Are Many Muslims This Unreasonable?
I have a problem with my neighbour. She has posted on a nearby lamppost a rather unflattering cartoon of my mother and a very male donkey. I suppose that many of you would not blame me if I found this offensive. What would you say, however, if I suggested that my neighbour should be killed for doing this? What if she were Portuguese, and such was my umbrage that I and my friends went and threw a hand grenade into the Portuguese embassy in London? What if we sent letters to our local press and made statements on radio saying that all Portuguese should be killed unless their prime minister make a full public apology for my neighbour's action? What if her action 'crossed a sacred boundary'?
Just a little consideration of this piece in today's Times shows what is wrong with religious fanaticism, Islamic, Christian, Jewish or otherwise.
"Even moderate Muslims would regard cartoons as sacrilege, say scholars saddened by the breach of sacred boundary"
Not a problem, they are perfectly entitled to consider anything they wish as sacrilege.
"A LEADING Muslim scholar said that repeated publication of the cartoons would inevitably lead to more terrorist attacks in the West."
And he is perfectly entitled to so opine - time will show if he is correct.
Mufti Abdul Barkatullah, senior imam at North Finchley Mosque in North London, said that editors who published the cartoons were “giving more fuel to al-Qaeda”.
He said that one of Islam’s sacred boundaries had been crossed and even moderate Muslims would regard the cartoons as sacrilege. He cited verses of the Koran that rail against slander and mockery of Islam and prayer.
Chapter 9 verse 12 urges all Muslims to “fight” any who “revile” Islam. Chapter 104 warns those who slander and defame that they will be hurled into “crushing disaster”.
Like al-Qaeda need fuel? I would have thought page 3 of the Sun sufficient. But what does the mufti think is meant by 'fight' here?
Mufti Barkatullah, a member of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “In other religions, the sacred boundaries have been deleted. Not so in Islam. This is a no-go area at any cost. It will spur on suicide bombers.
“However moderate one is, there can be no compromise on the person of the Prophet. The Prophet is held above everything in the Universe, over one’s own person, family, parents, the whole world. It is less offensive to condemn and vilify God.”
Ahhh, 'Not so in Islam'. So we have to 'respect' Islam more than other religions? Well, there's a thing. But what about the proportionality argument? Where is the condemnation of "an eye for a verbal slight, a tooth for daring to suggest that my sky daddy is tougher than your sky daddy"?
A spokesman for the Muslim Council said that it was not necessarily offensive to publish the cartoons per se. It all depended on context. A television programme broadcast them two days ago in Britain to explain why they were controversial. He said that Muslims would not find their use insulting in that context. It was the provocative publication with the intention of stirring controversy that was offensive, he said.
Muslims worldwide obey the Islamic injunction not to display pictures of any animal or human, anything with a “soul”, in their homes and mosques, never mind pictures of the prophet. This element of Sharia, or Islamic law, has become a hallmark of their faith, even though it does not appear in the Koran.
It is in the Hadith — the collection of sayings of the Prophet — that pictures of living creatures are forbidden. The Arab word used for pictures is surah, which can mean anything from a two-dimensional drawing to a three-dimensional figure or statue.
Hadith-Bukhari 5:338 has Abu Talha, a companion of the Prophet, quoting him as saying: “Angels do not enter a house in which there is a dog or a picture.” The scripture records that he meant the images of creatures that have souls.
Imam Ibrahim Mogra, a leading Islamic scholar and senior member of the Muslim Council, said: “To depict the Prophet is unacceptable. To depict him as a terrorist is even more painful. It is extremely sad that they have not yet realised this.
More weasel words. Painful? Painful as in being stoned to death or having one's hand amputated? Or intellectually painful? What would be an appropriate response to intellectual pain, and what should be the consequences of 'unacceptable'? A sharp diplomatic exchange or a hand grenade?
“They should have realised from the response to what the Danish paper did that this was not the right thing to do . . . I do not see how the idea of freedom of speech and freedom of expression gives people the licence to cause this kind of hurt to more than a billion people around the world. "
You don't? You really don't? Has it not occurred to this imbecile that 'this kind of hurt' is no kind of hurt at all? That any opinion worth the time taken for due consideration is immune to hurt?
“Muhammad is a very, very special person. To us he is more than our parents are. We can imagine, if someone was to make a mockery of our parents in this manner, how hurt we would be. Imagine that hurt, multiplied a million times.”
