Fort Walton Beach Council agenda — 03-09-2010 Regular — reading text

non -Islamic country. Usmani, serves on SCF advi- sory boards, frequently in a leadership role. He is also the Chairman of the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions AAOIFI), a group established to establish standards for and monitor the practices of the Shariah -compliant finance industry. The English translation of Usmani' s 2006 book Islam and Modernism includes an entire chapter devoted to the obligation for Muslims to engage in violent jihad against non -Muslim states, even when the latter permit Muslims to preach and attempt to convert freely. The following passages are illustrative: Here, killing is to continue until the unbelievers pay Jizyah after they are humbled or overpowered. If the purpose of killing was only to acquire per- mission and freedom of preaching Islam, it would have been said " until they allow for preaching Islam." But the obligation of Jizyah and along with it the mention of their subordination is a clear proof that the purpose is to smash their grandeur, so that the veils of their domination should be raised and people get a free chance to think over the blessings of Islam. In short, my humble self is of the view that the purpose of jihad is not just to get the right of missionary activities in any country, but it aims at breaking the grandeur of unbelievers and establish[ ing] that of Muslims. As a result no one will dare to show any evil designs against Muslims on 10 Shariah, Law and `Financial Jihad': How Should America Respond? one side and on the other side, people subdued from the grandeur of Islam will have an open mind to think over the blessings of Islam. Factually, this aims at safeguarding Islam. It is for this reason that the scholars who have called jihad ' A Protection" must be looked in the above context. But the basic element of this " protection" is to break the grandeur of unbelievers and establish the authority of Islam. Aggressive jihad is lawful even today for the purpose it was lawful in those days. Its justification cannot be veiled only because the peace -lov- ing inventors of Atom Bombs and Hydrogen Bombs label it as Expansionism" and resent those who have put the chains of slavery around the necks of the people of Asia and Africa. They are still bleeding under these heavy chains. At least in my humble knowledge there has not been a single incident in the entire history of Islam where Muslims had shown their willingness to stop jihad just for one condition that they will be allowed to preach Islam freely. On the contrary, the aim of Muslims as declared by them in the bat- tle of Qadsia was, " To take out people from the rule of people and put them under the rule of Allah." The West has in recent years become most familiar with the term jihad in its " hard" form, involving the use or threat of violence to coerce, intimi- date, extort and, if necessary, destroy the unbelievers and Muslims who resist the imposition of Shariah. Terrorism as a tactic is a manifestation of this strain of war, in which relatively weak Muslims nonetheless find ways to use violence against their enemies. The call to violence inherent in Shariah is very likely to result in violent activi- ty. Evidence of this direct nexus can be observed in numerous terrorist inci- dents that occur immediately after Shariah authorities issue legal rulings call- ing for violence. A prominent example was the murder and mayhem precipi- tated by imams who issued fatwas and otherwise incited violence following the publication of cartoons satirizing Mohammed in a Danish newspaper. Jihad can also be waged through " soft" means —for example, via prosely- tizing ( dawa) and other peaceable forms of subversion —so as to insinuate Shariah into non -Muslim societies. It can be advanced as an interim step through elections, although representative government —rule by the peo- pie— is inherently incompatible with Shariah' s theocratic imposition of Shariah as the supreme law of the land. Shariah- compliant finance is a soft form of jihad; some of its practitioners have called it " financial jihad." When asked by the BBC in 2006 about the zakat (charitable contribution) obligation inherent to SCF transactions, Sheik Youssef Qaradawi, the head of the European Council on Fatwa and is What is Shariah? Research and a driving force in the SCF industry, declared, " I like to call it jihad with money, because Allah has ordered us to fight enemies with our lives and our money." Shariah as Sedition Insofar as authoritative Shariah clearly entails the realization of a transna- tional Islamic theocratic state, its adherents are committed to, among other things, the overthrow of the U. S. government, through violent means if necessary. Federal statutes define such activity as sedition and prohibit it. Specifically, a statute known as the Smith Act ( 18 U. S. Code § 2385), states: Advocating overthrow of Government Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivi- sion therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, dis- tributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof — Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his convic- tion. If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction. As used in this section, the terms " organizes" and " organize," with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the IPa  Shariah, Law and `Financial Jihad': How Should America Respond? recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regroup- ing or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons. The U.S. Supreme Court has, on four separate occasions, upheld the Smith Act against a variety of constitutional challenges. In the context of these decisions, the Court has made it clear that a conviction for advocating the violent overthrow of the U. S. Government will stand when the prosecu- tion can establish: a. the call for violence is not merely theoretical; b. that there is a real nexus between the call for violence and actual behavior; and c. the violent acts are likely to occur immediately or in the future. While some courts and commentators have understood the Court's rulings on " incitement" to require " imminent lawless acts" [ citing to Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444, 447 ( 1969) ( per curiam)], the Smith Act criminalizes seditious behavior that is more akin to criminal solicitation and 5 conspiracy than incitement. The call for violence and violent jihad by Shariah authorities is a paradig- matic violation of the Smith Act. The Mohammed cartoons are a historical example of how the fatwas from leading Ulema (Shariah authorities) lead inexorably to violence. Shariah -based fatwas are not theoretical or theologi- cal: they are mandates for behavior to the Shariah faithful. The cartoons had been in the public domain for months without incident until the Ulema called for a Day of Rage and invariably and inevitably violence and murder throughout Europe, the Middle East and Southern Asia. The lesson learned from the cartoon- related violence was not its immediacy but its inevitability, once the fatwas had been issued. Authoritative Shariah scholars must, in accordance with their traditions and practice of Islam, advocate the Law of Jihad against the United States. This advocacy falls well within the requisites of the Smith Act as refined by the Supreme Court. Shariah, as in the fatwas that result in violence, func- tions as a set of legal and normative instructions for jihad to the Shariah faithful. As will be discussed below, U. S. corporations that employ such scholars as advisors in connection with the firms' Shariah -compliant finance - related activities have increased civil and criminal exposure not otherwise associated with financial transactions. 5 For a detailed analysis of this point, see David Yerushalmi, Robert Spencer et al: " Shariah, Sedition, and the First Amendment" to be released for publication September 2008. 13 Chapter 2: Mapping Shariah in America Advocacy of Violent Jihad: An Empirical Demonstration he threat posed to the United States by Shariah- adherent Muslims inside this country has prompted the world' s first private sector effort to evaluate systematically the extent of the danger a nation faces from efforts to impose Shariah within its borders. This effort is known as the Mapping Shariah in America Project ( MSA Project), spon- sored by the non -profit research organization Society of Americans for National Existence. The MSA project is collecting information about the United States' 2, 300 - plus mosques, Muslim student and community associations, and associated schools ( madrassas). It is providing the results of its on -site, undercover sur- veys to both law enforcement officials and the public with a view to proving the proposition that Shariah adherence is invariably tied to the call for violent jihad and as such amounts to a criminal conspiracy to overthrow the U. S. government. Almost 200 mosques have been individually surveyed and evaluated to date. A complete inventory of jihadist materials found in 100 mosques randomly selected from the 2300 mosques and Islamic centers, has been prepared for publication. A final statistical analysis of this first sample is near completion. The preliminary results indicate a nearly perfect correlation between Shariah adherence and the prevalence of materials advocating violent jihad. There is strong reason to believe that a number of al Qaeda and related, affiliated or kindred Muslim terrorist organizations and operational cells are located in the United States. Some are said to be actively planning and preparing for the next major wave of terrorism in the U. S. homeland. Others are believed to be " sleeper" cells, biding their time and waiting for the right opportunity and command instructions