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Oct. 23, 2009
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Oct. 22, 2009
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Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
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Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
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Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 15, 2005 / 4 Adar II, 5765

Which privileges for Islam?

By Daniel Pipes


http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Throughout the West, Muslims are making new and assertive demands, and in some cases challenging the very premises of European and North American life. How to respond?



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Here is a general rule: Offer full rights — but turn down demands for special privileges.

By way of example, note two current Canadian controversies. The first concerns the establishment of voluntary Shar'i (Islamic law) courts in Ontario. This idea is promoted by the usual Islamist groups, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Canada and the Canadian Islamic Congress. It is most prominently opposed by Muslim women's groups, led by Homa Arjomand, who fear that the Islamic courts, despite their voluntary nature, will be used to repress women's rights.

I oppose any role for the Shari'a, a medieval law, in public life today, but so long as women are truly not coerced (create an ombudsman to ensure this?) and Islamic rulings remain subordinate to Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, I see no grounds on which to deny Muslims the right, like other Canadians, to revert to private arbitration.

On the other hand, Muslim demands for an exclusive prayer room at McGill University in Montreal are outrageous and unacceptable. As a secular institution, the university on principle does not provide any religious group with a permanent place of worship on campus. Despite this universal policy, the Muslim Student Association, a part of the Wahhabi lobby, insists on just such a place, even threatening a human rights abuse filing if it is defied. McGill must stand firm.

The key distinction is whether Muslim aspirations fit into an existing framework or not. Where they do, they can be accommodated, such as in the case of:

  • Schools and universities closing for the Eid al-Adha holidays.

  • Male employees permitted to wear beards in New Jersey.

  • The founding of an Islamic cemetery in Tennessee.

    Adherents of other minority religions may get a holiday off, wear beards, or dispose of their dead in private burial grounds — so why not Muslims?

    In contrast, special privileges for Islam and Muslims are unacceptable, such as:

  • Setting up a government advisory board uniquely for Muslims in the United States.

  • Permitting Muslim-only living quarters or events in the United States and Great Britain.

  • Setting aside women-only bathing at a municipal swimming pool in France.

  • Banning Hindus and Jews from a jury hearing a case about an Islamist in Great Britain.

  • Changing noise laws to broadcast the adhan (call to prayer) in Hamtramck, Michigan.

  • Allowing a prisoner the unheard-of right to avoid strip-searches in New York State.

  • Exploiting taxpayer-funded schools and airwavesto convert non-Muslims in the United States.

  • Allowing students in taxpayer-funded schools to use empty classrooms for prayers in New Jersey.

  • Deeming the "religious vilification" of Islam to be illegal in Australia.

  • Punishing anti-Islamic views with court-mandated indoctrination by an Islamist in Canada.

  • Prohibiting families from sending pork or pork by-products to U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq.

  • Requiring that female American soldiers in Saudi Arabia wear U.S. government-issued abayas.

  • Applying the "Rushdie rules" — or letting Muslims shut down criticism of Islam and Muslims.

The dividing line in each instance is whether Muslims accept to fit the existing order or aspire to remake it. Working within the system is fine, taking it over is not. In U.S. terms, Muslims must accept the framework of the Constitution, not overturn it.

This approach implies that Muslim demands must be judged against prior actions and current practice, and not in the abstract. Context is all-important.

It is thus fine for the Alsace regional council in France to help fund the Grand Mosque of Strasbourg, because the same body also helped pay for renovations to the Strasbourg Cathedral and the city's Grand Synagogue. It is quite another when the City of Boston, Massachusetts sells land for an Islamic complex at well below the market price, a benefit unheard of for other religious groups in that city.

Western governments and other institutions urgently need to signal Muslims that they must accept being just one religious group of many, and that aspirations to dominate will fail. Toward this end, governments need to enact principled and consistent policies indicating precisely which Muslim privileges are acceptable, and why.

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JWR contributor Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum.

© 2005, Daniel Pipes