There is a great deal of misinformation circulating with regard to sharia and the threat it poses to America and Western Civilization.

Some misinformed observers and members of the Muslim Brotherhood liken concerns over sharia to prejudice and bigotry, but the facts say otherwise.

Terrorism experts in the law enforcement, military and intelligence communities have cited sharia as the Jihadists' enemy threat doctrine in an intensive study called "Shariah: The Threat to America," a scholarly, 352-page book based on authoritative sources of sharia, or Islamic law. While sharia does include "prayer and fasting" and "worship," sharia is also an all-encompassing legal and political code that covers aspects of life that have nothing to do with religion.

Perhaps most importantly, unlike other forms of religious law, such as canon law and Jewish law, sharia is the only form of religious law extant that is also meant to apply to people of other faiths, i.e. non-Muslims.

The threat from sharia has nothing to do with prejudice or bigotry. The threat from sharia is real and multifaceted.

Some claim that sharia is no threat to the American legal system, but research shows such a threat does exist. Just as sharia has gradually become embedded in the legal systems of many European nations over the past generation, it is beginning to be found in US court cases. An initial study by the Center for Security Policy entitled "Shariah Law and American State Courts: An Assessment of State Appellate Court Cases," examined 50 cases from 23 states that involved conflicts between sharia and American state law. The study's findings suggest that sharia has entered into state court decisions, in conflict with the Constitution and state public policy.

This incursion of sharia into US court systems usually manifests itself in the form of foreign law from nations such as Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Syria and other predominantly Islamic nations.  As a result, four states, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arizona and Kansas, have passed into law "American Laws for American Courts," legislation. Several more states are considering American Laws for American Courts. Unlike Oklahoma's infamous constitutional amendment, American Laws for American Courts does not ban sharia. American Laws for American Courts protects individual, fundamental constitutional rights by preventing courts from applying foreign law when the application of that foreign law in the case at hand would result in the violation of a fundamental constitutional right, such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, due process and equal protection.

Among the organizations that are clouding the issue on sharia is the Saudi-backed Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

ISNA was named as an unindicted co-conspirator and revealed to be a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate in the US v. Holy Land Foundation, the largest terrorism financing prosecution in American history.

ISNA was co-founded in 1981 by Sami Al-Arian, a man who is now in federal prison after having been convicted on terrorism charges as a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

According to two reports in the San Francisco Chronicle, the other co-founder of ISNA, Mahboob Khan, twice hosted Ayman al-Zawahiri on fundraising trips here in the USA.

In addition, a regional representative for ISNA, Abdurahman Alamoudi, was found to be a chief fundraiser for Al Qaeda here in the USA and was convicted on terrorism charges. Alamoudi founded the Islamic Society of Boston using ISNA's tax-exempt, non-profit status.

ISNA board member Muzammil Siddiqi told the San Francisco Chronicle in June 2001 that he "supported laws in countries where homosexuality is punishable by death."

Siraj Wahhaj, who served as vice president of ISNA, is on record as supporting all aspects of sharia, including its call for brutal punishments like the removal of one's hands as the penalty for theft, and death by stoning as the penalty for adultery. According to Wahhaj, such harsh measures are wholly justified by Islamic scripture as he preached in a May 1992 sermon: "I would cut off the hands of my own daughter [if she stole] because Allah stands for Justice." On another occasion, Wahhaj stated: "If Allah says 100 strikes, 100 strikes it is. If Allah says cut off their hand, you cut off their hand. If Allah says stone them to death, through the Prophet Muhammad, then you stone them to death, because it's the obedience of Allah and his messenger-nothing personal."

Islamic scholar Stephen Schwartz has described ISNA as "one of the chief conduits through which the radical Saudi form of Islam passes into the United States."

These hardly seem like the kind of people who should be leading interfaith outreach in the USA.

The Honorable Fred Grandy is a former member of Congress.