The Christian Institute for the Analysis of Islam
Is Islam Above Criticism?
By
Al-Maqdesi & Solomon
Much is being stated regarding the boycott of Denmark because of a cartoon drawing
allegedly depicting the prophet of Islam.
The crisis began last September 2005 when Jyllands-Posten, a Danish Newspaper, published
cartoon drawings one of which depicted Muhammad as a terrorist. Subsequently these very
cartoons appeared in a Norwegian daily, too.
Soon there were demonstrations of protest by Muslims in Denmark and number of Islamic
countries against the publishing of the cartoons.
However, last week there began a series of reactions in Arab and Islamic countries
protesting against the publishing of Danish drawings. For example, on 30 January 2006,
a number of armed Palestinian stormed the offices of the European Union in Gaza demanding
an apology from Denmark and Norway.
Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador from Denmark and Libya followed likewise.
The Libyan foreign ministry issued a communiqué stating that Libya had decided to take
economical measures against Copenhagen as protest for the failure of Danish authorities
to take any measures against the Newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
The Syrian foreign office issued a strong worded statement denouncing this prolonged
offence against both Arab and Islamic communities. The statement added that Syria calls
upon the Danish government to take the necessary steps to punish the culprits and to see
that such offences are not repeated in the future.
In Jordan the Danish ambassador was summoned by Abdallah Al-Khatib, Minister of foreign
Affairs to express Jordan’s protest. While the Egyptian Parliament called upon its
government to withdraw its ambassadors from Denmark and Norway, and the Hezbollah in
Lebanon described the drawings as a grave offence to Islam.
Along the same line significant number of Kuwaiti religious scholars called upon the
members of the Kuwaiti parliament to see how to put an end to such offences against the
feelings of Muslims.
The Arab foreign ministers denounced the Danish government for its refusal to take any
action against the newspaper, expressing their disappointment with the European Human
Rights organizations that have in their view failed to take a firm pro-Islamic position
in this case.
On the other hand, hundreds of Kuwaitis demonstrated in front of the Danish consular
offices demanding an apology from the Danish government to apologise to all the Muslims,
calling to stop the insult to their Prophet and the Islamic religion as well as
encouraging the people of Kuwait to boycott all Danish products.
In Yemen the protestors demanded the boycott of both Norwegian and Danish products
until such time they apologise for the publishing these offensive pictures of their
prophet.
While in United Emirates Muhammad Bin Nakhyara A’zahiri the Minister of Justice,
Islamic affairs and endowments criticised the drawings depicting the prophet as an
immoderation and excess of all acceptable intellectual norms and in no way it could be
regarded as freedom of expression as stated by the Danish authorities.
Almost everywhere in the Gulf businesses have withdrawn Danish products from their
stores and major outlets in Saudi displayed notices stating ‘we do not sell Danish
products.’
People all over the Arab World wrote messages encouraging each other to boycott Danish
goods.
Why such a severely escalated reaction by Arab and Islamic countries to some cartoon
drawings? Despite the regret and apology expressed by the Newspaper.
Logic must be challenged with logic, and reason must never be allowed to be silenced
by the sword and violence of corporate punishment, a boycott of products of a country
or a withdrawal of ambassadors and the burning of flags..
This kind of suppression of freedom of expression has no place in the free Western
society.
What is ridiculous yet disappointing, those zealots for Islam think that they would
punish the West by imposing a policy of corporate humiliation and starvation in order
to demand respect for Islam gagging all and every voice of opposition.
Our question to those who are demanding the boycott of Danish and Western goods is
– what if the West were to cut them off from supplying their products, aid, security
and protection, both medical and technical expertise, deny educating their children, and
cut off their protection security!
Why this bias to what has happened in Denmark and the refusal to see or hear what the
mass media in the Arab and Islamic world has and continues to publish and broadcast in
offensive and insulting lingo and the undermining of the rights of Jews, Christians and
their religious beliefs? Shouldn’t justice and injustice be the same for all?
