Do not judge Islam by Islamic standards

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Jan 5, 2022 at 18:15

Dear Dr Pipes,

All those who believe that Muslims of our planet behave differently from everyone else owe it to us that we never judge Islam by Islamic standards. Islam needs to be judged by common, secular standards that our human race has tacitly agreed to live by. Parts of our standard are that we like democracy more than other governmental forms, we oppose racism, we encourage gender equality when possible, and we encourage freedom of thought and speech.

Your reader Anush wrote a nice letter to you and I agree with him for the most part. But Anush's last sentence pooped the party. Anush said that he thought that UAE was one of the most tolerant nations. I checked the UAE constitution and the citizenship requirements. I found that UAE doesn't even come closs:

1. UAE citizenship laws give preference to the Arab race for citizenship. If we accept it as normal, barring Arabs from European and US citizenship cannot be bad. Go figure, Anush, sir, and please think deeply.

2. UAE citizenship laws give preference to fathers and not to mothers. Let us inform the women in our lifes about this nice feature and see what happens.

3. UAE citizenship laws require you to be a resident for 30 years before you can try to become a citizen. I am a humble and thankful naturalized citizen of the USA and I can say that 80% of modern US social problems will be solved if US imposes a 30 year limit on residency for citizenship.

4. Last and most objectionable is the 7th article of the UAE constitution. I will quote: "Article 7 — Islam is the official state religion, Islamic Sharia the primary source of legislation." By implication, can we make Christianity official religion of Europe and USA?

So, I assert that while UAE may be on the right path, it does not even come close to being tolerant.

To be in the service of truth, we must start judging Islam by shared non-Islamic standards.

Hope I am not hurting any sacred sensibilities. I deeply support private Islamic spirituality without Islamic politics for Muslims. Someone, please say, "Amen".

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