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Is Newt Gingrich Wrong to Talk About Sharia?

August 24, 2010  •  Pajamas Media

In a recent article appearing in Tablet, Lee Smith takes former House speaker Newt Gingrich to task for the latter's focus on sharia (i.e., Islamic law).  The thrust of Smith's argument is that sharia is a "hopelessly abstract concept" and "a highly idealized version of reality that has little basis in fact"; that sharia is "a catchall phrase for legal principles that have rarely, if ever, existed in actual Muslim societies"; and that "the notion that something called 'sharia' was widely imposed throughout the lands of Islam is an Orientalist fantasy."

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Top Muslims Condemn Ground Zero Mosque as a 'Zionist Conspiracy'

August 19, 2010  •  Pajamas Media

In a recent article, I argued that the Ground Zero mosque is counterproductive to Islam. The following day, on August 5^th, the Egyptian newspaper Al Masry Al Youm reported that none other than Al Azhar — one of Sunni Islam's most authoritative institutions — agrees. My translation of the relevant excerpt follows:

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review of The Crisis of Islamic Civilization

Spring 2010  •  Middle East Quarterly

Allawi, who at various times was Iraqi minister of trade, minister of defense, and minister of finance following Saddam Hussein's overthrow, ends his book with a plausible conclusion—that, by nature, Islamic civilization must either subsume or be subsumed—but only after long swathes of tangents, contradictions, and loaded assumptions.

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Why the Ground Zero Mosque is Counterproductive to the Islamist Cause

August 4, 2010  •  Pajamas Media

While vexing to many, the mega mosque set to be built two blocks from Ground Zero has produced one interesting but unintended consequence: like the 9/11 strikes a decade before it, the "9/11 mosque" is also creating a stir, is making people think and talk — about Islam.

Consider: Before the Islamist strikes of 9/11, mainstream America was incognizant of the threat posed by radical Islam. Islamic apologetics and anti-U.S. polemics were unquestioned orthodoxy, not only in their natural habitat — academia — but more generally.

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Top Muslim Cleric Qaradawi Urges Western Muslims to 'Liberalize'
Outwardly, Anyway

July 23, 2010  •  Pajamas Media

A recent episode of the popular Arabic show al-Sharia wa al-Haya (Law and Life), which airs weekly on Al Jazeera and features renowned Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, addressed the important yet little known Muslim concept of taysir (pronounced "tey-seer").

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