The Devil We Don't Know by Nonie Darwish Read Free Book Online Page B

to make Israel an eternal enemy. He became an apostate, according to sharia, and had to be killed or removed from office. Such laws can only cause civil unrest, political chaos, and revolutions.
    Because Arab pro-Western leaders who want to maintain peace with Israel are the primary targets for revolutions, it is no surprise that the first two leaders to go were were the moderate ones who got along with the West. It is also no surprise that the Iranian Islamic leadership seems to be the only government that is immune to attacks from the Islamists.
    There are more laws that can only produce tyrants and dictators, for instance: “It is obligatory to obey the commands and interdictions of the caliph, even if he is unjust.” 7 On one hand, the Muslim public is commanded to remove a leader from office if he does not rule according to Islamic law, but on the other hand, they are commanded to obey him if he is unjust. Ruling according to sharia is more important than justice. Sharia also exempts the Muslim head of state “from being charged with serious Hudood crimes such as murder, adultery, robbery, theft, and drinking.” 8 These are the laws that created the likes of Saddam Hussein and many other Muslim dictators. As long as such laws are present, democracy can never succeed.
    Such laws and many similar ones give Muslim leaders the tools for despotic one-party rule. Yet at the same time, all leaders have to guard against assassination attempts and coups, which unfortunately are also allowed by the same laws that gave them totalitarian power.
    Reformation of the Islamic political system is made very difficult by laws that condemn to death anyone who speaks against sharia. This includes Muslim leaders, who have no choice but to rule accordingly. Throughout history, there have been many examples of critics of sharia who ended up dead. That is why many Islamic intellectuals simply dance around the subject but never dare address it. Sharia has become the elephant in the room that everyone must put up with and never disturb. The most some people do is claim that Islamists misinterpret Islamic law and even the Koran itself. Even feminists in Saudi Arabia claim that Islam has given them many rights and privileges, but it is the interpretation that stands in the way. This game of denying clear-cut laws will not succeed in changing the reality, and Islamists know it.
    As a result, Islamic activists and reformers have a very difficult job on their hands, because the true cause of tyranny, dictatorships, and instability cannot be touched, and they are left with nothing to blame except their dictators, non-Muslim minorities, external influences, Israel, or the West. Anything is fair game, except to uncover the Islamic sacred cows that support tyrannical rule.
    Cosmetic adherence to Islamic rules is not enough, and that is what Mubarak learned after seeing his predecessor killed for signing a peace treaty with Israel. To prove to his critics that he takes his Sharia seriously, Mubarak, in 1991, added to the Egyptian constitution Article 2, which states that sharia supercedes any other law. Yet because he did not actually rule by it and stood against the jihadist aspirations of the radicals, he was still considered unfit to rule as a Muslim leader. That is why there were signs in Tahrir Square stating “Game over for America's Arab puppet dictatorship regimes.” The phrase “puppet of the West” is perhaps the worst shaming expression a Muslim leader can be called, because it means the Muslim leader is befriending people he should be at war with.
    Muslim leaders often hide their friendships with the West to avoid the devastating title of “U.S. puppet,” and they go to great lengths to appear harsh and critical of the West in public, when in reality they want coexistence. That can perhaps explain the well-known two faces of the typical Muslim leader: a friendly one to the West in private and a critical one in public.
    Clearly, the 2011