Nah, there's no compulsion in Islam

Over in this thread (and especially on pages two and three) there was some discussion of whether or not Islam allows for compulsion or persecution in religious matters, with a couple of posters indignantly protesting that true Muslims never, ever do such wicked things. Well, maybe true Muslims don’t, but I wonder just how many true Muslims are out there then? Considerably fewer than 1,164,622,000 would be my guess.

I recently got an e-mail detaling the plight of one Dr. Younis Shaikh, who was arrested on October 4, 2000 for violation of Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code (blasphemy). He is currently being held in Adyala Jail in Rawalpindi, and if he can avoid being lynched he faces trial on charges which carry a mandatory death penalty upon conviction. He didn’t even say anything which seems too shockingly terrible (to me, anyway)–nothing like “tu madre, Mohammed!” or anything like that, just something to the effect that Mohammed didn’t become a Muslim until God’s revelation to him. This does not appear to be some kind of stupid e-mail chain letter: this page gives far too many details, and is linked to directly from the homepage of the International Humanist and Ethical Union. You can also read Amnesty International’s report on Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. (Incidentally, some things in the AI report seem to suggest that Amnesty International is upset at the unjust administration of the blasphemy laws in Pakistan. Is there a just way to administer blasphemy laws?)

Note that all this is happening in Pakistan, not in the Great Islamic Fundamentalist Bogeyman Iran, or the Newer Islamic Fundamentalist Bogeyman Afghanistan.

Finally, since this is the Pit, let me just close by saying to the people of Pakistan, in all sincerity, and in the kindest and most constructive way possible: “Fuck the Prophet Mohammed”.

Thank you.

Your OP may be well-researched in terms of checking out Dr. Shaikh’s plight and Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, but I have some questions for you. Your statement is suspiciously close to the “kill all the ragheads” and “they are born terrorists” language I’ve seen in the Pit recently.

Firstly, why do you think Pakistan a bastion of liberalism in a sea of fundamentalism? Who told you to decide which countries were The Great Islamist Bogeymen? The fact that they have blasphemy laws on the books would indicate that they, like Iran and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia and Libya and a host of other countries, are an Islamic State. Pakistan was CREATED as an Islamic state, a Muslim homeland, at the time of independence of India from England. It has gone back and forth between a more secular government and Islamist government over the years, with a series of coups, but basically there is no separation of church and state.

The tension between democracy* and theocracy (with some monarchy thrown in) is widespread across the Muslim world, because while the Koran and Shariah set down the rules for living, no one can agree on exactly what form of government is the logical result. It’s similar to other “totalitarian” governments, like the communism practiced in China or the U.S.S.R. - there is an idealistic attempt to form a perfect society of believers, where not only your actions but the fervor of your belief can be called into question by the state, and used and abused for all kinds of political reasons. In both cases there is a doctrine or a book that you have to follow, but the state, not you, has the power to decide how well you are following it.

One of the most interesting things happens when Islamic fundamentalists are voted into power by the people - theocracy through democracy**. This has happened over and over again in Algeria and in Egypt (at the local government level). In many predominantly Muslim countries, the Islamist groups are the ones getting things done - running schools, making sure the trash gets picked up, speaking out against corrupt leaders and injustices. Of course, these are countries with no history of peaceful transfers of political power from one group or party to another - the Islamists who win in Algeria are locked up as soon as they win - many of them win municipal elections from jail. And certainly no fundamentalist-leaning government is going to allow a return to secular values once they get their hands on the pie, as they have in Pakistan & Iran. You are talking about absolutists, fervrent believers who think the separation of church and state is a sacrelige. And they rule in places where often the majority has consented that the state has the power to look out for citizen’s spiritual and moral well-being.

Fuck, I’m rambling. andros, get in here. I need you.

MEBuckner, I guess I’m asking you, what is it that you are trying to say? That theocracies suck? Well, they creep me out too, especially since I just got done re-reading The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s my belief that religion and politics cannot mix without vastly diminishing the freedoms of the citizenry. I also live in a country where individual freedom is valued above all else.

Are you trying to express your outrage at Dr. Shaikh’s situation? That’s cool - get in touch with Amnesty International and write a letter on his behalf.