Do we understand by this reaction and peppery response of the Arabs and Muslims towards
the cartoon artist that anything that might offend or vilify a certain religious group
would be punitive!
If the true reason behind the rage and the reaction of the Muslims is their concern for
equal respect of all religions and its icons, then shouldn’t the Jews and the
Christians be entitled for the same reasons to be enraged and file an international law
suit against the Qur’an for its incitement against the Jews and the Christians, and
their humiliation propagated by it?
Could his majesty, the King of Saudi, clearly state to the Westerners generally and
Danes particularly, both required to respect Islam, who is it that sura 1:7 is referring
to "on whom Allah has bestowed his wrath and those who have gone astray".
Aren’t they the Jews and the Christians?!
Would the Muslims kindly inform the West and the Westerners who are required to respect
Islam? Who is it that is being referred to in sura 7:176, "his
similitude is that of a dog, if you attack him he lolls out his tongue or if you leave him
alone he still lolls out his tongue that is the similitude of whose who reject our
signs"?
Isn’t this a corporate reference to the Jews?
And then few verses further 7:179, states "many are the jinns
and men we have made for Hell, they have hearts they understand not, eyes wherewith they
see not, and ears wherewith they hear not. They are like Cattle nay more misguided for
they are heedless."
Again all Islamic expositors and their manuals say that it is the Jews that are being
referred to here.
Not only as dogs, cattle but now donkeys as per sura 62:5 "the similitude
of those who were charged with the Mosaic Law but who subsequently failed in those
(obligations) is that of a donkey which carries huge tomes. Evil is the similitude
of people who falsify the signs of Allah. And Allah guides not people who do wrong."
"As if they were affrighted asses", sura 74:50
"those who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath those of
whom some He transformed into apes and swine" sura 5:60, godless and
iniquitous as per Sura 2:59, 5:25,47; unjust and transgressors, Sura 5:45; hypocrites,
63:8; apostates, 9:30, 4:155, 171; polytheists 9:28,30. And they are the ones who
corrupted and tampered with the Scriptures, 2:75ff, 4:46, and 3:78; worshipped their
leaders as gods, sura 9:31; spread corruption on earth, 5:33,64.
How can respect of the other - meaning the non-Muslims - be achieved when the
Qur’an depicts them with most humiliating terms?
Is it out of respect that the Qur’an describes the non-Muslims as profane;
sura 9:28 "O ye who believe, truly the pagans (non Muslims)
are profane so let them not after this year of theirs approach the sacred Mosque."
Thus Mecca remains exclusively an Islamic city, non-Muslims barred.
The Qur’an declares the Christians have been declared as apostates for their
belief in the divinity of Christ by the Qur’an. So, based on this, would it be
appropriate for the USA to confiscate and censor all the Islamic books and arrest
whosoever of the Muslims reiterates that? If the USA were to require Muslims to delete or
abstain from publishing the verses of the Qur’an that declares Christians to be
apostates, what would be the reaction of Muslims?
How would they describe the USA?
As stated above, the Qur’an declares the Jews to be monkeys and swine and that
they worship Ezra … so would it be appropriate for the Jewish State to arrest Muslims
with the charge of incitement of racial and religious hate and forbid them publishing and
distributing Islamic books or the Qur’anic verses that despise the majority in the
Jewish State?
How can the Muslims demand from others to respect Islam and their beliefs and their
religious icons while the Qur’an commands the humiliation and the killing of
non-Muslims for simply not embracing Islam as their religion, Sura 9:29?
The publishing of cartoon drawings has been regarded and taken as an affront to Islam,
how would they describe the Qur’anic injunctions that incite Muslims towards hate and
murdering the other, i.e. the non-Muslims?
Can his royal Majesty, the king of Saudi Arabia, state to Westerners generally and
to the Danes particularly of whom it is required to respect Islam that all Muslims are
required and commanded by Allah in the Qur’an to hate all the Jews and the Christians
of the World?
