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Raymond Ibrahim: Islam’s ‘Western Liberal Values’?

Oct 26, 2016 8:51 am By Raymond Ibrahim

Sadiq Khan 3

Recently while touring the U.S. and Canada, London’s first Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, “attacked anti-Muslim views and policies and argued that what is needed is to build ‘bridges rather than walls’—a reference to Mr. Donald Trump’s proposal to build a wall along the US-Mexico border.”

He specifically and repeatedly criticized the notion “that it is not possible to hold Western values and to be a Muslim.”  This notion, which he attributed to Trump, plays “into the hands of Daesh and so-called ISIS because it implies it’s not possible to be a Western liberal and mainstream Muslim, said Khan”

Can Muslims hold to Western liberal values and still be true to mainstream Islam?

This pivotal question is easily answered by determining what is and is not Islamic.  Muslims have traditionally accomplished this by asking the following questions:

What do the core texts of Islam say about the thing in question, call it “X”?  Does the Koran, believed by Muslims to contain the literal commands of Allah, call for or justify X?  Do the hadith and sira texts—which purport to record the sayings and deeds of Allah’s prophet, whom the Koran (e.g., 33:21) exhorts Muslims to emulate in all ways—call for or justify X?

If any ambiguity still remains concerning X, the next question becomes: what is the consensus (ijma‘) of the Islamic world’s leading authorities concerning X?  Here one must often turn to the tafsirs, or exegeses of Islam’s most learned men—the ulema—and consider their conclusions.   Muhammad himself reportedly said that “My umma [Islamic nation] will never be in agreement over an error.”

For example, the Koran commands believers to uphold prayers; accordingly, all Muslims are agreed that Muslims need to pray.  Yet the Koran does not specify how many times.  In the hadith and sira, however, Muhammad makes clear believers should pray five times.  And the ulema, having considered all these texts, are agreed that Muslims are to pray five times a day.

Thus, it is most certainly Islamic for Muslims to pray five times a day.

While both Muslim and Western scholars of Islam readily accept the aforementioned methodology (in Arabic known as usul al-fiqh) as foundational to determining what is Islamic—prayer is in the Koran, Muhammad clarified its implementation in the hadith, and the ulema are agreed to it—whenever the thing in question goes against Western values, then this standard approach to ascertaining what is and is not Islamic is wholly ignored.

In reality, however, countless forms of behavior that directly contradict Western values are called for in the Koran and/or hadith, and the ulema, are agreed to them: death to apostates and blasphemers, subjugation of Muslim women, sexual enslavement of non-Muslim women, polygamy, child-marriage, ban on and destruction of non-Muslim places of worship and scriptures, and enmity for non-Muslims—are all no less Islamic than prayer is.

Even Islamic State atrocities—such as triumphing over the mutilated corpses of “infidels” and smiling while posing with their decapitated heads—find support in the Koran and stories of the prophet.

To fully appreciate how much of Islam directly contradicts Western values, consider the findings of one Arabic language article by Dr. Ahmed Ibrahim Khadr.  It lists a number of things that mainstream Muslims support even though they directly contradict Western values.  These include (unsurprisingly): demands for a caliphate that rules according to Sharia and expands into “infidel” territory through jihad; death for anyone vocally critical of Islam or Muhammad; persecution of Muslims who try to leave Islam; rejection of equality for Christians and Jews in a Muslim state; rejection of equality for women with men; and so forth (read entire article).

Anyone who understands how Islam is actually articulated—such as presumably London’s Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan—knows that the assertion that it is “possible to be a Western liberal and mainstream Muslim” is a grotesque oxymoron.  It’s akin to saying that it’s possible to fit a square peg through a round hole.  It’s not—unless, of course, one forcefully hammers it through, breaking portions of the peg (the Muslim) and/or cracking the surface of the hole (Western society).

It is disingenuous to accept the well-known methodology of Islamic jurisprudence—is X part of the Koran, hadith, sira, and does it have consensus among the ulema?—but then to reject this same methodology whenever X is something that clearly contradicts Western values, as much of Islam is so wont to do.

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Filed Under: Qur'an, Sharia Tagged With: Sadiq Khan


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Comments

  1. Dan says

    Oct 26, 2016 at 9:14 am

    If Islam were compatible with the West, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

    There would be no rape gangs.

    No “No Go Zones”

    Nowhere near the welfare fraud.

    No honor killings.

    No suicide bombers.

    No “Allah acbar” screams.

    And Muslims would be turning in any Muslim who some much as sneezed wrong.

    So go take flying leap, Sadiq

  2. Tjhawk says

    Oct 26, 2016 at 10:07 am

    Thank you Mr. Ibrahim. You laid out the methodology so clearly that anyone could understand it. Having the Arabic name ‘usul al-fique’ will give it some weight when I use this line of thinking in discussions with those who don’t yet see.

