Once again: dejavu. Publication of cartoons of our Holy Prophet was followed by  strong reaction by Muslims; leaders and masses, one and all. Under these circumstances, we are prone to feel and reiterate all our collective grievances. All the excesses they have done on us over the centuries. Our totally fractured Ummah is unanimous on one point: the West specially America and the Yahood and the Hunood  are responsible for our present miserable state of poverty, ignorance and humiliation in the comity of nations.

I would request my fellow Muslims to ignore and overlook these considerations and sentiments  for a while and assess the present situation solely and dispassionately to establish the Islamic definition of blasphemy, if there was any blasphemy committed on this occasion and lastly if so how do we rate the Muslim response. So let us roll out the sequence of events.

The scene was played out in the class room of a middle school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a middle-class Paris suburb of France. Mr Samuel Paty, 47 year old teacher was teaching history and civics. Mr. Paty was a strong believer in laïcité, the strict secularism that separates religion from the state in France and is the way that democracy was organized in France. The subject was Free Speech. It is pertinent to state that this subject of free speech is as dear to the French as is respect for the Holy Prophet to us. It is woven in the fabric of their culture and values. Free schooling with unrestricted education to their children is considered as “Pillars of French Society and French civilization”. In this class, the teacher displayed some of the same cartoons of the Holy Prophet shown four years ago by Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine that published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark. As I do not harbor any subdued resentment and bitterness against West I am prepared to assume that this was done to illustrate the complications associated with freedom of speech. However it may well be seen by many as an example of indoctrination of young French minds; yes, the buzz word Islamophobia. Let me add that the the teacher had asked the Muslim students to leave the class before showing the images lest they should feel hurt.

The next scene, two days later is rather atrocious. One angry father complained about the teacher in videos he uploaded on social media. Enraged, Abdoullakh Anzorov, 18, who grew up in France from age 6 and was the product of its public schools, traveled all the way from Évreux to Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, nearly 60 miles, to kill Mr. Paty. A teenager, an immigrant from Chechnya, a small Muslim country with a population of a million and a turbulent history stabbed the teacher followed by decapitation. He was gunned down by the police. Less than two weeks after this incident “a knife-wielding assailant, a Tunisian left two people dead in Nice’s towering neo-Gothic basilica, including a 60-year-old woman who was nearly decapitated, and a third victim died after taking refuge in a nearby bar.” I do not know about you. I find this sort of killing much more chilly and terrifying than shooting.

This is what has happened on this occasion and this is what requires our attention and opinion. This horrific and heinous crime shocked and enraged France. In turn Muslims are shocked and enraged by the reaction of France to this crime. A fierce verbal battle is raging along. 

As I have stated earlier, we are following a strictly religious approach far away from the debate that has ensued. Do we see any blasphemy here; if so how should we react?

What is blasphemy? Can it be labelled openly and clearly an Islamic concept? No. Works of legal luminaries like Justice Shafiq Usmani endorse the view that the concept of blasphemy is unknown to Islamic jurisprudence. Historically, the  blasphemy laws began in Christian Europe as a means to prevent dissent and enforce the church’s authority. They were exported to Muslim majority nations via British imperialism. It is worth mentioning that blasphemy laws were introduced in the Indo-Pak subcontinent by the British back in 1860 in a misguided attempt to reduce tension between Hindus and Muslims. The laws were instituted for purely administrative reasons and do not have any basis in religious tenets. 

We Muslims talk a lot about taqwa but most of us struggle for its meaning. It does sound a little intricate in lectures and symposia. But its application is simple and needs to be practiced every time we act. In the problem under discussion, taqwa demands from us that we should be acutely aware of the presence of Allah Ta’aala Subhaanahoo, should be certain that we will be answerable on the day of Judgement for our views and action on this issue and seek HIS Guidance on how to respond. How do we do this? By using the faculties he has bestowed on us and the opportunities he has provided us. So, let us hunt for HIS direction on the issue under discussion:

The Holy Quran is very explicit and articulate on this issue:

“When you see people mocking Our revelations, turn away from them so that they may change the subject. If Satan causes you to forget this, do not sit with the unjust people when you remember”. (Surah 6/68)

“And, indeed, He has enjoined upon you in this divine writ that whenever you hear people deny the truth of God’s messages and mock at them, you shall avoid their company until they begin to talk of other things – or else, verily, you will become like them. Behold, together with those who deny the truth God will gather in hell the hypocrites”.( Surah 4/140)

These two ayahs and many others like these announce a very clear and definite message and command to us Muslims in the face of criticism, derision or mocking on any item of our Deen by the non-believers: TURN AWAY OR LOOK THE OTHER WAY IN A FRIENDLY WAY; join them again after they start behaving themselves. These ayah clearly and forcefully negate  the blasphemy law of Pakistan and the violent reaction of Muslims to the cartoons in Denmark and now in France.

