It used to be taken for granted that immigrants to the United States would assimilate, adopt American cultural values, and become Americans. That idea, of course, was lost long ago as the lust for “diversity” and “multiculturalism” overtook the political and media elites, but up until Old Joe Biden opened the floodgates to any sentient being that could be relied upon to vote Democrat, most Americans took for granted the idea that people who settled in this country should obey the existing laws.
No more, however. On Wednesday, Shadi Hamid, a Washington Post columnist and professor at Georgetown University, wrote in the WaPo that expecting Muslims to adopt American values was just another manifestation of that “Islamophobia” that everyone is so desperate to avoid. Hamid argued not only that Muslims should not be expected to assimilate into American society, but that efforts to ban Sharia were as futile as they were “bigoted,” for Muslims simply weren’t going to give up Sharia, and that was that. In this midst of all Hamid’s bravado, however, he was extremely disingenuous about the nature of Sharia itself.
As he is a cosseted member of the leftist establishment, Hamid knows that he is expected to play the victim, and he strikes the pose with gusto. Hamid’s America, where he enjoys so very much privilege, is positively teeming with “Islamophobes”: “the Sharia-Free America Caucus has swelled to 60 House members. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) recently said, ‘I’m ready to get rid of the Muslims.’”
In Hamid’s view, this sort of thing is particularly outrageous, because there is all sorts of evidence, he says, that Muslims are as Americans as the MAGA Republicans he hates with such intensity: “The instinct, when faced with this, is to marshal the evidence. Over the past decade, surveys have shown that American Muslims are patriotic, civically engaged and more likely than the U.S. general public to say that political violence is never justified…. On the questions where Muslim Americans remain religiously conservative — sexuality, gender identity and family structure — their views don’t diverge much from the Republican base. They haven’t assimilated as much as liberals might like. You’d think Republicans would sense an electoral opportunity.”
Yet Muslims in America, Hamid maintains, shouldn’t be expected to become like other Americans. “The assimilation defense — look how well we’ve integrated — is satisfying to make. But it concedes a premise I no longer accept: that a minority community’s right to be in the United States depends on its willingness to converge with the cultural mainstream. It shouldn’t depend on that. It shouldn’t depend on anything.”
And it shouldn’t depend on anything because Muslims aren’t going to change their views: “This is where the conversation needs to shift, and where it becomes less about politics and more about culture: Muslims are different in certain ways. How could they not be? Islam shapes how its adherents think about family, sexuality and what it means to live a good life. Simply put, Islam is also a more public religion than Christianity. Muslim prayer is visually striking and often communal. If a Muslim doesn’t drink alcohol or fasts during Ramadan, that will be more noticeable to others. Moreover, practicing Muslims — despite being repeatedly asked to — can’t disavow ‘sharia’ even if they wanted to. Sharia, roughly translated as Islamic law, includes guidelines on how to pray, fast and otherwise observe what it means to submit to God in daily practice.”
Hamid’s entire essay is akin to other recent defenses of Sharia. As the defenders of Sharia build their case against the allegedly bigoted “Islamophobes” who are trying to oppose it, they ignore the political, supremacist, expansionist, and violent aspects of Sharia, and bank on their audience’s ignorance of the fact that those aspects even exist. Hamid certainly knows that Sharia isn’t simply about “guidelines on how to pray, fast and otherwise observe what it means to submit to God in daily practice,” and that it asserts authority over non-Muslims and institutionalizes discrimination against non-Muslims in numerous ways. Yet he doesn’t come even close to hinting that those aspects of Sharia exist.
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They obviously do, however. Doubters need only examine the societies and laws that prevail in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the other Muslim countries that are Sharia states. Their entire systems of law are based on Sharia. If Sharia were simply religious law, governing one’s observance of Muslim practices and unconcerned with non-Muslims or matters of state, that would make no sense.
No one will ask Shadi Hamid about this glaring omission: the dominant left has decreed that anyone who is outside that establishment and questions anyone within it is simply as much of a racist “Islamophobe” as opponents of Sharia, and is thus safely ignored. Shadi Hamid has no need to worry that anyone will confront him about the reality of Sharia or his disingenuousness in this WaPo article. He can and will simply wave away any opposing views as “bigotry.” And the circus will continue.
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