Accommodating Islam When It Inspired Murder

Accommodating
Islam When It Inspired Murder
by Robert Spencer

Abu Sulayman al-Irlandi is a pious man, and he wants to
pray. Al-Irlandi, better known as John Walker Lindh or “the American Taliban,”
is currently serving a twenty-year prison sentence in Terre Haute, Indiana, for
fighting alongside the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan against American
troops. He has just petitioned a federal judge for the right to meet regularly
with other Muslim inmates for group prayer. And the ACLU is helping him with
this.

The Los Angeles Times, predictably enough, was sympathetic
in an unsigned editorial, saying that “even if Lindh's sentence weren't
excessive — and it was — he has the right to practice his religion under the
1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. That law provides that the government
shall not ‘substantially burden’ a person's exercise of religion unless it
demonstrates that doing so furthers a compelling governmental interest and is
the least restrictive means of furthering that interest.”

In its sympathy for enemies of the United States and of
freedom in general, this is typical mainstream media analysis, but as such
things go, this is even more egregious than usual. Al-Irlandi’s twenty-year
sentence was “excessive”? The Times notes fastidiously that al-Irlandi “was
sentenced to 20 years in prison for violating a Clinton-era presidential order
that prohibits providing ‘services’ to the Taliban.” While strictly speaking
that is true, it is about as relevant to al-Irlandi’s actual crimes as was Al
Capone’s conviction for tax evasion.

The Los Angeles Times doesn’t see fit to help its readers
recall that Abu Sulayman al-Irlandi wasn't just "providing ‘services’ to
the Taliban"; he was captured while engaging in hot warfare against
American troops. He should have been tried for treason and executed. Having
been saved by politically correct pusillanimity, now he wants special
accommodation in prison so that he can practice Islam. Treason has now become
"civil rights."

It is also useful to remember that if it were not for his
conversion to Islam, Abu Suleyman al-Irlandi wouldn’t be in prison at all. When
he became a Muslim, he determined that the United States of America (even
though he was an American himself) was his enemy, for it was the foremost
obstacle in the way of the establishment of the global Islamic state mandated
by Islamic law and so ardently wished for by the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda,
the Taliban and other Islamic supremacists. No doubt by means of assiduous
prayer, both singly and in groups, al-Irlandi decided that he had a duty before
Allah to slay the infidels wherever he found them, and that the best place to
do that after 9/11 was Afghanistan, where infidel troops could be found in
abundance.

Does the U.S. really not have a “compelling governmental
interest” in “substantially burdening” Abu Suleyman al-Irlandi’s “exercise of
religion” when it would actually reinforce the violent and anti-American
ideology that made him into a felon, if not a traitor, in the first place?

Such a question, of course, cannot and must not be asked in
today’s politically correct environment. We are forced to believe
simultaneously that Abu Suleyman al-Irlandi believes in a twisted and hijacked
version of the peaceful religion of Islam, and that his prayer meetings with
other violent Muslim felons will somehow have a positive or even pacifying effect
on him, or at very least that those meetings constitute a good thing and a
right that government cannot restrict.

The politically correct Washington establishment could even
say, without sacrificing any of its cherished fictions about jihad and Islam,
that al-Irlandi believes in a version of Islam that is as violent as it is
false to that great world religion’s true, peaceful teachings, and that
therefore it has a compelling security interest in not allowing him the freedom
to meet with other Muslims for prayer.

Abu Suleyman al-Irlandi deserves no further accommodations
from the U.S. government. He received accommodation for a lifetime when he
wasn’t tried for treason. To change prison rules so that he can be further
reinforced in his violent, hateful, anti-American beliefs would be as foolish
as allowing Nazis in American prisons to meet to study Hitler’s speeches in 1943.
And that is the strongest indication that Abu Suleyman al-Irlandi will probably
get everything he wants.

Robert Spencer is the
director of Jihad Watch and author of
the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam
(and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book, Did Muhammad Exist?, is now available.

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InfidelForLife

11 years ago

At least there’s one (final) Judge the bastard won’t be able to fool. After he went down with the elevator he can join “president” Big Zero there, as his aide.

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SatanIslam

11 years ago

When jihad johnny the traitorous punk gets out there will be many people that will want him to meet Allah the almighty paedophile.

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Watcher87

11 years ago

It should be pointed out (as has an Imam, somewhere in the US) that in Islam, religious obligations
are not required to be performed when one is in a place where it is impossible (or very difficult) to do so. Substitutions can be made if necessary.
I believe the Qur’an says that Allah is merciful and understands that men are weak so they can be accommodated when things are tough. Islam is, if nothing else, expedient.

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pdxnag

11 years ago

That is one vigorous argument.
I love the logic. If the complainant’s version of Islam is uniquely violent, as distinguished from some mythical peaceful Islam, then the government here would be accommodating not the peaceful Islam but the violent Islam. The question of whether there is a peaceful Islam is the same as the question of whether there is a violent Islam, stated differently.
Technically speaking the RICO laws appear to apply to much of Islam, as a criminal enterprise, as well as labeling of its followers as members of a street gang. One could try to meddle with the compulsory dictates and tenets of the practice of Islam, particularly the parts that inspire and mandate treason, so as to fashion some sort of kinder gentler version of Islam(tm), to create a government-approved Islam-lite. But the ACLU must recognize that it must be Muslims that unilaterally define Islam, and they already have. The government cannot engage in what is called an “excessive entanglement[.]” (See Lemon v. Kurtzman)
Let’s not lose sight of the legal argument here where the scope of a statute — and congressional authority — does not have the same scope as the US Supreme Court saying that a legislative body may not do certain things by reason of the First Amendment. A legislative act may be inspired by the First Amendment, but is not compelled by the First Amendment. If this were not true then the legislative act would be wholly superfluous.

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