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more willing to indulge in anti-Muslim rhetoric. To hear some of them tell the story, Islamic law is on the verge of mandating the replacement of hot dog stands with falafel carts around the United States. Herman Cain said during his ill-fated spell in the limelight, Some people would infuse Sharia Law in our courts system if we allow it; I honestly believe that. Newt Gingrich stated late last year that, Sharia is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it, and he was worried that the United States could become a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists in the foreseeable future. Rick Santorum and Herman Cain both said during televised debates that they supported the racial profiling of Muslims by law enforcement agencies. Obviously, Muslims would be someone you look at, absolutely, said Santorum during one debate. Herman Cain admitted he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet and when asked if Americans had the right to ban mosques in their communities, he responded: Yes, they have a right to do that. That is not discriminating based upon religion. These attitudes were not just limited to fringe candidates. Mitt Romney, arguably the most moderate of Republican contenders, reportedly said at a private fundraising dinner back in 2008 that he would not appoint a Muslim to his presidential cabinet. The second turn of events has been the grassroots efforts to curtail the basic rights of Muslims in certain states. To set some context, in Mississippi and Alabama, a poll by Public Policy Polling (PPP) found that over fifty-two percent of Republican voters in these conservative states still believe that President Obama is a Muslim, with only twelve percent believing that he is a Christian. The same polls also shockingly found that nearly one-quarter believe that inter-racial marriages should be illegal. These states are therefore the ideal breeding ground for spreading unsubstantiated fears about Sharia law. A report last year by the think tank, Center for American Progress, noted that conservative pundits and analysts have identified Sharia law, as a growing threat to the United States. They point to the building of mosques and other religious accommodations such as public prayer spaces, access to halal foods and allowing civil proceedings such as wills or divorces to be done in accordance with Islamic traditions. According to the report, these right-wing political operatives argue that the steady adoption of Sharias tenets is a strategy extremists are using to transform the United States into an Islamic state. The result of this fear-mongering has been a raft of antiSharia legislation in several states. A proposal in the Tennessee State Senate would have made adherence to Sharia punishable by fifteen years in jail. Thankfully it was rewritten with all overt references to Islam removed following national controversy. But more than a dozen other states, including South Carolina, Wyoming, Texas and Georgia, have also introduced anti-Sharia legislation in the last year alone, which is still being debated. The number of states with similar initiatives is likely to grow as we get closer to November 2012. As an American Muslim and as a lawyer, I find these proposals ludicrous. An observant Jewish person who keeps kosher and observes the Sabbath is being consistent with Jewish halachic law, and is in no way being anti-American. Similarly, it is impossible to find a Muslim who practices any religious ritual, such as praying five times a day or giving to charity, who does not believe himself or herself to be complying with basic Sharia law. According to the Center for American Progress, defining
Fear of the other: a useful tool in American electioneering

The PoliTics of

during the republican primaries, we have once again seen the

rise of another major political wedge issue come to fruition as the candidates pandered to their right-wing constituencies: Islamophobia. Sadly this is nothing new. Throughout the 2008 campaign cycle, certain elements of the Republican Party repeatedly painted Barack Obama as some crypto-Muslim Manchurian candidate. To avoid any blowback, Obama never once went within twelve feet of a mosque entrance during his campaign and didnt attend a single Muslim rally. The issue became so toxic that in June 2008, two women were removed from a photo opportunity at an Obama rally in Detroit simply because they wore the hijab. This time around things have been different, and not in a good way. For starters, the candidates themselves were

By ArsAlAn IftIkhAr

photographs: gett y images

Why republican presidential nominees stoked public misconceptions about sharia Law and what this means for american muslims

Sharia as a threat is probably the same thing as saying that all observant Muslims are a threat to the American way of life. And, in legal terms, it should be noted that the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution is one of the first things taught in most first-year law courses. Article VI, Clause 2 states quite clearly that only the Constitution and the laws of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land and that no other law (foreign or domestic) can pre-empt or supercede it. So this means that anyone (including presidential candidates) who says that Sharia law is about to trump the Constitution should probably retroactively fail ninth-grade civics class as well. In a New York Times column last November, Yale University professor Eliyahu Stern argued that some of these current antiSharia efforts would curtail Muslims from settling disputes over dietary laws and marriage through religious arbitration, while others would go even further in stigmatising Islamic life. Somebody should have asked these Republican presidential candidates whether that, in turn, could violate the Constitutions First Amendment as a potential follow-up question; the collective silence would probably have been staggering. Nevertheless, the right wing will still play on unsubstantiated fears because they know that such tactics work. Republican operatives successfully used anti-gay marriage referendums in key battleground states to mobilise right-wing voters to bolster George W. Bushs re-election bid in 2004. Will anti-Sharia law initiatives be in future election cycles what anti-gay marriage initiatives were before? pondered Marc Ambinder in The Atlantic. This cynical electioneering can have disastrous results. On March 24, an Iraqi-American woman named Shaima Alawadi was found beaten unconscious in her San Diego home next to a note that said, Go back to your country, you terrorist. She died three days later. Although the full facts are not yet clear, we do know that the number of hostile incidents against Muslims in the San Diego area home to the nations second-most-populous community of Iraqi immigrants in the first quarter of 2012 was nearly equal to the total number of hostile incidents last year. So, as we move from the primaries to the elections, it will be interesting to see whether any of our politicians will have the audacity to speak out against these xenophobic efforts aimed at marginalising over seven million Americans who proudly practise the religion of Islam.
Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer and author of the book Islamic Pacifism: Global Muslims in the Post-Osama Era

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