America’s growing embrace of politicized Islam is “perplexing” to those with first-hand experience of its oppressive system, confessed Pastor Shahram Hadian, an Iranian Christian convert from Islam, at Family Research Council’s 2026 Pray Vote Stand Summit. “America is trying to give it a hug. We’re going on dates with it. We’re romancing it. We’re trying to find out, ‘Are we compatible? Can we get along? Can we get married?’ This is insanity!”
“Iran fell in 1979 and became an Islamic theocracy under Sharia,” Hadian said. “The Iranian people … have died this year alone by the tens of thousands to liberate themselves not just from this regime, but from Islam. … They’re still trying to fight for freedom. And America is going down without a fight.”
Courage and Cowardice
A recent illustration comes in the race for U.S. Senate in Michigan, where strict Muslim candidate Abdul El-Sayed (D) has refused to condemn the Islamist regime in Tehran. At a recent townhall, a University of Michigan student from Iran, Iman Dashti, confronted El-Sayed about this decision. “My cousin was hunted in the streets of Iran by the IRGC because her hijab wasn’t on right. My uncle was sentenced to die, received 50 lashings by Ali Khamenei’s government … I wanted to ask if you stand unequivocally against the IRGC, against the Islamic Republic of Iran that has killed 50,000 protesters.”
Dashti’s courage to speak out against the evils of Islam is rare. If he were not Iranian, he might have thought twice about saying anything, because he might have been accused of racism (even so, Dashti has encountered significant personal consequences for speaking out).
“Most people don’t want to say anything about Islam because they’re scared to death of being called a racist. We need to get over that,” former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann urged. “The people that have come into the United States, that are Muslim … are pushing Sharia law … are pushing dominance. … That’s the goal: it’s dominance, and it’s takeover.”
“Minneapolis was the first city in America that allowed the Muslim call to prayer,” Bachmann explained. “I called up one of our freedom organizations in Minnesota. They wouldn’t touch it because they didn’t want to be called racist. So, we tried to get pastors to do something. They wouldn’t do anything because they don’t want to be called a racist.”
“We have to get real. We’ve got to wake up and realize what this is,” she insisted. “In Congress, we were taught a fantasy view of Islam that has never existed in the history of the world. The fantasy that says Islam is a religion of peace. That’s the mantra we were all told to repeat. It doesn’t exist anywhere in history.”
A second factor that deters criticism of Islam is more flattering to the American spirit. “As soon as you bring this up, somebody’s going to say, ‘Well, we have religious freedom in this country,’” observed FRC President Tony Perkins.
While that is true, “we have to have a national discussion about the nature and parameters of religious freedom,” suggested Jihad Watch Founder Robert Spencer. “Several years ago, two Muslim doctors in the Detroit area … were put on trial for carrying out female genital mutilation. … A judge struck down the law and said this was a local criminal matter. … He did not address the most important aspect of the case, which was that the doctors had argued that they should be free to do this because it was part of their religion.”
“It still hasn’t been tested in American courts,” Spencer added. “And so, this is the national conversation we have to have: does religious freedom give you some kind of license to break other laws?”
Spencer suggested the Supreme Court 1890 precedent against Mormon polygamy provides a roadmap to answer this question. “The Supreme Court was assuming that there was a limit to the religious freedom based on the freedom and rights of women not to be treated as commodities in a polygamous marriage,” he pointed out. “So, it would seem to me the same kind of idea could be applied to Sharia, in all its dehumanizing aspects and discriminatory aspects against non-Muslims, and women particularly.”
Hadian approached the question from a different angle, arguing that Muslim-dominated governments do away with religious freedom. “Where I became a Christian in America, I was able to leave Islam and follow Christ,” he explained. “If I was in a Muslim country, that is a death sentence under apostasy laws. … If they can’t get you for apostasy, they get you for blasphemy because you’ve dishonored Islam.”
“There is a very famous tradition where Muhammad is depicted as saying, ‘When you meet the unbelievers, invite them to accept Islam,’” Spencer concurred. “So far, that’s somewhat akin to the Lord saying, ‘Go and make disciples of all nations’ [Matthew 28:20]. And then it departs significantly. … Muhammad goes on to say, ‘and if they accept, then accept them as brothers in Islam. But if they refuse, then invite them to pay the jizya,’ which is the tax that the Quran specifies for the non-Muslims, particularly Jews and Christians. … ‘And if they refuse both, then seek Allah’s help and fight them.’”
Islam may begin with a non-threatening “invitation” to convert, but it will not take no for an answer.
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Fundamentally Political Religion
This highlights a fundamental distinction between Christianity and Islam. Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting” (John 18:26).
By contrast, “Islam is a political system cloaked in a religious garb,” as Perkins put it, “and it is profiting and benefiting from America’s religious freedom that we extend.” Or, as Spencer said, “Islam is not a religion of peace. In fact, Islam is the only religion that is considered to be one of the world’s great religions that has a developed doctrine, theology, and law mandating warfare against unbelievers and their subjugation.”
“There is no separation” between Islam the religion and Sharia the political system, Hadian insisted. “Islam is Sharia. Sharia is Islam.”
Sharia is not only a political system, it is one that Muslims believe applies to “every aspect of life, for non-Muslims as well as Muslims,” Spencer argued. “When we talk about allowing for Sharia in the United States, a lot of people assume that we’re talking about benign religious law. … Abdul El-Sayed recently compared it to the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church. Well, if you’re not a Roman Catholic, canon law … doesn’t pertain to you, and it will never bother you. But if you are a non-Muslim, Sharia does pertain to you. And that’s the problem.”
The Islamic political system is “antithetical to the Constitution” of the United States, and the rights recognized therein, Hadian added. For one thing, public calls to prayer or public prayer zones are a publicly-backed establishment of religion, in violation of the First Amendment. In a lesser example, the New York City Police Department is “going in mosques and recruiting for Muslim police officers,” he shared. “Can you imagine if we went into this church and a sheriff’s department came in … and said, ‘I’m here tonight to exclusively recruit a Christian police officer’? There’d be lawsuits before the night was up.”
Furthermore, “under Sharia there is no concept of the equality of rights of all people before the law,” Spencer added. “That does not exist. If you are a non-Muslim, you are denied basic rights that Muslims enjoy. And Muslims occupy a superior position in the society. If you are a woman, you also occupy an inferior position in society that involves a denial of basic rights.”
Bachmann said that Sharia law is “100% incompatible” with the Constitution “because Sharia is the Constitution for the Muslim.”
“Islam operates in a duality,” Hadian explained. “When they don’t have power or control,” Muslims “claim plurality in religion. ‘We’re just a religion. We can operate like any other religion.’” This is the “lower house” or “House of War.”
