Freedom & hate speech hypocrisy

Freedom per se has no value. It is what freedom is for. It is the use to which it is put. It is the sense of responsibility and restraint with which it is exercised. 

THE crude and disgusting video by some American citizens mocking Prophet Muhammad has caused great anguish to Muslims around the world. Blasphemous provocations by some media mavericks in France are adding insult to injury.

Even before the sacrilege perpetrated by the video Innocence of Muslims, the deeply-wounded Muslim community was living in humiliation and helplessness.

The 65-year-old American-aided genocide in Palestine continues to rage unabated.

In Syria, Western mercenaries are leading the civil war with overt and covert help from the Western alliance. Iran is under daily threat of annihilation. In blatant violation of international law, American drone attacks continue mercilessly to murder innocent civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.

There is in most Muslim minds a perception that Islam is under attack; that Muslims are under siege; that behind the beguiling rhetoric of democracy, human rights and the war against terrorism, there is a cunning plan to re-colonise Muslim lands and seize their wealth for the insatiable appetite of Western economies.

It is in this background that the exploding Muslim rage against blasphemy must be understood.

However, understanding something does not mean justifying it. Human life is sacred and no idea and no theory can excuse the murder of innocents.

It is with sadness and shame that I note the violence and deaths resulting from the airing of the obnoxious video. Equally painful is the mindless damage to Buddhist religious places in Bangladesh because of Facebook insults to Islam.

Having said that I must state that we all have a duty to show respect to others and to not denigrate what they hold as sacred.

We have a duty to censor ourselves when we speak to others about what lies close to their hearts and souls.

Blasphemy violates the sacred; it trespasses boundaries that must exist in every civilised society; it causes pain to millions.

God and all His prophets must not be defiled. Blasphemy should be a punishable criminal offence in much the same way sedition and treason are.

Unlike free-speech advocates who place this freedom at the heart of their new abode of the sacred, I think that freedom per se has no value.

It is what freedom is for. It is the use to which it is put. It is the sense of responsibility and restraint with which it is exercised.

Blasphemy is a form of hate speech. Andrew March admits that “many in the West today use speech about Muhammad and Islam as cover for expressing hatred towards Muslims”.

Geert Wilders and makers of Innocence of Muslims are hate mongers, not human rights pioneers.

Behind hate speech is the ideology of racial or religious superiority. Hate speech amounts to discrimination.

It promotes denigratory stereotypes. It attacks basic premises of the human rights system, premises as deep as equal human dignity, respect for others and equal protection.

It must be asserted that Islamophobia is a new form of racism.

Further, the claims by Western leaders, including President Barrack Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton that the constitutional principle of free speech permits no state interference is an overstatement.

In the US, the First Amendment of the Constitution has since the beginning been interpreted to mean that “prior restraints” on freedom of expression are not allowed.

But this does not exclude the legal possibility of post-event prosecutions and sanctions. For example, defamation is actionable. Contempt of Court is punishable.

For much of its history the USA has had a Sedition Act. Supreme Court decisions over the decades have vacillated between various criteria for determining the justification for invasion of free speech.

But there has always been the possibility of post-event restrictions to avoid danger to society. There is freedom of speech but sometimes no freedom after speech!

An Espionage Act exists. Whistleblowers are prosecuted. Under the Obama administration, six prosecutions under this Act were all directed against journalists exposing government wrongdoing.

At the Food and Drug Administration, they spy on their own employees’ email. At the Department of Defence any soldier who speaks about government lies in Afghanistan or Iraq is jailed. Twenty-seven laws exist to monitor social media content.

The State Department blocks Wikileaks with its firewall. The founder of Wikileaks is being hounded.

European record is even more reflective of double standards. Public order laws are used regularly in Britain and Germany to criminalise “politically incorrect” expressions or pro-Nazi ideas and to punish any comment, research or analysis that departs from the officially sanctioned version of the holocaust.

In February 2006, Austria jailed British historian David Irving for three years for denying the holocaust.

Overt and covert censorship is very much part of Western societies. Only that it is more refined; it is non-governmental; it is de-centralised. Its perpetrators are publishing houses, financiers, advertisers, interest groups, editors, publishers and other controllers of the means of communication.

Obviously free speech in the USA and Europe is not absolute save when it demonises, dehumanises and denigrates Islam and Muslims. Then it is part of the new abode of the sacred.

