Posted By Cinnamon Stillwell On March 22, 2010 @ 12:06 am In FrontPage |

Sherman Jackson [1], also known as Abdal Hakim Jackson, is a professor [2] of Ar
abic and Islamic studies in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the Univer
sity of Michigan.
Jackson specializes in Islamic law and has written and spoken extensively on the
subject. Soon after the
September 11, 2001, Islamic terrorist attacks, Jackson took the line popular amo
ng apologists, stating at a September 2001 University of Michigan Teach-in [3] t
itled, “Terrorism: A Perversion of Islam,” that “the killing of innocent peoples
is forbidden by the law of Islam and it has been from the beginning of Islam.”
But it turns out that not only is Jackson an apologist, he an outspoken proponen
t of the Islamist subversion of Western civilization.
Jackson made this abundantly clear at the Reviving the Islamic Spirit – 8th Conv
ention [4] in Toronto, Canada in December 2009, as a participant in the panel, “
The New We: Muslims in Future of Western Society.” Jonathan Usher, who attended
and wrote about the conference for Campus Watch [5], described Jackson’s speech
as nothing less than “a call to battle.” As he put it, “It had little to do with
peaceful co-existence with the West, but was an exhortation for Islam to domina
te the West.” According to Usher, Jackson
…believes that the Muslim and Western worlds are in conflict and competition, an
d that only one can end up dominant. Put simply, he wants to replace Western cul
ture with Muslim culture.
…Jackson expressed a desire to be included in American society—but not if any so
rt of cultural sacrifice were required. He said that adapting to Western culture
would lead to being a Muslim in name only and advocated defining America by Mus
lim standards and imposing cultural and intellectual supremacy. He urged Muslims
not to follow Western cultural
authority, but rather to achieve their own cultural authority from the inside, a
s part of the system.
…Lastly, to cheers, he said that his primary commitment was to Allah, not to Ame
rica.
Moreover, Jackson has a history of making such radical statements.
He co-authored a 2000 online book titled, American Public Policy and American-Mu
slim Politics [6] and published by the Chicago-based International Strategy and
Policy Institute [7], whose mission is to “promote the correct understanding of
Islam and Muslims in the United States.” Jackson’s coauthors were DePaul Univers
ity Director of Islamic World Studies Aminah Beverly McCloud [8] and State Unive
rsity of New York at Binghamton professor and director of the Institute of Globa
l Cultural Studies Ali Mazrui. McCloud is a former board member [9] of the Chic
ago branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and a follower [1
0] of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, while Mazrui’s bio [11] notes that
he is “one of the first to try and link the treatment of Palestinians with Sout
h Africa’s apartheid” and has also “argued that sharia law is not incompatible w
ith democracy and supported its introduction in some parts of northern Nigeria.”
In the chapter, “Muslims, Islamic Law and Public Policy in the United States [12
],” Jackson cites the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci’s influential theories abo
ut altering societies not through politics, but through cultural and educational
institutions. Jackson proposes that American Muslims approach the “difficult ta
sk of penetrating, appropriating and redirecting American culture” in order to “
influence the legal order in America.” As he puts it:
…it should be understood that once this is done, there are no Constitutional imp
ediments to having these laws applied in the public domain. Muslims must be voca
l and confident in articulating the public utility underlying the rules on thing
s like riba [usury], adultery, theft, drinking, contracts, pre-marital sex, chil
d-custody and even polygyny. This should all be done, however, in the context of
an open acceptance of American custom (urf) as a legally valid source in areas
where the shari’ah admits the reliance upon custom.
As for the gradual acceptance of the more horrifying aspects of Sharia law, Jack
son notes that “it would be foolish to deny that the prospects for American acce
ptance of such institutions as stoning, or flogging or amputation are virtually
nil, at least for the foreseeable future.” But he concludes on a note only an Is
lamist could find comforting:
…notions of what is cruel and unusual, of what is barbaric, of what is draconian
(which is the real basis upon which America rejects these punishments) are a fu
nction of culture, not law. It is only through changes in American culture that
American attitudes towards such things are likely to change. Thus, in the end, a
s in the beginning, we are brought face to face with the inextricable connection
between American culture and Muslim self-determination. May God grant us the co
urage and the vision to rise to the task before us.
