Denying links of Charlie Hebdo killings to Islam is self-deception

“No one kills the village idiot,” Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh had famously said, while refusing police protection after creating Submission, whose portrayal of women’s subjugation under Islam touched the raw nerves of Islamists. Van Gogh, a great grandson of the brother of immortal artist Vincent van Gogh, perhaps forgot that there are bigger idiots out there in the world. Van Gogh was shot, stabbed and his throat slit November 2, 2004 while he was bicycling on a street in Amsterdam – a citadel of freedoms in Europe. The killer, Dutch-born Mohammed Bouyeri, 26, showed no remorse but in a courtroom statement vowed to repeat his crime if he was given a chance. Holding a copy of the Quran, as if to imply God has given him the licence to kill, Bouyeri told the court he was bound by the law to “chop off” the head of anyone who insults Allah or his prophet.

One movie, several books and numerous reports later, the same Allahu Akbar slogan rang Wednesday at the office of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Two brothers Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34, affiliated with al Qaeda – the brothers were also yelling “the Prophet has been avenged” -  killed 12 people, including five of the finest French cartoonists: Stephane Charbonnier “Charb,” 47;  Jean Cabut “Cabu,” 70; Georges Wolinski “Wolin,” 80; Bernard Verlhac “Tignous,” 57; and Philippe Honore, 73. But a Pakistani American blogger expressing his regret that the guards lost the lives remained defiant. “As for the killing of Charlie Hebdo staff by two or three gunmen, I hold my head high…,” the blogger wrote.

In the wake of Charlie Hebdo mass murders, the same questions that were raised since Iranian leader Ayotallah Khomeini issued a death edict against Mumbai-born Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses are being asked once again. So why do Muslims believe writers, artists and poets who poke fun at Muhammad deserve death? Are these the acts committed by some misguided Muslims, unrelated to Islamic teachings, or are they in conformity with the Islamic doctrines?

In this case, even Salman Rushdie seems to have made an error as he attributed the Charlie Hebdo attacks to “deadly mutation of Islam.” In fact, historic evidence suggests otherwise. “Avenging the prophet,” which the Kouachi brothers very proudly and loudly professed that dark and wintry Wednesday in Paris, is as old as Islam itself. For one, these acts of violence are not acts of a few “misguided” Muslims, as many in the West like to believe. An article by the most prominent face of Islamic extremism in Europe gives the reasons for such attacks, in a rather brutally frank manner. Anjem Choudry of London, a former beer-guzzling youth, who is now a thorn in the side of the UK security services for being a main source of inspiration for global Islamists, gave his take on Charlie Hebdo in a widely noticed article in The USA Today. “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,” Choudry wrote. He also refuted the widely held belief that Islam was a “religion of peace” but said the faith means bowing to the will of Allah, or Muslim God.

Choudry argued that Muslims love the Prophet more than they love their parents and children or even their own selves and insisted that the punishment for those who insult the prophet is death, citing none else but the words of Muhammad himself in verbatim: "Whoever insults a Prophet kill him." This sentiment has been echoed by most Islamists, in one way or the other. “When you curse the prophets, you know you are going to hurt someone. Cursing the prophets is not just a crime, it is an attack on religion. If people commit a sin, commit a crime—do you have to punish them or not?” Hisham al-Ashry, an Egyptian cleric was cited in a Wall Street Journal article as saying. If there is a disagreement among Muslims on the subject of death for blasphemers, it is not about the primary question whether a blasphemer should be killed or not, but the way the killing ought to be carried – after trial in a court, not by vigilante action, say some.

It is true death for blasphemers has been decreed by Islam. Nearly a dozen story-tellers, poets and poetess were killed during Muhammad's rule for insulting or talking disparagingly about him. One of victims was a female pagan from Medina, single mother and poetess Asma bint Marwan - Asma daughter of Marwan - from the Bannu Ummayad clan. Her killing, that followed the assassination of fellow poet Abu Afak, has been narrated in 23 Years; A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad by scholar Ali Dashti and in The Life of Muhammad, by Muhammad Haykal. However, quite a few Muslim scholars reject these killings ever happened as they say the stories are based on weak sources.

