1) According to UPI.com, Tennessee legislators are amending an anti-terrorism bill to remove constitutionally questionable language targeting Muslim sharia law – rewriting it to delete all references to Islam after its constitutionality was questioned.
John Esposito and Sheila Lalwani write for the Guardian discussing how both the UK and Germany have sanctioned the use of Shari’a law and that the Tennessee bill is the latest example of an irrational fear of Islam.
2) A spokesperson for the former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, has released a statement saying that Pawlenty did not encourage a sharia-compliant mortgage loan program, and in fact, shut it down once he learned the program existed.
This statement comes in response to an American Prospect story published last Friday, in which the Republican candidate hopeful is reported to have pushed to increase minority homeownership, by encouraging companies to offer “culturally sensitive” financing programs that would help Muslims avoid paying interest on their mortgage loans.
3) Over the weekend, conservative activist Herman Cain announced that he will not appoint Muslims to his cabinet if elected, saying:
I will not. And here’s why. There is this creeping attempt, this attempt, to gradually ease Sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government.
In January 2011, Cain announced he had formed an exploratory committee for a potential candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.
4) Bill O’Reilly interviews Wafa Sultan, author and Islamic critic, regarding the rape of Libyan postgraduate law student, Eman al-Obeidi. During the interview, Sultan argues that Islamic religious sources encourages violence against women and that Sharia’ requires rape victims to produce four male witnesses.
5) Tampa-bay.com reports on a judicial opinion offered by a Florida judge, after his ruling that Islamic law would be used to decide an arbitration issue in a lawsuit against the Islamic Education Center of Tampa. While proceedings are currently stayed, circuit Judge Richard Nielsen released his opinion last week, explaining:
The court has concluded that as to the question of enforceability of the arbitrator’s award the case should proceed under ecclesiastical Islamic law.”
6) This weekend, CNN aired a short documentary called, “Unwelcome: The Muslims Next Door,” on the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro controversy – in which the Muslim community received overwhelming opposition, including a lawsuit, to their county approval to build a new 53,000 square foot Islamic center.
At the 32:00 minute-mark, the program discusses Shari’a law in America and includes an explanation of sharia by Noah Feldman, professor of law at Harvard University. Watch the entire program here: