WorldNetDaily Puffs Anti-Shariah Project

WorldNetDaily enthuses over a new project entitled “Mapping Shari’a in America: Knowing the Enemy”, which

seeks by the end of next year to document in a rigorous, scientific fashion the controversial premise that the more a mosque or community of Muslims adheres to Shariah, or Islamic law, the greater its threat to U.S. national security.

In order words, it seeks to prove its premise by gathering the evidence needed. But how does it define “Shariah”? The project’s website explains:

Islamic law is the source of the command for faithful Muslims to war against the infidel. Sometimes this “Jihad” is taught as a personal introspective battle against the Muslim’s own demons, but just as often this Jihad is taught as a war against non-Muslims and Muslims who have gone astray…But most Islamic groups and organizations take on what appears to be a legal and peaceful veneer in the English settings, but in fact preach quietly and often in Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu a very violent and anti-American Jihad.

So, we know that “most” American Muslim groups are “very violent” before the study has even got underway. The WND article has amended this to (emphasis added) “Gaubatz contends many Islamic groups and organizations take on a legal and peaceful veneer…”; when you need WND to make you sound less excessive you’re probably in trouble.

Moving on:

…it is first necessary to properly identify the Muslim organizations and mosques teaching and preaching Shari’a, what variety of Shari’a is being taught or preached, and how it rates on a systematic scale measuring the degree to which the specific Shari’a taught or preached is based upon one of the five historical, traditional and authoritative jurisprudential schools of fiqh (or legal interpretation) and to what degree does the particular brand of Shari’a begin advocated call for Jihad, and which aspect of Jihad.

That sounds fair enough, but how are the various interpretations of Shariah to be categorised?

Phase Two will include the first known ranking of Shari’a, with 0 being no Shari’a and 10 being al Qaeda level.

So, all Shariah is to be ranked against the yardstick of how closely a Muslim wishes to be identified with al Qaeda, with only those who want no part of Islamic law being untainted. But why? And how are the various rankings to be decided? And how do you balance the significance of the various factors and interpretations within a particular school of Islamic jurisprudence? The WND article has quotes from the project leader, Dave Gaubatz, who sheds just a little light:

“It’s so easy. You can’t agree with Shariah law and say that you are peaceful,” Gaubatz continued. “You can’t do it. Now there are Muslims in the United States who do. They say, we don’t agree with Shariah law, we don’t want Shariah law. But then, to the pure Muslim, they are not Muslim.”

Some Muslims want to reform Islam, he said, and retain only peaceful elements.

“That’s fine, but then you are not pure Muslim,” Gaubatz said.

So the subjects of the study will have the choice of being categorised as a “pure Muslims”, which means they are violent, or as “impure Muslims” with moderate views. For obviously polemical reasons, this whole approach is based on the idea that Saudi-backed Wahabi Islam is normative, and this in turn is conflated with al Qaeda and its tactics.

Further:

Gaubatz said his group has been told by many sympathetic Muslims that to minimize the threat of another attack, authorities should ask foreigners seeking entry into the U.S. if they agree with Shariah.

“If they agree, according to the Muslims who have told us this, then they should probably not even be given entry here,” he said.

But what does it mean to “agree with Shariah”? What kind of Shariah? What kind of agreement? Obviously, for Gaubatz the question is just meant to mean: “Do you reject Muslim beliefs?”, and it makes a mockery of the distinctions supposedly employed in his study.

This is an insult to the intelligence – sociologically illiterate, and clunkily obvious in its bias and bad faith. Of course Islamic extremism should be monitored and opposed, but this kind of clownish pseudo-study is a distraction which serves no good purpose.

Gaubatz enjoyed a bit of fame last year on both sides of the Atlantic, when he was championed by Melanie Phillips in the Spectator over his claims to have found the sites of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. Also involved with the project are David Yerushalmi and Robert Loewenberg, and the three of them also used to run SaneWorks.us, which was where the “Mapping Shariah” project was unveiled.

Following a link from a critical website to SANE brings up a message that “Access to our Premium Archives of blogs and articles are restricted to SANE Members who have contributed as SANE Patriot Members or higher”, but it still has an active website. According to its Mission Statement:

The Society of Americans for National Existence or SANE is what its name declares: a society of sane Americans dedicated to preserving and strengthening America’s national existence. By national existence we mean what you normally mean when speaking of such matters. America is a unique people bound together through a commitment to America’s Judeo-Christian moral foundation and to an enduring faith and trust in G-d and in His Providence. America’s founding, and its greatness was neither accident nor staging ground for some better existence or world state. America was the handiwork of faithful Christians, mostly men, and almost entirely white, who ventured from Europe to create a nation in their image of a country existing as free men under G-d. This constellation of forces existed no where else in the world and resulted in a unique people and nation.

The founding fathers understood that party-led parliaments and democracy were the worse form of government and sought to resist the movement that was soon to find fertile ground in France with the French Revolution, the end of which we can see now before our eyes…

Yerushalmi also has a thing about “white Christians”:

White Christians were at the founding of this nation a distinct people and privileged as such. Men of means among this people were given the opportunity for representative government. This is, for those of you flinching, not a thesis or “viewpoint”; this is historical fact. After the Civil War, this changed; with the move into the 20th century this change became a wholesale reformation.

