Imam Zaid Shakir, the Muslim-American co-founder of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California deleted a post on his popular Facebook page after receiving backlash for suggesting Sharia law should be applied in judging if Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh are credible.
“I do not support the appointment of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court of the United States,” he began. “My position, however, is based neither on the accusations nor the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.”
Shakir said he did not support Kavanaugh because he believes “he lied under oath” and is “too politically partisan to sit on the Supreme Court.”
Shakir went on to explain that he believes Ford’s allegations “cannot be used as evidence against Judge Kavanaugh.” He based his reasoning on “Muslim teachings” from the Qur’an, citing verse 24:4 which says “Those who bring charges of sexual improprieties against chaste women, then fail to come forth with four corroborating witnesses, lash them eighty times and never again accept their testimony. Such are truly corrupt.”
He also cited following verses which warn against alleging accusations without witnesses and claim those who do so “are liars in the sight of God.”
“The honor these verses are designed to protect is real, as are the condemnations they issue, as well as the punishments they threaten,” Shakir wrote. “If anyone can randomly produce vile accusations against anyone they please, and the only standard assessing the veracity of those accusations is our subjective feeling concerning the credibility of the accuser or the accused, none of us would be safe against the impugnment of his or her honor.”
Shakir warned against attacking Ford, but claimed “we are to remain silent and if we chose to speak it should be along the lines of the skepticism mentioned in the above-quotes verses and not in the voice of blind acceptance.”
The post was later deleted after backlash but Shakir followed-up in an additional post where he claimed he deleted the original because he “misused verses from the Qur’an to support an argument that would have been more correctly supported by another verse” and because “some people, especially sisters have been harmed and I am not in the business of harming people.”
In another follow-up post he walked back his claim that Ford needed four witnesses and said “anyone accusing someone of sexual violence, such as attempted rape, need not bring forth four witnesses to corroborate their claim. Furthermore, they are clear of any crime or sin unless after a proper investigation the accuser is proven to have lied.”
“While I apologize for that lack of clarity and any hurt it may have caused, I do warn against diminishing the power of patience and prayer,” he added. “There is always more that can be said about any issue, but I will take my own advice and shut up, pray, and be patient with Allah’s decree.”
“This Imam is a fundamentalist Muslim that’s expressing his opinions based on religious teachings which he was taught,” Imam Tawhidi, an Australian Muslim Scholar often called “Imam of Peace,” told The Daily Wire. “That’s what he was trained to do. He has a terrible record and preaches outdated ideologies that don’t belong in the USA.”