Breaking Down the Meaning of Shariah

Frank Gaffney spoke with Clare Lopez on Secure Freedom Radio yesterday. Lopez is Vice President for Research and Analysis at the Center for Security Policy. She is also a former CIA Operations officer and Gaffney’s co-author of a new book called “See No Shariah: Countering ‘Violent Extremism’ and the Disarming of America’s First Lines of Defense.”

Gaffney opened their conversation by asking Lopez to define Shariah. She responded:

“Shariah is Islamic law. It is fixed, it is written down, it was codified by the senior scholars of Islam in the couple hundred years or so after we are told Mohammed died in the year 632 so say by the 900’s by the 10^th century. Shariah, the law as well as the documents it is derived from, that is the Koran and the Hadith, primarily, were codified by the scholars… It is a fixed set of law that governs Islam, it governs every single action of a Muslim or a Muslim entity like let’s say a company.”

Lopez suggests there is only one version of Shariah but that it is enforced differently by different governments. She also says that most Muslims are familiar with Shariah even if only through their local imam.

Gaffney asked Lopez to expand on the concept of Jihad against non-Muslims as described in Shariah.

Her response was direct:

“Jihad is warfare against non-Muslims and of course, warfare can be many things, violent included but not exclusively, and so when we talk about the global Jihad movement, we’re talking about a movement that includes the violent terrorism of an al Qaeda or Islamic State, Hamas, Hezbollah but also, all those forces that support it in any way including by speaking, writing, broadcasting, certainly by funding, or even parents who teach Jihad to their children, parents who send their children to a madrassa to learn Jihad and Shariah. Those are all ways of supporting Jihad.”

Gaffney and Lopez also dispelled the idea that Jihad means personal struggle. Jihad means warfare against non-Muslims, Lopez said.

Very few Americans probably understand this issue clearly.

Hopefully, Gaffney and Lopez’s book will change that.