The Adventures of Asking Muslim Reformers to Categorically Choose between Western Laws and Islam
On January 7th Jihad Watch published my article titled "93% of Muslim Public Officials Would Not Express Support for the Constitution They Swore to Uphold."[1] This article was a result of a survey of four questions I had sent to eighty Muslim public officials across the United States. With each of the four questions the Muslim public officials were presented with scenarios and asked to choose between the United States Constitution and American laws, or Islamic Doctrine. The results were dismaying because although each of the eighty had taken an oath of office that included swearing to support that Constitution, only six Muslim public officials would specifically state that they supported that Constitution and American laws over Islam Doctrine.
As the results from that survey were coming in, I thought it would be interesting to present the same type of questions to some of the prominent Muslims who have been publicly aspiring to reform Islam. Such aspiring reformers are found both in the United States and in Canada. Their reformation goals seem to focus on making the religion of Islam more compatible with modern times and Western laws and values.
For the American Muslim reformers I used the same questions I had sent to the eighty Muslim public officials. For the Canadian Muslim reformers, I used three questions that involved the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and one question that involved the 1833 Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies.[2]
If the goals of these Muslim reformers actually are what they are claimed to be, then in theory one would think that there would unanimous support among these reformers for the Western laws of their respective countries over Islamic Doctrine. Unfortunately, the reality turned out to be quite different.