Religious Freedom in America - Jalsa Salana USA 2010

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Last month in the Netherlands, the anti-Islam Freedom Party of MP Geert Wilders won 23 seats in Parliament. Wilders has publicly demanded that the Qur'an be outlawed and that Muslim women who wear head scarves be taxed. Last week, the French parliament approved a ban of the burqa (or full Islamic veil) by a vote of 336 to 1. Support for a ban on the burqa is now widespread across Europe, with strong majority votes in Spain, Britain and Germany. For American Muslims, these European headlines come as a bit of a shock. Compared to European Muslims, American Muslims appear to be progressing much better. U.S. President Barack Obama recognized this very fact in his speech last year to the Muslim world in Cairo. He said: "Freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one's religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state of our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That is why the U.S. government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it." No state in America has laws that ban minarets, headscarves, or any other kind of Islamic custom or practice of the kind France, Switzerland and other European nations seek to implement. In 2004, Oklahoma passed a law seeking to ban the wearing of headscarves in public schools, but a federal court quickly struck down the law as unconstitutional. This past April, Oregon ended an 87-year-old ban on teachers wearing headscarves in schools. What is it about America that enables American Muslims to exercise their faith more freely than anywhere else in the world? My speech this morning tackles this very important question in four parts. First, I will discuss the concept of religious freedom in America. Second, I will discuss the concept of religious freedom in Islam. In so doing, I will underscore the striking similarities between the two concepts. Third, I will discuss how the modern Muslim Amjad Mahmood Khan - Page 2 of 11
world has deviated from the true Islamic concept of religious freedom in profound and tragic ways. Finally, I will discuss some of our responsibilities as American Muslims to champion the cause of religious freedom. Let me begin by discussing the origins of religious freedom in America. America’s early founding reflects a deep commitment to religious freedom. Most of the European settlers who came to North America in the Seventeenth Century fled Europe to seek religious freedom. The early immigrants to America – the Puritans – sought desperately to practice their own brand of Christianity. They founded Massachusetts as the “new Israel” – a new commonwealth based on a covenant between God and his people. But the Puritanical vision of a “holy society” was quickly met with resistance. The first and most famous dissenter, Roger Williams, himself a Puritan minister, disagreed with the state interfering with religion. He put forth the first American case for freedom of conscience for all. He founded Rhode Island – the first American colony to grant the freedom of conscience to people of all faiths. The Rhode Island experiment slowly grew strength and momentum in the rest of early America. For example, William Penn, a Quaker, famously founded the colony of Pennsylvania in the Eighteenth Century as a “holy experiment” to preserve religious liberty for all. In 1776, the Declaration of Independence established America as a nation and declared emphatically the principle of equality for all people. But even the Declaration of Independence didn’t explicitly refer to religious liberty or religious tolerance. For the next eleven years, America’s founding fathers wrestled with the idea of religious liberty and its inclusion in the U.S. Constitution. James Madison, in particular set forth a Amjad Mahmood Khan - Page 3 of 11
Page 1: 62 nd Annual Jalsa Salana USA (July
Page 5 and 6: Let me now turn to the Islamic conc
Page 7 and 8: But the Prophet Muhammad (sa)’s c
Page 9 and 10: Countries such as Indonesia, Egypt
Page 11: “O Ahmadis of America and Canada,

Religious Freedom in America - Jalsa Salana USA 2010

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