As July 4th, Independence Day, approaches, new polling data shows an overwhelming majority of Americans are increasingly cognizant of the threat Sharia, Islam’s totalitarian religio-political “law,” poses to their basic liberties, asserting that Sharia adherents should be identified and prevented from entering the U.S.
Opinion Savvy polled a random sample of 803 registered voters—98.2% non-Muslim, and 1.8% Muslim (with age, race, gender, political affiliation, and region propensity score-weighted to reduce biases)—June 19 to June 20, 2016, and asked, “Do you believe that the United States government should screen, or actively identify individuals entering the United States who support Sharia law?” 71 percent affirmed, “Yes, supporters of Sharia should be identified before they are admitted into the US.”
As a follow-up, the group answering “yes,” was asked, “Once identified, do you believe that individuals who support the practice of Sharia law should be admitted into the United States?” 80 percent responded, “No, supporters of Sharia should not be admitted into the US.”
Moreover, the very next query, which addressed foreign visitors, elicited an even more emphatic demand for fidelity to bedrock first amendment US Constitutional principles. It asked: “Do you believe that the United States government should require all foreign individuals entering the United States to affirm that they will uphold the principles of the constitution, such as freedom of religion and speech, above all personal ideologies for the duration of their stay in the country?”
78 percent of the sample insisted, “Yes, visitors to the US should be required to agree to uphold the constitution, regardless of their personal ideology, as a condition of their visit.”
The unblinkered assessment of Sharia validates its broadly shared rejection by non-Muslim Americans, but also illustrates how countervailing U.S. Muslim Sharia support represents a dangerous trend. And some data also proves this to be, indeed, a growing preference among U.S. Muslims.
Wenzel Strategies, during October 22 to 26, 2012, polled 600 U.S. Muslims of high socio-economic status. When asked, “Do you believe that criticism of Islam or Muhammad should be permitted under the Constitution’s First Amendment?, 58 percent replied “no,” while only 42 percent affirmed this most basic manifestation of freedom of speech, i.e., to criticize religious, or any other dogma.
A largely concordant 45% of respondents also agreed “…that those who criticize or parody Islam in the U.S. should face criminal charges,” while 38% did not, and 17% were “unsure.” 12% of this Muslim sample admitted they believed in application of the draconian, Sharia-based punishment for the non-existent crime of “blasphemy” in the U.S. code, answering affirmatively, “…that Americans who criticize or parody Islam should be put to death.”
Three years later, in June of 2015, data from a survey of another 600 U.S. Muslims conducted by the respected political pollster Kellyanne Conway revealed 51 percent “agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Sharia.” A “mere” 25 percent of those polled agreed that “violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad.”
Why is Sharia supremacism—diametrically opposed to US Constitutional law—so alarmingly prevalent among US Muslims? The inescapable conclusion, validated in Senate Judiciary Committee testimony this week by Department of Homeland Security whistleblower Philip Haney, is that mainstream institutional Islam within the US inculcates this liberty-crushing mentality.
Haney’s presentation mentioned in passing the mainstream Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA). Well-accepted by the broader American Muslim community, the Islamic scholars affiliated with AMJA have attained influential positions in universities, Islamic centers, and mosques throughout the United States. AMJA scholars train American imams, and issue online “fatwas,” Islamic Sharia rulings, to guide individual Muslims.
AMJA’s unabashed goal is implementing Sharia in North America. The organization has already issued, for example, a ruling which sanctions the killing of non-Muslim “blasphemers.”
Donald Trump’s rational call for a moratorium on Muslim immigration, especially from hotbeds of violent Sharia supremacism, must be viewed gimlet-eyed bearing in mind irrefragable data capturing U.S. and global Muslim attitudes, as well as the behavior of mainstream, institutional American Islam.