Few people today would actually argue with the assertion that America is in crisis. But what kind of crisis? The primary crisis the nation is facing seems to be over what kind of crisis America is facing. Patriots would say that the crisis comes from the leftist traitor class that has sold America out, and from millions of leftists who actually believe that we need open borders and a migrant invasion. Leftists, meanwhile, would have us believe that “white Christian nationalists” are poised to turn this country into a fascist dictatorship in service of Orange Man Bad, and they’re the only ones standing between us and a Fourth Reich.
Meanwhile, Khalil Meek, who is the founder of the Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA) and a longtime Muslim activist in the United States, agrees that America is in crisis, and he has his own idea of how to cure what ails us.
According to the Middle East Media Research Institute, Meek, in a recent Friday sermon at the Noor Islamic Cultural Center in Dublin, Ohio, had no trouble identifying what’s wrong with our green and pleasant land: “Today, we live in an American society that has a lot of fear, anger, anxiety, and a ton of ignorance towards Islam and Muslims. America faces crises of depression, suicide, drugs, broken families, racism, identity confusion, it goes on and on and on.”
That’s right: America’s got a fever, and Meek has the cure: more cowbell. “And Islam,” he declared, “has the answer to all of this.”
All right. Let’s see if it does. A site about dealing with depression as a Muslim offers standard stuff that isn’t specific to Islam: feeling depressed is not a sign of weak faith, it’s not wrong to seek therapy, you are not alone, and so on. It’s the same thing with suicide and drugs: there are Islamic groups working against both, but they aren’t bringing a specifically Islamic solution for either; the advice they offer can be found in coming from all manner of faith groups, as well as secular organizations.
When it comes to broken families, however, it’s another matter altogether. In Islam, the problem isn’t so much that single mothers are having children and fathers aren’t taking any responsibility for their children’s well-being; it’s more that the rules of marriage and divorce create situations that few Americans have encountered, but they will soon enough.
All a man has to do, according to Islamic law, in order to divorce his wife is tell her “I divorce you.” If he says it to her once and then calms down and changes his mind, she can go back to him with no problem. If he divorces her twice, again, there is no problem if he relents and she returns.
If, however, a husband says “Talaq,” that is, “You are divorced” or “I divorce you” to his wife three times, she can’t return to him unless and until she marries another man, consummates the marriage, and is in turn divorced by the new husband. This is based on the Qur’an. Allah’s regulations for divorce emphasize regarding women that “men are a degree above them” (Qur’an 2:228). The Qur’an stipulates that a husband who divorces his wife three times cannot reconcile with her until she marries another man and is in turn divorced by him: “And if he has divorced her [for the third time], then she is not lawful to him after that until she has married another husband.” (Qur’an 2:230).
Once the divorce is final, the children are placed in the custody of the father, no questions asked. The divorced woman, if she can’t find someone else to marry, goes off into a life of penury and isolation.
Then there is polygamy: a Muslim man can have as many as four wives at one time. Polygamy is based on Qur’an 4:3: “And if you fear that you will not deal fairly by the orphans, marry the women who seem good to you, two or three or four, and if you fear that you cannot do justice, then one, or those that your right hands possess. In this way it is more likely that you will not do injustice.” Those “those that your right hands possess,” according to Islamic law, are infidel woman who have been taken as slaves and can be used sexually without marriage.
Polygamy destroys the idea of marriage as a partnership of equals and, along with Islam’s easy divorce laws, reduces women to the status of commodities. This is a solution to what ails us?
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Khalil Meek thinks so. He exhorts Muslims to spread the good word: “Dawah,” that is, spreading the Islamic faith, “is the responsibility of every single Muslim. Dawah is compassion. Muslims have a treasure so valuable, so priceless, so incredible, not sharing Islam could be a form of unintentional cruelty if we keep it to ourselves. Not sharing Islam could be considered selfish, stingy. We have Islam, the best gift ever.”
And he wants so very much to give it to us all: “And again, here in America, it's leading the world in every problem there is. Suicide deaths among the youth, Islam provides purpose, hope, dignity. America, family bonds are collapsing. Islam protects family heritage. It protects marriage, parenting, gender dignity, and compassion. America, people are spiritually lost. Everybody's online looking for some kind of remedy for how they feel inside. Millions are seeking spiritual guidance. Islam fulfills that spiritual emptiness.”
Maybe. But it’s clear that just as Islam has a very different idea of what constitutes “justice” and “freedom” from what the West has in mind, so its idea of marriage and “gender dignity” differ sharply from Western ideas. Caveat emptor.
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