This is not an example of Islam coexisting with secular law, it is an example of constitutional democracy and secular law being offered to the population of Iraq, and readily embraced, as an alternative to Islamic law.

The adoption of secular law in Iraq requires the rejection of Shari’a, which further represents a rejection of Islam.

If, as is to be hoped, Islam becomes capable in the future of coexisting peacefully with democracy and secular law, it will be because Islam undergoes a Reformation of the same depth and sincerity as the Christian Reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

To coexist in a democracy the Muslim must accept that the law enacted by the parliament takes precedence over religious law and observance. To do so he must break with aspects of Shari’a. For example, most secular law would not recognise apostasy as a crime. The Muslim living in a democracy must accept this and recognise that there will be no punishment of another person, whom they regard as an apostate. They must therefore refuse to act upon any religious injunction to punish such a person. In most democratic legal codes, religion may be criticised, even in offensive terms. This includes Islam. Muslims who wish to coexist peacefully in a constitutional democracy must expect Islam to be criticised within the law. This may involve humour, visual imagery or simple comment – all are acceptable in a democracy. Violent protest is not as it breaks the law.

Constitutional democracy is presently seeking to accommodate the demands of Islam in the west, but can only do so to a limited degree without destroying itself.

In the western world either Islam or constitutional democracy will have to change radically to accommodate the requirements of the other. As ideologies they are diametrically opposed, and cannot coexist.

Islam does not appear ready to change and therefore may not be able to coexist with the constitutional democracy and the secular law.

This is untrue.

In Iraq the rule of secular law brought by amricans and thier support.

There seem to me to be two related, but different problems with Islam.

The first, and most obvious, is the recurrent violence of Islamist terrorists. There is scarcely a month goes by that we do not hear of Islamist attacks on civilians of other religious groups, and of course other muslims who do not share their worldview, followed immediately by appeasers and apologists peddling the customary justifications for Islamist violence. It is usually justified as being a response to Western foreign policy or outrage at perceived injustice towards muslims. Such arguments are usually so fatuous and ignorant that they scarcely merit a response. More sensible commentators acknowledge that such violence is serious, determined, motivated by a particular religious belief and requires physical interdiction by western security forces. The means advocated, of course, differ.

It is clear that only a minority of muslims engage in such acts of violence, though how many more approve quietly is less clear.

The second problem with Islam is less obvious and in the long term may be even more troublesome. Islam holds that the Law of God, is superior to the law of man, and should take practical precedence. This gives rise to problems for muslims with the western constitutional settlement. We believe that the only law which must be obeyed, without exception, and with the threat of punishment, is law enacted by Parliament without reference to any deity. We reject the idea of more than one jurisdiction and we cannot permit a religious legal code either to exist alongside secular law, or as some muslims advocate, to replace secular law. For many muslims this is wrong, and unacceptable. The opening salvo’s in this conflict are being played out in the courts, so far crystallising around the muslim headscarf and similar cultural issues.

Trimegistus is bold to assert that Islam cannot coexist with humanity, and it is to be hoped that he is wrong.

By contrast it is becoming increasingly clear that Islam may indeed be unable to coexist with constitutional democracy and the rule of secular law.

You touched the bar here, For 6 years your country with Sheik Paul (Jerry) BremerIII (Btw, his biography so long of disaster management) have took USD9.0 Billions from “the trillions of dollars” of oil, so you should ask first your folk where is USD9.9 Billions vanished before accusing very known tyrants corrupts regimes.

Moreover, your sheikh made Iraq dismantled state and the last in the list of most corrupted state in the world.

You should turn around a go to blame your sheikh first, are we living in 1900 or 21-century gays here?

This is just the most recent result of the psychosis that is Islam:
http://www.aina.org/news/20081126035704.htm

This took place in a city with a somewhat casual/secular reputation and the Christian church had a permit and permission. Islam can get along with nothing but Islam. Islam is tolerant of nothing other than Islam. Islam is dar al-harb (the land of war) and dar al-Islam (the land of peace – Islam) – it will accept nothing else and as such should be treated for what it is – a scourge.

As was clear from my post, I have no objection to the Babylonians. It’s just that the Babylonians were not Arabs and they were not Muslims, therefore it’s a nonsequitur for you to bring them up as a credit to Arab/Islamic civilization.

Today Nokia, a Finnish telecom company, contributes more to the world economy than all the Arab countries of the Middle East, if one excludes their oil wealth. Arabs can’t even extract and manage their own oil without Western technology and Western specialists.

In spite of the trillions of dollars that have flowed into the coffers of Arab countries, the standard of living in those countries remains among the lowest in the world. Approximately half the young in Saudi Arabia wish to emigrate.

Such is the state of Arab/Islamic civilization today. Although Arabs are constantly blaming the Jews, Israel, America, and the West. I don’t think they have anyone to blame but themselves.

The Babylonians our ancestors we proud of them, what is your objection?

ENOUGH
Give us One Verse From Koran That Support ONE of Your Failed List or go silnet with your failed argument

GeoPal ,

ENOUGH
Give us ONE Verse from Koran That Support ONE of Your Failed List or go silent with your failed argument

I don’t have time to waste with some who locked their minds on single side of hatred that can not justified at all. Historical facts and today many things in our life that invited by Muslims and Islamic civilization can not be dined as long as the judgement day.

So if you still not believe go read this book will take you step by step with facts and support what Muslims gave you and what the added handed to west when they get out of dark age to complete the journey with the world civilizations before them

Discover the Muslim Heritage in our World

Experience a thousand years of missing history!
Learn about a lost age of Muslim innovation and invention!
Discover the Muslim origins of many Western discoveries!

Huxley

Fogot
Forgot Carly Fiorina piece and tell us what your answer to first bit of my post! , just you can’t beat them as it is a university research group alternatively go correct them p if you think your theory of hatred right.

The Babylonians were Semites. They were among the ancestors of Arabs, but they were not Arabs, anymore than the Saxons were English.

Babylonian civilization and culture was neither Arab nor Islamic, having preceded both by over a thousand years. Arab/Islamic civilization gets no credit for what the Babylonians produced.

Indeed from what I can tell Arab/Islamic civilization gets little credit for anything beyond a remarkably effective predatory religion that has preyed on the hard work of others since founded by a warlord who stole the ideas for Islam from Jews and Christians, and funded his movement by military raids on caravans and neighbors.