It is amazing that the whole audience doesn’t erupt into laughter when that infamous clown, the Islamic supremacist Reza Aslan, emits these howlers. Sharia in reality is marked by a remarkable uniformity: the four Sunni madhahib agree on about 75% of all rulings. Whenever and wherever we see Sharia implemented, it looks essentially the same. Changes and variations come in when Sharia provisions are relaxed or dropped altogether, as in secular Turkey — but that is not some different version of Sharia, it is no Sharia at all.
Mali Islamic supremacists move to ban music, just as they have in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Mali and Afghanistan are separated by immense distance and differences of language and culture. But Sharia in both is markedly similar.
Hadith Qudsi 19:5: “The Prophet said that Allah commanded him to destroy all the musical instruments, idols, crosses and all the trappings of ignorance.” (The Hadith Qudsi, or holy Hadith, are those in which Muhammad transmits the words of Allah, although those words are not in the Qur’an.)
Muhammad also said:
(1) “Allah Mighty and Majestic sent me as a guidance and mercy to believers and commanded me to do away with musical instruments, flutes, strings, crucifixes, and the affair of the pre-Islamic period of ignorance.”
(2) “On the Day of Resurrection, Allah will pour molten lead into the ears of whoever sits listening to a songstress.”
(3) “Song makes hypocrisy grow in the heart as water does herbage.”
(4) “This community will experience the swallowing up of some people by the earth, metamorphosis of some into animals, and being rained upon with stones.” Someone asked, “When will this be, O Messenger of Allah?” and he said, “When songstresses and musical instruments appear and wine is held to be lawful.”
(5) “There will be peoples of my Community who will hold fornication, silk, wine, and musical instruments to be lawful ….” — ‘Umdat al-Salik r40.0
“Chinese paper says Xinjiang Islamists seek to ban TV, singing,” from Reuters, November 29 (thanks to Maxwell):
Beijing: Islamists in China’s far western region of Xinjiang are seeking to ban television, singing and other forms of entertainment, a newspaper said on Friday, adding that “religious extremism” was a disaster facing the area.
China has stepped up its rhetoric against what it says is a threat the country faces from Islamist militants since an incident last month in which a vehicle ploughed into tourists on the edge of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, killing the three people in the car and two bystanders.
China called the crash an attack carried out by people plotting holy war, and has reacted angrily to suggestions that it was because of frustration and anger over government repression of the region’s Muslims.
In a front-page piece in the official Xinjiang Daily, Yusufujiang Maimaiti, the head of the region’s employment bureau, said “forces” were furthering their “evil aims” by seeking to foist extremist beliefs on the region’s Muslims.
“Religious extremist forces … don’t allow people to sing or dance, they incite them to disobey the government, to not use marriage certificates and I.D. cards. They prevent them from watching television, films, and listening to the teachings of patriotic religious leaders,” he wrote.
He did not identify the extremists but said they were “distorting and falsifying” religious doctrine with a creed of opposing anyone who was different from them culturally or religiously.
“Religious extremism is the biggest disaster facing the development and long-term peace and stability of Xinjiang,” he added. “Our battle against extremism is undeniable and unavoidable.”
Many of Xinjiang’s Turkic-speaking, Muslim people chafe at restrictions on their culture, language and religion, though the government insists it grants them broad freedoms.
Xinjiang has been the scene of numerous incidents of unrest in recent years, which Beijing blames on the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement, even as many experts and rights groups cast doubt on its existence as a cohesive group….