Ben Carson Objects To Sharia President As Online Video Shows Six Men Shot For Breaking Sharia Apostasy Law

Ben Carson, Republican presidential aspirant who said he would not support a Muslim president espousing sharia law, was pilloried by Islamists Tuesday while the Internet churned out portrayals of punishments awaiting those who would defy Islam. Carson’s clarification came in the wake of the controversy sparked by his Sunday interview on NBC’s Meet the Press where he said he would not advocate putting “a Muslim in charge of this nation.”

According to CNN, Ben Carson made his point of clarification at a news conference in Sharonville, Ohio, on Tuesday. Insisting that his Sunday remark was based on the question of who should be allowed to be president of the United States, he elaborated further.

“And I said I think anybody, regardless of their religion, if they are willing to embrace the values and principles of America and our Constitution and subject their beliefs to the Constitution. I have no problem with that at all. And that’s perfectly reasonable.”

On Monday, Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic relations, called on Ben Carson to drop out of the race because he was unfit to lead. Awad made the charge during a Capitol Hill press conference, the Guardian reported. Awad cited article six of the U.S. constitution stating “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States”.

Providing a backdrop to this exchange, news accounts have been proliferating online on the subject of punishments meted out to those who would defy sharia law.

Among them is a video shared by Middle East terrorism watchdog Jihadology on July 31, 2015, showing six men charged with being members of “Apostate Rejectionist Committees” and then executed. Under sharia law rigidly enforced by the Islamic State (ISIS), the traditional position of Muslim scholars and jurists has been that apostasy (converting from Islam to another religion) is punishable by death. According to Heavy.com, the men were interrogated one after another in orange jumpsuits typical of ISIS captives and shot in the head, as shown in this graphic YouTube video.

Refugees from the Middle East arriving in Europe have brought with them accounts of non-Muslims being subjected to atrocities. Since last year, Christian groups have been protesting in Berlin, Germany, with graphic pictures of the violence being perpetrated against Christian and Yazidi communities in Iraq and Syria.

Sharia law has also manifested itself in a spate of honor killings in the United States in the last few years. BBC reports an article in the Islamic Monthly tracking these incidents in different cities. In 2008, two Muslim teenage girls were shot dead by their father in Texas for having boyfriends. In Georgia, pizza shop owner Chaudry Rashid strangled to death his daughter Sandeela Kanwal who wanted out of an arranged marriage. The following year, a Noor Almaleki in Arizona was run over by her father who disapproved of her boyfriend. In New York, one Aasiya Hassan was beheaded by her husband for wanting a divorce. Again in New York, Amina Ajmal charged her father for the killing of her boyfriend’s relatives in Pakistan.

Here are some basic tenets in a nutshell, backed by sharia law. 1) regarding women, Sahih al-Bukhari Volume 3, Book 48, Number 826, says that the witness of a woman equals half that of a man because of the deficiency of a woman’s mind; 2) regarding non-Muslims, Surah 8, ayat 12, says strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them; 3) regarding Jews, Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 52, Number 177, says believers will be given victory over Jews so that a stone will say, “O Muslim! There is a Jew behind me; kill him! ” 4) regarding Muslims who convert to another religion, Shahih Bukhari 9:83:37, says the blood of a Muslim cannot be shed except in three cases — in Qisas for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam and leaves the Muslims.

For objecting to a Muslim U.S. president who has not renounced sharia, Ben Carson appears to have done his research with due diligence.

[Photo by Richard Ellis/Getty Images]