"O ye who believe do not take the Jews and the Christians as
your friends … 5:51
Who are these Jews and Christians that the Qur’an forbids the Muslims taking them
as friends? Were they the Jews and the Christians of the time of the Prophet? Or are they
the Jews and the Christians of every age and every generation past, present and the
future?
If the application of this injunction was limited only to the time of Muhammad; then
does that mean it is no longer effective and applicable for our time and generation?
But if it is effective now and today would that not mean it is to be seen as a direct
incitement of hate towards the Jews and Christians?
Could it be then that because of this verse as a basic and fundamental factor the
result is a very poor relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims?
Don’t the Muslims know the continued petitioning of Allah daily and especially on
Fridays, a cursing that is pronounced from the pulpits of Mosques on the Jews and the
Christians:
O Allah may you make the apostates against each other and the polytheists against their
likes and bring out the Unitarians from them safely, with their spoils, O Lord of Worlds,
O Allah. May their women be widowed, may their children be orphaned, may their blood
freeze in their veins, may their food be stuck in their inner testines. O Allah, destroy
them make their miseries strong among them, O Allah grant us victory over them, O Allah
send your punishment on them, bring division in the midst of their union, scattering them,
disseminating their numbers. O Allah, grant us victory over them. O Allah may their snares
be slaughtered and be scuttled within themselves. O Allah show us your power. O Mighty One
and the Vanquisher, O Allah show us in them a dark day as in the day of A’ad and
Thamud. O Allah, quake the earth under their feet, O Allah empower venomous creatures
over them and send hail storms over them as you did over A’ad and Thamud and deliver
them as captives in the hands of your believing slaves and humiliate the polytheists and,
O Allah, lift up the banner of Islam …
Why is it right and legal for Muslims to criticise, denounce, slander and vilify all
other religions in any way they choose, particularly the Jews and Christians? However, if
one were to respond by examining Islam critically the Muslims would consider that an
abuse and vilification of Islam and would demand an apology, and even after the apology
is given there will be no guarantee that the culprit would live.
Can it really be that critique of others is a virtue, an allowed action, halal and even
obligatory for the Muslims but a vice and forbidden or haram for a non-Muslim?
Why don’t we look more closely into what led to these cartoon drawings...?
Art, as we know, is a subjective perspective of what one perceives from one’s
point of view: What the cartoonist saw was the butchering of innocent people according to
the Shari’ah, torture and assassinations by human bombs, car bombs. Suicide missions
whose victims were and continue to be innocent men, women and helpless children.
Indiscriminate killing, no distinction between military and civilian, old or young, man
or woman, including babies, chopped heads, burnt bodies, human flesh fragmented, screaming
children, wailing women, and all this in the name of Islam and the victory for Muslims.
We ask those who desire to punish the West by boycotting its products who is truly
responsible for the marred image of Islam, not only in the West but worldwide? Aren’t
they those who kill and maim in cold blood, aren’t they the followers of Islam?
Who was responsible for the bombing of New York, Madrid, London, Riyadh and Cairo,
… and the list can go on and on.
One wonders, who is the real culprit who imparted this image of Islam?
Is it the Danish cartoon artist or the Muslim Mujahedeen?
After all this, do the Muslims still have the audacity to demand from others –
the non-Muslims – to respect Muslims and Islam?
What justification and right do they have to object and demonstrate and demand that
this is not freedom but an offence and vilification of Islamic sanctities?
2 February 2006: This above article was submitted to Answering Islam,
the responsibility for its content remains with The Christian Institute for the Analysis
of Islam. In order to make this current events commentary available when it is
most relevant, i.e. at a time when the discussion is raging all over the world, we decided
to publish it immediately. This made it impossible to verify and document/reference every
detail of the statements found in it, something we usually try to do. If the reader finds
factual errors, please contact us so that we can correct them.
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