Speaking as a Muslim in the West, I see a crisis in religious authority, we need Indigenous Muslim scholarship understanding the Western way of life and is able to use the understanding, using legitimate Islamic sources to bring more scholarship to our way of life in the west. There's a need for that.
Mark DurieWe only have one penal code in the United States, and it applies in every single state, every city, no matter who is there. This is part of the fear mongering, that has gripped the United States, the notion that we need to pass a law forbidding the institution of a foreign Law in the United States when it is forbidden by the constitutions is yet another example of targeting Muslim communities because they are seen as different, or exceptional in other ways.
Mark DurieEveryone interprets something in a different way, it's channelled through the human mind.
Mark DurieSome people in the west have responded to the terrorist attacks by trying to look for everything that is positive in Islam. I think that was a strong response after 9/11, was to try to reach out as positively as possible.
Mark DurieThere's no such thing as values in Sharia law, that is what I was trying to explain, it's understood in thousands of different ways by tens of thousands of different institutions, who really disagree with each other far more than they disagree with people of other religions.
Mark Durie