Via Justin Elliot, The Tennessean, following up on the controversy over the proposed Islamic community center in Murfreesboro, publishes an investigation of the finances of groups fueling the right-wing panic over "stealth jihad" and finds a lucrative industry. It's pointless to excerpt that part of the piece here, but suffice it to say that taking on the burden of telling everyone within earshot that American Muslims are trying to overthrow the United States and institute Taliban-style Sharia law can get you lots of cash in grants from conservative organizations, regardless of expertise. You just need to sound like you know what you're doing and say the right things.
None of this contravenes the underlying absurdity of believing that a tiny minority of the already relatively small population of Muslims in the United States (2.5 million in a country of more than 300 million) are going to somehow turn us into a Western Caliphate. This is the part I'd want readers to take away:
Brannon Wheeler, history professor and director of the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the United States Naval Academy, said critics of Islam mistakenly assume that Shariah law is a set of fixed principles that apply to every Muslim, everywhere.
That's not the case, he said, making clear that he speaks as an expert and not for the Navy or the Naval Academy.
While French, for example, has put together his Sharia Law for Non-Muslims, no similar book exists for Muslims.
"There's no text that is entitled The Shariah," Wheeler said. "It's not a code of law. It's not like you could go to the library and get the 12 volumes of Shariah law."
Instead, Shariah is flexible, and applies differently in different contexts. It comes from clerics' and scholars' interpretations of the Quran and other holy books.
It's just a matter of time at this point, before Wheeler and the Naval Academy get smeared as a "stealth Islamist" organization.
The paper quotes Rabbi Rami Shapiro, a professor of religion at Middle Tennessee State University, saying "Muslims are not going to 'Shariah-ize' America. ... What's going to happen is that America is going to Americanize Muslims." By reinforcing the arguments of Islamic extremists that being an observant Muslim is incompatible with being a patriotic American, the anti-Islam industry is slowing that process.
