Fury continues to rise over Qur’an desecrations in Sweden, with one of the principal Sunni Muslim countries in the world, Saudi Arabia, condemning “instances of repeated transgression against Islam,” while the world’s leading Shi’a state, the Islamic Republic of Iran, is demanding that the Qur’an burning perpetrators be handed over to Islamic countries. Islamic countries practice their religion without external interference.
Only when there was a brutal crackdown of dissidents — from imprisonment to murder — in Iran did international human rights organizations condemn and report about what was happening, while downplaying the regime’s own connection of its repressive activities to Islamic teaching….CONTINUE READING
But these reports of Islamic countries demanding that Western nations curtail their freedoms, have led to no substantial outcry. Even as a jihad genocide against Christians continues in Africa, there remains a deafening silence regarding any act of violence that is justified in Islamic texts and teachings.
Those who visit Islamic countries conform to the rules and norms of the Sharia; otherwise, they will face punishment. It was and is understood that when in Rome, do as the Romans do, but not when it comes to Islam. Theologically, normative Islam advances the idea that when in Rome, subjugate Rome.
The laws and norms of infidel Western countries allow for the freedom of expression. Under the banner of freedoms, human rights thrive, and most importantly, the equality of rights under the law, regardless of race or creed. One element of free societies that many consider a drawback is that in free societies people are understood to have the free will to choose behaviors which may be deemed morally reprehensible by most faiths. Such choices may include not only lifestyle decisions, but words and/or deeds that give offense to others. Free societies do not function like theocratic regimes.
The convulsions of the Islamic world in the face of the recent desecrations of the Qur’an are quite a spectacle. Even more of a spectacle is the fact that there are those in the West who are fanning the flames of this burning rage as they desperately try to pacify the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and every organization that upholds Sharia, which, of course, forbids blasphemy (see, for example, Abu Dawud, book 38, no. 4348). Many infidel leaders and other non-Muslims have supported the Muslim world’s rage and exhibited more moral indignation than they did in their reactions to the widespread abuse and persecution of infidels by Muslims. For some of these, the core of their reaction is fear. For others, it is a lack of recognition that at the center of the Qur’an desecration controversy stands the defense of freedom as we know it.
One is free to abhor Qur’an burnings and desecrations and in fact any insult to any religion, but Western leaders should not be intimidated into allowing this abhorrence to dictate the laws of the West.
The governments of Western nations do not (or at least should not) operate above their own constitutions. But the freedom that Western nations offer to their citizens has already been encroached upon by Islamic lobbies via the “Islamophobia” subterfuge. The freedom of expression has been systematically attacked. And now a competing interest has entered the square and is vying for dominance: the LGBTQ lobby, which is pressuring societies into accepting — regardless of anyone’s religious beliefs or convictions — that there are more than two genders and that gender is fluid, and that children must be taught this.
This is a society without a core. Saudi Arabia and other OIC nations are indeed witnessing a declining West, with a broken cornerstone. Strategically speaking, what better time to maximize pressure to advance the ultimate goal of a global caliphate and unite the ummah under the common cause of the sacredness of Sharia?
Saudi Arabia can go only so far in outwardly proclaiming its “reforms.” Since it is the global leader of Sunni Islam, it is unable to challenge the divinity of the Sharia, as it has routinely demonstrated in its abuse of dissidents. So what does Saudi Arabia expect Western governments to do about Qur’an desecration? Change their laws and bow in submission to Islam? Precisely.
Saudi Arabia expressed strong condemnation and resentment towards governments not taking necessary measures to prevent repeated occurrences of incidents that involve disrespecting and desecrating Islamic sanctities.
It is indeed offensive to most people to insult or desecrate a religious book; however, this is permitted in Western countries, since “offense” is not against the law, nor should it be. Once the freedom of expression can be curtailed to avoid giving offense and hurting feelings, whose feelings will have pride of place? Whose feelings will triumph over the freedom and sovereignty of Western nations? In the free West, actual criminal acts, not hurt feelings, are the focus of the law.
Saudi Arabia rebuked acts that give offense to people of all religions, but everyone knows full well that no other religion reacts to insults the way Islamic leaders and all too many other Muslims do.
The Ministry expressed the Kingdom’s condemnation in the strongest terms of these acts calling for hatred and violence between religions.
These acts actually do not call for “hatred and violence between religions.” It is Islam that perpetuates hatred and violence through jihad, the highest calling in Islam (see Sahih Muslim 20:4655, Sahih Bukhari 52:46 and 52:54, Qur’an 4:74, Qur’an 9:111, and many more).
Last week, Iraq expelled Sweden’s ambassador over the latest Qur’an desecration and called for an emergency Islamic summit. The idea of a summit was supported by Saudi Arabia. In Iran, “Ayatollah Khamenei has called the latest damaging of the Quran in Sweden a criminal act and called on Western governments to punish those responsible for the provocation.”
As did Saudi Arabia, the Ayatollah then broadened the condemnation to include other religions, urging Muslims to “refrain from making similar moves in retaliation.” This was not said out of respect for other religions; it was self serving. Should Muslims burn other religious books in retaliation, Islamic countries know that they will be in a quandary, given their own reactions across the Islamic world to desecrations of the Qur’an. Yet does Islam really demonstrate respect for other faiths (in its own texts, as well as in practice), given its treatment of kaffirs and lack of condemnation of their persecution, much less action to end that persecution?
Ayatollah Khamenei now wants to see Qur’an-burners handed over to Islamic countries. Any guesses on what adherents of the religion of peace might do to them?
Khamenei believes that “Israel and the West are ‘vainly trying to make young generations in the Islamic world lose respect for what is held sacred and to extinguish their religious sentiments.’” This is not actually what anyone in the West is trying to do. The Qur’an desecrations are rather a protest against Islam’s human rights abuses and its expansionism, that is, its encroachment beyond Islamic countries and into Western countries. They are a call for the West to reassert its freedoms.
The virulent reaction of the Islam world to Qur’an desecration and insults to Islam must not be encouraged. Imagine what would happen if Charlie Hebdo magazine decided to mock Muhammad in the current climate. Islam has already struck fear into the hearts of disbelievers (as per Qur’an 8:12) and it continues to strike the iron while it is hot.
Islamic countries are free to ban the burning of the Qur’an and, in fact, any speech offensive to Islam, but they are not free to dictate to Western countries what they can and cannot do.
In Islam, the text is more important than human life. In normative Islam, the Sharia is divine law. It is informed by the Qur’an and Hadith, so to desecrate a Qur’an is a bigger crime than murder. It is a grave affront to Islam and a blow to its supremacy.
The standoff between Islamic countries and Western countries centers around desecration of Qur’an, when it should have been centered around human rights all along. The West has refused to acknowledge what Sharia and jihad are all about. The standoff, however, between free societies and Islamic nations increasingly exposes what Islam is really about….CONTINUE READING
