Robert Spencer examines the political and legal dimensions of Sharia and argues that they are fundamentally incompatible with the freedoms protected by the U.S. Constitution.
Drawing on Islamic history, traditional sources, and the Muslim Brotherhood’s explanatory memorandum, Spencer discusses the historical role of mosques, the concept of Islamic supremacy, and the relationship between religious practice and political power. He warns that Americans make a serious mistake when they view a mosque as simply the Islamic equivalent of a church or treat Sharia as merely a system of private religious observance.
Spencer also explains why he believes the establishment of Islamic centers in the United States must be understood in the broader context of Sharia’s political and expansionist aims.
Watch the full presentation for Robert Spencer’s analysis of Islam, Sharia, mosques, and the challenge he believes they pose to America’s constitutional system.
TRANSCRIPT:
Robert Spencer: [00:00:00] The teachings of Muhammad, as recorded in Islamic tradition, and 1,400 uninterrupted years of Islamic history indicate that Islam is not just a religion in the Western sense, but is a political system that is supremacist, violent, and expansionist, and calls for and enforces, in many cases, the forceful subjugation of non-Muslims under the hegemony of Islamic law.
Now, this is exactly the same Islam that exists across various sects and schools of jurisprudence. In other words, I’m not talking about one small group of extremists, so-called, while the others are fine and benign and friendly. The unfortunate reality is that every manifestation of Islam calls for Muslims to work until Islamic law dominates the world, and Islamic law mandates that [00:01:00] non-Muslims occupy a second-class status, denied basic rights.
So this is something that is a legitimate cause for concern in the United States because it’s the same Islam, the same Quran, the same Muhammad, and the same Sharia that has caused trouble between Muslims and non-Muslims, started in every case by the Muslims throughout history. The role of the mosque historically is very ably summed up in the notorious explanatory memorandum of the Muslim Brotherhood strategy for the United States.
While that document is speaking about what a mosque should be in the United States now, it is actually a very good description of what mosques have been historically throughout the history of Islam, without exception, and that is a base. And the word, of course, in Arabic for base is qaeda, Al-Qaeda, and the mosque is Al-Qaeda.
That is, the mosque is [00:02:00] the base of operations for the conquest and Islamization of the surrounding area. And so it becomes not only a center for the teachings of Islam that call upon Muslims to wage war against their non-Muslim neighbors and subjugate them under the rule of Islamic law, but also a place for the storage of weapons, a place for training—not just training in religious obligations, but training in a military sense—and a center for the creation of propaganda.
And all of these things together are considered to be part of the core aspects of the duty of the mosque, which is to bring about the Islamization of its area. And so it’s not a benign place. It’s not like a church. I remember years ago speaking in a major American city where there is a mosque right outside the fences of the [00:03:00] international airport.
And the man who invited me to speak there explained that when the city council was considering whether or not to approve that mosque, one of the members of the city council said, “What’s the big deal? It’s just a church.”
It’s not just a church. Churches do not have an imperative to conquer and bring the non-Christians in the area under the rule of some Christian law.
There is no Christian law of that kind that is political, supremacist, expansionist, and violent after the manner of Sharia. And it’s noteworthy that so many mosque complexes all over the country are called Islamic Center of this and that because the Muslim Brotherhood explanatory memorandum says that the mosque is the center for the conquest and Islamization of the surrounding area.
Now, certainly armed conflict is being envisioned. The same major city that has a mosque right outside the international airport’s gates [00:04:00] also—I was taken to the mosque there, and it was pointed out to me that this very large mosque had been built as if it were a fortress, with slit turret windows and cameras everywhere that followed us as we drove through the parking lot.
That’s not how a church is ordinarily built, and it’s very clear that they are envisioning a time when they will be inside that mosque doing armed battle with people outside it.
