Near You?
by Cinnamon Stillwell
FrontPage Magazine
September 25, 2008
http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/5689
Georgetown University’s Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian
Understanding (ACMSU) will be hosting a conference on October 23 that
asks the loaded question: “Is There a Role for Shari’ah in Modern States?“
The Saudi-funded ACMSU and its founding director, John Esposito, one of the foremost apologists
for radical Islam in the academic field of Middle East studies, have
certainly been doing their bit to make the idea more palatable.
The Saudi prince for whom ACMSU was named has been pumping millions of dollars into Middle East studies
at Georgetown, Harvard, UC Berkeley, and beyond, and as the case of
Esposito demonstrates, it magnifies the voices of scholars with a
decidedly uncritical bent. As a result, ACMSU analysis regarding Sharia
(or Islamic) law tends to focus not on its injustices
(amputation, stoning, hanging, honor killing, punishment for blasphemy,
execution of apostates, persecution of non-Muslims, sanctioned
wife-beating, female genital mutilation, and so on), but rather on
repackaging it in ways that will appeal to Western sensibilities. The
concept of a more “moderate” version of Sharia law that is compatible
with democracy is at the forefront of this effort.
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