{"id":14053,"date":"2026-04-25T16:15:43","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T23:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/?p=14053"},"modified":"2026-04-25T16:15:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T23:15:43","slug":"no-religious-test-and-islamic-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2026\/04\/25\/no-religious-test-and-islamic-law\/","title":{"rendered":"“No Religious Test” and Islamic Law"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In Article VI of the U. S. Constitution we read:<\/p>\n

. . . no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Does it follow that the U. S. Constitution should be so interpreted as to allow a Muslim citizen who supports Sharia (Islamic law) to run for public office? \u00a0No!\u00a0 For the same Constitution, in its First Amendment, enjoins a salutary separation of church\/synagogue\/mosque and state, though not in those words.\u00a0 Sharia and the values and principles enshrined in the founding documents are incompatible.\u00a0 On no sane interpretation is our great Constitution a suicide pact.<\/p>\n

It is important to realize that Islam is as much \u00a0an anti-Enlightenment political ideology as it is a religion.\u00a0 Our Enlightenment founders must be rolling around in their graves at the very suggestion that Sharia-subscribing Muslims are eligible for the presidency and other public offices.<\/p>\n

Many assume that no restriction may be placed on admissible religions for the purposes of the implementation\u00a0 of Article VI.\u00a0 I deny it. A religion that requires the subverting of the U. S. Constitution is not an admissible religion when it comes to applying the “no religious Test” provision. One could argue that on a sane interpretation of the Constitution, Islam, though a religion, is not an admissible religion where an admissible religion is one that does not contain core doctrines which, if implemented, would subvert the Constitution.<\/p>\n

Or one might argue that Islam is not a religion at all.\u00a0 Damned near anything can and will be called a religion by somebody.\u00a0 Some say with a straight face that leftism is a religion, others that Communism is a religion.\u00a0 Neither is a religion on any adequate definition of ‘religion.’\u00a0 I have heard it said that atheism is a religion.\u00a0 Surely it isn’t.\u00a0 Is a heresy of a genuine religion itself a religion?\u00a0 Arguably not.\u00a0 Hillaire Belloc and others have maintained that Islam is a Christian heresy.\u00a0 Or one could argue that Islam, or perhaps\u00a0radical<\/em>\u00a0Islam,\u00a0 is not a religion but a totalitarian political ideology\u00a0masquerading<\/em> as a religion.\u00a0 If an X masquerades as a Y, then the X is not a Y. How to define religion is a hotly contested issue in the philosophy of religion.<\/p>\n

The main point here is that “religious” in “. . . no religious Test shall ever be required” is subject to interpretation.\u00a0 We are under no obligation to give it a latitudinarian reading that allows in a destructive ideology incompatible with our values and principles. And we ought not.\u00a0 Religious liberty, like every other kind, has limits.<\/p>\n

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