COMMENT
By PROF SHAD SALEEM FARUQI

Shad Saleem Faruqi is Emeritus Professor of Law at UiTM 

Related:

Speaking up for religious tolerance

Differences of religion should not make people fight one another, rather they should cooperate in doing good and warding off evil.

AS a Muslim I am deeply distressed and perplexed at the incendiary view, allegedly emanating from the Saudi Grand Mufti, that all churches in the Arab peninsula be destroyed.
This view, if it were really expressed, is offensive. It violates all canons of decency, international law and the human rights of our Christian brothers.

It contradicts many exquisite passages in the Quran and the practices of Prophet Muhammad. It runs contrary to centuries of Islamic history of peaceful co-existence with other religions. The syariah gives ample guidance on inter-faith relations.

Multiplicity of faiths: In innumerable passages, the Quran recognises religious pluralism. In 2:256, it is stated: “There is no compulsion in religion.” In 109:6, there is the exquisite passage: “Unto you your religion, unto me mine.”

In Surah 11:118, it is declared: “If thy Lord had so willed, He could have made mankind one people: but they will not cease to dispute.”

In Surah 10:99, Allah gave this admonition: “Had your Lord willed, those on Earth would have believed, all of them together. Will you then compel people against their will to believe?”

In 18:29, it is commanded: “Let him who will, believe; and let him who will, disbelieve.”

Common fountain: In the Quran 42:13, it is implied that the divinely-revealed religions all stemmed from the same source. “He has ordained for you the same religion which He ordained for Nooh (Noah) … and which He ordained for Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses) and Esa (Jesus) saying you should establish religion and make no divisions in it.”

“Every nation has its messenger” – 10:47. “Nothing has been said to you save what was said to the messengers before you” – 41:43.

Respect for all prophets: Plurality of prophets and multiplicity of revelations reflect a divine will. The Prophets of all revealed religions are brothers and there is no difference between them with regard to the message. Muslims are obliged to believe in them all.

In Surah 2:136, it is stated: “We believe in Allah and that which has been sent down to us and that which has been sent down to Ibrahim (Abraham), Ismail (Ishmael), Ishaq (Isaac), Yaqoob (Jacob), and to Al-Asbaat (the offspring of the 12 sons of Yaqoob), and that which has been given to Musa (Moses) and Esa (Jesus), and that which has been given to the Prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and we are Muslims in submission to Him.”

According to the renowned Malaysia-based Afghani scholar Hashim Kamali, “Islam sees itself as the third of the Abrahamic religions.

“The Hebrew prophets and Christ are deeply respected by Muslims. The Virgin Mary is given the most exalted spiritual position in the Quran: a chapter of the Quran is named after her, and she is the only woman mentioned by name.

“The tombs of the Hebrew prophets, who are also Islamic prophets, are revered by Muslims to this day.”
All Christians and Jews are given the special status of ahle-kitab (believers in a book).

Respect for places of worship: All places of worship are sacred and must be defended. In Surah 22:40, the Quran speaks of monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques “as places in which God is commemorated in abundant measure”.

In Islamic history, the clergy in the churches were given full authority over their flocks with regard to all religious and church matters. Mosques were often built next to churches. When the Muslims conquered Egypt, they gave the Coptic churches back to the Copts and restored their rights.

In the early history of Islam, Muslims and Christians often prayed simultaneously in many churches, e.g. at the Cathedral of Saint John in Damascus. Likewise, Prophet Muhammad allowed the Christians of Najran to pray in Muslim mosques. When Prophet Muhammad migrated to Madinah, there was a large number of Jews in the city. One of the first affairs of state that he dealt with was to establish a treaty with them, according to which their beliefs were to be respected and the state was obliged to ward off harm from them.

Duty of civility: In the book Civilisation of Faith by Mustafa as-Sibaa’ie, it is stated that the Quran obliges the Muslim to believe in all the Prophets and Messengers of Allah, to speak of all of them with respect, not to mistreat their followers, to deal with them all in a good and gentle manner, speaking kindly to them, being a good neighbour to them and accepting their hospitality.

Differences of religion should not make people fight one another or commit aggression, rather they should cooperate in doing good and warding off evil (Quran 5:2, 5:5).

“Allah alone is the One who will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection” – Quran 2:113.
“And do not argue with the People of the Scripture except in a way that is best” – Quran 29: 46. “And insult not those who invoke other than Allah, lest they should insult Allah wrongfully without knowledge” – Quran 6:108.

