How To Give An Honest, Informed Presentation of Sharia on Fox News, in Two Minutes

Extracted from my interview with Lou Dobbs November 9, 2012, on Fox Business News.

Video link: http://youtu.be/R0d7_nPaybc 

Video Transcript (reproduced just below): http://youtu.be/R0d7_nPaybc 

[Bostom] Sharia is really foundational in Islamic societies. It is derived from the canonical texts of Islam, the Koran, the Hadith—the traditions of Mohammed, and it has many ritual aspects that might be similar to other religions, but it’s also an entire political system, and here is where it runs afoul of modern human rights concepts like our Bill of Rights, like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It includes a timeless war doctrine, the doctrine of jihad, it also rejects basic human freedoms, like freedom of conscience, freedom of speech and it imposes discriminatory regulations, legal regulations against non-Muslim minorities, and women. It also includes dehumanizing punishments, what we would consider dehumanizing punishments, like, lashing for alcohol consumption, stoning to death for adultery, and mutilating punishment for theft.

[Lou Dobbs]: Is it your view then that, there is no way in which our American culture can accommodate Sharia within a multicultural society for which would be Muslim?

[Bostom] Absolutely not. Certainly not for the overt, liberty-crushing dehumanizing aspects of Sharia. And unfortunately, it is an integrated whole. It has proven historically very, very difficult for Muslims to de-sacralize Sharia, to secularize it, and to eliminate the political and liberty crushing aspects from the simple religious ritual aspects.

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