Your suggestion about the number of “real Muslims” and the attack on the religion as a whole frankly nauseates me. Subsitute Christian or Jewish fundamentalists for Muslims in both your post and mine and see how it looks. It’s NOT religion that’s the problem, it’s the combination of religion and politics.

If you want to actually learn instead of railing against a billion people, I can recommend an excellent book: Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives, edited by John J. Donahue and John L. Esposito. It’s written by Muslim leaders, clerics, and scholars - short articles and commentary about the collision between Muslim traditions and values and Western ideas of constitutional democracy. I think very few Americans actually experience Muslims describing and debating problems in their own words.

But STOP the “Fuck all members of this religion” garbage. Now.

*Democracy can mean the secular sort, practiced in Turkey or the “we have elections, even though the same incredibly corrupt person wins every time” sort practiced in countries like Egypt.

**Yes, I know that Hitler was voted into power too. Blow me.

I don’t know that this is true. The struggle between the President and the mullahs in Iran at the moment is a struggle between different parts of the anti-Shah revolution. It could yet turn out that the Iranian revolution leads to a flowering of liberal Islam. IMHO Khatami’s (sp?) electoral successes and the careful struggle against the hardliners is one of the most interesting and significant political stories of the past 5 years.

picmr

picmr, thanks, very good point. I should have referred more to the desire of whoever (hardliner or democrat/autocrat) to stay in power once there, and the difficulty dislodging a government that believes God is on its side. Iran and its neighbors do not do not have the same history of peaceful transitions from one ruling party to another, of course, this may happen because their political parties are actually radically different from one another (unlike in the U.S.) Khatami has moved very cautiously to avoid pissing off the hard-line clerics and bringing on a crackdown, and hopefully he will gain enough momentum to open up Iran. But the hardline clerics will always be there, waiting for another chance.

correction - I should not have said radically different in reference to political parties, as I actually don’t know the makeup in Iran, and I suspect they all have to come pretty close to toeing the Islamist line in order to survive right now. Turkey would be a better example, with the “let’s have a theocracy” against the “let’s have a secular consitutional democracy” status quo representing huge differences.

A number of non-Islamic countries have blasphemy laws, including Britain and Australia. They don’t carry the death penalty, but are still used occasionally.

Britain’s blasphemy laws were recently upheld by the European Court of Human Rights.

magdalene, I think in the wake of RosieWolf you’re jumping to conclusions about MEBuckner’s intentions.

(emphasis mine)

If the bolded portion was about Christians and, and, oh, let’s say, gay-bashing, I don’t think you would have a problem with it.

He’s not bashing the whole religion, he’s protesting the fact that believers are defending the religion by defining it as ‘people who claim to be Muslims but don’t do bad things.’ Christians do the same things and are rightfully called on it when they do.

(BTW, I’m not trying to claims that Christians are especially abused here. This way of defining labels to mean what you want them to isn’t tolerated here, no matter what group is using it.)

–John

John, maybe I was misinterpreting in the wake of RosieWolf, et al. Yes, Muslims do bad things. Wouldn’t want to live in Iran, Algeria, Afghanistan right now, especially as a woman…

I’m not a Muslim, but I get very sensitive to Muslim-bashing, because I think many Americans have a completely warped picture of what Islam is, and they usually assume the worst - terrorism, honor killings, veils, Ayatollah Khomeni, hostages - because that’s what filters to us through the news. Especially with the current Middle East troubles.

TomH, thanks for correcting the errors on blasphemy laws. Um, Do Britain and Australia have laws that you can’t blaspheme about the prophet Muhammed or the Koran? No, I thought not. And aren’t they at least nominally Christian states? The Church of England, etc.? Yes, there is definitely religous freedom and tolerance, now but not always as I recall.

I would also mention that Pakistan is a military dictatorship that leans towards Fascism. I’m really not surprised a bit. Now, if you want to get into the Religious intolerance and compulsion in India, a democracy, that would be another story. Or maybe we could talk about what happens to atheists in the heavily fundamentalist christian american south.

[quote]

I’m not a Muslim, but I get very sensitive to Muslim-bashing, because I think many Americans have a completely warped picture of what Islam is, and they usually assume the worst-terrorism, honor killings, veils, Ayatollah Khomeni, hostages - because that’s what filters to us through the news. Especially with the current Middle East troubles.

[quote]

So you’re saying those things are just made up?

