God Save America

By Abdullah Al Araby
www.IslamReview.com

Islam is more than a religion; It is a comprehensive way of life. The Quran (believed by Muslims to be God's word), and the Hadith (Mohammed's sayings as recorded by Al Bukhari), prescribe numerous regulations governing every aspect of the social, political, economical, as well as religious life. The belief that "Islam is a religion and a state" is an integral part of the Islamic religion.

Let's examine what Islam would do if it ruled America. What would happen to the values and institutions that we hold dear?

First: Liberty

The United States was built on the Bill of Rights, established by the founding fathers who came here to escape religious oppression. The Constitution gives citizens the right to express themselves as they please, to criticize the president if they believe he is wrong, to worship in the way they want and to act in any way they see appropriate as long as they don't violate the rights of others.

What would happen to this freedom in an Islamic state? Would the citizens be granted the right to choose the religion they want, or would they be forced into Islam according to the Quranic verse: "If any one desires a religion other than Islam, never will it be accepted of him, and in the hereafter he will be in the ranks of those who have lost." (Surah 3:85). How about the right of a Muslim to change his own religion? Would he be given this right or would he be punished according to the apostasy rule which states that such a person should be punished by death? Mohammed said "Whoever changes his religion, kill him." Al Bukhari Vol. 9:57

Do Muslim activists want us to have the same rights granted to the citizens of an Islamic country such as Saudi Arabia, where women are not allowed to drive an automobile and no one can worship openly according to any religion other than Islam? Do they want us to be ruled by a ruler such as Khomeini, who issued an order to murder a writer, Salman Rushdie, just because he dared to criticize Islam ? Even in a moderate Islamic state such as Egypt, Christians have to obtain a presidential decree to be able to build a church. They face discrimination in all aspects of their lives, including education, employment and promotions.

Second: Democracy

Our present system in the USA gives the citizens the right to rule themselves, to write the laws that will govern their lives, to decide the amount of taxes to be collected from them and how it will be spent.

One important principle in this great system is the separation of church and state. Islam, however, is built on an opposing concept, for "Islam is a religion and a state." According to Islam, the Quran is the principal source of legislation: "We have sent down to thee the book in truth, that you might judge men as guided by God." (Surah 4:105). If the Quran is the law, what are some of the rules and regulations that will be imposed? Here are just a few examples:

Stealing:  punished by hand amputation (Surah 5:38)

Adultery:  punished by public flogging (Surah 24:2)

Drinking: punished by 40 or 80 lashes (Al Bukhari 8:770)

Resisting Islam: punished by death, crucifixion or the cutting off of the hands and feet (Surah 5:33)

Prisons in Muslim countries are known to be centers of torture rather than rehabilitation.

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by Thomas E. Brewton
The View from 1776 

In 1639 representatives from the Puritan towns of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield in the Connecticut River Valley assembled in Hartford to create the world’s first written constitution that established a functioning government.  It was the progenitor of the Constitution of the United States.

Students are not told anything about this aspect of our history.  Instead they are taught that Puritanism was a theocratic, and therefore wholly repressive and undemocratic, mode of society.  Thus, in the left-wing liberal construction, to form the United States, Americans had to reject Judeo-Christianity and the Puritanism on which New England was founded. 

What progressive historians such as Charles A. Beard and Vernon L. Parrington have taught since the early 1900s is that the true spirit of American history is rooted in the 1789 French Revolution, which suppressed Christianity and turned France toward the atheistic materialism of socialism.  Students are taught, by implication if not directly, that the French Revolution’s stirring motto, “Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood,” expresses the true nature of American democracy. 

Students are taught that the Declaration of Independence was a hypocritical document, because Thomas Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal (this is a deliberate misrepresentation, as Jefferson was speaking not of slavery but of the estate of mankind under God).  Students are taught that the French Revolution’s Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen expresses the true aspiration of American democracy, which in liberals’ view ought to be the French-style socialistic welfare-state.

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