Ban Sharia Law! Montani Semper Liberi!

To the Editor:

   Memphis imam Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi, Dean of Academic Affairs at the Al-Maghrib Institute, is in the news this week for a controversial video that he has made saying that Jews and Christians are filthy and that their lives and property can be taken in jihad by the Muslims.
   Why is Qadhi still an imam in good standing in Memphis? Why has he not been dismissed by the Al-Maghrib Institute, or by Rhodes College in Memphis, where he is an assistant professor of Religious Studies?  He completed his second Bachelors in Hadith Studies, and an M.A. in Islamic Theology.” How could someone who has dedicated his life to studying Islam and has studied it at the city where Muhammad had his headquarters not be expressing what is mainstream Islamic belief? This may be why Muslims in Memphis and elsewhere in the U.S. have remained silent about his hateful statements: they know that Qadhi was just teaching basic Islam.
   Eight states have wisely passed laws insuring the separation of mosque and state.  Most recently, it was done by North Carolina.  Rev. Franklin Graham, son of Evangelist Billy Graham, said, “We should be afraid of Sharia law. We should be absolutely afraid of it. No question about it, because there’s no tolerance in Sharia law. It persecutes those that do not believe in Islam.  And I would say to Muslims in this country, if they want to practice Sharia law, go back to where you came from, to those nations that recognize sharia law,” said Graham.  “But we have our own laws here.”
   Most of my adult life, I have seen the systematic destruction of the Constitutional right to a Christian's religious freedom with attacks on the Bible, prayer and public expression.  I think that it is high time that the so-called separation of "church" and state be also applied to Islam--separation of mosque and state.  We should demand that our legislators pass a law guaranteeing separation of religion and state.  We should avoid the error Oklahoma made and had its law struck down as unconstitutional, because it was ruled as discriminatory towards a specific religion--Islam.  North Carolina’s law, and most legislation currently in the works, get around that by banning all foreign law, not just Islamic law.  Montani semper liberi!
   
Pastor Terry K. Hagedorn
Calvary Baptist Church
PO Box 282 Reedsville, WV
Ph. 304-864-3870
MOUNTAIN MANNA,  96.7 FM, Sundays 9:30am
http://mountainmanna.com
http://mountainmanna.sermon.net/
"Pointing Mountaineers to Mount Calvary."