In an impassioned speech at Kresge Auditorium last night, University of Michigan Islamic Studies Prof. Sherman Jackson spoke about the contentious image of Islam and the role of Shariah law in the modern world. The event, titled “Laying Down the Shariah Law: Democracy or Theocracy?” was the third of four events in the series “Jihad to Reform: The Struggle to Define Our Faith.”
Shariah is a body of Islamic law primarily based on the Quran and the Sunnah — sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad.
In the past few months, Shariah law has jumped into the spotlight because of a chain of astonishing legal rulings in Muslim nations.
In November, the Sudanese government arrested and convicted a British schoolteacher for allowing her students to name a class teddy bear “Muhammad.” Earlier that month, a teenage woman who was gang-raped along with a male friend was sentenced to jail in a Saudi court for being in the presence of a man who was not her relative. When she challenged her punishment publicly, the court increased her sentence.
Given these events that have baffled the Western world, Professor Jackson’s lecture provided insight into the role of Islam in the state. Jackson talked about the minority of Muslims who accept only the Quran as a legitimate source of law and refuse to acknowledge man-made legal rules. He emphasized that although the Quran is a guide for Muslims, it does not provide laws for all the minor details of life.
“You are not going to find speed limits in the Quran,” he said.
Jackson also stressed the need to recognize American Islam as distinct from, but just as legitimate as, Islam in the Middle East.
“We talk about an Islam that is not real in terms of the way it is concretized in the community, but rather as an abstraction that hovers somewhere over the Atlantic,” he said. “I want to break out of these limited spaces and talk about Islam in the very concrete context of America.”
According to a report by the Pew Research Center, approximately 35 percent of Muslims residing in America were also born in the United States. Given the substantial number of native-born Muslims, Jackson stressed that “questions of solidarity and empathy of the Muslim people with the American state will be very different when comparing indigenous Muslims to immigrants who come from another land.