    I feel that you have given me a tool that I can use to dispassionately and rationally counter those who hit you with the old ‘The Muslims I know are very nice people’ or ‘That atrocity had nothing to do with Islam’ routines.

    This line of thinking will help me be less frustrated, and more effective in future discussions.

  3. Athea Marcos Amir says

    Oct 26, 2016 at 10:28 am

    Someone needs to give the mayor a copy of the Quran. Apparently he’s not read it.

  4. Angemon says

    Oct 26, 2016 at 11:11 am

    Anyone who understands how Islam is actually articulated—such as presumably London’s Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan—knows that the assertion that it is “possible to be a Western liberal and mainstream Muslim” is a grotesque oxymoron. It’s akin to saying that it’s possible to fit a square peg through a round hole. It’s not—unless, of course, one forcefully hammers it through, breaking portions of the peg (the Muslim) and/or cracking the surface of the hole (Western society).

    Indeed.

  5. Smully Ben Dovid says

    Oct 26, 2016 at 1:19 pm

    Sadiq Khan wrote in 2008 in the Daily Mail that ‘Sharia Law is Not Fit For The UK’. He says that Sharia Law is not sufficiently sophisticated. This was when he was merely an MP and before coming Lord Mayor of London. What has changed? Why has Mr Khan failed to shut down Sharia Courts within the London Area?…

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1056794/Sharia-law-fit-UK-says-Labour-Muslim-MP.html

    • Islam the religion of killers says

      Oct 26, 2016 at 10:33 pm

      It will be interesting to see if Sadiq Khan is elected again

  6. aDhimmiSaysWhat? says

    Oct 26, 2016 at 6:34 pm

    God, I hate his face. Just look at his eyes. He looks dead inside. He has perpetual angry face.

    • Kathy Brown, Esq. says

      Oct 27, 2016 at 9:15 pm

      That’s how you look with allah on the brain. Or mo-ham.

  7. david says

    Oct 26, 2016 at 9:57 pm

    It is quite simple…….Sadiq Khan is applying Taqqiya……..

  8. Athea Marcos Amir says

    Oct 26, 2016 at 10:04 pm

    This is what I don’t get: it’s so very rare for a Muslim to study his religion and then realize it’s bullshit. How great when that happens. But why do some then turn around and become Christians or Jews or Scientologists or what-have-you rather than atheists? It’s like getting over your addiction to alcohol and then turning to heroin. Tonight I read the most brilliant article by Dr. Ali Sina. I was elated to read his eloquent and elegant prose saying everything I believe about Islam…and then learning he’s a Christian. Where is Christoper Hitchen when I need him most? I’m crushed.

    • Kathy Brown, Esq. says

      Oct 27, 2016 at 9:13 pm

      Alas Athea! What you ‘don’t get’, is a LOT!

      So in one fell swoop you consign all believers, over the centuries, to…kids who cheat in school? Or better yet, substance abusers?

      I presume, madam, that you expect respect for your choice to be an atheist? Yes? If that is so, how do square that with your utter contempt for those who do not make YOUR choice?

  9. Athea Marcos Amir says

    Oct 26, 2016 at 10:09 pm

    Ooops! Sorry for omitting H in Christopher and S on Hitchens. I’m truly distraught about Dr. Ali Sina. It’s getting clearer to me that it’s all hopeless…people, some of them SMART people, can’t function without their little cheat sheet called religion. What is wrong with the human brain?I don’t even have the consolation of thinking I’ll meet Christopher Hitchens in The Afterlife. Maybe this is the afterlife?

  10. Islam the religion of killers says

    Oct 26, 2016 at 10:29 pm

    “that it is not possible to hold Western values and to be a Muslim.”

    Interpretation :- Western values is Kahn speak for ‘work earn your place in society & pay taxes, behave with compassion’
    Interpretation :- Western values is Kahn speak for ‘ bludge, live of the benefit, be obnoxious, impose Islam on intelligent people, threaten, degrade woman, dominate whole suburbs, kill, rape, and smell ….

    What do the core texts of Islam say about the thing in question, call it “X”?

    Replace X with, kill non believers & rule the world…..

    • Islam the religion of killers says

      Oct 26, 2016 at 10:30 pm

      Mistake …… the second “western Values should be Muslim

  11. Crusades Were Right! says

    Oct 27, 2016 at 4:07 am

    I wonder if it’s possible the Mohammedan Mayor is dissembling about Mohammedanism?

    Another case of “Al taqiyya for a ride, kaffirs!”, I strongly suspect

  12. linnte says

    Oct 27, 2016 at 12:20 pm

    Like Obama, Khan will say and do anything to suck in non Muslims and get them on his “side”. Then BOOM! hahahahahh, FOOLED YA! I am just glad he is in Londonistan, and not New York.

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