The Telegraph:
President Barack Obama’s adviser on Muslim affairs, Dalia Mogahed, has provoked controversy by appearing on a British television show hosted by a member of an extremist group to talk about Sharia Law.
Miss Mogahed, appointed to the President’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was “oversimplified” and the majority of women around the world associate it with “gender justice”.
The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party.
The group believes in the non-violent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of an Islamic state under Sharia Law across the world.
Miss Mogahed appeared alongside Hizb ut Tahrir’s national women’s officer, Nazreen Nawaz.
During the 45-minute discussion, on the Islam Channel programme Muslimah Dilemma earlier this week, the two members of the group made repeated attacks on secular “man-made law” and the West’s “lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism”.
They called for Sharia Law to be “the source of legislation” and said that women should not be “permitted to hold a position of leadership in government”.
Miss Mogahed made no challenge to these demands and said that “promiscuity” and the “breakdown of traditional values” were what Muslims admired least about the West.
She said: “I think the reason so many women support Sharia is because they have a very different understanding of sharia than the common perception in Western media.
“The majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance.
“The portrayal of Sharia has been oversimplified in many cases.”
Sharia in its broadest sense is a religious code for living, which decrees such matters as fasting and dressing modestly. However, it has also been interpreted as requiring the separation of men and women.
It also includes the controversial “Hadd offences”, crimes with specific penalties set by the Koran and the sayings of the prophet Mohammed. These include death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality and the removal of a hand for theft.
Miss Mogahed admitted that even many Muslims associated Sharia with “maximum criminal punishments” and “laws that… to many people seem unequal to women,” but added: “Part of the reason that there is this perception of Sharia is because Sharia is not well understood and Islam as a faith is not well understood.”
The video of the broadcast has now been prominently posted on the front page of Hizb ut Tahrir’s website.
Miss Mogahed, who was born in Egypt and moved to America at the age of five, is the first veiled Muslim woman to serve in the White House. Her appointment was seen as a sign of the Obama administration’s determination to reach out to the Muslim world.
She is also the executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, a project which aims to scientifically sample public opinion in the Muslim world.
During this week’s broadcast, she described her White House role as “to convey… to the President and other public officials what it is Muslims want.”
Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, said Miss Mogahed was “downplaying” Sharia Law.
“There is a reason sharia has got a bad name and it is how it has been exercised. Regrettably in the US there have been acts of injustice perpetrated against women that are driven by the Sharia-type mindset that women are objects not human beings,” she said.
She cited the example of Muzzammil Hassan, a Buffalo man who ran a cable channel aimed at countering Muslim stereotypes and was charged earlier this year with beheading his wife after she filed for divorce.
“Americans understand by example, it’s not as if we are an ignorant mass of people. Just as we don’t broad brush all Muslims, so should Dalia not downplay the serious nature of sharia law.”
I notice this characteristic of Leftie secular Westerners – why they don’t get it and of course only hear what they want to hear:
1) all religions are equally bad, Islam is no worse than Christianity and especially Judaism, and should all be abolished, and
2) since extremely few secularist lefties could ever be bothered to REALLY STUDY the teachings of all three (because of a deep disinterest they couldn’t get through the books), they are thus subject to whatever the Muslim horse-whisperers will tell them. Most really believe that Islam is benign and there is no threat.
There great knowledge deficiency in this group, perhaps one of the causes of the Left’s tendency to side with the radicals.
There are other reasons if we go into Marxist self-hatred and all its caustic brain-killing effects.
The sum total of these influences result in the liberal elites’ determination to turn turtle and surrender to the demands of Islam in the West, as if it’s neutral, adding to the colorful character of multicultural society.
Of course there’s the lawfare, the fear of which causes most politicians to prefer to become Vichy France than risk their political careers or risk fatwas enough to take a stand against the totalitarians.
If Islamic sharia is an innocent thing, akin to Christianity’s code of conduct, voluntarily adopted only by those who believe in it, and never to be enforced by external authorities wielding deadly force, then why do Muslim spokesmen and imams put so much effort into deflecting our examination of it?
I don’t think Sharia is misunderstood at all in the west. I think we get it prefectly clearly, and don’t like what we see for good reason.
Nick, problem is that you and I see it as a threat, most don’t because they either don’t know or have been placated and soothed. Hell, yesterday an acquaintance told me that taqiyya doesn’t exist and that Mohammed was as fine an example as any “religious” figure! WTF??
Propaganda, the big lie is being used to convince people they shouldn’t bother to study and learn for themselves. Way too many people accept this reasoning and most haven’t been taught how to think so they are happy to let the self proclaimed elite think for them. Dallas challenge your friend to read the Koran in chronological order and then read the Haditihs, (sp?). After he has done this ask him if he still thinks Islam is peaceful and Mohammad was a fine example of a religious leader?
@ Dallas
I understand it perfectly well, i see it in my little brother and in the people around me; it is primarily about a stubborn need to always be right, they can’t accept use because that would mean admitting they have been wrong there entire lives and they just can’t do this.
What is wrong with western culture is that her citizens refuse to humble themselves on a daily basis; understanding you are flawed and evil and make mistakes should be the very first thing every child is taught.
Ahcim who said anything is wrong with us? From our view point it your arrogance in ordering us to live by you culture that is wrong. You are so sure you are right that it never crosses your mind that other people may not want to live according to your rules, and when we resist you ask what is wrong with us. Well we are asking what is wrong with you that you refuse to let us live our own lives?
Richard, Achim wants us to get with his program. According to him we are flawed and evil, the muslim world is beyond reproach and is lily-white. We must bow to the supremacy, chaos and barbarism which is Islam.
Do you notice that the perpetrators ALWAYS use the bully tactic of making the victim out to be the cause of the problem? Too many of us in the West have such a hangup about offending anyone, such a self-hatred for our own culture, they believe every libel spewed from the Muslim world, which as we note has no such hangup at all!
As far as any leftie acquaintances actually learning something, I did get one to read Wafa Sultan’s book “A God Who Hates”, and his response was, “Well that’s her opinion.” He wouldn’t see the truth if it bit him on the nose.
In other words, if a leftie ever were to read the Koran, they would see it through the filter of self-hatred and end up being drawn into it, one of the pathetic Western converts like Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR.
And of course you’ll never hear of a leftie reading the Bible and gaining the ability to discern the falsity that I keep hearing – that both Islam and Christianity are the same thing. It takes an attention span of longer than 30 seconds to learn discernment – that’s beyond the ability of ideologues, and the Bible of course takes a long time to read. Why would a leftie read it since he already seems to know what’s in it WITHOUT reading it?
After years of trying to engage leftists in order to approach rational solutions, I conclude that the vast majority suffer from deep identification issues and cannot participate in creative discourse. There is a mental wall which is as strong as cult programming. Most are beyond hope – black is white, good is evil. Go figure!
Yeah Dallas I know what he was doing, I was trying to get Ahcim to try and come up with a rational defense for his idea that we are suppose to be humble and not question how and why things are done, and aren’t allowed to think for ourselves. Asking people who think like him to do this can cause them to rethink their entire existence, or at best make him froth at the mouth.
RIchard it is kind of one of my missions in life to try to get through to apologists of Islam. Very hard slog. Good luck to both of us!
We need it, and if they ask you why the crescent moon one possible answer is because Mohammad bayed at the moon every now and then. I know that Allah was the old Moon God but Mohammad was crazy in so many ways he may have bayed at the moon.