From the political right I've been hearing some fear mongering over Islamic/Sharia law and how horrible it is. I'm about the last person who would want to live under religious rule but even I am not afraid to see what it's all about. A little skimming through some pages on Sharia and I found two things that don't make it sound evil.
The first isn't something I'd want to implement but it shows that Christians do not own the market on compassion for the poor. Zakat is a tax on the wealth (not income) of everyone who can afford to feed themselves. The tax is used to ease the suffering of those in extreme poverty.
The second is something that I hope catches on more in America. Islamic law forbids interest on loans. Banks adhering to Islamic law share the risk on any loan or investment by partnering with the person looking for the loan and selling their 'shares' to the client over time. Charging a percentage owed is considered amoral. The bank makes it's money from a negotiated flat rate.
Islamic style loans are not immune to exploiting the clients ( someone will always try to beat the system). But in a 'free market' we are supposed to have purchasing power from having a variety of choices. The problem is that the corporate environment is to make us believe that purchasing power comes from a lot of companies offering more or less the same deals. It is much better if they would offer us different solutions for the same problem.
Instead of fear mongering ideas like we should be dissecting them. We should take the parts we like and discard the rest. The constitution it's self 'borrows' from earlier language of older documents (pursuit of happiness wasn't an original idea) and improved on them. We should continue to do that with taboo ideas like Sharia. And as a side effect people who are being taught to hate the west will find that harder to do when they see pieces of their culture assimilated into ours.
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