Rethinking Islam with Sultan Shahin

Urdu Section

25 Jun 2011, NewAgeIslam.Com

	Muslim Reactions to Blasphemy: An Alternate Position
	One of the few Islamic scholars to have openly denounced the killing of Taseer and to have condemned Pakistan’s blasphemy law is the New Delhi-based Maulana Wahiduddin Khan. Khan has written widely on the issue of blasphemy. One of his earliest essays on the subject appeared in 1986, which was later included in a volume that was published in 1997 under the title Shatm-e Rasul ka Masla Quran wa Hadith aur Fiqh wa Tarikh ki Roshni Mai (‘The Question of Blasphemy Against the Prophet in the Light of the Quran, Hadith, Fiqh and History’). This essay, centred on a case of perceived insult to the Prophet Muhammad and the violent Muslim response to it, bears immediate relevance to the issues being hotly debated today with regard to the anti-blasphemy law in Pakistan. Khan penned this essay when a massive Muslim mob stormed the office of the Bangalore-based daily Deccan Herald after it published a story provocatively titled ‘Mohammad, the Idiot’. Although the story was not about the Prophet Mohammad himself, enraged Muslims took it to be an insult to him.-- Yoginder Sikand, NewAgeIslam.com (Urdu Translation by: Md. Zafar Iqbal, NewAgeIslam.com)

Muslim Reactions to Blasphemy: An Alternate Position

By Yoginder Sikand, NewAgeIslam.com (Urdu Translation by: Md. Zafar Iqbal, NewAgeIslam.com) The brutal murder of the Pakistani leader Salman Taseer for daring to question his country’s draconian blasphemy law which lays down death for insulting the Prophet Mohammad has ignited furious debate as to whether or not Islam prescribes this extreme punishment for such an act. Predictably, as on many other issues, there seems to be no unanimity among Muslims themselves on this question. While Islamist and mullah ideologues insist that Islam demands death for traducers of the Prophet, liberal Muslim scholars, relying on the same texts as their opponents, stoutly deny that this is so. One of the few Islamic scholars to have openly denounced the killing of Taseer and to have condemned Pakistan’s blasphemy law is the New Delhi-based Maulana Wahiduddin Khan. Khan has written widely on the issue of blasphemy. One of his earliest essays on the subject appeared in 1986, which was later included in a volume that was published in 1997 under the title Shatm-e Rasul ka Masla Quran wa Hadith aur Fiqh wa Tarikh ki Roshni Mai (‘The Question of Blasphemy Against the Prophet in the Light of the Quran, Hadith, Fiqh and History’). This essay, centred on a case of perceived insult to the Prophet Muhammad and the violent Muslim response to it, bears immediate relevance to the issues being hotly debated today with regard to the anti-blasphemy law in Pakistan. A regular columnist for NewAgeIslam.com, Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion at the National Law School, Bangalore. URL for Full Text of English Article: http://www.newageislam.com/the-war-within-islam/muslim-reactions-to-blasphemy--an-alternate-position/d/3978 URL: http://www.newageislam.com/urdu-section/توہین-رسول-پر-مسلمانوں-کا-رد-عمل-ایک-متبادل-صورت/d/4911