Equating Religious Texts with Religious Practice

Howard Friedman over at Religion Clause has a post that directed me towards an article titled Behind an Anti-Sharia Push about the rise of anti-Sharia laws proposed in around two dozen states.  The entire article is worth reading, as it exposes how the anti-Sharia movement is not a grassroots movement, but a  well funded campaign by ultra-right wing conservatives seemingly hell-bent on crushing Islam in America.  Besides the obvious xenophobia, what irks me is when the article reports that a Tennessee State Representative named Rick Womick introduced an Anti-Sharia bill in the Tennessee legislature after reading the Quran

Tennessee’s latest woes include high unemployment, continuing foreclosures and a battle over collective-bargaining rights for teachers. But when a Republican representative took the Statehouse floor during a recent hearing, he warned of a new threat to his constituents’ way of life: Islamic law.

The representative, a former fighter pilot named Rick Womick, said he had been studying the Koran. He declared that Shariah, the Islamic code that guides Muslim beliefs and actions, is not just an expression of faith but a political and legal system that seeks world domination. “Folks,” Mr. Womick, 53, said with a sudden pause, “this is not what I call ‘Do unto others what you’d have them do unto you.’” [emphasis mine]

The idea that you can understand a religion, especially a religion as large and diverse as Islam, by reading their holy book is patently absurd.  A person can not understand Islam by reading the Quran anymore than a person could understand Christianity by reading the Bible.

Despite what I feel is the prevailing view, outside of fundamentalist denominations, a religion's fidelity to its holy scriptures comprise only a small portion of its overall belief system.  Plenty of practices from Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, etc, have either tenuous or non-existent relationships to their respective holy scriptures, but are still considered valid practices by millions of the religion's adherents.  Conversely, most religious people ignore some commandments or words of wisdom from their religion's scriptures.

A person's belief that a religion's truest expression is found within the pages of its scriptures is strongly associated with fundamentalism.  I have noticed most of the people like Representative Rick Womick or David Yerushalmi, who equate the Quran with Islam practice, tend to follow fundamentalist forms of their own religion, namely Christianity or Judaism.  They consider religious practices that deviate from their interpretation of the holy scriptures illegitimate, even though almost all fundamentalists ignore some portions of the texts they claim to follow.  They then apply their belief that equates the scriptures with religious practice to other religions, arguing the "true form" of that religion follows every commandment in the text, much like the "true form" of their religion follows every commandment from their holy text. 

The fundamentalist equation of holy scriptures and religious practice creates the situation where they can argue "Since the Quran says  so-and-so, true Muslims believe so-and-so."  It does not matter if many or most Muslims don't believe the commandment, because to the fundamentalist mind, they are not real Muslims.  In a way, when people like David Yerushalmi, Rick Womick, or Pamela Geller talk about what they consider true Islam, they give legitimacy to groups of Muslims who take the most extreme interpretations of the Quran.  They are "true Muslims."  As for the large majority of Muslims in America, they either must not follow the legitimate form of Islam, or they are secretly radicals who will wait for the right time to either kill us all, or impose a theocratic regime over America.

If a person wants to know how Muslims practice Islam around the world, they will put down the Quran and open a books on Islamic history and anthropological studies on Muslim communities.

[This post was edited based on the suggestions of dws]