Muslim scholars do not dispute two cases, however. One case is that of the deceptive killing of Ka’b bin al Ashraf, whose mother was Jewish from the Banu Nadir tribe. Ka’b’s killing is mentioned in both Sahih al Bukhari and Sahih Muslim -- two encyclopedic books that are considered authentic and authoritative compilations of Muhammad’s words and actions as narrated by his companions. Ashraf in his poems insisted the pagans' belief system was better than what Muhammad was offering; he was accused of defaming the Muslim women in his poems. The hard to convert Jew’s defiance against Muhammad is mentioned in Quran’s Surah An-Nisa, 4:51 “Have you not seen those who were given a portion of the Scripture, who believe in superstition and false objects of worship and say about the disbelievers, "These are better guided than the believers as to the way"?”  James Arlandson, PhD, in an article in The American Thinker, writes the Muslims defense for the killing of Ashraf comes from the argument that the Jewish poet had committed high treason against the head of state, Muhammad, and had poked fun at the chastity of Muslim women. “The Head could not allow immoral poetry, which drags the honour of Arab women 'into the mire,' and political poetry that insults the Head and instigates the enemies of the State.”

The second case is that of Abdullah bin Katal, who Muslim scholars agree was killed on Muhammad’s order. According to Bukhari, he used to compose poems against Muhammad and had employed two singing girls to sing those poems. Katal was assassinated even though he was in Ka’aba where killings were prohibited as it was called the Baitullah or House of God. One of the female singers was also killed, but the second repented and was allowed to live. It is because of this incident, that one can hear Muslim clerics proclaim that followers of Muhammad do have the licence to kill those who insult the Prophet even inside the Ka’aba.

The problem of punishing blasphemers to death becomes more complicated at the state level. For lack of a better word, Saudi Arabia, along with Iran and Pakistan, can actually be called state sponsors for promoting death for blasphemers. According to the International Humanist and Ethical Union, “Three states, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, can execute ‘blasphemers.’ In another three states, militant Islamists acting as religious authorities in some areas are also dealing out Sharia punishment including death for “offences” to religion: namely Al-Shabaab in Somalia, Boko Haram and other Islamists in Nigeria, and the Taliban in Afghanistan.”

In Saudi Arabia blogger Raif Badawi, who set up the Free Saudi Liberals website, was publicly flogged in front of a Jeddah mosque last Friday, as part of the first installment of 1,000 lashes for blasphemy just two days after the Saudi government condemned the Charlie Hebdo slayings. Badawi has also been sentenced to ten years in prison and has been ordered to pay a fine of $266,666.  Since the Saudis have oil money, many governments including that of Canada, where Badawi’s wife lives, looked the other way. As the back of Badawi turned red with marks of lashes – he will be lashed for 50 consecutive weeks –, Margot Wallstrom, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, was the lone exception among Western leaders to protest the lashings through a tweet, “This cruel attempt to silence modern forms of expression has to be stopped.”

In Iran, regarded as the world’s most Islamic nation, a psychologically challenged Soheil Arabi, 30, was sentenced to death for blasphemy in November. In his 1989 fatwa against Rushdie, Ayotullah Khomeini called on “all brave Muslims of the world” to “kill him without delay” — the edict, according to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre, was derived nearly verbatim from the writings of a millennium-old religious legal tradition. “Whoever insults the Prophet—I seek refuge with Allah—it is obligatory upon whoever hears that to kill him, so long as he does not fear for his life or honor, or the life or honor of a believer,” Khomeini’s edict says, according to IHRDC, belying the contention of some Muslims, who want to project a positive image of Islam, that death for blasphemers can only be carried out after a proper court hearing.

