Adam Soltani, the executive director
of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations was born
in Kansas. Where should he go to be
deported? Back to Kansas? [Insert obligatory Kansas joke here if so
inclined.]
Of course, here is the larger issue with what Newt had to
say last night: It’s crap and he knows it’s crap. Newt Gingrich is many things, but stupid is
not one of them. He’s a smart guy. He’s also an insatiable political opportunist. That, perhaps, explains why today, he’s
walking back his statement, having seen the backlash against it. However, despite his protestations to the
contrary, Islamic Studies Twitter (also First Amendment Twitter) did not take his
statement out of context. We are
rightfully calling Newt out on his nativist, xenophobic political opportunism. Newt is attempting to toe the Donald Trump
Republican party line.
Sharia is wielded as a weapon by politicians like Newt to
scare Americans who don’t know any better about a non-existent threat from
Muslim-Americans. And it works. In Wichita, a man posted on Facebook that he
would no longer eat at Le Monde Café, a Mediterranean restaurant, after
learning that the owner and manager were both Muslim. Luckily, the good and decent majority in
Wichita has banded together to support the restaurant, including a day during
which people are planning to inundate the restaurant with business as a show of
unity.
Closer to home, everyone’s favorite Islamophobic Oklahoma
state representative John Bennett proposed a study by the Oklahoma State House
of Representatives into the “current threat posed by radical Islam and the
effect that Shariah Law, the Muslim Brotherhood and jihadist indoctrination
have in the radicalization process in Oklahoma and America.” This is the same John Bennett who, in the fall of 2014, said of Islam, “This is a cancer in our nation that needs to be cut
out.”
Thanks. Joshua
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