Encounter Broadsides - A New Beginning, al-Azhar University, and Shariah:The Threat to America

Sep 28, 2026

Encounter Broadsides launches a critical pamphlet series blending historical political urgency with modern distribution and technology to argue for liberty and democratic-capitalist institutions under pressure from renewed collectivist sentiment. The text uses Barack Obama’s al-Azhar speech as an entry point to explain sharia as Islam’s comprehensive legal-political framework, distinguishing it from radical Islam and emphasizing a competitive-analysis thesis associated with “Team B-II.” It challenges claims that only “violent extremists” matter and explains why jihad is widely understood within mainstream Islamic scholarship as militarized.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryReligion & Spirituality

FormatPDF

Pages52

Reading Time2 h 11 min

AccessFree to download

Encounter Broadsides series overview

Sharia as Islam’s legal-political framework

Distinguishing radical Islam from moderate Islam

The Team B-II thesis and “competitive analysis”

Critique of “violent extremists” framing

Understanding jihad in Islamic scholarship

ANDRЕМ 0. МсОАРТНУ BRCA DsTDRN°18 ENCOUNTER BROADSIDES: a new series of critical pampblets from EncounterBooks.Uniting an I8th-century sense of politicalurgency and rhetorical wit(think The FederalistPapers,Common Sense)with 2Ist-century tech-nology and channels of distribution,EncounterBroadsides ofer indispensable ammunition forintelligent debate on the critical issues of our time.Written with passion by some of our most authori-tative authors,Encounter Broadsides make the casefor liberty and the institutions of democratic capi-talism at a time when they are under siege from theresurgence of collectivist sentiment.Read them in asittingand come avay knowing the best we can bopefor and the worst we must fear. ust a few months into his presidency,beforedecreeing“A New Beginning”in the rela-tionship between Islam and the West,BarackObama took pains to choose just the right sitefor the occasion of his auspicious speech.Hepicked al-Azhar University in Cairo. J Islam is beholden neither to synods norto any formal ecclesiastical hierarchy.Thisancient seat of Sunni scholarship is thus asclose as it gets to a Muslim Vatican for Sunnis,vastly the majority sect among the creed'sI.4billion adherents worldwide.Given that Islamalso abides no metaphorical wall of separationbetween the spiritual and secular realms,it isunsurprising that al-Azhar's scholastic spe-cialty is sharia.In Conrad Black's recent andapt description,sharia is Islam’s “totalitarianlegal system”for organizing society,"directedby clerics and going far beyond what even themost pious and fervent Westerner would con-sider the province of religion.” Translated as "the path,"sharia is the cor-pus of Allah’s law,prescribing a comprehen-sive legal and political framework.Though it certainly has spiritual elements,Black is cor-rect that it would be a mistake to think of itas a “religious”code in the Western sense.Itwould control every aspect of life-from thesacred to the mundane,from veneration ofthe divine to worldly politics,economics,mil-itary operations,social relations,familial obli-gations,inheritance,and even gritty details ofpersonal hygiene. It is sharia,not terrorism,that must be ourline of demarcation,dividing radical Islam(or,as it is variously known,“Islamism”or“political Islam”)from moderate Islam.Thatis the thesis of a recent study called Shariah:The Threat to America-An Exercise in Competi-tive Analysis.I am one of the study's severalauthors.The group-featuring a wealth ofnational security experience drawn from thespheres of intelligence,law enforcement,themilitary,academe,and journalism-dubbeditself“Team B-II.” The name is an homage to the original“Team B.”More than a generation ago,thatarray of skeptics took issue with détente-the It is sharia,not terrorism,thatmust be our line of demarcation,dividing radical Islam frommoderate Islam. regnant early'7os view that the world wasplenty big enough for both sides of the IronCurtain to coexist and even cooperate incountless areas of mutual interest.That TeamB profoundly influenced a certain Californiagovernor who would go on,as president,todefeat the Evil Empire and win the Cold War.Its conclusion was straightforward yet,at thetime,bracing:The Soviet Union was weddedto a totalitarian ideology,Communism,thatsought global hegemony and would relent-lessly work-by means violent and nonviolent-to secure the defeat of the United States andits allies in order to obtain it. Team B-II analogously concludes that thereis today a global Islamist movement just as [3] determined as were the Soviets to achieveworldwide dominion and as fully committedto use all means at its disposal-not just ter-rorism,not by a long shot-to destroy Amer-ica and the West.By myopically focusing onjihadist violence,today's equivalents of thedétente solons repeat their predecessors'per-ilous minimization of the threat to our wayof life. Preponderant in what Angelo Codevillacalls the “ruling class”(opinion elites in gov-ernm

FAQs

What is the purpose of the Encounter Broadsides series described in the text?

The series is presented as a set of critical pamphlets meant to provide persuasive ammunition for informed debate on major contemporary issues affecting liberty and democratic-capitalist institutions.

How does the text define sharia, and why is it considered more than a religious code?

Sharia is described as Allah’s corpus of law that prescribes a comprehensive legal and political framework, governing nearly every aspect of life from spiritual to everyday secular matters.

What central argument does the text attribute to Team B-II regarding radical Islam?

Team B-II is described as concluding that a global Islamist movement seeks dominion and uses multiple means beyond terrorism, and that mainstream interpretations, not just fringe violence, drive jihadist catalysis.

Sep 28, 2026

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