Harvard academics and students are demanding that the university rescind a plan to honour the editor-in-chief of a leading Washington political magazine this week after he wrote that Muslims are unfit for the protections of the US constitution and said that “Muslim life is cheap”.

Martin Peretz has partially apologised for the comments but critics say they are only the most recent of a long line of bigotted columns in theNew Republic by the former Harvard professor that have drawn accusations of double standards in how the American media confronts prejudice.

Peretz caused a stir when he wrote in a column earlier this month that Muslims in the US should not be entitled to constitutional guarantees of free speech. “Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims … So, yes, I wonder whether I need honour these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse,” he said.

The comments provoked criticism from bloggers and academics but were initially ignored by mainstream newspapers despite Peretz’s prominence – among other things he is a close friend of the former vice-president Al Gore – and the influence of his magazine.

Some of the strongest criticism has come from Harvard, where some students and academics are demanding that the university cancel a ceremony on Friday to name a $500,000 (£322,000) social studies chair after Peretz.

“Such an invitation lends legitimacy and respectability to views that can only be described as abhorrent and racist in their implication that the rights guaranteed by the US constitution should be withheld from certain citizens based on their religious affiliation,” student organisations said in a letter to the university that has been signed by more than 400 people.

Among the critics is Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard, who described Peretz’s views as hateful. “If you had said this about blacks, Jews or Catholics, it would be a scandal,” he told the Boston Globe.

Guardian, 21 September 2010

See also the Daily Beast, 19 September 2010

Build the Ground Zero mosque, ASAP.

That’s the recommendation of a specially convened summit of local and national Muslim leaders, who expressed concern Monday over a wave of anti-Muslim bigotry that’s been unleashed by the planned construction of the Park51 mosque and community center two blocks from Ground Zero.

“We stand for the constitutional rights of Muslims, and Americans of all faiths, to build houses of worship anywhere in our nation as allowed by local laws and regulations,” Imam Al-Amin Latif, president of the Islamic Leadership Council of Metropolitan New York, told reporters Monday outside the mosque site on Park Place.

It was the first time in 20 years the group had convened a special gathering of Muslim religious leaders from all over the country, said its executive director, Zaheer Uddin. The closed-door summit took place Sunday. The last time was to formulate a response to the Gulf War.

Latif and other Muslim clerics plan a nationwide “Week of Dialogue” Oct. 22 through 24, when they’ll hold open houses at their places of worship in a bid to ease tensions caused by the Park51 mosque plan.

“Ground Zero belongs to all Americans,” said Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, recalling there were Muslim victims on 9/11 and Muslim first responders.

New York Daily News, 20 September 2010

See also New York Times, 20 September 2010

Supporters of a new mosque in Murfreesboro asked Rutherford County commissioners on Thursday not to bow to pressure to rescind approval of the project and accused opponents of making the community look bad.

“The embarassment, shame and humiliation I feel as a lifelong resident cannot be expressed in words strong enough,” said John Green, who described himself as a fifth generation resident.

He and several others sought to dispel the idea that those who support the mosque are outside agitators. Several speakers held up their drivers licenses while introducing themselves.

“Here’s proof that I’m not from out of town,” said Jase Short. He attributed mosque opposition to a desire “to influence elections on behalf of an agenda of hate.”

The one person speaking against the mosque, Donald Westcott, of Smyrna, held up a book called “Sharia Law for Non-Muslims” that he said he had passed out to the commissioners. He said he believes Muslims want to take over the country and impose Islamic law.

“This democratic council would have to be disbanded because you would have to submit to an imam or mullah,” he said.

Associated Press, 17 September 2010

See also “Lawsuit filed to stop Mosque as supporters speak up”,Murfreesboro Post, 17 September 2010

The second morning of speeches at the Values Voter Summit here in DC was dominated by a man who is swiftly becoming the nation’s spokesperson for Islamophobia – former House speaker Newt Gingrich.

Fresh off the release of his Islam-focused film “America At Risk,” Gingrich told the crowd at VVS that it’s time to take federal action to prevent Shariah Law from infiltrating courtrooms in the US.

“We should have a federal law that says sharia law cannot be recognized by any court in the United States,” Gingrich said to a standing ovation from the audience. The law will let judges know, Gingrich said, that “no judge will remain in office that tried to use sharia law.”

