Tag Archives: Islam

Freedom of speech according to Bishop Michael Ingham

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From here:

If religious criticism is intended deliberately to offend, to vilify or to slander, it is not acceptable and I would be outraged. And not just for my own religious faith, but also for others’. I am not against satire. I am against hatred. If satire is intended respectfully to challenge or question a fundamental belief, or to expose the hypocrisy of the institution or its leaders, it is perfectly okay.

There is no unlimited right to freedom of speech and no absolute right to freedom. To exist, freedom needs self-imposed restraints, and democracy requires a consensus based on mutual respect. What we have in the Paris cartoons is a misuse of freedom…it is secular fundamentalism that insists on the right to cause offence in the name of freedom. Religious satire is not off-limits when it serves the public good by exposing hypocrisy and causing us to live up to our ideals in a better way, but when its purpose is deliberately to offend, how is that different from hatred?

Michael Ingham is in favour of satire and freedom of expression provided it is respectful and not offensive, thereby rendering it not free and not satirical. Additionally, satire has to serve the public good. Who decides this? In the absence of an ecclesiarchy, the state; welcome back to the Soviet Union.

In a similar vein, the imam pundit notes:

In a free society, people have the right to offend, but people do not have the right to incite hatred or to stereotype an entire community. When you depict Mohamed as a terrorist, 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide are considered terrorists, when 99.9 per cent of them are peaceful. We must use freedom of speech with responsibility. That is the price of keeping a civil society.

If the imam is correct and 99.9% of Muslims are peaceful (I have a suspicion that figure is too high), we are left with 1.6 million who are not only not peaceful but, since the context is terrorism, are terrorists; I don’t find that particularly reassuring.

Something else that has nothing to do with Islam

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From here:

RaifEnsaf Haidar stood beside the kitchen table, urging her three children to eat. Newspapers featuring her husband’s face on the front were spread in the spaces between three pizza boxes, and a banner covering most of the wall showed him as well, with several dozen signatures of those who attended a #FreeRaif vigil in Montreal.

“All he did was blog,” his wife said through an interpreter in an interview with The Globe and Mail on Wednesday. “Until the last moment, I couldn’t believe it. I kept telling him it wasn’t going to happen. It’s impossible, it doesn’t seem real.”

In Saudi Arabia, her husband Raif Badawi, 32, was preparing for the second 50 of his 1,000 lashes on Friday – but, as it turned out, that punishment was postponed, after a doctor concluded he had not sufficiently recovered from the first floggings administered Jan. 9. And according to Ms. Haidar, the Saudi government referred the case to the country’s supreme court, suggesting international pressure might be having an effect.

But Ms. Haidar isn’t holding her breath: “I won’t stop [fighting] until Raif is free.”

As it stands, Mr. Badawi is to receive 50 lashes every Friday for 19 more weeks after prayers in front of a mosque in Jeddah, a city on the coast of the Red Sea. He was convicted of insulting Islam and religious figures on his blog, the Saudi Liberal Network, and sentenced to 10 years in prison and a 10-year order not to leave the kingdom and not to practise journalism after that. He faces a fine of about $319,000.

Don’t be deceived by the phrase “[h]e was convicted of insulting Islam” or by the fact that the flogging takes place “in front of a mosque in Jeddah” or the “prayers” to Allah before the flogging. None of this has anything to do with Islam: Islam is a religion of peace, love and tolerance.

The gentle art of taunting bloodthirsty and mad terrorists

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From here:

Condemnation of the new edition of Charlie Hebdo was swift and often fierce Wednesday (Jan. 14) in many majority-Muslim nations after the cover featured a drawing of the Prophet Muhammad with a tear in his eye.

“You’re putting the lives of others at risk when you’re taunting bloodthirsty and mad terrorists,” said Hamad Alfarhan, 29, a Kuwaiti doctor. “I hope this doesn’t trigger more attacks. The world is already mourning the losses of many lives under the name of religion.”

Hebdo1Imagine the shrieks of sanctimonious outrage if, after the abortionist George Tiller was murdered, rather than limiting himself to roundly condemning the murderer, someone had had the temerity to suggest that abortionists must stop because they are inflaming “bloodthirsty and mad terrorists”. But, then, the  cartoon below is so much more offensive than killing unborn babies.

charlie-hebdo-cover1

This little piggy went to market

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Well, he used to in the nursery rhyme my parents taught me and I, in turn, my children and grandchildren. No more: the Oxford University Press has banned the use of “pig”, “pork”, “sausage” or any other word that could cause offence to Muslims and Jews. It’s as plain as a pig on a sofa that the latter category was thrown in as a decoy.

From here:

The Oxford University Press has warned its writers not to mention pigs, sausages or pork-related words in children’s books, in an apparent bid to avoid offending Jews and Muslims.

