Jewish groups not 'backing sharia law'

by Stephen Schwartz
The Jewish Chronicle [London]
June 3, 2011

http://www.islamicpluralism.org/1800/jewish-groups-not-backing-sharia-law

The article you printed about the referendum in the US state of Oklaho­ma that would bar the introduction of Islamic sharia law into state courts (JC, May 27) was inaccurately headed, Jew­ish groups in US backing sharia law.

The intent of the AJC's brief was not to support sharia law, much less — as some readers have presumed, judging from emails I have received — to advo­cate or defend an imposition of sharia in the US. The Center for Islamic Plural­ism is led by moderate Muslims, who follow traditional Islamic guidance and oppose the importation of public sharia law into non-Muslim countries.

The second paragraph of the article claimed that a "coalition of organi­sations that include the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) are backing a legal appeal against a meas­ure that would prevent Islamic law from being used in the state's courts."

No such coalition exists between the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the mentioned Jewish groups, much less with our organisa­tion. We in CIP consider CAIR to repre­sent radical, not "mainstream" Islam.

CIP defends private sharia in mat­ters such as diet, burial, male circum­cision, charity, and forms of prayer. In the words of the AJC's brief, "to a rea­sonable observer, the amendment's purpose plainly is to disapprove of the Islamic tradition." The amendment violates American constitutional pro­tection of the free exercise of religion.

Stephen Suleyman Schwartz

Executive director, CIP

Please see the .pdf of the page on which this letter appeared at http://www.islamicpluralism.org/1799/letter-on-the-oklahoma-shariah-referendum-pdf-page. Unfortunately, the London Jewish Chronicle does not publish letters to the editor on line. The original article to which this letter refers was published here: http://www.thejc.com/news/world-news/49526/jewish-groups-us-backing-sharia-law.

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