We have so many people who are so full of anger and hatred, towards the rest of humanity, towards their fellow Muslims, towards students of knowledge and scholars and activists, that it appears they have wiped out their basic humanity and mercy. We have uneducated, self-taught followers who believe they are so qualified to give religious verdicts that they can make someone elses life permissible, without ever actually having studied with a single scholar. Googling fatwas and quoting random incidents from the Seerah is enough these days to become a faqih. We have opened up the doors of takfir (excommunicating other Muslims): something that even the greatest of scholars would rarely use against their most heretical opponents is now being tossed around like candy against anyone who disagrees with your position. We have obliterated the concept of husn al-dhann (thinking the best of others), and filled ourselves with unbelievable arrogance. We have made our religion about smearing others, hating others, killing others.... and in the process forgotten that our primary job is the worship of Allah and the embodiment of the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah, so that others love us for our good, not fear us for our evils. We have opened up the doors of hypocrisy, blaming them for all of our woes, whereas the fact of the matter is that the harm we cause our religion is far worse than anything they can do or have ever done. And in all of this, we have lost so many of the core essentials of Islam: mercy, compassion, knowledge, patience, good manners, forbearance....and the list goes on and on. So, as was completely predictable, the reaction to these shootings in Paris (which I clearly condemned) has been to re-print the said offensive cartoons over and over and over again. Thousands of newspapers, both in print and online, have shown those offensive cartoons to millions of people (whereas before, hardly a few thousand would have seen them). Additionally, some cartoonists have now said that they would draw more and more offensive images as a result of this incident, in the name of protecting free speech (one even claimed she would dedicate a cartoon a day for the next year to lampoon Islam and its prophet). The newspaper in question, Charlie Hebdo, which had a circulation of around fifty thousand, will reprint its next edition, full of offensive images, in over a million copies, and it is pretty obvious that they will sell out. (And as for the repercussions around the globe towards and against Muslims...that is a whole different topic). Firstly, to the sympathizers of this attack: do you see what has come out of this violence? What good has it done anyone? What do you want to do next...continue killing people, and more people, so that they continue to get angrier and angrier at us?! Secondly, to the rest of us: Can you imagine if a racist cartoon, or an anti-Semitic cartoon, caused some physical attack, that news agencies around the globe would reprint those cartoons?! Somehow, when it comes to offensive images against Muslims, it becomes necessary to display those images continuously in order to make a point: You had better allow us to say and do whatever we will, without the least care and concern of decency and morals! Again, this is NOT to justify these brutal attacks, but it is to point out the double standards that do seem to exist when it comes to mocking Islam. It will come as absolutely no surprise to us to find out that a satirist in the EXACT SAME newspaper was fired, and then put on trial, for an anti-Semitic article that he had written (See: telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/4351672/French-cartoonist-Sine-on-trial-on-charges-of-anti-Semitism-over-Sarkozy-jibe.html). And previously, I had quoted a story of a similar nature regarding the Danish cartoon controversy: the same newspaper had refused to print cartoons mocking the Holocaust. There is no doubt that killing these cartoonists is not allowed (firstly, the entire issue of blasphemy laws and its application in the modern world of nation-states is being discussed by leading scholars, and there are multiple views on this; secondly, all those who quote incidents from the Seerah: I reiterate, it is impermissible for a person to take the law into his own hands and be judge, jury and executioner even in an Islamic land - how much more so when Muslim minorities are living in a land that is not ruled by their laws). At the same time, it is also idiotic to continue provoking a group of people who have a long list of their own internal and external political and social grievances that stretch back for many decades (here I mean the N. African Muslim population of France), and then expect that nothing will happen. As usual, we are stuck between a rock and a hard stone. On the one hand, we have the excesses of our own internal angry followers, who always justify every violence because of what they have done, and on the other hand we have the arrogance, intransigence and hypocrisy of segments of the Western world, who cannot see that they as well have a huge part to play in the rising tide of anger and violence. -Yasir Qadhi
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 08:50:30 +0000