Blasphemy, Islam and Free Speech
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By A. Faizur Rahman,
New Age Islam
27 October
2020
There can
be no doubt that the murder of middle-school teacher, Samuel Paty, in France
earlier this month for displaying cartoons of Prophet Muhammad was an act of
sickening brutality. But what makes it even more horrifying is the fact that it
was committed in the name of a prophet who is honoured in the Quran (21:107) as
Rahmatal Lil Aalameen (embodiment of
universal compassion).
Muslim Response
In his New
York Times article, Muslims and Islamophobia: Quran Has Many Verses That
Command A Courteous Response to Even A Terrible Insult to Islam Islamic scholar Mustafa Akyol
reminds Muslims that blasphemy laws were invented by medieval Muslim jurists to
punish anyone who insulted their religion but Muslims "don’t have to
blindly abide by medieval jurisprudence."
His plea was: "We can defend our faith not with the dictates of
power, but the appeals of reason and virtue."
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Muslims
have every right to protest against condemnable attempts to defame the Prophet.
But they must refrain from violence, for it is the very antithesis of the term
Islam, which means peace. Any reaction in defence of the Prophet has to be in
accordance with his exemplary conduct which was totally inspired by the Quran.
The Quran took note of some of the offensive insinuations hurled at the Prophet
by his detractors (25:41 & 38:4-5) but advised him saying, “Have patience
with what they say, and distance yourself from them with noble dignity”
(73:10). It did not advocate any kind of retaliation against the offenders.
In fact,
the Quran did not even criminalise blasphemy. It is the Old Testament which
said that "...anyone who blasphemes
the name of the Lord is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone
them." (Leviticus 24:16)
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Even the
idea of retributive justice (Lex Talionis)
has its theological basis in the Hebrew Bible, not the Quran. The second book
of the Torah states that in cases of serious injury "you are to take life
for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for
burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." (Exodus 21: 23-25). The third
book goes further. It decrees: "Anyone who takes the life of a human being
is to be put to death. Anyone who takes the life of someone’s animal must make
restitution—life for life. Anyone who injures their neighbour is to be injured
in the same manner: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The
one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury." (Leviticus
24: 17-20).
This crude
kind of retributive proportionality was the temporal norm in ancient history.
The Quran (2:178), however, tried to reform this law by removing the element of
sublimated vengeance from it by saying, "O believers! Legal retribution (Qisas) is prescribed for you in cases
of murder: the free for the free, the slave for the slave, the woman for the
woman. However, if the convicted person receives pardon from the aggrieved
party, the prescribed rules of compensation must be followed accordingly. This
is a compassionate concession from your Lord (Takhfeefun Min Rabbikum Wa
Rahmah)."
The notion
of restorative justice, evident in the verse above, is found repeated in verse
41:34: "And not alike are the good and the evil. Repel (evil) with what is
best, and he between whom and you was enmity would become as if he were a close
friend."
The Prophet
meticulously followed this divine instruction and did not allow cowardly
insults or physical attacks to come in the way of his great mission.
Once on a
visit to Ta’if, a small town about 60 kilometres from Mecca, he was mocked and
stoned to the extent that he started bleeding profusely. Yet he did nothing more
than pray for the well-being of the people of Ta’if and express the hope that
their next generation would accept his message.
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Also
Read: The Beheading of a School Teacher in France: The
Politics of Blasphemy
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Even during
the signing of the historic Treaty of Hudaybiya in 6 AH (628 CE) the Prophet
displayed his characteristic tolerance and peaceableness when he agreed to all
its conditions, including the Meccan demand to sign in his personal capacity
and not as the Prophet. His companions
were incensed and rejected the blasphemous exaction. But the Prophet in all
humility, and in the larger interest of peace, endorsed the pact as “Mohammed,
the son of Abdullah” thereby proving his greatness once again. It is no wonder
that the Quran (68:4) praised him as the possessor of the most exalted standard
of character (Khuluqin Azeem).
The
Hudaybiya treaty was such a success for the Muslims that the Quran (48:1)
called a clear victory (Fathhan Mubeen).
Within a period of two years, it paved the way for the re-capture of Mecca from
those who had driven out the prophet. Here again, the Prophet proved true to
his divine title Rahmatal Lil Aalameen
by declaring a general amnesty after entering Mecca. Even his staunchest
enemies who fought wars against him, such as Abu Sufyan and Ikrima ibn Abu
Jahal, were forgiven. The result was, anti-Islam forces, having come to know of
the peaceful nature of the religion, not only gave up their animosity but
became its foremost promoters.
