Hadian: Radical Islam a threat to all

SANDPOINT — Radical Islam is a creeping menace in the world, even in Idaho, and it won’t rest until all are subject to Islamic law, or Shariah law.

That was the message presented to a receptive, near-capacity crowd at the Sandpoint Community Hall Tuesday by Shahram Hadian, former Muslim-turned-Christian pastor of Truth in Love Christian Fellowship.

“We are in an ideological war,” Hadian said. “Don’t listen to officials who say we are not in an ideological war.”

Hosted by the Bonner County Republican Woman, Inc., Hadian outlined in rapid-fire, expansive, historical detail for over an hour and a half, why the precepts of a strictly interpreted Islam is a threat to western civilization, similar to the threat currently imposed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL. The so-called caliphate — an all-powerful Islamic government — is presently spreading across the Middle East.

“I have witnessed  … what Islam has done to freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, freedom of the press, rights of women, rights of minorities, rights of homosexuals,” Hadian, a naturalized U.S. citizen, but Iranian by birth, said. “The rights of any group that disagrees with the Islamic government.”

The BCRW, Inc. forbid the media from recording any audio or video, or from taking photos during the private lecture for “proprietary reasons.”

Hadian claimed radical Muslims who subscribe to strict Islamic law are required to conquer anyone who is not a literal follower of Muhammad, the prophet of Allah, or God. That includes not only non-Muslims, but even moderate Muslims as well.

“I am not anti-Muslim,” Hadian said. “I am anti-Islam.”

Thus a true Muslim will, by the precepts of Islam’s holy and other texts, follow the example of Muhammad. And by that example, anyone not a true follower of Muhammad can be enslaved or killed, according to Hadian. Even other Muslims of more moderate sects.

And that radical element is infiltrating America, Hadian said.

“The ultimate goal of Islam is to establish a world order,” he said.

His solution? Focus on immigration.

“Less than 10 percent of all of the teachings of Islam when it comes to the Shariah, the accepted Islamic doctrine … is religious,” that is, dealing with things like prayer and fasting, Hadian said. The majority of Shariah deals with legal issues — custody, legal and criminal codes, military and financial codes. “That’s why I say Shariah law is a constitution.”

Shariah law and the U.S. Constitution cannot coexist under strict Islamic law, he concluded. Therefore, Muslim immigrants must be strictly controlled to weed out Islamic radicals.

“Limit immigration with greater scrutiny, with more time to scrutinize their backgrounds,” he said. “Halt refugees so that we can have Congress oversee the system (and) get scrutiny from the federal government.”

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The federal government plans to “dump” 2,000 Muslim refugees in Boise alone in the next one to three years, according to Hadian.

Reactions to the lecture were mixed.

Gloria Ray of Sandpoint was there to learn, and left with plans to do some fact-checking.

“He knows how to use selected facts,” Ray, a member of the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force, said. “He makes a presentation that really draws the crowd in.”

Ray said she didn’t want to malign anyone, and although she admitted to disagreeing with Hadian’s views, also said everyone deserves to be heard.

 “I don’t want, out of my own ignorance, to do the same thing that people do about things they don’t understand,” Ray said. “I don’t want to make blanket statements. But it’s worth looking into some of the things he said.”

Rich Lowery listened to the lecture with his wife, Amy. He felt Hadian, “didn’t say anything I didn’t already know,” based on the facts Lowery was familiar with.

“I see his concerns, I hear his concerns,” Lowery said.

Lowery said he had known some Muslims in the past, including an imam, a Muslim leader.

“He and I had some pretty interesting conversations,” Lowery said.

Hadian was born a Muslim in Iran in 1972. He immigrated with his family to the U.S., “to seek freedom” ahead of the 1979 fall of the Shah of Iran and the Islamic Revolution there, according to his website. Hadian’s family later moved to Canada before he returned to the U.S. where he eventually became a Christian pastor.  He is now considered an apostate under Islamic law.

Not without political aspirations, Hadian ran as a Washington state gubernatorial candidate in 2012. He received 3.3 percent of the vote, according to ballotpedia.com. He now runs the “Truth in Love Project,” for which he speaks about “critical issues facing us as Americans, such as the “threat of Shari’ah Law in America … restoring the 10 commandments to our nation,” and “protecting our Constitution and the rule of law from application of foreign law,” according to his website.

Hadian is has been widely credited with influencing the defeat of SB 1067, an amendment to state child support enforcement law, that would have aligned state and federal statutes with international treaties.

Attached to the Idaho bill was $16 million in federal child support enforcement funding, and $30 million in Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) funding.

Hadian denied any influence regarding the failed legislation.

“Those claims are fabricated by an agenda-driven and biased media,” Hadian wrote on the BCRW, Inc. Facebook page. “I was asked by some legislators to present my concerns about Senate Bill 1067. Those legislators made their own decisions, based on many factors, and decided to table this deceptive and power-grabbing (by the federal government) bill.”