The existence of the publisher’s guidelines emerged after a radio discussion on free speech in the wake of the Paris attacks.

Ottawa Imam defends freedom of speech as long as he doesn’t disagree with it

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An Ottawa imam, Imtiaz Ahmed, has declared his support for freedom of expression but that freedom has to be “balanced”. He will supply the balance: you can’t make fun of “religious leaders” like, oh, I don’t know, let me take a wild stab – Mohammed.

He does denounce the Paris murderers for taking the “law into [their] own hand[s]” but if drawing cartoons of the founder of his religion should be illegal, what penalty would he impose? A liberal Saudi version of sharia, 1000 lashes and ten years in jail or a by the book – sorry, Book – capital punishment? He doesn’t say.

From here:

An Ottawa imam has denounced the terrorist attack on a Paris weekly newspaper that killed 12 people, but he says satirical cartoons of religious leaders should be illegal.

Imtiaz Ahmed, an imam with the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, said it should be against the law to publish cartoons that depict religious figures in a derogatory way.

“Of course we defend freedom of speech, but it has to be balanced. There has to be a limit. There has to be a code of conduct,” Ahmed said.

A Muslim who hates freedom of expression freely expresses himself

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Anjem Choudary is an imam who lives in Britain; he collects £25,000 in welfare per year while despising the system and taxpayers who pay for his continuing vilification of all the West stands for.

He points out here, that the Charlie Hebdo murders were not only to be expected, they were a requirement of Islamic law. Living in a free democracy, Choudary is at liberty to say whatever he chooses, a right he would cheerfully deny those with whom he disagrees. If I were a Muslim – a common or garden moderate Muslim we keep hearing so much about – I would really, really want to shut him up. Moderate imams: convince me of your moderation by issuing a Choudary fatwa.

Contrary to popular misconception, Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone. Therefore, Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression, as their speech and actions are determined by divine revelation and not based on people’s desires.

Although Muslims may not agree about the idea of freedom of expression, even non-Muslims who espouse it say it comes with responsibilities. In an increasingly unstable and insecure world, the potential consequences of insulting the Messenger Muhammad are known to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Muslims consider the honor of the Prophet Muhammad to be dearer to them than that of their parents or even themselves. To defend it is considered to be an obligation upon them. The strict punishment if found guilty of this crime under sharia (Islamic law) is capital punishment implementable by an Islamic State. This is because the Messenger Muhammad said, “Whoever insults a Prophet kill him.”

Former Bishop of Oxford wants the Koran read at the next coronation

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It’s uncommon for an Anglican bishop to say something clear. When one does, my conviction that most Western Anglican bishops are working hard to hasten the demise of the religion they have vowed to defend is rarely disabused.

From here:

The former Bishop of Oxford, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, has said readings from the Koran should feature in the next Coronation, when Prince Charles succeeds to the Throne.

Here is the interview:

Washington Cathedral worships moon god

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I could talk at length about whether TEC’s shift from Gaia worship to Allah worship represents a drifting away from the manic inclusion that grips the imagination of its hierarchy – but I won’t. I will simply note that, while the place was chock-a-block with people whose religion denies the deity of Jesus, the only person to be ejected was a woman who affirmed it.

From here:

In a corner of Washington National Cathedral, several hundred Muslim worshipers and other invited guests gathered Friday afternoon for a first-ever recitation of weekly Muslim prayers at the iconic Christian sanctuary and to hear leaders of both faiths call for religious unity in the face of extremist violence and hate.

[….]

the carefully scripted ceremony was marred once when one well-dressed, middle-age woman in the audience suddenly rose and began shouting that “America was founded on Christian principles. . . . Leave our church alone!” She was swiftly ushered out by security aides, and the service continued.

Archbishop of Dublin thinks Anglicans need a deeper understating of Islam

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He has a point: for the most part, Anglican bishops have failed dismally to understand Christianity so they might as well have a shot at interpreting another religion. If God smiles on their efforts, perhaps they will do for Muslims what they have done for Christians: make them doubt everything about their faith. It could even be the tipping point for mass conversions of Muslims to Christianity.

From here:

Anglicans need a deeper understanding of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations so they can better pray and respond to interfaith situations.

Chair of the Anglican Network for Inter Faith Concerns (NIFCON) and Archbishop of Dublin the Most Rev. Michael Jackson made the comments in a letter to primates and provincial secretaries of the Anglican Communion.

Writing to promote the latest NIFCON Christian Muslim Digest he said, “As the events in Syria and Iraq, and in other countries where Muslims are in a majority, impact upon increasingly wider areas, we are reminded that within all of the provinces of the Anglican Communion we need to have a deeper knowledge of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations so that we can reach a better understanding of the issues and how they might impact upon us and other Anglicans, and will be able to pray more effectively.”