Loren Lippincott
Is Islam compatible with our Constitution?
While serving in the Air Force I spent time in the middle of Turkey, far away from western influence. There I saw first-hand the full expression of oppressive Islamic rule and absence of individual freedoms. The same scenario is on full display in today’s Iran.
Islam is more than a religion. It is a comprehensive political and legal system (sharia) which is diametrically opposed to the core features of the U.S. Constitution.
Our Constitution establishes a secular republic which separates government power from any religion via the First Amendment. The Constitution also protects free exercise of religion for all, guarantees free speech (including criticism of any religious system), equal protection under the law for all and due process. It also bans cruel and unusual punishment and assures popular sovereignty through elected representatives. Since Article VI makes the Constitution the supreme law of the land, no religious law can override it, meaning citizens of any faith — or none — all have the same individual rights.
Meanwhile, Islam is seen as a complete way of life that takes in all politics, law and state authority. There is no separation of religion and state. Rather, it is a totalitarian form of government that deals with governance, warfare, criminal penalties, family law and the status of non-Muslims. Sharia is presented as divine legislation that human rulers implement. Historical caliphates (governance by a chief Muslim ruler) and many modern Islamist movements treat mosque and state as fused. The ruler enforces religious law and political legitimacy flows from adherence to Islamic rules. This is clearly the case in Iran where the ayatollah is referred to as the supreme leader.
The two main points of tension between sharia and the Constitution are sovereignty and legislation. The Constitution vests power in the people while classical Islamic political theory holds that ultimate authority belongs only to Allah and is expressed through sharia law. Manmade law that contradicts Islamic rules is considered illegitimate. This clashes with American democratic self-government and the idea that constitutions and statutes can be amended by human majorities.
Conflict also arises between competing concepts of equality. The Constitution guarantees equal protection for all, while sharia distinguishes Muslims from non-Muslims and treats men and women differently in regard to testimony, inheritance, divorce and guardianship. Apostasy and blasphemy are historically capital offenses (punishable by death) in many schools of Islamic law. These rules conflict with free speech, freedom of conscience and equality irrespective of religion or sex.
Stark differences also exist between Islamic criminal justice and punishment and U.S. law. Constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment and guarantees of the right to counsel and due process sit uneasily with classical Muslim penalties (amputation, flogging, stoning) for certain offenses. Sharia is also in conflict with the Constitutional right to free speech. While the First Amendment protects even harsh criticism of religion, many traditional interpretations treat insults to Islam, the Prophet or the Quran as grounds for severe punishment. Obviously this stifles free and open public debate.
One of the goals of Islamism is to remove our secular form of government and replace it with Islamic law. Movements that seek to restore a caliphate or impose sharia as state law explicitly reject secular constitutionalism. Their stated aim is not private piety but public legal and political supremacy of Islamic norms. It goes without saying that this is incompatible with a constitution that forbids establishment of religion and protects dissenting beliefs.
Individual Muslims can live as loyal American citizens by treating their faith as private expression while accepting the Constitution’s supremacy. Reformist and secular interpretations do exist which prioritize personal ethics over political enforcement of sharia. If a Muslim prioritizes U.S. constitutional limits over Islamic political doctrines there is no problem, however, the ideological claim that Islam supplies a complete, divine political and legal order superior to man-made constitutions is the element that does not fit.
In short, the U.S. system rests on popular sovereignty, religious neutrality of the state and individual rights for all. But classical Islamic political theology rests on divine sovereignty expressed through sharia law, graduated legal distinctions and the merging of religious and political authority. Those two frameworks are wholly incompatible. Where the political-legal dimension of Islam is taken as binding public law, it collides with the Constitution’s basic design.
Loren Lippincott represents Legislative District 34 in the Nebraska State Senate. Read his column in the Nance County Journal.