I think that people have hit the question in the OP pretty close to accurately.

Just as the message of Christ, at least in the interpretation of myself and my denomination, calls for love,charity, and respect towards all, but some persons allege that the “Christian way” calls for condemnation of, say, those who have or give abortions or who are gay, or who are convinced that Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace were not out to lunch, so Islam calls for compassion and hospitality toward the stranger and no compulsion, but there are Islamic zealots who behave strangely like Christian zealots, neither IMHO doing what Christ or Mohammed would have countenanced.

What set me off was getting that e-mail just a week or two after seeing a couple of Muslims on this board go off on even the suggestion that there might be any tradition of coercion within Islam. Don’t get me wrong–I think it’s great that many of the more enlightened Muslims are now rejecting persecution in the name of their religion. But I find this attitude that people who mention the wrongs done in the name of Islam are just ignorant Muslim-bashers hard to swallow. Yes, I know it’s not in the Qur’an. Yes, I know Christians also have done terrible things in the name of their religion–I’d be the last person to mount a blanket defense of Christianity. But for the most part Christians these days are fairly well-behaved. You won’t catch Billy Graham, or even Pat Robertson, issuing any fatwas calling for the assassination of this or that enemy of the faith. Bishop Spong (the ultra-liberal Episcopalian theologian) does not live in constant fear of his life. Britain may have a blasphemy law still on the books–which I deplore, as I do the hold-outs of religious oppression in the U.S., like the handful of state laws banning atheists from holding political office–but by and large I have to admit Christians around these parts don’t riot and tear the blasphemers limb from limb. There’s Ireland of course, but I’m not sure that’s so much about religious faith any more as it is about ethnic identity. There are also some nasty authoritarian strains in Russian Orthodoxy. And there is certainly a fringe of real hard-core theocrats right here among American Christians. But judging by the sorts of things which happen in Pakistan and Bangladesh and Egypt, there are at minimum tens of millions of Muslims who believe in state sanctions–even the death penalty–against “blasphemers” and “apostates”. It’s not just a fringe in Islam–maybe someday it will be, but not yet. When the Ayatollah Khomeini issued his infamous order for the murder of Salman Rushdie, he didn’t act in a vacuum; in fact, the Ayatollah seems to have been seeking to shore up his position as would-be leader of the Islamic world by rushing out and placing himself at the head of the mob.

As for the remark about Islamic Bogeyman–because of the way news is reported to us, I think Americans tend to expect to hear horrible things about the Evil Middle Eastern Villainous Nation du jour–first it was Libya and Iran, then it was Iraq, now it’s Afghanistan (and yes, I know that not all of those countries are Islamic theocracies by any means, although I believe even Saddam tried to wrap himself in the Qur’an when the shooting started). But I think Americans may be less aware of the things which go on in places like Pakistan or Bangladesh or Egypt or Saudi Arabia–note how many of those countries are allies of the U.S.

I am an Indian citizen; I dont REALLY love my country© But, I just want to clear the misconception of "Religous Intolerence and Compulsion"©

People who follow their religion without bugging others have usually been co-existing peacefully in India© Recently however, missionaries who practice conversion, of religions other than Hinduism, are having a tough time© This, I believe brings out the fundamental philosophies between Hinduism and other religions©

Example, Christians have this philosophy of spreading the joy that you received© This manifests itself in conversion©

However, I want to insist, unless you go around preaching that your religion is better than others in India, you will NOT be discriminated© Heck we wont even notice© Indians, as a unit, just dont care what religion you practice!! ¥But, keep in mind India has a population in excess of 1 billion; some religious nuts will always exist© We are talking about the social practices and legal issues here¤

However, if you celebrate the defeat of the Indian cricket ¥a sport¤ team, irrespective of your religious beliefs, you WILL be lynched :¤

The definition of blasphemy used in the Gay News case (1979) was “any contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous matter relating to God, Jesus Christ or the Bible”. By that definition the British law of blasphemy would extend protection to all Christian denominations and to Judaism, although the established religion is a particular protestant denomination. The recent Visions of Ecstasy case (which I referred to above) concerned a “blasphemous” representation of St Theresa.

My point was simply that Muslim states do not have a monopoly on blasphemy laws, or on Church & State arrangements of which Americans would disapprove.