TPM, 18 September 2010

A new report denouncing the threat to the U.S. from sharia, or Islamic law, marks the latest development in a summer filled with intensifying attacks on Islam in the United States.

Several Republican members of Congress endorsed the new Center for Security Policy (CSP) report, “Shariah: The Threat to America“, at a press conference in the U.S. Capitol Wednesday afternoon.

The report proposes the alarming conclusion that many apparently-lawful U.S. Muslims are waging a “stealth jihad” to impose sharia on the U.S. through peaceful means, and that virtually all major Muslim-American organisations are affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Sunni fundamentalist organisation.

Critics charge that the current alarm over sharia is rooted in paranoia, bigotry, or simple ignorance of Islam. But this school of thought has made increasing inroads into mainstream conservatism in recent months, and Wednesday’s press conference illustrated the ways in which it has captured the ear of prominent Republican politicians.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican who is the influential ranking member of the House intelligence committee, attended the press conference to show his support, as did Rep. Trent Franks, an Arizona Republican. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, the Minnesota Republican who heads the House Tea Party Caucus, also sent a letter in support.

At the conference, CSP president Frank Gaffney warned of Muslim radicals “destroying Western civilisation from within”, aiming to impose sharia through force if possible but through “a more stealthy technique” if necessary.

“If we…convey the idea we are submitting to those who espouse sharia, we are signaling to them that it is now practicable to revert to the more forceful way of achieving their ends,” Gaffney said. He warned that the resultant attempt “to impose sharia upon us through force” could make the Sep. 11 attacks “look like a day at the beach”.

Suggesting that sharia is “the preeminent totalitarian threat of our time”, the report offers far-reaching – and to critics, draconian – proposals for how to combat it.

These include banning Muslims who “espouse or support” sharia “from holding positions of trust in federal, state, or local governments or the armed forces of the United States”. The report similarly recommends prosecuting those who espouse sharia for sedition, and banning immigration to the U.S. by those who adhere to sharia.

Few scholars of Islam would agree with the report’s conception of “sharia”. The word (typically translated as “the way”) is a broad term referring to Islamic religious precepts, and thus there are as many interpretations of sharia as there are interpretations of Islam.

Daniel Luban at IPS, 16 September 2010

See also Sheila Musaji, “Center for Security Policy Sharia report a threat to American ideals”, The American Muslim, 17 September 2010

And Paul Woodward, “The advance of the anti-Muslim movement across America”, Mondoweiss, 17 September 2010

Update:  See Daniel Luban’s further comments at The Faster Times, 17 September 2010

“Nine years after the Sept, 11, 2001 attacks, a heated debate over a proposed Islamic community center two blocks from Ground Zero has helped spark a wave of distrust and anger toward Muslim Americans and Islam in New York City and beyond.”

Farah Akbar writes in the Gotham Gazette, September 2010

A planned Quran burning Saturday in Amarillo was thwarted by a 23-year-old carrying a skateboard and wearing a T-shirt with “I’m in Repent Amarillo No Joke” scrawled by hand on the back.

Jacob Isom, 23, grabbed David Grisham’s Quran when he became distracted while arguing with several residents at Sam Houston Park about the merits of burning the Islamic holy book.

“You’re just trying to start Holy Wars,” Isom said of Grisham after he gave the book to a religious leader from the Islamic Center of Amarillo.

Grisham, director of Repent Amarillo, which aims to deter promiscuity, homosexuality and non-Christian worship practices through confrontation and prayer, said he was just trying to exercise his right to free speech.

He announced Friday evening the plan to burn copies of the Quran to show support for the Rev. Terry Jones, pastor of a small church in Gainesville, Fla., who planned, publicized, then canceled his own Quran burning event after a national uproar.

More than 200 people, many packing signs, crowded into Sam Houston Park Saturday to either support or protest Grisham’s plan to burn the Quran.

Protesters threw their hands on the grill Grisham planned to use to burn the Quran, someone took his lighter and Isom stole the Quran, leaving him with just lighter fluid.

As the crowd jeered, Grisham got into a car and left peacefully without burning any copies of the holy book.

Amarillo Globe-News, 12 September 2010