[Reader-list] A Dissenting Voice on Pakistan’s Blasphemy Law

[Yogi Sikand]

 * A Dissenting Voice on Pakistan’s Blasphemy Law*

**

*Yoginder Sikand*

In the wake of the dastardly killing of Salman Taseer, governor of
Pakistan’s Punjab province, for having dared to question Pakistan’s
draconian anti-blasphemy law, scores of Pakistani ‘Islamic’ outfits
celebrated the crime by showering encomiums on the man’s murderer, insisting
that his action was perfectly in consonance with (their understanding of)
Islam. They feted him as an intrepid Islamic hero, a *ghazi* or warrior of
the faith. Across the border, not a single Indian Muslim religious
organization condemned the attack. This might well suggest that they shared
the enthusiasm of their Pakistani counterparts, although, for obvious
reasons, they were unable to openly express their delight at the deadly
event. Probably the only Islamic scholar of note on either side of the
border to have condemned the brutal murder in no uncertain terms, and to
have insisted that it had no sanction whatsoever in Islam, was the New
Delhi-based Maulana Wahiduddin Khan. He immediately responded to the murder
in an article published in the *Times of India*, insisting that the
punishment of death for blasphemy, as prescribed in Pakistan’s
anti-blasphemy law, had no sanction in Islam at all.

Khan’s views on the appropriate Islamic punishment for blasphemy,
particularly for defaming the Prophet Muhammad, are diametrically opposed to
those of the mullahs and doctrinaire Islamists, which is one reason why the
latter so passionately detest him. He does not condone blasphemy, even in
the name of free speech, of course, but nor does he agree with those Muslims
who insist that Islam prescribes the death penalty for those guilty of it.
He first articulated his position on the subject in a book titled *Shatim-e
Rasul Ka Masla: Quran wa Hadith aur Fiqh wa Tarikh ki Raushni Mai *(‘Defaming
the Prophet: In the Light of the Quran, Hadith, *Fiqh* and History’). The
book, consisting of a number of articles penned in the wake of the massive
controversy that shook the world over the publication of Salman Rushdie’s
infamous *Satanic Verses*, was published in 1997. It is a powerful critique,
using Islamic arguments, of the strident anti-Rushdie agitation and of the
argument that the Islamic punishment for blasphemy is death. Although Khan
condemned the *Satanic Verses* as blasphemous, he argued that stirring up
Muslim passions and baying for Rushdie’s blood was neither the rational nor
the properly Islamic way of countering the book and its author. Death for
blasphemy, he contended, using references from the Quran and the corpus of
Hadith to back his stance, was not prescribed in Islam, in contrast to what
Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, and, echoing him, millions of Muslims worldwide,
ardently believed.

Khan was possibly one of the only Islamic scholars to forcefully condemn the
death sentence on Rushdie that Khomeini had announced and that vast numbers
of Muslims, Shias and Sunnis, imagined was their religious duty to fulfill.
Although his book deals specifically with the issue of blaspheming the
Prophet in the context of the anti-Rushdie agitation, it is of immediate
relevance to the ongoing debate about the anti-blasphemy laws and the
violence it engenders in Pakistan today. What is particularly fascinating
about the book is that it uses Islamic arguments to counter the widespread
belief among Muslims that death is the punishment laid down in Islam for
blasphemy as well as for those who, like the late Salman Taseer, oppose such
punishment. Addressing the issue from within an Islamic paradigm, with the
help of copious quotes from the Quran and Hadith, Khan’s case against death
for blasphemers would, one supposes, appear more convincing to Muslims than
secular human rights arguments against Pakistan’s deadly anti-blasphemy law
that has unleashed such havoc in that country.

Like most Muslims, Khan believes that Islam is the only true religion.
Muslims, he says, are commanded by God to communicate Islam to the rest of
humanity. This work of *dawah* or ‘invitation’ to the faith is, he says, the
hallmark of a true Muslim. Yet, he laments, ‘the Muslims of today are
totally bereft of *dawah* consciousness’. This lack, he contends, is at the
very root of the manifold conflicts that Muslims are presently embroiled in
with others in large parts of the world. This almost total absence of ‘*
dawah* consciousness’ has made Muslims, so he argues, victims of a peculiar
superiority complex (that has no warrant in Islam) that drives them on to
engage in endless conflict with others. Muslims, he writes, imagine
themselves as ‘the soldiers of God, the censors of the morals of the whole
of creation, and the deputies of God on earth’, which, he contends, is
‘absurdly un-Islamic’. He insists that this attitude of presumed superiority
and the drive for confronting and dominating others that it instigates have
absolutely no sanction in the Quran. He quotes the Quran as referring to the
Prophet as simply as a warner and guide, and not as a ruler over the people
he addressed, and rues that Muslims behave in a totally contrary manner in
their relations with non-Muslims. ‘They want to rule over others’, Khan
laments. And that, he adds, is ‘their biggest psychological problem.’

