Anjem Choudary on Hannity: Sharia is Coming in a Place Near You!
London Imam Choudary appeared on “Hannity” last week, where he managed to say that an Islamic caliphate would implement Sharia in the United States: “You don’t have a choice, it’s coming to you in America.” He is a Muslim imam at a mosque that is credited with having radicalized Abdel Bary, the British rapper accused of beheading Foley. While on air Anjem Choudary declared, “Sharia will be implemented in America, it’s coming,” and “Sharia is coming to a place near you” while defending the actions of ISIS on Wednesday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel. Choudary reacted to the murder of journalist James Foley by saying, “If the Americans bomb and murder hundreds of thousands of people and they torture people and they continue to do so in Guantanamo Bay obviously this will have repercussions.” He claimed that forced conversion of Christians by ISIS “didn’t happen.” He also denied the persecution of the Yazidis, stating “the Yazidis, whoever went to the mountain, went to the mountain even before the Islamic State came to the area. First of all they said there were 40,000 then they said there were 20,000 and then they went down, eventually they said there were a couple hundred and they were living in the mountains anyway in villages, so this is a complete pack of lies … the Christians are actually queuing up to come back into Mosul because they realized the life under the Sharia is much better than the Nouri al-Maliki regime.”
What is the Sharia?
Sharia, or Islamic law, influences the legal code in most Muslim countries. A movement to allow sharia to set regulations that pertain to marriage, divorce, inheritance, and custody, is now expanding into the United States. All Sharia is derived from two primary sources, the divine revelations set forth in the Qur’an, and the sayings and example set by the Prophet Muhammad in the Sura. Also meaning “path” in Arabic, sharia guides all aspects of Muslim life including daily routines, familial and religious obligations, and financial dealings. It is derived primarily from the Qur’an and the Sunna, the sayings, practices, and teachings of the Prophet Mohammed. Marriage and divorce are the most significant aspects of sharia, but criminal law is the most controversial. In sharia, there are categories of offenses. The chief elements of Sharia Law are first: a belief that women are deficient in their natural and “innate” potentials and abilities, including their psychological-makeup and intellectual capacity. The Islamic Penal Codes are based on violence in its most primitive forms. These not only authorize organized state violence, but also encourage male violence against women within the family and in society. While precise statistics are scarce, the UN estimates thousands of women are killed annually in the family honor. While the Islamic Penal Codes have born down a tremendous injustice on the women they are not just second-class citizens, half a man, but at times their very existence is disregarded. It has been pointed out that our women have managed to achieve equality in one field only: equal right to imprisonment, exile, torture, being killed, and now being slaughtered.
Second, a belief in a social and family order where men must be guardians over women, and women must submit.
Third, a belief in an unequal system of rights and consequently, wherever the question of the reproduction of such an order is concerned, of a system of punishment that is also unequal.
- Islam commands that drinkers and gamblers should be whipped. Sura 5:90-91.
- Islam allows husbands to beat their wives. Qur’an, 4:34
- Islam allows an injured plaintiff to exact legal revenge, physical eye for physical eye. Qur’an, 5:45
- Islam commands that a male and female thief must have a hand cut off. Qur’an, 5:38
- Islam commands that highway robbers should be crucified or mutilated. Qur’an, 5:33. As an alternative, the convicted may have a hand and the opposite foot cut off while being banished from the land instead of crucifixion.
- Islam commands that Homosexuals be executed. Abdu Dawud no. 447. Burning to death, stoned while against a wall, or stoned and thrown over a cliff.
- Islam orders unmarried fornicators to be whipped and adulterers to be stoned to death. Qur’an, 24-6
- Islam orders death for Muslim and possible death for non—Muslim critics of Muhammad and the Quran and even sharia itself.
- Islam orders apostates to be killed. Sura 9:11-12
- Islam commands offensive and aggressive and unjust jihad
Islam commands offensive and aggressive and unjust jihad. This does not allow for the freedom of religion or conscience. People of the Book (Jews and Christians) had three options (Sura 9:29): fight and die; convert and pay a forced ‘charity’ or zakat tax; or keep their Biblical faith and pay a jizya or poll tax. The last two options mean that money flows into the Islamic treasury.
Anjam Choudary with Brian Stelter
London imam Anjam Choudary left CNN host Brian Stelter aghast when he defended the Islamic State’s killing of American journalist James Foley, told him that Sharia is coming to America, and made a joke about 9/11. CNN’s Stelter started the interview telling Choudary that unlike on “Hannity,” he wanted to give him a chance to get his words out without devolving into a shouting-match.
Stelter: “How can you not look into the camera, though, and unequivocally condemn the killing of a journalist [Foley] that was there trying to tell the story of the people… effected by the bombings and killings in Syria?”
Choudary: “Quite frankly I think it is pathetic and absurd for you to ask a Muslim to condemn the killing of one individual when hundreds of thousands of Muslims are being slaughtered of which you don’t know their name[s.] You know, people have been raped, and they’ve been humiliated, we have our sister Aaifa Siddiqui in America who has been beaten and tortured…”
Stelter: “But I’m talking about a specific case that has been widely publicized about a person who was actually trying to tell the story of the Muslims in the Middle East…”
Choudary: “Well as I say, I think this is the result of the barbarity of the American foreign policy, and if we are not going to talk about the…”
Stelter: “And you’ve said that again and again, but don’t you understand that journalists are in a unique category, they’re trying to tell the story of this population…”
Choudary: “Well I think your assessment is completely different than [that of] the Muslims. As far as the Muslims in the region are concerned, they’re not making the distinction… between the civilians and the military, because they see that the general populace have re-voted for people like Obama and Bush, who continue their policy of tyranny in the area.”
In Muslims’ eyes, journalists are “the propaganda machine of the Obama administration” Choudary said, and he brought up abuses at Abu Ghraib as justification for the torture and beheadings conducted by the Islamic State.
“That’s a crazy thing to say, given that the only reason you know about the abuses of Abu Ghraib is because of American journalists,” Stelter said angrily. “The only reason why you know about the abuses at Guantanamo Bay are because of American journalists.”
Choudary reiterated what he said on “Hannity,” stating without equivocation: “I believe that Sharia is the best way of life, I believe one day it will come to America and the rest of the world.”
“When I hear you say that, it reads to me as something that’s preposterous,” Stelter said. “But I respect that you try to get your message out however you can. But what I wonder though is, aren’t you abusing the press freedoms that you would like to see eliminated under Sharia law?”
Choudary answered with quotations about Allah and added: “I don’t abide by the parameters of your acceptable behavior… I will use every means at my disposal to pass along this message; now if that agrees with your principles of democracy and freedom, then so be it, if it does not… “
Choudary repeated lies about what is happening to the Christians and Yazidis in Iraq, saying that no one has targeted women or children, but then slipped up by admitting that: “They can embrace Islam, or they can live according to the law of the land, which is Islam.”
