CAIRO - A leading US Muslim group has denounced Republican aspirant Newt Gingrich over his suggestion that Muslims should renounce Shari`ah before seeking the country's top office.

"Newt Gingrich's vision of America segregates our citizens by faith," Corey Sayolor, Legislative Director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement.

"His outdated political ideas look backward to a time when Catholics and Jews were vilified and their faiths called a threat."

Gingrich, a former House speaker who seeks to win the Republican Party nomination to run against President Barack Obama in this year's elections, said Tuesday that he would support a Muslim candidate for the White House if he publicly renounce Shari`ah.

“It would depend entirely on whether they would commit in public to give up Shariah,” Gingrich said.

This was not the first time Gingrich to make anti-Islam slurs.

In July 2010, Gingrich said that he sees Islamic Shari`ah as a mortal threat to the United States.

He also believes in the theory that advocates of Shari`ah are radical Islamists.

Gingrich and produced in 2010 and narrated a film, "America at Risk", about what they say the threat of "radical Islam".

In the film, they discuss what they say the danger of terrorism and Shari`ah against a lurid background of terrorist bombings, bloody victims, wailing sirens and chanting Muslim crowds.

Gingrich had once called for a ban on all mosques near Ground Zero "so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia."

Islamic Shari`ah

Sayolor described the Republican candidate as "one of the nation's worst promoters of anti-Muslim bigotry".

“The time for bias in American politics has passed and Newt Gingrich looks like a relic of an ugly era,” he said.

The Muslim group defended Islamic Shari`ah against growing attacks by US politicians.

CAIR said Shari`ah is a set of beliefs that "teaches marital fidelity, generous charity and a thirst for knowledge,” and mandates that Muslims respect the law of the land in which they live.

Shari`ah has come under scrutiny recently in the US, with right-wing campaigners and politicians questioning its role and operating system.

Lawmakers in at least 15 states have introduced proposals forbidding local judges from considering Shari`ah when rendering verdicts on issues of divorces and marital disputes.

In Islam, Shari`ah govern issues in Muslims' lives from daily prayers to fasting and from to inheritance and marital cases to financial disputes.

The Islamic rulings, however, do not apply on non-Muslims, even if in a dispute with non-Muslims.

In Islam, Shari`ah govern issues in Muslims' lives from daily prayers to fasting and from to inheritance and marital cases to financial disputes.

The Islamic rulings, however, do not apply on non-Muslims, even if in a dispute with non-Muslims.