The Washington Post reports:
Protesters of the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero waved signs there Sunday with a single word: sharia.
Their reference to Islam’s guiding principles has become a rallying cry for those critical of Islam, who use the word to conjure images of public stonings and other extreme forms of punishment in countries such as Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan and argue that those tenets are somehow gaining a foothold in the United States.
Blogs with names such as Creeping Sharia and Stop Shariah Now are proliferating. A pamphlet for a “tea party” rally last weekend in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., asked: “Why do Muslims want to take over the world and place us under Shariah law?” Former GOP House speaker Newt Gingrich amplified that point in a much-publicized speech a few weeks ago, exploring what he calls “the problem of creeping sharia.”
The fact that the word has become akin to a slur in some camps is an alarming development to many religious and political leaders. “We are deeply saddened by those who denigrate a religion which in so many ways is a religion of compassion,” Peg Chemberlin, president of the National Council of Churches, said in a statement this month signed by 40 national religious leaders.
Sharia in Arabic means “way” or “path.” Muslims agree that sharia is God’s law, but there is little consensus on the particulars. To some, sharia is a set of rules that are codified and unchanging. To others, it’s a collection of religious principles that shift over time.
You have a reverse “don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater” issue here. While religious freedom needs protection, adapting or introducing sharia law into Western jurisdiction would be a deeply retrograde step. While Islam’s culture has produced advances in civilization it has also promulgated the idea of humanity as slave to divine will, rather than partner in creating and improving human society — as Confucianism does, for example.
I’d suggest it’s no worse than the other two partners in the Abrahamic mess we live with. I guess we have to save the culture we’ve got, rather than the one we wish we had.