Sharia and the Senate
What kind of laws does Abdul El-Sayed hope to make?
In 2009, a young medical student explained to the New York Times why his new mortgage complied with Islamic law. When he stood before God at the end of his life, he said, he did not want to have done things the easy way instead of the Sharia-compliant way, “not because of fear but because of obligation.” His name is Abdul El-Sayed. Last week, he won the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate in Michigan.
What I’m Thinking About
My concern isn’t with El-Sayed’s mortgage in itself, but with what it tells us. This is a free country, and El-Sayed is free to practice his faith like anyone else. But Islam is not just a religious faith. It is a system of law. It regulates banking, inheritance, marriage, divorce, testimony, apostasy, and so on. It is a complete legal code, and importantly, it claims the same jurisdiction as American law. Sharia law isn’t a separate kind of law that can be harmonized with the laws of this country. It is a competing system of law.
A candidate for Senate who is publicly committed to complying with Sharia law therefore raises serious questions about his own loyalty to, and prospective commitment to uphold, the laws of this land. A senator is a lawmaker: his oath is to the Constitution. Americans who take the rule of law seriously have every right to ask which code El-Sayed will be faithful to when the two conflict. He has said he opposes writing his own faith into American law. But given the inherent tensions between the two, that’s not a solution—it’s a dodge.
Sharia isn’t a separate system of law that can be harmonized with American law. It is a competitor.