How does the sunnah teach and train us on the issue of blasphemy? A quick look at the words and deeds of our beloved Prophet will bear out that he never indulged in any reaction in face of worst personal insults and humiliation. There are multiple examples in the life of our Prophet of his mercy and forgiveness even to his open and vocal foes and enemies; show of any anger or punishment is conspicuous by its absence. There are multiple examples in the life of our Prophet of his mercy and forgiveness even to his open and vocal foes and enemies. Some examples are in place to convince you:

“With the exception of a very few earlier Arabs who accepted the Prophet  as the Messenger of Allah , the majority of people of Makkah opposed him, humiliated him, cursed or blasphemed him or even tried to kill him; yet he preferred to practice forgiveness and to seek the divine mercy for them”. He could or should have ordered killing of all these people if blasphemy was punishable by death in Islam. In that case we would have been deprived of some really great Sahaabaa.

The old woman who used to throw garbage on the Prophet was visited by him when he did not see her throwing it any more to learn that she was not well.

When Suhail bin Amr, a poet who composed poetry blaspheming the Prophet was taken as a prisoner of war after the battle of Badr, the Prophet  asked his companions to show kindness to him.

The Quran and the authentic teachings of the Prophet  describe the practice of showing irreverence to God and his messenger as acts of ignorance, deliberate provocation or hatred. Yet the two sources of Islamic guidance never proposed punitive action on the basis of theological dissent or religious differences or irreverence.

At  the fall of Makkah, the Holy Prophet pardoned all those who had rejected him by calling him a sorcerer, madman, or liar. He let go Abu Sufyan despite all the wars he led against our Prophet. Similarly he forgot Wahshi, the killer of Hazrat Hamzah and Hinda, the wife of Abu Sufyan, who had torn out Hadhrat Hamza’ liver and chewed it out of spite. He had also pardoned Habbar, who attacked the camel carrying Hadhrat Zainab, pregnant at time from Makkah to Madinah. She miscarried as a result and eventually passed away. And yet the Holy Prophet forgave even him.

So there is no evidence of blasphemy nor its punishment in the words and deeds ie the sunnah of our Dear Prophet. While the Quran refers to blasphemy repeatedly, it does not ordain any worldly punishment for it; this is deferred for the Hereafter. Yet there are strong Islamic scholarly opinions to uphold death penalty for blasphemy based on the hadith literature. For the sake of brevity, I would like to refer you to my earlier article “Blasphemy against Prophet Mohammed; What the Quran and Sunnah ordain v/s How the Muslims perform and Why?” for a detailed discussion. It is emphasised that in early life of the Holy Prophet, any blasphemy against him was tantamount to treason. However, once the Muslims triumphed over Mecca, the association of apostasy and treason is no more valid. In peacetime therefore, apostasy should once again be considered only a personal matter of faith, and the death penalty based on treason during wartime is not applicable.

As I embarked on this exercise with a determination that I will have God Almighty in clear vision through out and that I will be accountable for my views on the Day of Judgement (ie Taqwaa), I have to state that these killings are completely uncalled for. These should be condemned without any reservations as gruesome and repulsive murders. These are crimes against humanity. As per the Holy Text, these are akin to murdering the whole humanity.

It is this attitude about blasphemy, that the cartoon issue has been blown out of all proportion. There is perhaps some element of underlying “Islamophobia”. However the main driving force behind these cartoons is their exaggerated almost distorted emphasis on free speech and their knee jerk antagonism to any curb on that freedom. “Muslim intolerance” in this regard is a challenge to them and the cartoons are intended to highlight Islam’s intolerance. They regard it their duty to resist “Islamic intolerance”. I am sure if we had ignored these cartoons according to the dictates of our Holy Text and practice of the Holy Prophet , the issue would have remained confined to the minor magazine  with a very limited circulation where it was first published. The cartoons, if at all are  symbolic and harmless blasphemy. The reaction of Ummah is factual and hazardous sacrilege; pure blasphemy: at least seven Muslims have lost their lives in Muslim Lands. 

Dr. Khalid Mitha

Addendum:

After the incidents, the discussion blows out into politics, bickering, blame game, history, colonization etc. For example President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, called Mr. Macron mentally damaged in a speech over the weekend. “Macron needs mental treatment,” he said. “What is the problem of this person Macron with Muslims and Islam?” Worst still, Mahathir Mohamad tweeted that Muslims had a right to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past. What many French people see as their country’s uncompromising defense of its safety and free expression, many Muslims consider to be scapegoating and blasphemous insults to their religion. The caricatures in Charlie Hebdo in 2006 — which many French people would once have considered juvenile, provocative and even bigoted — have become a test of France’s commitment to its secular ideals, while to many Muslims they are inherently offensive. On the other hand,  President Emmanuel Macron of France  vows to crackdown on ‘Islamist Separatism’ in France  though he agrees hat France “is a country that has a colonial past and that has traumas that have not been settled yet.” Mr. Macron also outlined a series of measures aimed at making the financing and management of mosques more transparent. Most notably, he said that within the next four years a widespread practice that has foreign-trained imams come to preach in French mosques would be phased out in favor of a France-based training and certification system. He outlined  measures designed to rein in the influence of radical Islam in the country and help develop what he called an “Islam of France” compatible with the nation’s republican values. Driss Ettazaoui, a deputy mayor in Évreux, a town in Normandy, praised Mr. Macron for his call to avoid the “trap” of “stigmatizing all Muslims.” The political establishment in France, adheres to it’s founding universalist values, which reject public expressions of race, religion and ethnicity. But those ideals have come under increasing strain in a rapidly changing society. Lastly, Macaron has acknowledged that France “is a country that has a colonial past and that has traumas that have not been settled yet.”