Shariah Index Project
 The Shariah Index Project seeks to address the religion-politics relationship question that has racked the Muslim World since the death of the Prophet Muhammad. A contentious issue between religious Islamic political and secular political parties within the Muslim World, and between Muslim and Western nations (for whom Church-State separation is a foundational concept), it evolves around the right balance between institutions of political power and authority and institutions of religious power and authority, and whether the modern nation state Muslims live in should be a secular or religious (i.e. Islamic) State?
After two years of work, the Sharia Index Project’s working team of Sunni and Shi’a legal scholars from Morocco to Indonesia achieved consensus on a final structure on philosophy, methodology, and approach to providing the general public, opinion leaders, and state officials in both the Muslim and Western worlds with an Islamic legal benchmark for measuring “Islamicity” of a state.
In addition to producing The Shariah Index book, comprised of the essays and deliberations of these scholars, and which provides the Index’s theoretical foundation, Cordoba will present the Annual State of the Muslim World Index. This index, which involves a partnership with the Gallup Organization, polls people from 44 Muslim-majority nations (and members of the Organization of Islamic Conference) on how well their nations comply in practice with this Islamic legal benchmark of an Islamic State.
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Cordoba Initiative Newsletter - September 2010
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf Speaks OutSince speaking with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf on July 16 about the Muslim community center to be built in lower Manhattan, it has been painful to watch the national dialogue around this issue deteriorate into misinformation, hysteria and fear of Islam.
Imam Rauf has been overseas and not able to readily answer questions of the media, so the rhetoric from individuals like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and others who share their views has continued to distort the real issue at hand. Not all Muslims are terrorists, and the actions of terrorists are certainly not Islamic. This point must be realized if the conversation is ever to elevate beyond these harmful sound bites. It is my sincere hope that by releasing this audio recording and transcript of our recent conversation, those who honestly seek understanding about the Islamic center and the good leaders behind it will find it.
Listen to the July 16 interview here
Bloomberg Remarks at Iftar Dinner“But if we say that a mosque and community center should not be built near the perimeter of the World Trade Center site, we would compromise our commitment to fighting terror with freedom.
“We would undercut the values and principles that so many heroes died protecting. We would feed the false impressions that some Americans have about Muslims. We would send a signal around the world that Muslim Americans may be equal in the eyes of the law, but separate in the eyes of their countrymen. And we would hand a valuable propaganda tool to terrorist recruiters, who spread the fallacy that America is at war with Islam.”
-Mayor Bloomberg
Read full article here
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