One modernist Muslim argument on the #blasphemy issue goes like this: the Quran mentions that we must always remain patient in the face of blasphemy. Some ahadith are consistent with this. Others mention the fact that some of those who committed blasphemy were killed. Many Muslims have ignored the Quran and the Quran-based ahadith in favour of the ahadith that contradict the Quran, whereas these were meant for a particular era. They were a punishment for the those who rejected the messenger of God during his lifetime after the fact that he was Gods messenger had become absolutely clear to all who existed at that time. Those killings were Gods punishments. They had nothing to do with Islamic law. The first thing to note about such a view is the implication: 1300 years of classical scholarship, which is in agreement that blasphemy is a punishable crime, got it wrong. Thousands upon thousands of scholars misread the Quran and it took the ummah 13 centuries to properly understood a point correctly! As to merit of the argument, the flaw is in the first premise, namely, that the ahadith mentioning a punishment for blasphemy contradict the Quran. One arrives at this premise because of another mistake: taking Makkan verses as absolute and ignoring i) abrogation and ii) different rules applying in different contexts. Whereas, we know that the revelation was phased and many things revealed in Makkah were changed in Madina. For instance, the Makkan verses instruct the Prophet (saw) and believers to pass on the message and turn away from the polytheists. That is, their task was restricted to communicating the message, regardless of what sort of a response they got, whether mocked or even physically abused. They were not allowed to fight. In Madina, however, the Quran also instructed fighting in many circumstances. So wa aridh an al-mushrikeen became wa qaatilu al-musrikeen. According to the modernist logic, this would be a contradiction. But it is not. It is a case of different rules applying in different contexts. When Muslims have authority (as in Madina), fighting applies. When they dont, it does not apply in the same way. Simple. Same with blasphemy. In Makkah, the instruction was to ignore any insults or mockery. But in Madina, a punishment was legislated and implemented. What this means for us is that when we live in a context like Makkah (such as when no dar al-Islam/khilafah exists or when it does but one lives elsewhere) the Makkan ruling applies, and when we live in a Madina-like context (in dar al-Islam) then the Madinan ruling applies.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 12:45:08 +0000
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