How to end ‘insult to Islam’ claims

If someone screams “insult to Islam”, the media should take out the Quran and ask him to point out the verse that supports his claim.

COMMENT

It can be said at the very outset that there’s only Islam and no such thing as the “real Islam” or “political Islam” or any other Islam. As the late Ayatollah Khomeini said: “The Quran, not a word more, not a word less.”

It’s said that the Charlie Hebdo cartoon, swearing by the right to free speech, had a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad lamenting, “Why are so many of my people extremists?” Three individuals apparently decided that this, and caricaturing the Prophet, was “an insult to the Prophet” and allegedly went on a murderous rampage there instead of taking advice on what remedies were available for them within the French system.

Probably, the system does not allow for any remedies because none are possible in a society that thrives on individualism to nurture inventiveness, innovation and creativity. The copycat culture is one that’s frowned on even if made more palatable by using the euphemism “reverse engineering”.

One issue with Muslims in the west is the right to free speech, one of the many sacred cows in western civilization. Westerners believe in defending someone’s right to free speech even if they disagree with what is being said. Those who can’t reconcile themselves with this mindset obviously cannot continue to stay in the west if they want to keep their sanity. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. If you can’t beat them, join them.

The west will not buy into quelling criticism on the grounds that something can be deemed “an insult to Islam”. Nearer home Lawyers for Liberty executive director Eric Paulsen raised this issue in the media.

Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, uncharacteristically energetic, has urged authorities to investigate Paulsen for a statement in which he claimed that the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jakim) promotes extremism through Friday sermons. If that’s happening, no one would be surprised because the public perception of religious authorities cannot be any worse. Between Paulsen and Jakim, there are no prizes for guessing who the people will believe.

So, we have “insult to Islam”, “extremism”, “political Islam”, “fundamentalism”, “militancy”, “terrorism”, “preaching hate” among the terms being bandied about around the globe with reference to Muslims.

In secular nations, wedded to the rule of law, some of these terms wouldn’t normally be on the agenda for a dialogue between the government and the people or among the people. It’s dialogue, and a continuing one at that, that would prevent people taking the law into their own hands, whether it’s call terrorism or comes under some other label like “preaching hate”, for example.

It’s disingenuous to say that westerners have nothing better to do than to sit around every day, thinking up ingenious new ways to “insult Islam”. The fringe media, with an eye on the bottom line, is not the sum total of western civilization. Still, it’s the “outrageous” actions of the few that grab headlines, not the quiet work of many good people.

Silent majority

However, a solution must be found so that the silent majority – here we are talking about the Muslim silent majority – would not feel trapped between their own “timidity and ignorance”, for want of better terms, on Islam and a vociferous minority which is willing to risk all and run amok at the drop of a hat whenever the word Islam is mentioned in an allegedly derogatory manner. It seems that they are willing to sacrifice the ummah (the community of the faithful) for no rhyme or reason just to flex their political and “religious” muscles in somebody’s else’s land which has welcomed them with open arms.

The solution lies in non-Muslims in the media, the west in particular, arming themselves with a copy of the Quran.

If someone screams “insult to Islam”, the media should take out the Quran, point at it, and tell those screaming, “look at the Quran and point out any verse which supports your claim”. The media should take the lead.

If they say, “It’s not in the Quran, but in the Sira – the biography of the Prophet – or the hadiths (the sayings of the prophet) or the syariah”, or some fatwa from somewhere, the media can politely decline to accept the claim and sources cited.

Only the Quran, Muslims will agree, is “from God”. So, the media does not have to entertain sources which are not from God.

The media lost an opportunity when Muslims took to the streets in Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya to claim without an iota of proof that “Allah was exclusive to Muslims”, a line apparently taken by the Home Minister when he directed the Herald, a Catholic weekly, not to use the term Allah in Malay print to refer to the Christian faith. The directive was ostensibly on “security grounds”, a point noted by the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court.

It’s syirik (blasphemy) in Islam to concede that there’s more than one God. In fact, to say that there’s more than one God is the biggest sin in Islam.