The Quran, Khan says, exhorts Muslims to be bearers of glad tidings to
others and to invite them to God’s path. The work of *dawah* is not a simple
verbal calling. Rather, for *dawah* to be effective, he says, Muslims must
themselves be righteous, including in their dealings with people of other
faiths. They must see themselves as *dai*s or missionaries inviting others
to God’s path, and regard others as *madu*s or addressees of the divine
invitation. *Dawah*, Khan says, ‘must form the basis of the believer’s
personality and must shape his relations with others.’ These relations must
be fundamentally shaped by the *dawah* imperative, which means that Muslims
must always seek to relate kindly and compassionately with others. A true *
dai*, committed to this principal Islamic duty of *dawah*, must relate to
people of other communities with love and concern for their welfare. They
should ‘keep the needs of *dawah* above all other considerations,’ Khan
says. They might face all sorts of loss and damage at the hands of others,
but at no cost should they allow the cause of *dawah* to be hampered. This
means, Khan insists, that ‘they must not resort to such activities that are
opposed to the demands of *dawah* or that undermine its prospects.’
Principally, they must desist from conflicts with people of other faiths,
even in the face of grave provocation, for this would certainly further
reinforce their prejudices against Islam and Muslims and only sabotage
prospects for *dawah*. Even when confronted with extremely hurtful and
provocative situations, such as blasphemy, they must not resort to violent
agitation and demand the death of the culprit. There are other, rational and
more meaningful, ways to react, Khan says, but to react violently and to
call for the death of blasphemers would only further magnify anti-Muslim and
anti-Islamic sentiments, harden borders between Muslims and others, and,
thereby, place additional barriers in the path of *dawah*.

Khan is convinced that the Muslims of today have abandoned their divine duty
of *dawah*. This is why, he writes, instead of seeking to relate kindly with
people of other faiths, as addressees of the ‘invitation’ to God’s path,
they consider the latter as their ‘communal enemies’ and are constantly
engaged in seeking to confront them. Muslims, he contends, wrongly imagine
that they are ‘God’s deputies on earth’, completely forgetting that the
Quran speaks about true believers as being His witnesses to humanity.
Because the drive for *dawah* no longer enthuses them, he goes on, their
relations with people of other faiths are conflict-ridden and they ‘engage
in such acts as have no sanction at all in Islam’. Their hatred for others,
which promotes constant conflict with them, he says, ‘is tantamount to
murder of *dawah*.’  Treating others as their ‘political foes’, instead of
as ‘potential addressees of God’s message’, they lose no opportunity to drum
up opposition and instigate conflicts and agitations directed against them.
Such Muslims, Khan minces no words in saying, ‘are murderers of *dawah* and
divine guidance’. They are completely unmindful, he says, that ‘by engaging
in such activities that sabotage *dawah*, they are inviting God’s wrath on
themselves.’

Khan then turns to the issue of blasphemy and the violent agitations
unleashed across the globe in the wake of Khomeini’s fatwa calling for
Rushdie’s death. He insists that the fatwa and the agitation that it stirred
are tantamount to ‘murdering *dawah’*, and bemoans that ‘it reflects a total
lack of *dawah* consciousness.’ Such reactions, he warns, will only further
reinforce deeply-rooted negative feelings among non-Muslims about Islam and
Muslims, which would make the task of *dawah* even more difficult than it
already is. He goes so far as to claim that those engaged in this agitation,
whether as leaders or foot-soldiers, run the very real risk of ‘being
treated as criminals in the eyes of God, notwithstanding the fact that they
may label their *dawah*-murdering agitation as an agitation for the glory of
Islam.’ Hence, he insists, the fatwa and the violent agitation that it
spurred are ‘absurd and un-Islamic’.

Khan blames what he sees as the Muslims’ total lack of *dawah* consciousness
for what he perceives as their wild emotionalism in the face of even the
smallest provocation. If anyone dares says anything, no matter how minor,
against their way of thinking, he contends, they immediately get provoked
and resort to agitation and even violence. The most sensitive issue in this
regard, Khan notes, is the image of the Prophet Muhammad. If anyone says or
writes anything about the Prophet that does not correspond with how they
themselves perceive him, Khan notes, Muslims turn ‘uncontrollably emotional’
and ‘lose all reason.’ Khan believes this is not at all the appropriate
Islamic attitude, and traces it to what he perceives as the fact that
‘Muslims have abandoned *dawah’*. Because of this, he explains, they now
‘see others as their communal enemies’ and consider any such criticism as
‘an attack on their communal pride’, which forces them out on the streets in
violent agitation and worse.

Had Muslims maintained their ‘*dawah* consciousness’, he remarks, they would
have responded to the provocation differently: through patience and
avoidance of conflict, as he says the Quran advises them to, so that
prospects for *dawah* would not thereby be damaged. But since they have lost
the commitment to *dawah*, he laments, they have fallen victim to what he
terms ‘false emotionalism’ that drives them to respond violently to any and
every provocation. This stance, he says, is completely un-Quranic, and is
bound to reinforce anti-Islamic prejudices that underlie phenomenon such as
blasphemy, instead of doing anything at all to resolve them.

In the face of provocations, such as negative statements or writings against
Islam, Khan advises Muslims not to give in to the temptation to react with
violent agitation. Instead, he advises, they should respond ‘with patience,
wisdom, far-sightedness and clear-mindedness’, these being qualities which
he identifies with ‘success in this world and in the next’.

 [This article, in a very slightly edited form, appeared in the 21st January
2011 issue of the Daily Times, Pakistan, and can be accessed on
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011\01\20\story_20-1-2011_pg7_18<http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011%5C01%5C20%5Cstory_20-1-2011_pg7_18>
]



-- 
Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.


--The Buddha