The students here know Feldman as the most sought-after professor at Harvard Law School. But he is also a famed First Amendment scholar and is out there promoting his new book. And, apparently, chatting with Al-Jazeera about Oklahoma’s sharia law ban. The state elections board has voted to ask the state Attorney General to appeal an injunction against enforcement of the new law. We recently covered this issue, which led to some heated words in the comments section.
Here‘s what Al-Jazeera reported:
Noah Feldman, a Harvard law professor specialising in US constitutional law and religious studies, told Al Jazeera that the ban in Oklahoma “almost certainly” violates the First Amendment rights of of Muslims.
He called the ban “a surprising piece of legislation that came out of the Islamophobia that has unfortunately surfaced in the US in the past few months”, and said that striking the ban down is the right course of action for the courts to take.
“Under existing law, you cannot endorse or disfavour a particular religion, and the passage of this constitutional amendment is intended to disfavour Islam,” said Feldman, who was unaware of any similar precedent.
Professor Feldman may be an expert on U. S. First Amendment law but his comments display a shocking ignorance of Shari’a or Islamic law. The main tipoff to his ignorance of the subject was his use of the Muslim Brotherhood invented term “Islamophobia.” This was coined by stealth jihadists in the Muslim Brotherhood to force Western liberals to shut off debate about the dangers of Shari’a. Their were inspired by the use of a similar sobriquet by the gay and lesbian activists who invented “homophobia” as a means to stifle opposition to gay marriage and other debate over gay rights. In fact, Islamophobia is an oxymoron and an impossibility. A phobia is an unreasoning fear of the object of the phobia. After the Mumbai Massacre, the Bali bombing, the World Trade Center (1993 and 2001), Fort Hood, Richard Reid, the Washington snipers, JFK plot, Fort Dix plot, London Tube bombings, Madrid bombings, the U.S.S. Cole, the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the murder of 243 marines in Beirut and tens of thousands of other mass murder attacks by people claiming to be acting in strict accordance with the teachings of Islam, it is ludicrous to suggest that fear of Islam or Sharia is unreasonable. Quite the contrary, it actually would be a delusional psychosis NOT to be afraid of Islam. While most Muslims are not extremists, after reading the Qur’an, the Hadith and the Sira, any rational mind would realize that any Muslim who chooses not to engage in violent jihad against us is NOT CHOOSING to follow a religion of peace but CHOOSING NOT to follow a religion of war.
I wanted to add this for those who think that only the Quran is to be condemned after reading it. Evidently, those who practice Christianity are in the dark or in denial regarding their own holy book. A few years back I compiled a side by side chart of scripture by themes for the Bible, the Quran and thye Hadiths.
They are indistinguishable. Ruthlessly intolerant and murderous.
http://www.stopthereligiousright.org/biblequran.htm
Professor Feldman has a PhD in Islam at Oxford and is way more qualified in understanding Islamic law than you could ever be. Try reading Columbia professor and former professor of McGill’s Dr. Wael Hallaq’s work on Shariah.
How is Sharia different from the laws of Exodus and Leviticus? How is the sexism, homophobia, and religious tolerance of Judeo-Christianity any different from those of Islam? Stone women for adultery? Kill homosexuals? Stone you for believing in another religion? Wackos like to look to our heritage in the colonies but did you know that killing people for wrong religion, homosexuality, adultery and bad-mouthing a parent were punishable by death?
Until the enlightenment, Christianity was as beastly as any dictatorship because it had an alliance of church and state with which to terrorize individuals and keep them from straying.
We have our own Taliban that is Christian. We should clean our own house before we start attacking a faith due to a radical element.
I don’t have any “faith” and find it all troublesome and ridiculous but as one who is familiar with the tenets of the Bill of Rights, the ban on religious tests, and the equal protection clause, the law is clear.
This right wing nutjobbery about the Sharia is the product of nothing more than fear, bigotry and ignorance.