Blasphemy and Protest

Also published in Daily Trust

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Ever since the advent of the apostle of Allah; Mohammad, peace and blessing of Allah be upon him more than fourteen hundred years ago, blasphemous campaigns have been launched against his perfect personality, undisputed infallibility, God-given purity and unparalleled sanctity. Nevertheless, they have often ended up strengthening Muslims’ passionate love and unwavering loyalty to him, as they have always led to the dramatic growth of the number of new Muslim converts anyway.

For instance, despite the well orchestrated and sustained defamatory attacks against Islam in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks in the United States, the number of people who embraced Islam was reportedly unprecedented; meanwhile there was no single documented case of renouncing the religion amongst Muslims anywhere in the world. After all, according to all authoritatively documented surveys worldwide, Islam is the fastest growing religion on earth.

Incidentally, this positive irony particularly in the western world could be attributed to their impressive reading culture, which inspires them to read a lot about any issue of particular sensitivity with a view to confirming the information disseminated through the media. Therefore, in the wake of such sustained campaign against Islam, they had apparently read extensively about Islam from its sources, which enabled many of them to not only reject such libels against it but to also embrace it as their religion.

Certainly, if such despicable masterminds of such blasphemous campaigns were that intelligent as they have often wanted to make people believe, they would have realized that their campaigns are not only “counterproductive” but are tantamount to spitting at the sun.

Unfortunately however, in as much as they have often failed and will indeed keep failing forever; they have succeeded in inciting many Muslims to embark on some inappropriate reactions e.g. indiscriminate attacks against people and wanton destruction of properties all of which are against the guidance of the apostle of Allah himself.

It is contrary to the guidance of the apostle of Allah to harass or attack anybody simply because he happens to share the same religious, national, racial or regional identities with some people who commit blasphemy against Islam. After all, if all religious, national, tribal and other disputes were to be sorted out that way, the whole world would be enmeshed in an endless circle of indiscriminate massacres, counter massacres and reprisal attacks.

For instance, let’s take the incident of that Nigerian writer, Isioma Daniel, who committed blasphemy against Islam in her article that was published in ThisDay newspaper on 16, November 2002, which also sparked off waves of killing, reprisal killings and widespread destruction of properties in Nigeria.

If some Muslim mobs in Pakistan or Egypt for instance had attacked and killed Nigerian embassy staff, many of whom -if not most- were probably Muslims, and destroyed their properties under the pretext that they were Nigerians like Isioma, and that that published the article was Nigerian, what would have been the feelings of their families and relatives back in Nigeria?

Worse still is that, such senseless reactions end up serving the agenda (though in disguise) of some wretched and desperate individuals buried in oblivion, who nonetheless derive fun and achieve cheap popularity by toying with the emotions of millions of Muslims around the world.

It is part of their agenda to discredit the religion by discrediting its adherents through orchestrated process of stereotyping Muslims as inherently violent, who kill and maim indiscriminately. Hence, the way such Muslims react give such conspirators the pretexts they desperately need to claim credit for their fabricated libels.

Moreover, the longer this unfortunate status-quo persists and manifests itself in different parts of the world, the more it distracts the Muslim Ummah from its principal mission of spreading the message of Islam all over the world. In addition to that, the reputational damage it inflicts on Muslims undermines their chance of inspiring people to embrace the religion, as it also confines and relegates them to the receiving end in the scheme of things, where they simply react but hardly if at all take and sustain any strategic initiatives for others to follow.

Incidentally, I don’t necessarily consider peaceful demonstrations wrong in such situations; instead I question the logic behind such increasing obsession with mere demonstrations in reaction to any blasphemous stuff against Islam. After all, no amount of demonstrations including the violent ones will stop the enemies of Islam from releasing blasphemous things against it, especially in view of the cheap popularity they achieve on a platter of gold through it.

Also, if such rampaging Muslims were to go on a rampage against any blasphemous campaign particularly in this Internet age, where unprintable blasphemies are continuously posted on millions of websites, they would definitely end up on the streets all time.

Therefore, instead of exhausting energies in such demonstrations, Muslims should react to such blasphemies in more productive ways, which reflect the essence of the mission of the apostle of Allah, and which will certainly please him hence please Allah the Almighty. This necessarily entails more individual and communal commitment to the guidance of the apostle of Allah in all aspects of our lives.

Incidentally, love for the apostle of Allah is not like love for any public figure, which is driven by mere emotion. Instead love for him is part of worship hence is strictly governed by the appropriate religious precepts, which every Muslim must follow if he really and sincerely loves him. Though, emotion is necessarily part of the equation, however it has to be guided by reasoning and above all, the relevant Islamic precepts.

And it is obvious that the apostle of Allah and indeed the Islamic religion he preached have nothing to do with such kind of reactions, because Islam maintains appropriate guidance for Muslims to follow in any situation no matter how emotive or tense. And any behaviour or reaction that goes contrary to that guidance is unacceptable and actually counterproductive.

After all, regardless of how much we chant slogans and yell on the streets, the only yardstick which Allah the Almighty uses to measure the extent of our love for the apostle of Allah and indeed our very religious sincerity, is the extent of our spiritual and practical individual commitment in emulating the apostle of Allah in his religious creed, worship rituals, interpersonal manners, etc. This also is only what will restore Muslims’ lost glory and indeed their cultural competitiveness to reclaim their rightful position in the scheme of things.