In the light of the above, it is obvious that any view that exhorts Muslims to destroy Christian places of worship is in serious conflict with the letter and spirit of tolerance in the Quran.

The Malaysian Consti­tution honours this spirit. Article 3 states: “Islam is the religion of the Federation; but other religions may be practised in peace and harmony.”

The alleged view of the Saudi Mufti has been repudiated by the top Muslim cleric in Turkey, Mehmet Gormez, who has stated categorically that the Islamic civilisation is not hostile towards previous religions.

Those whose hearts are filled with hate and whose lips drip the blood of vengeance must remind themselves of the caution administered by Kamali that fanaticism is not part of Islam, as the Prophet confirmed in a hadith: “One who promotes fanaticism (asabiyyah) is not one of us, nor is one who fights for asabiyyah, nor the one who dies for asabiyyah.”

Shad Saleem Faruqi is Emeritus Pro-fessor of Law at UiTM and a consultant to USM.

Allah knows the best: Finding truth in fact and fabrication!

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Finding truth in fact and fabrication

Ikim Views
By Mohamad Azhar Hashim Fellow, Centre for Economics and Social Studies

Many Muslim scholars are still debating the authenticity of the expression ‘seek knowledge even as far as China’. While Muslims continue to be divided on this, China is fast becoming the largest economy in the world.

WHILE Muslims are engaging in a long debate whether the expression, “seek knowledge even as far as China” is really the words of the Prophet or a hadith, China has already emerged as the second largest economy in the world.

Economic experts made it official early this year that China has surpassed Japan to become the world’s second largest economy.

Indeed, the huge nation cannot wait any longer for Muslims to resolve their nagging debate on the authenticity of the expression and other trivialities, as toppling the United States as the largest economy in the world is now within sight.

Today, China’s economy is the fastest growing in the world, with the output growth rate in its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growing consistently at an average 10% over the past 30 years.

China is currently the largest exporter and second largest importer of goods, as well as the world’s largest car market and the biggest energy consumer.

The significant growth in its investments, consumption and living standards is the result of its economic reforms initiated in the late 70s. The reforms have been successful in resolving poverty issues and driving China’s active participation in the global market.

China’s emergence in the world economy today not only has been made through the government but also through private companies.



Its currency, the renminbi or yuan, has become stronger and regarded as a benchmark currency for international transactions, especially on a regional basis.

Economic superpowers often feel threatened by the rising power of the yuan, accusing China that their currency brought about instability in the world trade.

For many years, Muslims have been debating on expression, whether it can be classified as authentic hadith or not. There were also disputes whether it was actually pronounced by the Prophet or just words of wisdom.

There have been differences in opinion. There are scholars who place this expression in the category of weak hadith (dhaeef), and there are also scholars who reject the expression as a hadith all together.

They opined that this expression was fabricated (mawdhu’) or fake words attributed to the Prophet, which means it was not the words of the Prophet at all, as there was no basis to claim so.

In addition, there are scholars who opined that even if this expression is an authentic hadith, it does not mean that there is an obligation for Muslims to seek knowledge in China in the literal sense.

In essence, Muslims are urged to seek knowledge related to Syariah or religious knowledge, even if it takes a person to faraway lands.

These opinions over the years may have had a psychological impact on Muslims, both in pursuing the type of knowledge and the position of China.

Muslims scholars may have found the truth that the expression is not from the Prophet, based on their study in the knowledge of hadith. As laymen, we are obliged to uphold and respect the opinion of the scholars.

However, imagine if Muslims did not engage in the debate on the authenticity of the expression but instead, acknowledge it, and act accordingly to the explicit intention of the message contained in the expression.

Who knows, today Muslims may have done well economically, and may have dominated the world economy in ways that could be superior than present advanced economies.

Whoever uttered or designed or fabricated the expression, “seek knowledge even as far as China” centuries ago, he was wise, as he probably saw the future vividly.

While Muslims have heard the expression for ages, and have been all the while arguing, debating and disputing it with different opinions, other nations have been building bridges with modern China and made an impact on the huge nation.

Indeed, China has successfully transformed its economy from an impoverished communist nation to an economic powerhouse. It has overtaken Europe and Japan, and is now set to take the number one position from the United States, which many economic experts believe can be achieved between 2020 and 2030.

While Muslims continue to embrace and subscribe to the words or expressions of wisdom of every visionary in the world without much hesitation, we still debate at length words of wisdom from visionaries of our rich intellectual civilisation. Only Allah knows best.