Cluedo for the lamenters of Asma Bint Marwan

 

It appears that a few historians and critics of Islam have yet to understand the value of the Islamic scholarship on history and its transmission through the ages. Islamic historical sources can be divided into three categories.

 

Seerah (Sira) or the biographies of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). These contain orally transmitted history of the life and times of the Prophet. Ibn Ishaq's Sira is the earliest known record of Holy Prophet's life, but no known transcripts survived. We rely on Ibn Hisham's rendering of Ibn Ishaq's manuscripts for reference.

 

 

Hadith and their commentaries. All narrators of these prophetic sayings and incidents from his and his companions' lives are recorded in chronological order before narrating the story or quotation.

 

 

Tafseer and other early scholarly works: Early books on Quranic exegesis also contain some historic materials not found on other books.  

It has been well established principle of Islamic scholarship that in the matter of Shariah (laws, do's and dont's) Sira books cannot be relied upon due to the poor transmission of the events from the time of the Prophet. That is why Imam Hanbal, one of the first jurist Imams specifically indicated his mistrust of Ibn Ishaq Sira for deciding on the matters of jurisprudence.

 

Quran remains the unaltered and unadulterated Word of God in a Muslim's eyes; the source of dispute within Islam is not the words of Quran, but what they mean? And to the more literalistic, Orthodox Sects, these words cannot mean anything more than what the Prophet or his companions or some esteemed Imams have already said.

 

This not only provides ammunition to the endless ongoing schisms within Islam, but also helps fuel the Islamophobic propaganda by the bigots.

 

From the most violent Shia-Sunni war to the ridiculous debates on whether God has hands and feet, all disputes are deeply rooted in a bunch of texts which require constant scrutiny and criticism.

 

I keep hearing and reading about the vengeful killings of some 'esteemed' satirist poets in Medina and Makkah ordered by the Prophet Muhammad.

 

Tom Holland and Douglas Murray have both mentioned Asma bint Marwan, a Jewish poetess of Medina who lampooned the Prophet and was executed by one of his companions.

 

The argument goes that Charlie Hebdo attack was not so out of character, considering the founder of Islam himself did not tolerate any satire aimed at him.

 

But the fact is that what these commentators and scholars consider to be a fact, isn't actually true.

 

When you read the story of Asma's alleged killing, it becomes clear that this was a poorly fabricated tale. Firstly, this incidence was only reported by Ibn Ishaq and Waqidi in their Sira and not in the more authentic books of Hadith.

 

One may say that this was a deliberate omission by the Hadith collectors, but then you will find many other Ahadith in their collections which could have been discarded for the same purposes. This is simply not the scholarly tradition of the collectors of Hadith. They tested all narrations based on two criteria.

 

a. Chain of narrators, which must be continuous and sound.

 

b. The content of the story. Which must match between different chains of narrators.

 

Even then, the Hadith scholars would class the narrations as weak, doubtful, reliable, authentic etc., based on their own opinions. Debates on individual hadith reports have raged on ever since; usually it is one of the links in the 'chain' which is found unsound, unreliable, old, suffering from amnesia or just a habitual fabricator. Very few Ahadith have been spared this criticism.

 

In the presence of such an unforgiving evaluation, most of these sensational stories about magic, jinns, blasphemous poets and poetesses and imagined satanic verses can be proved as fabrications or misheard, misremembered or confused accounts.

 

Take the tale of Asma bint Marwan. According to the Sira literature she is said to have been killed barely a year and half into Hijrah, by a blind man, in the middle of the night, in her own home.

 

The blind man was Umair ibn Adiyy according to Ibn Ishaq.

But Al-Qastalani states that according to Ibn Duraid the assassin was called Ghashmir.

Another source Suhaili reveals that she was murdered by her own husband.

Yet Al-Qastalani also opined that she may have been killed by her own people.

 

But lets for once imagine that it was the blind Umair who killed Asma the poetess with the sword, in her house.

 

But another historian states that Umair did not kill Asma, but his own sister, Binte Adiyy.

 

The murdered was blind. The most popular version of the story says that he felt his way into Asma's house, found her, identified her and then plunged a blade into her chest. Or was it his sister? Indeed he was blind.

 

But so are those who actually believe that this event took place.

 

OK, say that in the presence of such contradictory stories, one or two mavericks still wish to rely on this story as fact.

 

Consider this..