There is a
great lesson in this for Muslims whom the Quran (2:143) calls Ummatan Wasat (a moderate community).
They must realise that vituperative attacks on the Prophet, apart from being
the work of ignorant minds, is part of an attempt to project Muslims as
religious extremists by eliciting violent reactions from them.
The Greatness Of The Prophet
One way of
countering this would be to popularise the unimpeachable life history of the
Prophet and ask those who seek to defame him through objectionable videos and
cartoons to explain how distorting history and spreading lies about a
non-vindictive, humane person constitutes artistic freedom.
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Also
Read: The False Binary of the Secular versus Islamic Needs to Be
Broken
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They must
be told how John Davenport, a British scholar, unable to tolerate the
demonisation of the Prophet, wrote a 182-page book in 1869 "to free the
history of Mohammed from false accusations and illiberal imputations, and to
vindicate his just claim to be regarded as one of the greatest benefactors of
mankind." Titled An Apology for Mohammed and the Koran the book, it must
be said, was an extraordinarily honest endeavour to acknowledge Prophet
Muhammad "as the very greatest man whom Asia can claim as her son, if not,
one of the rarest and most transcendent geniuses the world itself ever produced."
In 1841,
almost three decades before davenport, British polymath Thomas Carlyle in his
classic work On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History had already
recognised Prophet Muhammad as a true prophet. He wrote, "Our current
hypothesis about Mahomet, that he was a scheming Impostor, a Falsehood
incarnate, that his religion is a mere mass of quackery and fatuity, begins
really to be now untenable to anyone. The lies, which well-meaning zeal has
heaped round this man, are disgraceful to ourselves only."
In his book
The Humanity of Muhammad: A Christian View published earlier this year,
Christian scholar Craig Considine advises his own community saying,
"Muhammad’s pluralistic vision for his Ummah, and indeed the world at
large, is timely considering the levels of extremism worldwide, particularly as
they pertain to the persecution of Christians and other minority populations in
Muslim-majority countries. Let me also remind Christian readers around the
world that they would be wise to follow Muhammad’s pluralistic and civic ethos
in terms of their relations with Muslims. Muhammad’s engagement with humanity
can serve as a tool to counter our age of extremism."
Another
Christian researcher Anna Bonta Moreland in her probing study published this
year Muhammad Reconsidered: A Christian Perspective on Islamic Prophecy
concludes that there is enough latitude in Christian theology to recognise
Prophet Muhammad as a prophet of God. Her argument is, "... Christians
have internal reasons from within their tradition to take seriously the
revelations Muhammad received in Mecca and Medina. In fact, Christians need to
take all the resources used to interpret the Bible—historical, anthropological,
philological, and theological—and apply them to a Christian reading of the Qur’an."
Western Hypocrisy
In the
light of such dispassionate assessments by eminent scholars Muslims cannot be
faulted if they suspect that there is something sinister about the regularity
with which hate propaganda against the Prophet emanates from the West. That the
mischief-mongers there are leaving no medium unexploited to arouse passions is
evident from the sustained unprovoked campaign against the Prophet by the
Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and French weekly Charlie Hebdo.
In
September 2005 Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons of the Prophet which led
to widespread protests across the Muslim world. In 2006, Charlie Hebdo
reprinted all 12 of the controversial Muhammad cartoons from Jyllands-Posten,
adding a few more as an act of defiance. In November 2011 Charlie Hebdo once
again mocked the Prophet by making him the imaginary guest editor of an edition
named Charia Hebdo which the magazine claimed was intended to criticise the
sharia.
But the
most despicably vindictive caricatures of the Prophet were published by Charlie
Hebdo in September 2012 in support of the anti-Islamic video Innocence of
Muslims which was uploaded to YouTube from within USA in July 2012. On
September 1 this year the weekly republished the same cartoons to mark the
start of the trial that week in the case pertaining to the violent attack on
its offices in January 2015. The republication led to another attack on
September 25 outside the weekly's former headquarters in which two persons were
seriously wounded. The attacker confessed that he had acted to avenge the
republication of the cartoons.
