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Sharia

Toronto Islamist Gives Recipe for Sharia Implementation in North America

Toronto Muslim activist Taha Ghayyur cites the same Islamic law that so-called Islamophobes do.

BY Bruce Cornibe · | October 19, 2016

The strategy of gradually implementing Sharia law in the West is shared by numerous Islamists including members of the Muslim Brotherhood. This plan is revealed in An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group and discloses how the Brotherhood in North America is committed to “civilization jihad” which essentially seeks “to subvert our society from within using the very freedoms they will then take away.” This seems to be the likely scheme of Toronto’s Taha Ghayyur, a Muslim activist and leader who is also a board member of DawaNet – a Muslim organization with the mission, “To connect and serve the community through empowerment, engagement and education.” Ghayyur allegedly wrote an article that was initially posted by Young Muslims about Sharia law, CIJ News captures some interesting passages from the article such as:

Abdur-Rahman Doi, in his encyclopedic work Shari’ah: The Islamic Law, suggests that only a total of seven scenarios exist in which Hud [fixed] penalties are awarded in the Islamic law; among the Hud crimes are intentional murder, theft, adultery, and highway robbery.

Not surprisingly, it is this portion of the Islamic law that often makes headlines in the media.

According to the Muslim jurists, the purpose of Hud [fixed] punishments is educative, preventive, and, mainly deterrent.

Punishments are thus designed to keep the sense of justice alive in the community by a public repudiation of the acts violating the limits set by God.

They are expected to build up in the society a deep feeling of abhorrence for transgression against fellow human beings, and therefore against God – a transgression which, according to the Quran, is the root cause of all disorders and corruption in human life…

The Hud [fixed] punishment prescribed by the Quran for a theft is to cut off the thief’s hand [under certain and strict conditions]…

Moreover, one wonders if Shariah can be practically implemented in our contemporary North American context…

The principles of Shariah are universal and are not bound by the limitations of time and culture.

It is certainly possible to apply Shariah in the North American society only if three conditions are fulfilled:

  • One, when an environment is developed, provisioned with preventative measures, that is conductive to a just and productive lifestyle, which is often not compatible with a consumer lifestyle.
  • Two, if the Shariah laws are implemented gradually, accompanied by continuous public education and training on the importance of justice, freedom, and one’s purpose on this earth, the way it was revealed and practiced, as a strategy of pre-crime social reform, over a period of twenty three years at the time of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the first generation of Muslims.
  • Three, if the punishments in the Shariah are given their due place, only to be used as a last resort, and not to be practiced in isolation from the other major objectives of the Shariah.

If a comprehensive approach to Shariah is not adopted then one may expect to witness horrific images of extremist, selective, and literal application of the Islamic text, the likes of which we have witnessed in recent times.

So there we have it, an Islamist who wants to adopt “a comprehensive approach to Shariah[.]” This slow and subtle way of implementing Sharia can easily fool people with the mindset that Sharia is benign and only includes things such as Muslim family matters. Sharia might be kept mostly at the Muslim family level in the West but the whole purpose of Sharia is a “comprehensive” system that deals with every aspect of human life. If Ghayyur truly believes cruel hudud punishments are “mainly deterrent” then why not make an exception and stone the thief a couple times rather than just chopping off his/her hand (Quran 5:38)? The more brutal the punishment the less likely it’s going to occur again among the people who witness it, right – isn’t that how the logic goes? Several months ago at an ‘Islamophobia’ panel discussion we witnessed FAU Professor Bassem Alhalabi use similar reasoning like Ghayyur’s when he commented on how harsh Sharia practices are beneficial in preventing crimes like theft. It’s disturbing to know that both of these men carry influence within the Islamic community in the West. We can agree that our society would be better off without repugnant practices like adultery that hurt married couples and their children; however, do we really want to stone adulterers like prescribed in Islamic texts?

It’s simply amazing how these type of opinions are being overlooked by many government officials. One such figure is Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who officially gave thanks via a video to DawaNet, Young Muslim Canada and others who helped with MuslimFest 2016. Western politicians and public officials can ignore the reality of an anti-Western Sharia ideology that is present within a large and influential sector of the Muslim community, but by doing so they are essentially sacrificing the fundamental freedoms for the next generation because of short-term political expediency. We need bold leaders who will expose  Sharia ideology – leaders who are not afraid of being labeled bigots for the cause of freedom. When we remain silent, Sharia wins.

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