 

It is year 2 After Hijra. Muslims are in a bitter conflict with the Meccans. The battle of Badr has already taken place.  Banu Qanuqa, one of the Jewish tribes of Medina have denounced the treaty with the Muslims and have been expelled.

 

But why would Muslims start a conflict with their fellow Jewish citizens who remain their allies barely a year into their treaty of Medina. Such murders would certainly have antagonised the proud Jewish tribes and given them a reason to rebel.

 

We know for a fact that Kaa'b bin Ashraf was executed for treason around the same time. He was a leader Banu Nadir Jews in Medina, but his guilt was so obvious that no one dared to defend him or dispute the decision.

 

In short, Hadith books do not mention the assassination of Asma or Abu ifak (another alleged satirist), there is no concrete evidence of the event every taking place. All the circumstantial evidence is against it.

 

And above all, the Prophet of Islam, May peace be upon him, would never have punished those who attacked his character. If you know the man, you will also come to respect and love his nobility, forgiveness and sense of justice.

 

Charlie Hebdo Terror Attack: Nothing to do with Islam, but something to do with the Imams.

You can read and hear a range of reactions from the public on the Charlie Hebdo terror attack. All sane voices, Muslims and others have condemned it.

 

Muslims will say that this is a terrible atrocity. Some will use it as yet another proof that ISIS and Al-Qaeda have nothing to do with Islam.

 

 

Our moderate leaders and organizations will condemn it as an attack on free speech. Most of them will also say that this has nothing to do with Islam. Far-right groups, religious bigots and populist columnists will blame Islam, Muslims and Immigration policies for the attack.

 

 

And then there are two groups which will use this as another ‘told you so’ moment to further their agenda of hatred and intolerance.

 

 

On one hand, we have the perpetrators of the attack and their supporters, who believe that their religion justifies such violence. They would say that Charlie Hebdo’s cartoonists had crossed all bounds when they mocked the Prophet of Islam and their religion in such derogatory cartoons over the years. They had it coming.

 

 

The other group, the militant atheists will say that all religion including Islam are backward and superstitious. Their pontiff-in-chief Richard Dawkins says that not all religions are violent, only Islam is. And yes, Charlie Hebdo and their likes had it coming because our society is too scared to insult or ban Islam.

 

 

Blame the religion of course. How logical! 

 

 

I am going through the back catalogue Charlie Hebdo’s cartoon covers. I never saw one of them before, and do not wish to be subjected to such vulgarity again. It is a veritable collection of cheap humour masquerading as journalism. Graffiti has a place in human history, but it belongs to the doors and walls of public toilets, not on your local news stand.

 

 

Why would anyone need to insult a religion is beyond me. But if they want to do so, I would rather be reading, viewing or listening to something less offensive.

 

 

But there are those who are compelled to mock and ridicule the ideas they don’t like. 

 

You can mock politicians for their behavior or policies. You can ridicule a celebrity for the latest fad they are into. Or you can make poignant observations through the medium of cartoons to draw your viewer’s attention to a controversial subject. And there are no limits to what you want to express. From the sublime to the blasphemous, you can do what you like. As a viewer or a reader, I can choose not to read or view such works. As a Muslim, this is what Quran tells me to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will be very curious to learn the views of certain Imams of mosques of various denominations in the UK on this subject. I suspect that a majority of them would rather not express themselves honestly in the media. The truth is very uncomfortable to both these Imams and those politicians who go to them begging for votes every election season.

 

Most orthodox Muslim scholars do support very draconian punishments for the act of blasphemy. 

 

This has to change. Quran does not consider blasphemy as a crime. It is a sin of course, the punishment of which if not repented, will be in the afterlife.

 

 

 

But if you look at certain interpretations of some well-known scholars, and you will be surprised that their opinions contradict the Quran.

 

Mufti Obaidullah Qasmi of Darul Uloom Deoband  writes

 

‘The death punishment assigned for blasphemy is agreed by all Islamic scholars of Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama’ah and, is normally covered in Kitabul Hudud in Islamic juridical texts’.

 

 

Deoband school of though is followed by a large number of Muslims from the Indian sub-continent.

 

The more ‘moderate’ Barelvi sect which makes up a large proportion of the Immigrant Pakistani Diaspora in Britain is no different.

