Shariah Creep at Harvard and Elsewhere

Timely, really, this recent action by Harvard to provide women-only gym hours in response to a request by the Harvard Islamic Society.  They think they're being "open minded and inclusive," when actually they're rewarding a miniscule minority of Harvard students who are Muslim fundamentalists.  One Muslim reader calls them "stealth jihadists."  Imagine if Harvard's Mormon students asked for this treatment.  However, there is a growing awareness of "Shariah Creep," as noticed by Kathy Shaidle in this article.  Mary Steyn comments on it here:

"Every society has culturally self-segregating groups - the Amish and whatnot. But they're usually in small numbers somewhere out on the edge of the map. In Europe and Canada, the self-segregating group happens to be the principal source of population growth, which presents a profound challenge to societal cohesion. America does not face the same scale of problem, but nevertheless 'sharia creep' ought to be resisted before it becomes remorseless."

Shaidle quotes Robert Spencer on shariah creep:

"I think we may be getting through to a very small number of people, but Muslim Brotherhood front organizations in the U.S. are still making tremendous headway by portraying these Sharia-creep initiatives as simple matters of civil rights, and playing on fears among public officials, and the public at large, of being seen as racist and bigoted. "

I"t is getting worse, because there is a concerted effort by the MSA's on various campuses and other groups to push Muslim accommodation issues aggressively, but this effort is relatively new. We didn't see it on this scale ten or even five years ago. I think it is a natural outgrowth of the post-9/11 anxiety on the part of government and media not to appear ‘Islamophobic.’ As long as that continues to be a matter for concern, there will be continued accommodation of Muslim practices and Islamic distinctiveness, which only aids and abets the Islamic supremacist agenda."

This is exactly what is unfolding at Harvard.  Stay tuned.

Comments

[yale'06]

the bigotry implicit in your writing is a tad disturbing. this is america, yo. let's grow up. while you're at it, why not shut down all those women-only gyms across the nation??

[miss kelly]

Yes, this is America, which is why it's so odd that a university founded by a Christian minister falls over itself to accomodate the alleged religious tenets of six of its students. Harvard didn't do this for all of its women students, it did this to please a handful of Muslim students, without any wider consultation with other students or faculty at the campus. Plenty of Muslim students think it's silly. It was a pathetic move by Harvard.