Islamic Law and Muslim Integration in the West

Uriya Shavit concludes in an article for the Middle East Quarterly entitled Should Muslims Integrate into the West?:

Herein lays the challenge. Many ethnic and religious minorities seek to establish an autonomous sphere within multicultural societies, but only Arab Muslim jurists consider such an autonomous sphere to constitute a substitute for the liberal state itself. Many ethnic and religious minorities attempt to speak for their countries of origin through the political systems of their adopted countries, but only Arab Muslim jurists regard their Muslim nation as overstretching the boundaries of all nation-states in its political demands. [emphasis added]

This may tie in with an article that appeared in the New York Sun last month on the uniqueness of the Saudi Arabia 'lobby':

What everyone has missed is that all these ethnic lobbies have been built from the bottom up, with but a single exception, a sinister lobby that works from the top down: the American lobby for Saudi Arabia.

...unlike the other communities that lobby, there are hardly any Saudi-Americans. Yet we have a lobby composed of American businessmen, oilmen, and academics — as well as Arab-Americans from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and elsewhere — all borrowed, hijacked, and, indeed, bribed into filling a void.

To be sure, maybe a handful of Saudis have dual citizenship, but a genuine lobby they do not make. But the noise made on Capitol Hill, in the Pentagon, and inside the White House on behalf of the desert kingdom can be deafening. If Saudi Arabia wants American arms, Saudi Arabia gets arms; if Saudi Arabia cries foul over the bin Laden flock being stuck here the day after their next of kin blew up the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, President Bush lets all 50 of them out, no questions asked. What gives?

The mighty Saudi lobby is made up of concentric circles that emanate from a Saudi Embassy in Washington that acts as a checking account. The dollars flow to Saudi-funded mosques and theological enterprises, to America's academic institutions, which are panting for Saudi dollars, to the American oil and arms industries, and to Arab-Americans in need. Whether those communities of interest have any familial, social, or immigrant ties to Saudi Arabia is totally beside the point. This is how a lobby is built from the top down.

Read the whole thing.

The Israel Lobby may turn out to be the least of Mearsheimer's and Walt's problems--but then again, Mearsheimer has already appeared at a CAIR-sponsored event.

Technorati Tag: Saudi Arabia.