Hannity: Rauf “scares me” saying he wants “America to be Sharia compliant”

Hannity: “He scares me, wanting America to be Sharia compliant.” On the August 25 edition of his Fox News program, referring to Rauf, who wants to build an Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan, Hannity said: He “says America should be Sharia compliant.” Hannity also said of Rauf: “He scares me, wanting America to be Sharia compliant.” Later, Hannity said he had “spent a lot of time going over this controversial imam” and claimed that Rauf “wants America Sharia compliant.” Hannity's comments echoed his prior attacks on Rauf for writing in his 2004 book, What's Right With Islam, that “the American political structure is Sharia compliant.”

Rauf: “American political structure is Shariah compliant” because it “protects” “God-given rights”

Rauf: “American political structure is Shariah compliant.” In fact, Rauf does not call for making the United States Sharia compliant in What's Right With Islam; rather, he argues that the “American political structure is Shariah compliant” just like any other political structure that “upholds, protects, and furthers” the “God-given rights” of “life, mind (that is, mental well-being or sanity), religion, property (or wealth), and family (or lineage and progeny).”

Rauf: Declaration of Independence expresses an “Islamic ... ethic.” Rauf writes in his book that the Declaration of Independence “opens with the words 'When ... it becomes necessary for one People ... to assume ... the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them' (italics added).” Rauf also comments that "[t]o Muslims, the law decreed by God is called the Shariah, and therefore the 'Laws of Nature and of Nature's God' are by definition Shariah law." He also writes: “What's right about America is its Declaration of Independence, for it embodies and restates the core values of the Abrahamic, and thus also the Islamic, ethic.”

Rauf: Any system of rule that protects “God-given rights” “is therefore legally 'Islamic,' or Shariah compliant, in its substance.” In his book, Rauf writes that “Muslim legal scholars have defined five areas of life that Islamic law must protect and further. These are life, mind (that is, mental well-being or sanity), religion, property (or wealth), and family (or lineage and progeny).” Rauf says that because the American political system “upholds, protects, and furthers these rights,” it is “Shariah compliant, in its substance.” From What's Right With Islam:

Any system of rule that upholds, protects, and furthers these rights is therefore legally “Islamic,” or Shariah compliant, in its substance. Because these rights are God-given, they are inalienable and cannot be deprived of any man or woman without depriving them of their essential humanity.

What I am demonstrating is that the American political structure is Shariah compliant. [Page 86]

Rauf: Islamic ideals allow for constitutional checks and balances. Rauf further writes in What's Right With Islam that Muslim jurists defined principles for “bay'ah,” or consent of the governed, to be valid, among them that "[c]onsent of the governed may not be coerced or obtained under duress" and that a leader must “maintain the government's legitimacy by securing, protecting, and furthering the inalienable rights of the governed.” Rauf also wrote that “in both Islamic and American ideals of government, a legitimate government allows a system of checks and balances on its rule.”

Hannity has previously falsely accused Rauf of wanting to shred the Constitution

Hannity: “I'm not talking about shredding our Constitution and putting Sharia law as the law of the land in America, as [Rauf] is.” On the August 12 edition of his Fox News program, Hannity said that Rauf “wants America to be Sharia compliant.” Hannity went on to state: “I'm not talking about shredding our Constitution and putting Sharia law as the law of the land in America, as [Rauf] is.”