Multiply my mum and the donkey (sorry mum) a million times and you are still far short of any justification for inflicting physical harm on anybody. "Sticks and stones" my Nan used to say - possibly the most profound of our Anglo-saxon aphorisms. There are two more paragraphs but they are non sequiturs. I wonder why we give space to these childish tantrums? Could it be that we need their oil?
Just a little consideration of this piece in today's Times shows what is wrong with religious fanaticism, Islamic, Christian, Jewish or otherwise.
"Even moderate Muslims would regard cartoons as sacrilege, say scholars saddened by the breach of sacred boundary"
Not a problem, they are perfectly entitled to consider anything they wish as sacrilege.
"A LEADING Muslim scholar said that repeated publication of the cartoons would inevitably lead to more terrorist attacks in the West."
And he is perfectly entitled to so opine - time will show if he is correct.
Mufti Abdul Barkatullah, senior imam at North Finchley Mosque in North London, said that editors who published the cartoons were “giving more fuel to al-Qaeda”.
He said that one of Islam’s sacred boundaries had been crossed and even moderate Muslims would regard the cartoons as sacrilege. He cited verses of the Koran that rail against slander and mockery of Islam and prayer.
Chapter 9 verse 12 urges all Muslims to “fight” any who “revile” Islam. Chapter 104 warns those who slander and defame that they will be hurled into “crushing disaster”.
Like al-Qaeda need fuel? I would have thought page 3 of the Sun sufficient. But what does the mufti think is meant by 'fight' here?
Mufti Barkatullah, a member of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “In other religions, the sacred boundaries have been deleted. Not so in Islam. This is a no-go area at any cost. It will spur on suicide bombers.
“However moderate one is, there can be no compromise on the person of the Prophet. The Prophet is held above everything in the Universe, over one’s own person, family, parents, the whole world. It is less offensive to condemn and vilify God.”
Ahhh, 'Not so in Islam'. So we have to 'respect' Islam more than other religions? Well, there's a thing. But what about the proportionality argument? Where is the condemnation of "an eye for a verbal slight, a tooth for daring to suggest that my sky daddy is tougher than your sky daddy"?
A spokesman for the Muslim Council said that it was not necessarily offensive to publish the cartoons per se. It all depended on context. A television programme broadcast them two days ago in Britain to explain why they were controversial. He said that Muslims would not find their use insulting in that context. It was the provocative publication with the intention of stirring controversy that was offensive, he said.
Muslims worldwide obey the Islamic injunction not to display pictures of any animal or human, anything with a “soul”, in their homes and mosques, never mind pictures of the prophet. This element of Sharia, or Islamic law, has become a hallmark of their faith, even though it does not appear in the Koran.
It is in the Hadith — the collection of sayings of the Prophet — that pictures of living creatures are forbidden. The Arab word used for pictures is surah, which can mean anything from a two-dimensional drawing to a three-dimensional figure or statue.
Hadith-Bukhari 5:338 has Abu Talha, a companion of the Prophet, quoting him as saying: “Angels do not enter a house in which there is a dog or a picture.” The scripture records that he meant the images of creatures that have souls.
Imam Ibrahim Mogra, a leading Islamic scholar and senior member of the Muslim Council, said: “To depict the Prophet is unacceptable. To depict him as a terrorist is even more painful. It is extremely sad that they have not yet realised this.
More weasel words. Painful? Painful as in being stoned to death or having one's hand amputated? Or intellectually painful? What would be an appropriate response to intellectual pain, and what should be the consequences of 'unacceptable'? A sharp diplomatic exchange or a hand grenade?
“They should have realised from the response to what the Danish paper did that this was not the right thing to do . . . I do not see how the idea of freedom of speech and freedom of expression gives people the licence to cause this kind of hurt to more than a billion people around the world. "
You don't? You really don't? Has it not occurred to this imbecile that 'this kind of hurt' is no kind of hurt at all? That any opinion worth the time taken for due consideration is immune to hurt?
“Muhammad is a very, very special person. To us he is more than our parents are. We can imagine, if someone was to make a mockery of our parents in this manner, how hurt we would be. Imagine that hurt, multiplied a million times.”
Multiply my mum and the donkey (sorry mum) a million times and you are still far short of any justification for inflicting physical harm on anybody. "Sticks and stones" my Nan used to say - possibly the most profound of our Anglo-saxon aphorisms. There are two more paragraphs but they are non sequiturs. I wonder why we give space to these childish tantrums? Could it be that we need their oil?
posted by MikeS at 5:56 pm
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