 

Sadanand Dhume of the Wallstreet Journal observes in a recent news report

 

‘ Clerics from Pakistan’s majority Barelvi stream of Islam—widely regarded as more tolerant than the rival Deobandi school associated with the Taliban—are among the loudest defenders of the country’s blasphemy laws.’

 

 

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws condemn the accused to death by hanging.

 

 

Same is true for the wide range of Sunni and Shia sects which have sway over the Muslim world.

 

 

Such interpretations of Quran which ignore its actual content but rely on the various medieval interpretations imposed upon it through the centuries have to be rejected. Ahmadiyya Muslim movement has denounced such notions of violence in the name of religion for many decades now. And it is heartening to see more and more Muslims coming closer to our way of understanding the Quran.

 

 

I am happy that our Muslim friends will stand up and condemn this horrendous and murderous attack, but please also ask the Imams and clerics in your mosques to denounce the ideas of punishments for blasphemy and apostasy in their Friday sermons.

 

 

For Muslims, this is another opportunity to think and question their faith leaders. This menace and hatred ISIS and Al-Qaeda have manifested in their extreme acts may need to be rooted out form their own mosques and homes first.

My faith, My crime.

I remember clearly the moment when I realized for the first time that I was a criminal.

It was the autumn of 1993 in Rawalpindi, where I went to college. It was the living room of a friend of mine. We must have been having our usual contests of who can impress the other with the best trivia and unusual facts as teenager do, when my friend triumphantly stated

'If an Ahmadi says Azan (the Muslim call to prayers) he can be jailed for three years'.

I must have left a long gap between his trivia and whatever astonishing fact he expected me to return.

'Its in a book in my father's library'. He said. Obviously thinking that I didn't believe him. 'Its in the Pakistan Penal Code.'

I changed the subject. I must have thought of something to say. I can't remember much from that day, apart from a sense of anxiety that I usually felt in certain situations.

My friend did not know that I was an Ahmadi.

I told him about my faith a few months later. Surprisingly enough, he was OK with it. He was one of the rare few who remained my friends after knowing about my faith.

Such situations came way too often in my life. My family had to move from town to town due to my father's job. And each new move brought with it new classmates, new neighbours and new friends. All of whom would start wondering why I don't go to the nearest mosque for prayers. I suppose the grown-ups soon figured out the reason. It was however far too tricky for us children.

Most of my friend found out about my faith through gossip. I seldom had to volunteer the information and not many asked me directly. Being an Ahmadi in the post-Islamization Pakistan was dangerous. You could get beaten up or bullied in schools, by both the teachers and your classmates. I remember a classmate who would just casually walk up to me and punch me in the back saying that it was an act of 'sawab' (to be rewarded by God) to hit a 'kafir' (infidel). It was of course done as a crude joke, so I did my best to avoid him.

In another school, our science teacher would spend a whole hour explaining to us that Qadianis (Ahmadis) are kafirs. He knew fully well that there was a Qadiani 12 year old in his class. Fortunately, not many in my class knew that it was me. Funny thing is, that I liked that teacher because I like science and he was good at teaching it.

I knew that the dictator, General Zia had passed laws against us Ahmadis, and due to these laws, our 'Huzoor', the Khalifatul Masih had to leave Pakistan. We used to listen to his sermons through audio-tapes which were played at various prayer centers and Mosques that we used to attend for our Friday prayers.

But I was not aware of the real implications of these laws until I heard my friend pronounce the three year jail term for reciting the Azan.

I must have recited the call to prayers hundreds of times in my childhood. It is one of the first things we Ahmadis are taught as children. A Muslim must know the words as without the Azan, a congregation cannot offer any of their five daily prayers. I also learnt how to read the Quran, even memorizing some long passages. I offered my prayers in the manner no different to my Sunni friends. I went to the Ahmadiyya Mosque which looked no different than the Sunni Mosques. Our Imams read the same Arabic prayers before and after their sermons. We had two Eid celebrations, a month of fasting which started and finished with all the other Muslim sects.

But according to the Pakistan Penal Code, I was a criminal since April, 1984. I was a non-Muslim for the purposes of the Constitution by birth, thanks to Bhutto's 2nd amendment in 1974.

It would only require one police report to ensure I was thrown in Jail. At 17 years of age, I was a habitual criminal. I broke the Pakistani law on a daily basis. This realization dawned upon me on an autumn day while I was having a cup of tea in my friend's living room. This realization did not leave my mind for the next decade or so. I finally got free of its burden by leaving Pakistan.

