Shari'ah Law in the US?

A tweet caught my attention a few days ago: 25 US states already have anti-Shari’ah bans, in some capacity or another, in place. These bans usually pertain to all ‘foreign law,’ but the media always speaks of Shari’ah when it comes to them. Indeed, these bans are more for the prevention of Shari’ah law overtaking the US than any other form of foreign law.

But is Shar’ah law really overtaking the US? Is the US even in any sort of danger of such an event?

According to some of the politicians mentioned in Monday’s article, Muslims are pushing to instill Shari’ah law in the US. Whether it is a small community or nation-wide, We Muslims obviously want the current laws to go and replace them with Shari’ah law. Therefore, politicians must take action and stop us before we can do anything.

The funny thing is, I don’t know any American Muslim who wants Shari’ah law to replace what’s already in place. There is no doubt in my mind some American Muslims are pushing for Shari’ah laws. However, I believe it’s safe to say they represent the minority, not the majority.

I started out simply enough by asking the Muslims in my family and my Muslim friends if they wanted Sharia law to be the new law of America. After they stopped laughing, they all responded "no."

This isn't surprising to me because I have never met an American-Muslim who has commented: "America is great, but you know what would make it even better? More laws like Afghanistan."

There are plenty of high-importance Muslims in America – and none of them want Shari’ah law. Neither of the two American Muslim representatives in Congress have a history of pushing for Shari’ah law. The same is true for any state elected legislators; none of them have supported Shari’ah law. Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest Muslim community in the US, is devoid of great support in implementing Shari’ah law in the US. Even the large American Muslim organizations like CAIR and ISNA have no agenda to push Shari’ah law into use.

Plus, only about 2% of the US population is Muslim, and even then that’s a very generous estimation. It would be impossible for such a small number of people to impose Shari’ah law on all Americans. That is simple common sense.

Instead, it would seem certain Republicans and other politicians are trying to scare people in order to gain something. Fear tactics tend to work quite well.

It appears that certain Republicans have created this "Sharia monster" for their own purposes. They scare us with their monster, and then they want to take credit for saving us from their own creation.

So the next time you hear or read a news report, ignore what they say or do the research yourself. There are very few Muslims trying to make Shari’ah law override the current US system of laws. Yes, there may be some, but that is far from the majority. Don’t believe everything the media says and don’t assume anything.

"No one group in this country is better than another. No one race or religion or sex or color is better than another. ... It's time we erased the last vestiges of intolerance, bigotry and unkindness from our hearts. Decency demands this and so does our history."

-- US President Ronald Regan