Sean Hannity Lies About The Mosque - Chapter MMMCDVIII

Yesterday, as is my wont, I listened to Sean Hannity further degrade his degraded self by flogging this mosque issue some more. I didn't realize just how ridiculous Hannity was, however, until I read this. Of course, what Hannity is doing is conflating different ideas in the Muslim world about what Sharia law is. Unsurprisingly for such a large religion spanning all continents and cultures, many Muslims have starkly different ideas about what Sharia law is. But you'd never know that listening to Hannity:

On his Fox News show, Sean Hannity repeatedly distorted Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's words to say that Rauf "scares" him by "wanting America to be Sharia compliant." In fact, Rauf has actually said that the current American political system, including the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, is Sharia compliant.

On the August 25 edition of his Fox News program, referring to Rauf, who wants to build an Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan, Hannity said: He "says America should be Sharia compliant." Hannity also said of Rauf: "He scares me, wanting America to be Sharia compliant." Later, Hannity said he had "spent a lot of time going over this controversial imam" and claimed that Rauf "wants America Sharia compliant." Hannity's comments echoed his prior attacks on Rauf for writing in his 2004 book, What's Right With Islam, that "the American political structure is Sharia compliant."

In fact, Rauf does not call for making the United States Sharia compliant in What's Right With Islam; rather, he argues that the "American political structure is Shariah compliant" just like any other political structure that "upholds, protects, and furthers" the "God-given rights" of "life, mind (that is, mental well-being or sanity), religion, property (or wealth), and family (or lineage and progeny)."

Rauf writes in his book that the Declaration of Independence "opens with the words 'When ... it becomes necessary for one People ... to assume ... the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them' (italics added)." Rauf also comments that "[t]o Muslims, the law decreed by God is called the Shariah, and therefore the 'Laws of Nature and of Nature's God' are by definition Shariah law." He also writes: "What's right about America is its Declaration of Independence, for it embodies and restates the core values of the Abrahamic, and thus also the Islamic, ethic."

In his book, Rauf writes that "Muslim legal scholars have defined five areas of life that Islamic law must protect and further. These are life, mind (that is, mental well-being or sanity), religion, property (or wealth), and family (or lineage and progeny)." Rauf says that because the American political system "upholds, protects, and furthers these rights," it is "Shariah compliant, in its substance."