While it is flattering that Professor Leupp recently took the time to respond to my Oct. 23 editorial, "It's called jihad for a reason," I am disturbed by the misrepresentation of both my conceptual arguments and the facts underpinning them.
In my article, I condemn the fundamentalist Islamism that perpetuates violence against women, apostates, writers, artists, gays, Jews, Muslims, Christians, black Sudanese, Iraqis and other "unbelievers." Much, if not all, of this cruelty is carried out in the name of Sharia law, which large majorities in Muslim countries wish to see strictly implemented across the Islamic world.
Leupp argues that this is irrelevant, for Shariah law "does not prevail" in most Muslim societies. However, this is simply not true. The 1992 Basic Law of Saudi Arabia declares that the nation's constitution consists of the Qu'ran, the sunna and the hadith - the scriptural roots of Sharia law. Article II of the 1980 Egyptian constitution states that, "Islamic jurisprudence is the principal source of legislation" within the country.
Article IV of the Iranian constitution reads, "All civil, penal, financial, economic, administrative, cultural, military, political and other laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria."
Article 227 (1) of the Pakistani constitution states, "All existing laws shall be brought in conformity with the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Qu'ran and sunna...and no law shall be enacted which is repugnant to such injunctions."
Furthermore, Islamists in Somalia have grounded their brutal tyranny in Islamic law, and provinces infamous for their barbaric "justice systems" in Nigeria, Indonesia and Malaysia operate under Sharia courts.
Beyond this, Leupp argues that Sharia is "historically linked to the biblical laws of Moses." Specifically, he explains that the law condemning adulterous women to death is spelled out first in the Bible, not the Qu'ran.
Leupp writes that it would be unfair to "throw that historical baggage" in the faces of Jews and Christians, just as it is unfair to depict Muslims as "misogynistic homicides because of things written 1,400 years ago."
Yet Leupp misses the point. Whereas Jews and Christians now reject strict interpretations of their ancient texts that prescribe inhumane, discriminatory and extreme practices, many Muslims do not.
That is not exaggeration, but simple fact. While this does not render all Muslims "misogynistic homicides," it speaks to a larger problem within the Muslim world where anachronistic concepts of law, societal order and political conduct are sustaining a dangerous jihadi ideology.
Moreover, in asking how does having a majority of Muslims wanting strict Sharia law applied in every Islamic country threaten the United States, Leupp forgets that Sharia law not only pertains to civil society, but also serves as a framework for political behavior.
Sharia law denies the line between secular and religious, in turn promoting the institutionalized religious fundamentalism that has rendered the Muslim world an outsider during the last two decades of global economic growth, liberalization and democratization. It is out of this dysfunctional environment, or what Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria calls a "political desert," that anti-Western Islamofascism and Islamic terrorism have grown.
Next, Leupp accuses me of suspect research due to a "conflation" of Salafism with Iranian Shi'ism. I am not certain where the professor finds this alleged conflation, yet I will clarify nevertheless. Salafism is a distinctly Sunni strain of thought, an interpretation of Islam that unwaveringly emphasizes Islamic purity and rejects all "un-Islamic" notions of politics, economics and social order.
While Salafi Islam is the cause cél??bre among Sunni extremists like Osama bin-Laden and others within the Wahhabi inner circles of Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, it is the overarching Salafi mentality of Islamic grandeur and purity by any means necessary (i.e. jihad) that has consumed the Muslim world at large, including Iran's theocracy and Syria.
Finally, Leupp flippantly dismisses statistics regarding the popularization of Islamic fundamentalism throughout the Muslim world. Most notably, in response to the finding that upwards of 20% of Muslims in various Islamic countries a) do not consider it a violation of Islam to use violence against civilians and b) find terrorism targeting civilians for political ends at least somewhat justifiable, Leupp asks, "How many American Christians would justify violence against certain civilians in some circumstances?"
The fact is, I have no data regarding Leupp's rhetorical question, nor do I imagine that such a question has ever been posed to American Christians. However, this is not a coincidence. It is a product of our Western tradition and society that rejects indiscriminate violence, values the sanctity of life and renders Leupp's rhetorical inquiry no more worth asking than the question "In which state is New York City located?" Undoubtedly, Ku Klux Klan loyalists, abortion clinic bombers and Timothy McVeigh would not shy away from killing civilians.
Yet in America, these psychopaths are denounced as what they truly are - murderers hiding behind a false cloak of Christianity. They are prosecuted under the laws of the country, punished for their actions and afforded zero legitimacy by the government, the Church or Christian populations. Sadly, the same cannot be said of Muslim terrorists, the governments that protect them or the growing numbers that offer financial, moral and spiritual support.
Leupp ends by calling me "Islamophobic." However, if being "Islamophobic" is the requisite for unabashedly facing the realities of international terrorism and striving to create a Muslim world in which Islam is the force of peace that it ought to be, I wear the badge proudly.
I wear the badge proudly just as those before me wore badges that, in today's politically correct lexicon of phraseology, would read "Hitlerophobic, Stalinophobic and Fascismophobic."
Matthew Ladner is a junior majoring in international relations.
