Adil Najam
Read this news from The Express Tribune and tell me how this is not idiotic:
KARACHI: A doctor has been arrested on charges of blasphemy in Hyderabad, police said on Sunday. Naushad Valiyani was detained on Friday following a complaint by a medical representative who visited the doctor in the city of Hyderabad. “The arrest was made after the complainant told the police that Valiyani threw his business card, which had his full name, Muhammad Faizan, in a dustbin during a visit to his clinic,” regional police chief Mushtaq Shah told AFP. “Faizan accused Valiyani of committing blasphemy and asked police to register a case against the doctor.”
Shah said the issue had been resolved after Valiyani, a member of the Ismaili community apologised but local religious leaders intervened and pressed for action. “Valiyani had assured Faizan that he did not mean to insult the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) by throwing the visiting card in the dustbin,” Shah said, adding that the police had registered a case under the Blasphemy Act.
Please tell me, who is insulting the Prophet (PBUH) in this case (as in so many others)? Who is the real “threat” to the “Namoos-e-Rasool“?
Using the Prophet’s name in vain and for spreading personal and petty hatred is itself an insult to the Prophet’s (PBUH) message and person. Anyone who cares for “Namoos-e-Rasool” should feel insulted and incensed at how this “namoos” is being ridiculed by the purveyors of hate in the name of blasphemy.
Maybe we should have a law against parents naming their children ‘Muhammad’. Let me confess I have two children whose middle name is ‘Muhammad’ and I sometimes do end up shouting at them or chiding them for not doing their homework. Does this, now, also count as blasphemy?
For Allah’s sake, give me a break. Please! If not me, at least give the Prophet (PBUH) a break!
P.S. For those unable to read Urdu, the verse at the top of this post is from Iftikhar Arif: “Rehmat-i-Syed-i-Lolaak pey kamil eeman / Ummat-i-Syed-i-Lolaak say khauf aata hai.” I hope readers who are better translators than me can provide a translation befitting this verse.
@ Adnan
” may I ask psuedo liberals that if someone really use abusive terms for Muhammad(saw) or other Prophets, what should be done?”
Do exactly the same thing to them that you think should be done to someone who really abuses or uses abusive terms for any other religion, any other religious personality, or any other sect that they do not believe in. Do exactly the same. No more and no less.
I read it in Jang and not sure who’s right. If that guy is not lying, that is, saying that he did not mean to insult then one should trust in his words because only the creator knows what’s inside the heart but if he said abusive words in presence of others and now denying then it’s the different case and definitely it’s the blasphemy.
On a related note, may I ask psuedo liberals that if someone really use abusive terms for Muhammad(saw) or other Prophets, what should be done? Is it blasphemy for them or not? Kindly do answer rather than making noise to put weight in your rants.
Salaam,
The illiterate majority in Pakistan will continue to follow the mullahs who themselves are illiterate of our pure religion. When will the qaum realize this? I am afraid for the future generations who are getting even further away from Islam seeing such ludicrous misrepresentation of Islam just to take another life. No doubt life is cheap in Pakistan, but do we really haev to waste it?
T
1- Awesome post. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
2- For all the champions of religion here, the blasphemy laws themselves are an insult to Islam and the Prophet. I don’t know what religion have you guys adhered to or seen, but the one called Islam and the one with Mohammad PBUH as the prophet, doesn’t go around sentencing people to death EVEN in the face of blasphemy. They went on looking after ‘infidels’ who threw garbage at them every single day.
The idiotic, cruel response to ‘blashphemy’ or even the term ‘blasphemy’ is something you have shamelessly borrowed from the xtian church and what not. If the LAW or the religious police wants to punish people for blasphemy, and worse condemn them to death, please be brave enough to say that this is because YOU cannot stand what you term as ‘blasphemy’ and would go around killing people in its name. DONT use the name of the prophet or Islam to convince people that the PUNISHMENT as dictated by EITHER is to KILL because of blasphemy.
http://www.borderlinegreen.com/2010/12/12/confronting-the-blasphemy-law/
A law that can be misused, will be misused.