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Before anyone gets to worked up about acknowledging Islam as “a main source” of law in a new Iraq constitution, consider this language of Article 2 of the Constitution of Egypt:
“Islam is the Religion of the State. Arabic is its official language, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia).”
That’s in a country that had at the time the charter was adopted a large Coptic Christian minority and sizable Orthodox Christian and Jewish minorities. It was also then and now run by secular “Arab socialists.” To hear NBC network tell it last night, if Sharia were deemed “a source of legislation” in Iraq, it would mean an Iranian-style theocracy. If they had adopted language like Egypt’s “the principal source,” there would be a huge stink here. But surely, mention of Egypt does not make one think of theocracy.