It is time to establish a Religious Review Board (RRB.) Is this an outlandishly absurd proposal? Not at all. Serious problems require equally serious solutions. The call for establishing a Religious Review Board may be seen as an attempt to curb Islam. The truth is: it is.
Encroaching Islam with its rule of Sharia presents an imminent threat to subvert and replace the Constitution that governs our lives. Unlike Muslims who practice Taqiyyah—lying or dissimulation—I proudly speak the truth. Truth should never be sacrificed at the altar of any goal. I firmly believe that truthfulness is indeed the foundation of all virtues.
As things stand now, numerous boards at all levels of government, business, and community govern our lives. All these boards are charged with the responsibility of looking after the welfare of the people they serve. The Food and Drug Administration, for instance, must pass on the safety and quality of the food we eat; the Aviation Safety Board works to ensure safe flights; a local school board strives to create the environment that best serves the education and safety needs of the pupils. Boards serve every community and business of any size.
The Food and Drug Administration makes sure we don’t use contaminated food and drugs that can harm our bodies. Yet, there are no oversight boards that would check against things that contaminate the mind and present a clear threat of unraveling our democracy’s social compact as we know and cherish it. Shouldn’t these dangers to our beliefs and way of life be monitored and combated, or should they be allowed a free hand to work their damage?
Religion is a powerful force. And as is the case with any force, it can do work of the good or that of the evil. And, when there is multiplicity of religions at loggerhead with one another, the forces clash and any benefit that religion offers is offset by potentially huge costs.
Given that the formerly vast and largely segregated planet has shrunk into a “global village,” the disparate peoples isolated from one another for millennia are now a village community.
The-thrown-together diverse people are in urgent need of adopting a set of common rules that would allow individuals as well as groups maximum latitude of faith, coupled with responsibility, and free of any practices that infringe on the rights of others or demonize them. Islam, as a matter of belief, considers all non-Muslims, even the so-called people of the book, as infidels—people who are to be subjugated or cleansed from Allah’s earth.
America, with a long history of protecting religious freedom, still clings to the “hands off” practice of leaving alone any doctrine or practice billed as religion. A thorny problem is in deciding what constitutes a religion and who is to make that call.
The dictionary supplies a sociologically useless definition for religion: “The expression of man’s belief in and reverence for a superhuman power recognized as the creator and governor of the universe.” Just about anyone or any group under this definition can start a religion, and they indeed do—and some do so at significant costs to others.
Muslims, under the banner of religion, are infringing blatantly on the rights of others, not only in Islamic countries, but also in much of the non-Muslim world. By their acts of dogmatic savagery, Muslims are finally awaking the non-Muslim democracies to the imminent threat of Islamofascism keen on destroying their free secular societies.
Islam was birthed by primitives of some 1400 years ago and over time invaded much of the world at the point of the sword. Presently, the Islamists, with their treasuries flush with petrodollars, are in a great position to realize their perennial dream of bringing the world under the rule of Muhammad’s Ummah. On the one hand Pakistan is already a nuclear power and Iran aims to be one before very long. On the other hand, Muslim governments and wealthy Sheikhs are funding Islamic schools, centers and front organizations in the West to work from within at the unraveling of the non-Islamic democratic systems.
The large number of Muslims arrival of recent years is posing a serious problem to this nation of all nations. Bluntly speaking, no one can be a Muslim and an American at the same time. Here are some of the reasons.
1) A Muslim is, first and foremost, an Ummahist—a citizen of international Islam. So, when a Muslim takes the American Pledge of Allegiance, he is either ignorant of the implication of his pledge or is lying willfully. Ignorance is never a valid reason in the court of law, and lying in the process of becoming citizen is a ground for denying the application and even deporting the violator. Sadly enough, taqiyyah—lying, or dissimulation—is not only condoned, it is recommended to the Muslims in their scripture. Hence, a Muslim can and would lie without any compunctions, whenever it is expedient.