You can understand that I was never a fan of General Zia, The architect of Afghan 'jihad' and the benefactor of the monstrosity that we now call the Taliban. He took it upon himself to rid the country of this 'cancer' of Qadianiyat which was a threat to both his version of Islam and his idea of Pakistan. The 2nd amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan had already paved the way for his ordinance XX. His aim was to decapitate the Ahmadiyya organization by going after the office of the Khalifatul Masih, the worldwide spiritual leader of the Ahmadi Muslims. The verbage used in the law was obviously aimed to target the Khalifatul Masih. His plans were foiled when Hazrat Khalifatul Masih IV, Mirza Tahir Ahmad left the country before a reason could be created for his arrest.

Zia died in a plane crash in 1988. But his laws survived the plane crash and the democracy which followed. No one dared touch any Islamic laws that Zia had enacted, including the notorious blasphemy and the Hudood laws. Even the liberal dictator, General Musharraf left these laws well alone. A dictator can suspend the constitution as many times as he likes, but its Islamic clauses remain valid at all times.




Some so-called liberal Pakistanis think that these laws have no real impact on the majority of the Ahmadis living in Pakistan. How wrong they are!





Since 1984, no new Mosques have been allowed to be built by the Ahmadis, hundreds of criminal cases brought against them for using the Islamic greetings or other Quranic texts in speech or in writing. Many more cases have been registered against Ahmadis for 'hurting the feelings' of the Muslims. Hundreds of Ahmadis have been murdered and their murderers walk free in most cases. These laws have made it impossible for Ahmadis to seek or even expect Justice in the courts of law.



In addition to this, Ahmadis are fair game for the notorious blasphemy laws too. An Ahmadi, just by being an Ahmadi is automatically guilty of blasphemy. How dare they believe in a prophet after the Last Prophet? How dare they believe in revelation after the Quran?

 Ordinance XX bars me from defending myself when such allegations were thrown at me. Any attempt to explain my beliefs were to be taken as proselytisation, which is a crime.

We cannot print books or sell and distribute them to non-Ahmadis. We cannot hold debates or seminars to share our ideas with others. We cannot print advertisements in newspapers or even expect them to print unbiased news regarding us. Even when we are massacred in our hundreds, the press struggles to report it as a human tragedy. But all care is taken to ensure that our mosques are not referred to as mosques in their reports.

Ahmadis have been relegated to a sub-human category of creatures in Pakistan.

I often think what will it take for Pakistanis to take a decisive step in correcting this grave injustice in their name? I think of all my non-Ahmadi friends I left behind in Pakistan and wonder what they thought about these laws really. Not many had the courage to condemn these laws. They thought that this was a religious matter and should never be discussed between good friends.

But this is not a religious matter at all. These laws were the menifestation of demagoguery of the clergy and arrogance of a ruthless dictator. If anything, these laws are an insult to the religion of Islam.


To help repeal these unjust laws, I urge you to sign this petition.

Majid Nawaz's Misjudgment

Why should we not take offence of someone mocking the person you hold most dear to your heart? I have discussed the matter of cartoons in a previous post here.

 Majid Nawaz, the founding member of Quilliam, a think-tank of sorts, found himself is a muddle after posting a cartoon from an atheist website depicting Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him). His intentions were innocent enough, but sadly, Mr. Nawaz has learnt that the reform he has been striving for did not bear fruit.

Making friends with Tony Robinson and then hoping to enter Parliament would have been a great success for Quilliam, but they forgot to notice the general cynicism about Robinson's damascene conversion to tolerance and reason. Also, they are seen as a tool for the establishment to 'reform' and educate the Muslim population of Great Britain.

While I support anyone who speaks against violence and intolerance, Quilliam foundation have been very unclear on their religious ideology. As an organization which claims to have the ultimate answer to religious extremism among Muslims, they have little to show about it in their publications. There are booklets available challenging the notions of violent Jihad and issues of blasphemy and apostasy, but there has to be a deeper, much needed debate to be had about the role of the clergy in the modern Islamic world. Quilliam has to challenge the Mullah, the source of all that is wrong with the 'Ummah'. 

