According to Islam, devout Muslims are required to pray five times a day. Each time, as they prepare for prayer, a ritual washing of hands and feet is required. This is the purification ritual known as “wudu”. This is part of Islam and entirely up to the individual to perform, if they are religious. In a country such as the United States, where Freedom of Religion still reigns across the land, Muslim hand and foot washing is just one more expression of faith that has been accepted, and rightfully so!
The same way, religious Jewish men wear tallit (prayer shawls) and tefillin (phylacteries) on their foreheads and arm during their morning prayers, and rightfully so.
I could go on and on, finding examples to illustrate how each religion has its own requirements dictated by its own holy book or teachings from its sages. Yet I see a major difference between them all and Islam, and that is the fact that religious requirements, as much as they are accepted by mainstream America, always take place in the privacy of one’s home and/or in their place of corporate worship.
How would mainstream America react if anybody walked into a “public” library (emphasis on the word public) and saw a group of Jewish men in a corner of the room next to a little rack holding prayers shawls and praying paraphernalia, putting on tallits and tefillin that had been graciously supplied by taxpayer dollars? I am rather certain that the word would quickly go out, and that a complaint would be filed with the library because of a breech of our “separation of Church and State”. To be honest, I cannot blame anybody who would do such a thing! But again, how consistent are we with our principles?
Why is it that for the last several years, American tax dollars (or airport user fees) have financed the building of foot basins in several airports (Indianapolis, Phoenix, Kansas City), and schools in America (Eastern Michigan University, University of Michigan, George Mason University, George Washington University and Temple University)?
Why is it that Islam seems to be the only religion successfully imposing its rigorous demands on us?
Why is it that they are allowed to use a public place to perform supposed “private” religious rituals?
It has been stated that the foot basins are “open to all”. So what happens when a devout Muslim comes in the room to perform his ritual but the basin is occupied by a non Muslim washing his hands? Can a non-Muslim actually use one of these without “defiling” it ?
These are questions that WE SHOULDN’T HAVE TO ASK if our leaders were only consistent in the way all religions were treated in America. America was built upon a strong Judeo-Christian foundation, and has blossomed from that soil. If we continue to allow Islam to fertilize the very soil we live on, nothing will grow out of it unless it is “sharia compliant”. But it is their goal and they are moving towards it faster than most are willing to admit.
Additionally, I am afraid that, at least in the case of Boston University, we might have gone even one step further, as foot basins were recently installed for the Muslim student body, ON A VOLUNTARY BASIS. Nobody ever asked the University to build those basins. Usually, Islam is very consistent in its boldness to instill sharia in America. Too often they impose their customs on us by force, and Americans are too politically correct to stop them. Yet you know something is very wrong when an American institution is being “sharianized” by CHOICE and not by FORCE. The stealth Jihad is gaining strength as it continues to affect our “Land of Opportunity”.
The country that I love so much as an expatriate French Jew having now become an American citizen, is still “The Land of Opportunity” but it seems that the opportunity might soon be for “Muslims ONLY”
The Bible tells us that all men are created equal and are also created in God’s image. It is my choice if I decide to follow Yeshua (Jesus) as my Jewish Messiah and Lord and Savior. I wish the same to all those who are lost and without hope, but I will certainly not push Him onto anybody. Heck, He doesn’t even do that Himself. The choice is yours, so at the end of the day:
Choose wisely without being coerced!
Practice genuinely without being forceful!
And live victoriously without being fearful!
A scary subject handled beautifully and tactfully with good exambles Olivier! Keep up the good work of educating us!!