Waki Paki Jurisprudence

Outlook India reports that the Pakistani jurist who ordered that Facebook be blocked has ordered the Foreign Ministry to direct the permanent Ambassador to the U.N. to submit a resolution complaining of the Everybody Draw Muhammad Day page on Facebook. The ban has been lifted, but could be reimposed at the next hearing June 15.

The article included these titillating tidbits from the order.

"The canons of Islam do not prohibit or limit any individual’s right to freedom of expression and speech.

Rather it emulates the phrase, ‘Your liberty ends where the nose of the other persons starts’, meaning thereby that any right to freedom of expression and speech of one person would not prejudice the right of self-respect and dignity of the other person," the judge said in his order.

"The core issue involved in the instant matter was the publication of blasphemous material which was viewed as a deliberate attempt to malign the very holy and sanctimonious stature of Prophet (Mohammed) and any regulation made for the protection of the deeply sensitive and emotional sentiments should not be viewed as (being) in conflict with an individual’s universally accepted rights of freedom, expressions and speech,"

The canons of Islam expressly forbid any negative expression about Islam, its doctrines and sanctities. We turn to Reliance of the Traveller, Book O, Chapter 8 to view the penalty for apostasy. Apostasy carries a death sentence.

O8.1

When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed.

O8.2

In such a case, it is obligatory for the caliph (A: or his representive) to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does, it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed.

O8.7 lists a set of acts which entail apostasy. Items 4,5,6,7,14, 15, 16 & 19 are relevant. Saying anything negative about Allah, Moe and their system gets your head lopped off.

O8.7: Acts that Entail Leaving Islam

(O: Among the things that entail apostasy from Islam (may Allah protect us from them) are:

-1- to prostrate to an idol, whether sarcastically, out of mere contrariness, or in actual conviction, like that of someone who believes the Creator to be something that has originated in time. Like idols in this respect are the sun or moon, and like prostration is bowing to other than Allah, if one intends reverence towards it like the reverence due to Allah;

-2- to intend to commit unbelief, even if in the future. And like this intention is hesitating whether to do so or not: one thereby immediately commits unbelief;

-3- to speak words that imply unbelief such as ``Allah is the third of three,'' or ``I am Allah''-unless one's tongue has run away with one, or one is quoting another, or is one of the friends of Allah Most High (wali, def: w33) in a spiritually intoxicated state of total oblivion (A: friend of Allah or not, someone totally oblivious is as if insane, and is not held legally responsible (dis: k13.1(O:) ) ), for these latter do not entail unbelief;

-4- to revile Allah or His messenger (Allah bless him and give him peace);

-5- to deny the existence of Allah, His beginingless eternality, His endless eternality, or to deny any of His attributes which the consensus of Muslims ascribes to Him (dis: v1);

-6- to be sarcastic about Allah's name, His command, His interdiction, His promise, or His threat;

-7- to deny any verse of the Koran or anything which by scholarly consensus (def: b7) belongs to it, or to add a verse that does belong to it;

-8- to mockingly say, ``I don't know what faith is'';

-9- to reply to someone who says, ``There is no power or strength save through Allah''; ``Your saying `There's no power or strength, etc,' won't save you from hunger'';

-10- for a tyrant, after an oppressed person says, ``This is through the decree of Allah,'' to reply, ``I act without the decree of Allah'';

-11- to say that a Muslim is an unbeliever (kafir) (dis: w47) in words that are uninterpretable as merely meaning he is an ingrate towards Allah for divinely given blessings (n: in Arabic, also ``kafir'');

-12- when someone asks to be taught the Testification of Faith (Ar. Shahada, the words, ``La ilaha ill Allahu Muhammadun rasulu Llah'' (There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah) ), and a Muslim refuses to teach him it;

-13- to describe a Muslim or someone who wants to become a Muslim in terms of unbelief (kufr);

-14- to deny the obligatory character of something which by the consensus of Muslims (ijma`, def: B7) is part of Islam, when it is well known as such, like the prayer (salat) or even one rak'a from one of the five obligatory prayers, if there is no excuse (def: u2.4);

-15- to hold that any of Allah's messengers or prophets are liars, or to deny their being sent;

(n: `Ala' al-din' Abidin adds the following:

-16- to revile the religion of Islam;

-17- to believe that things in themselves or by their own nature have any causal influence independent of the will of Allah;

-18- to deny the existence of angels or jinn (def: w22), or the heavens;

-19- to be sarcastic about any ruling of the Sacred Law;

-20- or to deny that Allah intended the Prophet's message (Allah bless him and give him peace) to be the religion followed by the entire world (dis: w4.3-4) (al-Hadiyya al-`Ala'iyya (y4), 423-24). )

Of course that could not apply to us kafiroon, could it? Chapter 11 deals with non-Muslim subjects of the Islamic state; O11.10 lists five acts which violate the treaty of dhimmitude, subjecting the violator to the death penalty. Of these, the fifth item is of interest to us.

-5- or mentions something impermissible about Allah, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), or Islam.

Got a clue yet? The Jurist ruled that Shari'ah does not impair our right of free expression. Shari'ah explicitly contradicts his ruling. Sorry, Justice Chaudhry, you do not have a right to close off all expression that offends your tender sensibilities. You have a right to withdraw from the presence of the speaker, to change the t.v. or radio channel, or to point your web browser to a different web site. We have a Constitution which says that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." [Emphasis added.] That Constitution is the supreme law of the land, it is superior to Shari'ah and to international law and to your vaunted U.N. resolutions. So, kiss off!

Some people lack extensive knowledge of the tenets of Islam. Some lack the ability and patience to vocalize their outrage. They express their negative emotion with art. Others like me have no artistic skill with which to express our outrage. We are limited to the written and spoken word as a means of expressing our outrage and sharing factual information with our fellows. American citizens have a Constitutionally guaranteed right to express what we know about Moe's War Cult. We will not be silenced.