Radicals strike again vs. free speech

Radical Islamists yet again displayed their ignorance of what it means to have confidence in their faith. This time, it was by attacking the British publisher of “Jewel of Medina,” a novel about A’isha, one of the prophet Muhammad’s wives. There are three important points to make here. One is that these people are faithless to the point of blasphemy. Two, they haven’t the slightest idea how publicity works. And three, they don’t know the difference between actual religious law and simple-minded rules made up by paranoid fools.

Regarding point one: I’ve said it before and it bears repeating – these pathetic individuals who carry out acts of violence against those they consider “blasphemers” are taking it upon themselves to defend their religion against what they believe to be assaults, but they do so through mute, brainless violence; the least intellectual manner possible, and least consistent with Qur’anic law. They are not only assuming that Islam is so fragile a belief system that cartoons and books can bring it to its knees, but they are also assuming that they, as allegedly pious individuals, are the ones who can right the perceived wrongs. And through violence and killing, no less!

The Qur’an, by contrast, admonishes us as Muslims to argue with those of other faiths respectfully, and to leave them to their own religious views if they aren’t actively persecuting Muslims. The publisher of “Jewel of Medina” is not persecuting Muslims, is not preventing any of us from practicing our faith. And if faithful Muslims believe the book – or any book, cartoon, etc. – is apt to cause people to stray from the path of righteousness, then they should come up with their own counterpoints rather than lashing out with knives, bullets and fire, which only serve to emphasize the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of their views.

Some misguided Muslims believe that passages of the Qur’an exhorting believers to kill others are evidence that they are in the right to take the lives of “infidels.” But those passages are ALL specific to the context of the early Islamic community fighting against well-armed enemies that wanted to stamp them out of existence. Nobody can reasonably argue that Islam is in danger of being stamped out; it is, in fact, growing.

The second point is that these radicals, by their dimwitted “fatwas” and acts of violence against purveyors of books and cartoons, actually give these information-sources far more publicity than they otherwise would have gained. Salman Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses” became a global phenomenon after it was subject to fatwas and a death sentence to Rushdie. Similarly, “Jewel of Medina” will sell far more copies than it otherwise would have, thanks to the acts of violence by Islamic radicals. Ditto as regard the Danish cartoons of a few years ago. In effect, the Islamic radicals are serving to evangelize these sources of information and entertainment, giving them far more credence and distribution than they ever could have garnered through paid publicity channels.

And lastly, the Islamic radicals simply cannot use their critical-thinking skills to discern religious laws from ill-conceived edicts issued by feeble-minded iconoclasts in institutions of “Islamic thought.” The Ulama, as they are called, issue opinions and rulings on what is and is not right from an Islamic perspective, but much of the vitriol and uninformed claptrap they spew out is not based on the Qur’an at all, but based on tradition and the “Hadeeth,” the alleged sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (the fact that the Hadeeth were compiled decades – and in some cases centuries – after the Prophet’s death doesn’t seem to strike these people as cause to wonder about their authenticity, although they’re only too happy to note the Bible’s compilation as a single book well after the death of Jesus should be reason to doubt its provenance). So idiotic pronouncements – even those that are in direct contravention of the Qur’an’s dictates – are accepted by unquestioning, mouth-breathing zealots as God’s laws. High profile examples include the edict that owners of satellite stations that distribute “immoral” content should be killed, that Mickey Mouse is un-Islamic and that mice and rats in general should be killed by Muslims, that any reference to Muhammad that could be construed as unflattering earns a death sentence, that any reference to Muhammad’s wives that could be construed as unflattering earns a death sentence, that a man and wife who copulate in the nude have thereby annulled their marriage, and the list could go on for ages.

I feel better having got that off my chest. But my frustration as an observant Muslim will continue to simmer as these extremists continue to earn headlines by their actions, while calling themselves the vanguard of Islam.