According to the website AndrewCMcCarthy.com:

Andy is a former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney in New York, best known for leading the prosecution against the Blind Sheik (Omar Abdel Rahman) and eleven other jihadists for waging a terrorist war against the United States – including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. After the 9/11 attacks, he supervised the U.S. attorney’s command-post near Ground Zero. He later served as an advisor to the Deputy Secretary of Defense.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of hearing Mr. McCarthy speak in Massachusetts. At that time he explained his approach to prosecuting the Blind Sheik. He explained that his staff began to look at the writings of Islamic scholars in an effort to provide that the Blind Sheik was acting outside of the tenets of Islam. Unfortunately, as the investigation of those tenets progressed, the evidence pointed to the fact that the Blind Sheik was actually following the tenets of Islam.

In a National Review Online article written today, Mr. McCarthy again explains how Islam is in agreement with the recent attack in Paris. He explains that the attack was not the result of extremism–it was in keeping with the basic tenets of Islam.

The article begins:

There are now at least twelve confirmed dead in the terrorist attack carried out by at least three jihadist gunmen against the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo. While it practices equal-opportunity satire, lampooning Islam has proved lethal for the magazine, just as it has for so many others who dare to exercise the bedrock Western liberty of free expression. Charlie Hebdo’s offices were firebombed in 2011 over a caricature of Mohammed that depicted him saying, “100 lashes if you don’t die from laughter.”

The cartoon was obviously referring to sharia, Islam’s legal code and totalitarian framework. Don’t take my word for it. Just flip through Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, the authoritative sharia manual. You will find a number of offenses for which flagellation is the prescribed penalty.

The article explains that Reliance of the Traveller is a renowned explication of sharia’s provisions and their undeniable roots in Muslim scripture.

The article states:

In the English translation, before you get to chapter and verse, there are formal endorsements, including one from the International Institute of Islamic Thought — a U.S.-based Muslim Brotherhood think tank begun in the early Eighties (and to which American administrations of both parties have resorted as an exemplar of “moderation”). Perhaps more significantly, there is also an endorsement from the Islamic Research Academy at al Azhar University, the ancient seat of Sunni learning to which President Obama famously turned to co-sponsor his cloyingly deceptive 2009 speech on relations between Islam and the West.

In their endorsement, the al-Azhar scholars wrote:

We certify that the . . . translation corresponds to the Arabic original and conforms to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni Community. . . . There is no objection to printing it and circulating it. . . . May Allah give you success in serving Sacred Knowledge and the religion.

There could be no more coveted stamp of scholarly approval in Islam.

Reliance of the Traveller is the definitive interpretation of Islamic scripture. So what does Reliance of the Traveller say about the kind of attack that occurred in Paris?

The article quotes Reliance of the Traveller:

Apostasy from Islam is “the ugliest form of unbelief” for which the penalty is death (“When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed”). (Reliance o8.0 & ff.)

Apostasy occurs not only when a Muslim renounces Islam but also, among other things, when a Muslim appears to worship an idol, when he is heard “to speak words that imply unbelief,” when he makes statements that appear to deny or revile Allah or the prophet Mohammed, when he is heard “to deny the obligatory character of something which by consensus of Muslims is part of Islam,” and when he is heard “to be sarcastic about any ruling of the Sacred Law.” (Reliance o8.7; see also p9.0 & ff.)

Please follow the link to the article at National Review Online to see what other teachings are part of basic Islamic law. According to the laws of Islam, terrorism is not extreme–it is a basic tenet of Islam.

The terrorists were doing exactly what Reliance of the Traveller told them to do to punish apostasy. Whether the western world chooses to believe that or not, it is a fact. We had better accept that fact quickly or we will either lose the right to free speech or deal with similar attacks in the near future. The choice is ours.