A top Shariah lawyer’s stunning response to the question: ‘Is there such a thing as moderate Islam?’

Feb. 26, 2015 9:17am Benjamin Weingarten

We sat down with a leading Shariah lawyer from Iran, Daniel Akbari, to discuss his illuminating new book ”Honor Killing: A Professional’s Guide to Sexual Relations and Ghayra Violence from the Islamic Sources, in which he seeks to awaken Americans to the generally antithetical nature of Islam to Judeo-Christian society, and specifically Shariah-dictated domestic violence towards women — up to and including so-called honor killings — and how we in the West can prevent such atrocities.

During the extensive interview, which you can skip to here, we had a chance to ask him a series of questions on the nature of Islam, its goals, tactics, how Western Muslims become jihadists, and all manner of other topics.

But it was in response to a question on whether there is such a thing as moderate Islam that Mr. Akbari, a man who studied at the seat of Shia religious learning at the Tehran University School of Law, and specialized in criminal and family law before leaving Iran, gave perhaps his most stunning response of all, stating:

“[T]hese people…deceive Americans not to resist the process of Islam”

What Erdogan, the Prime Minister of Turkey says is actually perfect and totally Islamic because Islam is Islam. We don’t have such a thing like — “radical Islam extremism” — many things that are said in Islam like beheading, like stoning, like flogging — they are not extremism acts, those are pure Islam.

…The second thing is, this is not “extremism,” this is “fundamentalism.” People who believe in [the] Koran understand it and practice it and take it serious.

About moderate Muslims, we have to…make a distinction between those people who come from Islamic backgrounds, come from [the] Middle East, their names are ‘Mohammed’…they might not believe in [the] Koran at all. They might just be atheists. They just come from that region.

Who are moderate Muslims in reality according to Akbari?

…Moderate Muslims actually are kind of like CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations] people — people who are Muslim Brotherhood types…and these people fight for Islam, love it, but they give a peaceful feature, and good-looking [nature] to Islam, to…deceive Americans not to resist the process of Islam.