Sherman Jackson, the University of Southern California professor who delivered the eulogy at Muhammad Ali’s funeral today in Louisville, KY, advocates changing American culture in order to implement Sharia (Islamic law). In a 2000 online book titled American Public Policy and American-Muslim Politics, he called on American Muslims to undertake the “difficult task of penetrating, appropriating and redirecting American culture” to “influence the legal order in America.” For while “it would be foolish to deny that the prospects for American acceptance of such institutions as stoning, or flogging or amputation are virtually nil, at least for the foreseeable future,” he takes heart that “notions of what is cruel and unusual, of what is barbaric . . . are a function of culture, not law.” Jackson concludes, “May God grant us the courage and the vision to rise to the task before us,” i.e., implementing Sharia in America.
