Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Moderate?

Spencer Case, on his way home from Afghanistan, e-mails:

I recently wrote a column on Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the supposed Islamic moderate.  It's been a long time since I've written a column that was really controversial, but this might break the dry spell. I hope you will share it with your readers not only for the sake of shameless self-promotion but also because your readers need to be warned about this guy. It says a lot about Islam that this guy is considered moderate! The link is here: http://www.pocatelloshops.com/new_blogs/afghanistan/

I urge you to read Mr. Case's column.  This Nasr is obviously no moderate, and his views, at least as reported by Case, are plainly incompatible with Western values.   That Nasr has tenure at an American university is yet another demonstration of the complicity of the Left with radical Islam. Excerpts:

Nasr states in many places and in no unclear terms that he opposes both secular law and “freedom of speech”—placed in scare quotes—which allows for criticism of religion. Most moderates in western countries, Nasr asserts, want the same.

“In the Islamic perspective,” he writes, “Divine Law is to be implemented to regulate society and the actions of its members rather than society dictating what laws should be… to speak of Shari’ah as being simply the laws of the seventh century fixed in time and not relevant today would be like telling Christians that the injunctions of Christ to love one’s neighbor and not commit adultery were simply the laws of the Palestine two thousand years ago and not relevant today, or telling Jews not to keep the Sabbath because this is simply an outmoded practice of three thousand years ago.”

And again: “Since God is the creator of all things, there is no legitimate domain of life to which His Will or His Laws (antecedently stated to mean Qur’anic Shari’ah) do not apply.”

The problem  with Nasr's view as reported by Case should be obvious.  It is plainly incompatible with our Western liberal values -- values whose defense, paradoxically enough, is being carried out by contemporary conservatives, the Left having abdicated due to its inherent political correctness. 

ONLY IF we know that God exists AND ONLY IF we know his will with respect to us and our well-being would it be plausible to argue that something like Shari'ah is justified.  But those two necessary conditions have not been met and most likely never will.   Only an uncritical fundamentalist who absolutizes what is relative and conditioned, namely, the scripture of a religion inferior to Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity, a scripture which, even if in part divinely inspired, is mainly a human product, could possibly think that we have in that scripture rules of behavior that should be imposed on everyone.

Read the whole of Spencer's column.  And then make sure you vote next Tuesday, bearing in mind that the Democrat Party is the party of the Left and that the Left does not have the will or the integrity to stand up to radical Islam.