"It
was in this cauldron of social and religious turmoil" reported the Wall
Street Journal, "that Mr. [Samuel] Paty prepared to give his lesson in
early October" on the “contours and limits of free speech.” (Demonstrations
Pay Homage to French Teacher Beheaded After Lesson on Charlie Hebdo). From the statement attributed in
the Wall Street Journal to Mr. Ricard, the anti-terrorism prosecutor, the two
cartoons Paty showed the class were extremely offensive. Perhaps he did not
realise that the idea of free speech can be explained without showing
defamatory cartoons. Nonetheless, as argued above, Samuel Paty did not deserve
to be killed for that. But the “contours and limits of free speech” that he
wanted to teach need to be openly debated.
Defamation Is Not Criticism
Muslims
would certainly like to understand why extreme anti-Islam acts come under the
umbrella of free speech in countries where even genuine criticism of Zionism is
considered an anathema amounting to anti-Semitism.
In August
2012, around the time anti-Prophetic videos and cartoons were being published
in the name of free speech, in a blatant attempt to circumvent the First
Amendment, the California State Assembly passed a resolution titled HR 35
asking educational institutions to ensure that Jewish students were protected
from anti-Semitic discourses on their campuses such as those that project
Israel as a racist state “guilty of heinous crimes against humanity such as
ethnic cleansing and genocide…” HR 35 also urged universities to neutralise
“student-and faculty-sponsored boycott, divestment and sanction campaigns
against Israel that are a means of demonising Israel…” (AMENDED
IN ASSEMBLY AUGUST 28, 2012). This was vehemently opposed by the California Scholars for Academic
Freedom (An Open Letter: From
California Scholars for Academic Freedom).
More
recently, documents obtained by The Guardian last year showed how pro-Israel and
conservative lobbyists in the US were encouraging state lawmakers to outlaw
anti-Semitism in public education, from kindergarten through to graduate
universities. The newspaper reported that the proposed definition of
anti-Semitism is so wide that, in addition to standard protections against hate
speech towards Jews, it would also prohibit debate about the human rights
violations of the Israeli government (Revealed:
rightwing push to suppress criticism of Israel on US campuses).
A couple of days ago, Canada's largest online news site, The Star,
published a report highlighting the suppression of moderate voices criticizing
Israel in Canadian Universities (Controversies
at U of T Law, York University highlight escalating suppression of moderate
voices criticizing Israel).
One fails
to understand why Western societies which otherwise, make no attempt to conceal
their pro-Israel bias are so unwilling to differentiate between genuine
criticism and defamation.
Article 12
of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the
right to the protection of the law against arbitrary attacks upon his honour
and reputation.
Similarly,
Article 19(3) of the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights lays
down that the right to freedom of expression is subject to certain restrictions
to protect “the rights or reputation of others” and “for the protection of
national security or of public order (order public), or of public health or
morals”. Article 10 (2) of the European Convention on Human Rights inter alia
states that freedom of expression "since it carries with it duties and
responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions
or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic
society..."
Articles 32
of France's own Law of 29 July 1881 on the Freedom of the Press defines
defamation as any allegation or accusation of a fact that causes an attack on the
honour or consideration of a person. When directed at private persons,
defamation is punishable with a fine of €12,000. (Paragraph
3: Crimes against people. (Articles 29 to 35 quater) and Criminal Defamation
If so much
care requires to be taken to safeguard the reputation of living persons, are
not dead people — who cannot defend themselves — entitled to equal if not more
protection?
Thankfully,
Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) offers such a protection to the
dead. Explanation 1 of this Section states: "It may amount to defamation
to impute anything to a deceased person, if the imputation would harm the
reputation of that person if living, and is intended to be hurtful to the
feelings of his family or other near relatives."
Videos such
as Innocence of Muslims and cartoons such as those published in Denmark and
France do not represent a critique of Islam. They are a bundle of outrageous
lies about the Prophet and therefore, cannot enjoy protection under free speech
laws. One wonders why Western societies refuse to legally protect the
reputation of Prophet Muhammad when at least 16 European countries have laws
against Holocaust Denial to secure the honour of European Jews killed in the
horrific Nazi genocide. It is time the
West, especially an Emmanuel Macron-led "Christian" France, realised
that a permanent state of conflict with Islam bodes ill for global peace.
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A. Faizur Rahman is secretary-general of the
Islamic Forum for the Promotion of Moderate Thought.
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-ideology/blasphemy,-islam-free-speech/d/123277
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