Does Islam Endorse ‘Sar Tan Se Juda’ Slogan?
By
Saquib Salim, New Age Islam
27-08-2022
Hazrat Ali, Ordered Them before a Battle, “Do
Not Attack Those Who Have Surrendered, Do Not Injure the Disabled and Weak, Do
Not Assault the Wounded, Do Not Excite Women and Do Not Make Them Angry With
Rude Behaviour Even If They Use Harsh and Insulting Words against Your
Commander and Officers”
-----
A
scene from Hyderabad during the procession
----
In mid-July
two Muslim men killed a tailor, Kanhaiya Lal, in Udaipur accusing him of
disrespecting Prophet Muhammad; another man recently stabbed Salman Rushdie in
the USA on similar grounds, and several others have issued calls to kill Nupur Sharma
and more recently T Raja Singh for disrespecting the Prophet. A considerable
number of Muslim youth can be seen on social media advocating the slogan “Gustakh-E-Rasool
Ki Ek Hi Saza, Sar Tan Se Juda” (Beheading is the only punishment for
disrespecting the Prophet).
In such an
environment, a young Muslim political thinker and research scholar, Tarique
Anwar Champarni, from Bihar called me up and asked how on earth the followers
of Muhammad who was sent to the world as mercy can give calls to kill non-Muslims.
His question was logical. I wondered how Muslims can think of killing people
when one of their most important guides after the Prophet, Hazrat Ali, ordered
them before a battle, “do not attack those who have surrendered, do not injure
the disabled and weak, do not assault the wounded, do not excite women and do
not make them angry with rude behaviour even if they use harsh and insulting
words against your commander and officers”.
He also
told them “not to take initiative in fighting”.
Prophet
Muhammad asked his followers not to attack those who had surrendered, were
unarmed. or non-combatants. The Prophet had pardoned those who attacked him let
alone those who were using derogatory language.
The
question by Champarni made me curious. As a historian, I started looking for
the historical roots of this narrative that if a non-Muslim uses derogatory
language for the Prophet then he must be killed. I was amazed to know that the
narrative of the death penalty for disrespecting the Prophet does not go beyond
the 19th century. Right from Imam Abu Hanifa, the pioneer of the Hanafi school
of thought that has the largest following among Muslims, especially in the
subcontinent, almost every prominent jurist of the Hanafi School has
categorically maintained that a person cannot be killed for disrespecting the
Prophet.
During the
19th century, several new ideological movements tried to challenge the
authority of the Hanafi School, of which Deobandi and Barelvi were two
prominent sub sects. Ahl-i-Hadith claimed to be closer to the textual form of
Islam and blamed Hanafis for corrupting ‘original’ Islam with Indian cultural
practices while Ahmadiyyas charged Hanafis for deviating from the path of the
Prophet.
In the
1920s, a pamphlet titled Rangila Rasul published by a publisher named Rajpal
caused resentment among the Muslims. Qadiany Ahmadiyyas, who were called
heretics by other Muslims, saw it as a golden opportunity and mobilized Muslims
against the publisher. They had put posters asking, “Will those professors of the
Prophet’s love did not wake up even now”, thus directly attacking Deobandi and
Barelvi Ulema who were not mobilizing people till that time.
Ahl-i-Hadith
leadership also joined the bandwagon. Rajpal was later murdered by a young
Muslim, Ilam Din, in 1929 who was hailed a hero by Qadiyanis and Muslim League
leadership.
This was
the first case where a politically motivated class excited the sentiments of
the Muslim masses against the teachings of a majority of Islamic scholars. One
of the most influential Deobandi jurists of that period Maulana Ashraf Ali
Thanvi commented that though emotions could drive Muslims to believe that
someone disrespecting the Prophet should be killed, religion did not permit
that. He wrote:
“A feeling
of dishonour ('bey-gharati') is natural when I think of Hanafi tradition on
non-Muslim blasphemers i.e. they will not be killed for it. Then God puts in my
heart the thought that Abu Hanifa (who prohibited the death penalty for
non-Muslim offenders) has more honour/Ghairat than us.”
Imam Abu
Hanifa believed that disrespecting the Prophet was another form of not
following Islam and since non-Muslims had every right to not follow Islam, they
could not be forced to respect the Prophet.
In the 19th
century, Ahl-i-Hadith was propagating an argument that the Hanafi position of
no death for blasphemy was wrong. They quoted several Hadith to prove that
people were killed for disrespecting the Prophet. Hanafi jurists took the
charge seriously and in a rare event more than 450 Islamic Scholars from India
and abroad signed a fatwa that categorically challenged the claims of the
Ahl-i-Hadith group. They pointed out that the Hadith quoted were about repeat
offenders and those too were not punished with death.
Death
penalties, if awarded, were given for political consideration and not
theological. The fatwa was signed by Ala Hazrat Ahmad Raza Khan, one of the
most important figures of Barelvis, and Maulana Mahmood Hasan, one of the
leading lights of Deobandi tradition along with almost all prominent jurists of
the time.
Interestingly,
the Hanafi position does not warrant any kind of punishment for non-habitual
offenders.
Today, we
see people who claim to be from the Hanafi school of thought raising the
slogans of death for blasphemy. It is a well-established position among Islamic
scholars that a Muslim forgives people, asks Allah to give wisdom to his
opponents, and believes in the Day of Judgment. Frenzied mob violence has no
place in Islam. No serious scholar has ever asked Muslims to kill unarmed
humans.
----
Saquib
Salim is a historian-writer
Source: Does Islam Endorse ‘Sar Tan Se Juda’
Slogan?
URL: https://newageislam.com/radical-islamism-jihad/sar-tan-se-juda-slogan-blasphemy-prophet/d/127811
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