This call to gradually replace the liberties enshrined in the U.S. Constitution
with seventh century notions of justice is both frightening and morally repugnan
t.
Despite a record of expressing such extreme views, Jackson has made a name for h
imself as a moderate and a reformer. His success in this charade stems in part f
rom his willingness to break from his peers and publicly discuss Islamic terrori
sm, its theological underpinnings, and the need for related reform. An article [
13] in the Wesleyan Argus quoted a November 2007 Jackson speech on “Jihad, Terro
rism, and Modern Violence” at Wesleyan University:
‘Muslims in the West must be active and vocal in their condemnation of current v
iolations of hirabah,’ he insisted, referring to the Sharia law that outlaws any
act of publicly directed violence that spreads fear and helplessness. According
to Jackson, hirabah more than covers today’s conception of terrorism. He discus
sed the moderate Muslim unwillingness to publicly decry acts of terrorism and at
tributed it to the desire to not be seen as ‘Uncle Toms.’
But Patrick Poole, writing for the American Thinker [14] in September 2007, call
s Jackson’s reasoning and motives into question. He describes Jackson as one of
the earliest proponents [15] of the “Islamic lexicon” and, in particular, an adv
ocate for replacing the term jihad with hirabah in discussing Islamic terrorism.
Poole and other skeptics allege that, in practice, this is nothing more than a
semantic sleight of hand that serves to obscure the legitimization of terrorism
within Islam and to further the Muslim Brotherhood’s civilization-jihadist proce
ss [16].
Poole notes that Jim Guirard of the Truespeak Institute is the “foremost advocat
e for this approach,” and that Sherman Jackson is among the scholars he relies u
pon for his findings. Poole points to an unclassified memo from Pentagon Joint S
taff analyst Stephen Coughlin in which Jackson is cited as one of Guirard’s cont
ributors, along with fellow Middle East studies professors John Esposito [17] of
Georgetown University and Muqtedar Khan [18] of the University of Delaware. Sum
marizing Coughlin’s findings, Poole concludes that,
…as Walid Phares and Stephen Coughlin have already revealed, many of the Western
Muslim advocates of this new approach are directly tied to known Muslim Brother
hood front groups operating in the US. As Coughlin itemizes, Sherman Jackson is
a “trustee” to the North American Islamic Trust, and affiliated with the Islamic
Society of North America and the Muslim Student Association, the first two of w
hich were named as unindicted co-conspirators in the current Holy Land Foundatio
n terror financing federal trial underway in Dallas, and the last was the origin
al organizational wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. The hiraba-jihad te
rminology has also been endorsed by the Wahhabist Council for Islamic Education
and the extremist mouthpiece Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), also
named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial. That is
telling in and of itself.
Jackson is also considered an expert on the intersection of Islam and African-Am
ericans (he is himself an African-American convert to Islam). His 2005 book on t
he subject, Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Towards the Third Resurrection,
was reviewed favorably [19] by radical Islam apologist [20] John Esposito, Jame
s H. Cone (the originator [21] of black liberation theology and stated inspirati
on [22] for controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright, President Obama’s former “spir
itual mentor” in Chicago), and DePaul professor Aminah Beverly McCloud [23]. Bey
ond McCloud’s aforementioned affiliation with CAIR and the Nation of Islam, she
played a pivotal role [24] in influencing Washington, D.C. PBS station WETA’s de
cision to cancel its airing of the laudable documentary on moderate Muslims, Isl
am vs. Islamists, in early 2007.
Jackson’s career may be peppered with associations and endorsements from some of
the worst apologists and radicals from the field of Middle East studies—and his
involvement in the obfuscating “truespeak” movement points to even more trouble
some ties with Muslim Brotherhood front groups—but, ultimately, it is his own wo
rds that prove the most damning. His stated agenda clearly has nothing to do wit
h moderation or reform; it is quite simply that of an Islamist.
Cinnamon Stillwell is the West Coast Representative for Campus Watch [25], a pro
ject of the Middle East Forum [26]. She can be reached at stillwell@meforum.org
[27].