But before they can do that, they have to come clean themselves. Do they feel that Quran has to be revised because just like Bible it has commandments no longer applicable? Also, they seem to be very dubious about Hadith literature and want to interpret Islamic values and practices based on how the western minds would want them. Yes, they will cite 'scholars' from Islamic history to support one idea or another, but when it comes to defending the validity of early Islamic history, they beat a hasty retreat.

Why would any Muslim want them on their side?

I know Majid did not mean to offend his fellow Muslims by sharing the cartoon. He wanted to make a point that these cartoons do not threaten his faith.

He wanted everyone to know that he is not offended by a cartoon which was created solely to offend. At one level, I do understand Mr. Nawaz's predicament. Why should we Muslims waste our time getting offended by a bunch of small-minded atheist bigots who have nothing better to do?

Indifference is the best response. Just as the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) advised his companions to leave such gatherings where his opponents abused or ridiculed him. But at the same time, he also advised his companions to deliver the message of Islam by taking every opportunity to engage with such people.

But by sharing the cartoon, Mr. Nawaz not only engaged with the offenders on their own terms, he also alienated many Muslims who for the right or wrong reasons took offence yet again.

If Quilliam foundation had any sense of duty towards Islam, they will correct their error and avoid taking part in the atheist mockery of all faiths.

We should only engage with them when they are serious about talking, not playing street jesters to please themselves.

And also, Quilliam foundation is not a grass-roots movement. It is a working party to find a solution for the government.

Sadly, it is destined to fail because it is trying to find political solutions to a spiritual problem.

Drawing Pictures: Since when has it become offensive?

Over the last many decades, a large majority of the western Christian world has in practice stopped being Christian, thus reactions to insults and blasphemies have dimmed down to solitary voices here and there. Atheism is the fashion. No one wants to declare openly that they revere a person or deity because of their religious faith.


But this is not a question of existence of God. The question here is.. Can you force a group of people to change their values that you do not agree with? Aggressive atheists these days are happy to shout at every forum how religion has caused intolerance and bigotry in the society. But here is a test case.. UCL's atheist society publishing cartoons of Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them) and expecting this to go unnoticed!

Muslims do not draw human form; they do not build statues for religious purposes. Yes, there are Muslim artists who paint and draw human form, and there is nothing wrong with it. But this has to be kept strictly outside of religious sphere because of the express command of the founder of Islam (peace be upon him). This is a strong value that all practicing Muslims adhere to. No pictures are to be found in any Mosque around the world. A Billion Muslims hold this belief which safeguards the monotheistic basis of Islam. Yet a handful of atheists think that drawing a picture of Muhammad (peace be upon him) for whatever reason should be acceptable?

Atheists, born and brought up in the West (or influenced by European values) may think that drawing pictures is what humans have always done. What is wrong with that? European art galleries are full of depictions of religious figures on canvas and in stone and in metal. But Islam is not a European faith. Neither was Christianity. Regardless of what Greek and Roman art did to Christianity, Islam has not “traded in” its values for the sake of gaining adherents.

This is despite the fact that Islamic scholars re-discovered Greek philosophy and had decades of conflict with the Romans. Usually such interactions results in softening of certain closely held values, and they did. Early rationalist movement in Islam (Mu’tazillites) had deep roots in Greek logic. Yet, no Muslim ever thought of painting or sculpting a Holy figure or a saint. Enough proof that depiction of religious figures was an absolute taboo for Muslims.There are some very rare depictions of Holy personalities in Iranian Shia culture, but it has never been accepted by the wider Muslim world. Those paintings in which the prophet has been depicted can only be described as only limited to a particular era and was largely unknown by the Muslim majority. Most other depictions in Islamic minature arts show the prophet as a halo or a veiled figure.

All reasonable Humanists and Atheists will understand why Muslims take offense when someone tries to depict the Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him). It is because drawing of a picture has never been an Islamic tradition. Yes, it has been a tradition in the conquered lands and Islam has not forbidden artistic representations of human form, but only as a secular art. It has become a Christian tradition, which is why even many Christians do not take offense when Jesus has been mocked at by cartoonists and comedians. People at this atheist society at UCL want practicing Muslims to “tolerate” their attempts at mocking Muslim values? Where is the sense in that?

Why should we not allow BNP and EDL to mock and vilify Islam and Muslims too? What is the difference? And what is wrong with a bit of holocaust denial and some “good-natured” anti-Semitism? Some "fact based" scientific racism.. anyone? Let us accept all this in the name of tolerance!! Updated: 28Jan2014