2) Muslims, by belief and practice, are the most blatant violators of human rights. We hardly need to detail here Muslims' systemic cruel treatment of the unbelievers, women of all persuasions, and any and all minorities across the board. To Muslims, human rights have a different meaning, and it protective provisions are reserved strictly for Muslims—primarily for Muslim men. Just a couple of examples should suffice for now.
A) Oppression of women, for one, is so systemic in Islam that to this day women are, at best, second-class citizens under Islamic law. Saudi Arabia, the custodian of Islamdom, denies women the right to drive, vote or hold elective offices—the most basic rights of citizens in democratic societies.
For another, no non-Islamic literature is allowed in Saudi Arabia. A visiting
B) Christian, for instance, is denied to enter the Kingdom with a Bible. Further, severe punishment is meted out to anyone daring to disagree with Islam or espouse a different religion. Iran’s resurgent Shiism often vies with Saudi Arabia in its mistreatment of religious and non-religious minorities. To the fanatical ruling gang in Iran, it is their brand of Islam or disenfranchisement of rights of citizenship and even death for the "sin" of apostasy. And of course, there is no point at all in talking about the savage Islamic Taliban.
3) Respect for the rule of law, as it is understood and practiced by civilized people, is an instrument of convenience to be used to advantage and to be violated when it is not, for the Muslim. A Muslim believes in a different law—the Sharia: a set of stone-age rules. Violation of the non-Muslim laws, therefore, is no violation at all to a Muslim.
What is incredible is the gall and audacity of Muslims in demanding that Western and other democracies legalize Sharia in their societies. Large populations of Muslims, mostly recent arrivals, in countries such as Canada, Great Britain, and Sweden are experiencing the insistent demands by Muslims to have Sharia rule their Islamic communities. This is just the beginning and it may seem relatively harmless to the simpletons in our midst. Yet, once Sharia is recognized to any extent, it will reach out to rule not only on matters that concern Muslims, but also those that may involve a Muslim and non-Muslim. Under Sharia, a Muslim man married to a non-Muslim woman is able to divorce the woman at will, automatically have custody of the children, and literally toss the wife out of "his" home with just about no compensations.
4) As for democracy, the rule of the people, Muslims have no use at all. Muslims believe that Allah's rule must govern the world in the form of Caliphate—a theocracy. Making mockery of democracy, subverting its working, and ignoring its provisions is a Muslim's way of falsifying what he already believes to be a sinful and false system of governance invented by the infidels.
To Muslims, Ummah-ism—international Islamism—is the legitimate form of government. Ummah-ism is another form of despotism such as Communism and Fascism, with the added feature of enjoying “divine” authority.
The world has good samples of Ummah-ism in practice to scrutinize in Islamic autocracies. Khamenei of Iran is not called "Caliph." He is called the "Supreme Guide." The Saudi King is just another Caliph vessel of the "divine." These Islamic despots are every bit as vile as the Hitlers, the Stalins, the Pol Pots, and the Mussolinis. The government these Islamic autocrats head is infested to the core with the Islamic disease of oppression, corruption and the absence of accountability to the people.
Democracies believe that government must be of the people, by the people, and for the people. Ummah-ism is anathema to this sacrosanct fundamental democratic ideal.
As more and more Muslims arrive in non-Islamic lands, as they reproduce with great fecundity, as they convert the disenchanted and minorities, and as petrodollar-flush Muslims and Muslim treasuries supply generous funds, Muslims gather more power to undermine the democratic rule. A consortium composed of pandering politicians, blinded with short-term self-interest and egoism; attention and fund-seeking self-proclaimed prima donna professors; and, bastions of useful idiot liberals, universities, is the witting or unwitting promoter of Ummah-ism.
There is an urgent need for the establishment of a Religious Review Board tasked with a mission to ensure that no “religion” preaches and practices in violation of the United States’ Constitution. Islam is incompatible with democracy and subversive of the way of life that blesses this nation. It is imperative that we fight Islamofascism with the same determination that we fought other enemies of freedom such as Nazism, Fascism, and Communism.
Amil Imani is the author of Obama Meets Ahmadinejad and Operation Persian Gulf.