One of the worst countries on earth when it comes to killings in the name of blasphemy is Pakistan, where the omnipotent army recently staged a soft coup to punish the rogue or bad Taliban, who were once in its control. US journalist Fareed Zakaria rightly describes Pakistan “as the poster child for the anti-blasphemy law gone wild.” It is worthwhile to note Pakistan, like its main funder Saudi Arabia, condemned the Charlie Hebdo killings, but Aasia Bibi, a Christian mother and 13 others, are awaiting the hangman’s noose along the flimsy charge of committing blasphemy. In November, Muslim mobs burned alive a Christian couple Shehzad Masih, 27, and Shama Bibi, 24, at a brick kiln factory owned by Yousaf Gujjar, a member of ruling Pakistan Muslim League on the reported charge of blasphemy, even though the real story was the owner and the couple had a dispute on their leave of absence.

The world can also not forget the Kouachi brother belonged to al Qaeda whose global chief Ayman al Zwahiri continues to enjoy the status of a secret state guest in Pakistan, much like his predecessor in the terror outfit, Osama bin Laden. “As many as 50 people including a judge named Iqbal Bhatti have been killed in or outside courts for blasphemy since 1992, but not a single person has ever been convicted,” says Philadelphia-based Dr Nazir S.Bhatti, president of the Pakistan Christian Congress. It is not only the army, consumed by its passion of defeating more than six times bigger India in Kashmir, but the political leadership and civil society too who encourage those who kill in the name of Muhammad. Four years ago, when Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri killer of liberal Punjab governor Salman Taseer, who Qadri called Gustaakh-i-Rasul (blasphemer of the Prophet)  went for an appearance in an court, Muslim mobs were joined by scores of Punjabi lawyers in black coats to raise slogans in his defence and to demand death for all those who insult the Prophet. Many of the lawyers showered rose petals, hugged and kissed Qadri; one of the kissers Shaukat Siddiqi, whose eyes were closed while kissing him and who is from Rawalpindi, now sits on the bench of the Islamabad High Court in the capital of Pakistan.

Troubling reports have also come from Indonesia where police charged Jakarta Post's editor-in-chief, Meidyatama Suryodiningrat, with defamation after the newspaper produced a cartoon on the Islamic State; Mauritania where people in capital Nouakchott took to the streets Pakistan-style to celebrate the Christmas eve death sentence for journalist Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mohamed, 29, who drew a parallel for the low life of blacksmiths in his country to treatment meted out to marginalised communities during the reign of Prophet Muhammad.

Western acquiescence because of political correctness of government leaders contribute to senseless attacks such as at Charlie Hebdo. The attacks consumed so much passion that even the killing of 2,000 people in Nigeria by the Boko Haram around the same time largely went unnoticed. Compared to Anjem Choudry’s brutal honesty, French president Francois Hollande, who is said to enjoy solid support among Muslim voters, described the Charlie Hebdo attack as work of “fanatics who have nothing to do with Islam.” On different occasions in the past US President Barack Obama is cited to have said, “The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam,” and “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance.” In 2006, former President Bill Clinton described as “outrageous” the Danish cartoons that were published in Jyllands-Posten and even likened them to anti-Semitism that plagued Europe in the 1930s. Theodor Holman, a journalist and one of Dutch film maker van Gogh’s best friends, told Rachel Donadio of The New York Times fear of causing offence had stifled free speech. “Tolerance,” he said, “has been transformed into cowardice.” This time on, while many newspapers in Denmark published the Charlie Hedbo cartoons as a mark of solidarity, Jyllands-Posten did not, but in an editorial Friday openly confessed, “This shows violence works.” 

Finally, the Charlie Hebdo killings link to ancient Muslim history may not have been complete had it not been for the senseless killings by a third comrade of the Kouachi brothers, named Amedi Coulibaly. The desperado killed Yoav Hattab, Phillipe Braham, Yohan Cohen and Francois-Michel Saada at a kosher store in Paris. The Representative Council of French Jewish Instituions (CRIF) said: "These French citizens were struck down in a cold-blooded manner and mercilessly because they were Jews." Even Hollande admitted it was “an anti-Semitic attack.” The four men paid a price just like Medina’s poets Abu Afak and Ka’b did in Muhammad days for just being Jews.