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.
Thank you for writing this courageous post.
Aye merey Allah, Islam ko jahil musalmanoun say bacha.
Adnan, so you would have no problem and would be as understanding if the govt. of India passes a law whereby any Muslim who makes a perceived insult to any Hindu religious figures could potentially be subject to death? Would you grant the same courtesy to other nations to treat their muslim minorities with the same brushstrokes that you prescribe for your minorities?
Logically speaking, if there’s a problem with criminalized blasphemy, it must lie in the concept itself, the framing of any law which criminalizes the behavior, or the application of any such law.
I can’t comment on the jurisprudential underpinning to the notion of blasphemy being a crime, and I certainly don’t wish to suggest that as a criminalized behavior it should be unthinkingly abolished, but if it is applied the way I’ve read about recently then something is certainly wrong.
It’s worth noting that England and Wales managed perfectly well with blasphemy laws until as recently as 2008 when they were abolished as part of an immigration law change. Meanwhile, Scotland and Northern Ireland continue to maintain their blasphemy laws, though in all cases, the laws are in a Christian frame of reference. Indeed, the one blaspheming need not be a Christian to be culpable.
So if as Muslims, we acknowledge any validity to a blasphemy crime, everything hinges on the framing of the law and how it’s applied. I don’t think we should foreclose on the possibility of an intelligently framed law but it doesn’t seem that we have that in Pakistan today.
From the behavior and sayings of the Holy Prophet, may the blessings of Allah and peace be upon him, the governing consideration in any matter of culpability was “niyyah” or intent. If it could be determined that there was no intent to commit an infraction then the Prophet (pbuh) was quick to demonstrate that there was to be no punishment. Indeed, even if there were an intent, but it could be determined that there was genuine contrition after the fact, a light punishment would be the norm. At least for all but the most heinous crimes. Before readers of this argue that the card was deliberately thrown in the bin, we should understand the intent in question would have to be around blasphemy toward the name of the Prophet (pbuh) and not simple disregard for the card, nor even for the person whose card it was. Indeed the card might well have been forcefully hurled into the bin in the aftermath of an argument, but it still would not be self-evidently an act of disdain toward the Prophet (pbuh).
If Pakistan’s laws reflect nothing to differentiate willful behavior from clear cases of non-willful acts, then the law is at least in that regard, ill-considered. If they do make this distinction, then clearly the case in point would fail to demonstrate any willful intent toward blasphemy in the discarding of a name card. (By the way, it’s for this and other situations, that I, like many people with similar names use the structure “M. Salahuddin Khan”, just to be sensitive to inadvertent trashing of something with my name on it, but that’s a matter for people to decide).
In any case if the law can’t be written to acknowledge such issues as niyyah (which of course would have to be proven, with all the burden that it would entail), then indeed it should be abolished. Personally, I believe it can be written to separate willful acts from the kinds of things we’ve seen reported, and for all I know it may already be so.
Lastly we come to the application of law. I know we’re talking about Pakistan, but the police ought in any normal circumstance to be the ones to look for prima facie evidence of a crime having been committed and the courts have to determine if they’re right. Not the police. Not the local mullahs, with all due respect to the many respectable mullahs that are out there.
Wallowing fatalistically in the awareness of the Pakistani system’s weaknesses is not acceptable. We have to address those weaknesses, but not unthinkingly. If we can’t, we have no business discussing laws in such a condition of lawlessness.
@Adnan:
The kind of attituide you portray, people have no choice but to spit on what you believe.
…and so they do.
It seems they finally did the right thing.
http://www.dawn.com/2010/12/14/doctor-accused-of-blasphemy-released-2.html