Today, you cannot speak of Christianity in the public sphere and if you mention “white” and “Christians” in the same sentence you will be set upon as a despicable racist by every “fair-minded” public person. And, this phenomenon extends far beyond race.

Yerushalmi and Loewenberg have also treated us to impenetrable theologico-philosophical ramblings sprinkled with portentous capital letters; here’s a taster:

Speech, Incoherence, the Redirection and Mapping Shari’a

Mapping Shari’a is not merely a law enforcement tool or even a policy tool of self-defense. It is Trojan Horse as it were to turn away from the Redirection. The purpose of much of my writings here at the Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE) has been an attempt to elucidate an investigation and teaching of the Reciprocal and its consequence — what we term the Redirection — affecting Western society…

… all of man’s existence is reduced to Certainty: either in scientific speech or in political speech where there can be no truth only Uncertainty. Uncertainty in political speech is resolved with certainty by rendering the truth of existence as a methodology where the process or procedure is certain.

…And that brings us to Mapping Shari’a or the attempt to get at the Redirection manifesting as Convergence. In the West, men can no longer say what they are as a unique or existent People or Nation or understand their political order as distinct. Science-Democracy does not allow for a political order for a given People. Men as indistinguishable and found within Science = Certainty and as valueless opinions where All Else = Uncertainty establish a universal order found only in World without Self or Society. It is in a word, the inability to discriminate. Loewenberg refers to this as Indiscriminacy.

So western men can no longer recognize their own; western civilization and the Judeo-Christian understanding of the world no longer has any meaning except as some artificial social construct referred to as racist or xenophobic. For the new western man of science-democracy, Islam is indistinguishable from Christianity. Indeed, the lure of the Umma and the collapse of Self-Society into the Caliphate provides for the convergence our Elite not long ago embraced quite openly in Marxism. Lacking its former luster, Marxism has been replaced by the multi-cultural, open society of radical tolerance where the American People are not actually a People within a sovereign border but a “proposition” or “symbol” or Second Intention. A universal thought. The universal World State. This is the Convergence with political or Shari’a-based Islam. … Mapping Shari’a insists on discriminating; on looking at Shari’a-based Islam and understanding its “end” or telos. That end is our destruction as a People as non-believers. The resistance to the end must be its criminalization and destruction.

Curiously, this essay has not been carried over to the newer “Mapping Shari’a” website.

(PS: WND calls it “Mapping Shariah in America: Knowing the Enemy”; the project itself favours “Mapping Shari’a in America: Knowing the Enemy”)

12 Responses

  1. So the only good Muslim is a non-Muslims.

    Anyone who practices any element of “shariah” law, is an enemy, even if it’s just not drinking alcohol or not eating pork.

    Unbelievable.

  2. I’m always amazed at the build up of literate-seeming chaff that surrounds these people that are bat-shit crazy. It seems that their paranoia is only fed by their projections of their own zealotry on what they consider to be the opposition, you know, THEM.

  3. […] for a risibly-conceived ”Mapping Shari’a in America” project, which I discussed here; Mawyer was best-known for virulent anti-gay rhetoric in the 1990s before he jumped on the […]

  4. […] as championed by Melanie Phillips in 2007. I’ve blogged him before regarding his absurd “Mapping Shari’a” project and his role in the new “Stop Islamization of America” organisation; Glenn Greenwald […]

  5. […] Second, these problems do not encompass full complexity of sharia in its various schools and interpretations – it would be unhelpful if ”sharia” were to become simply a synonym for ”legally-sanctioned religious oppression”, the way “fatwa” has come to be understood as meaning ”death sentence”. In the US, unremarkable niche financial products for Muslim customers who wish to arrange their finances in accordance with sharia principles have provoked ridiculous howls of outrage, and there is an effort underway to paint any Muslim who does not repudiate his or her religion’s legal traditions in toto as an extremist (see here and here). […]

  6. […] I wrote a blog entry on Yerushalmi’s supposed expertise in Shariah here. […]

  7. […] Of course the abuses and retrograde attitudes highlighted by the report should be called out and challenged, although, as I’ve written before, it would be unhelpful if ”sharia” were to become simply a synonym for ”legally-sanctioned religious oppression”, the way “fatwa” has come to be understood as meaning ”death sentence”. In the US, unremarkable niche financial products for Muslim customers who wish to arrange their finances in accordance with sharia principles have provoked ridiculous howls of outrage, and there is an effort underway to paint any Muslim who does not repudiate his or her religion’s legal traditions in toto as being an extremist (see here and here). […]

  8. […] own defence against Tarazi, she has retained the services of David Yerushalmi (whom I blogged on here) and Robert Muise. The legal argument is long and inevitably difficult to penetrate, but the thrust […]

  9. […] while accusing Muslims of “lawfare”), and in 2008 he was involved with the absurd “Mapping Shariah” project. Yetman v. English refers to case in which an Arizona representative had accused a political […]

  10. […] on this blog before: he is the co-author of Muslim Mafia, the main organiser of the ”Mapping Shariah” project (alongside David Yerushalmi), and he plays a role in Pamela Geller’s Stop […]

  11. […] Shariah” project, which has a number of methodological problems that I outlined here. The paper is being published today; it appears that Bostom has been given an advance […]

  12. […] his involvement with the risible “Mapping Shari’a” project (which I discussed here) at Front Page: Gaubatz: …On Dec. 14, 2007, I went to an Islamic Center in Knoxville, TN. […]

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