Where are the Questioning Minds?

Re: #85 by Urstruly

[They on the other hand do not believe in the concepts of mutual and self-respect. ]

But you Muslims do. I see!

So you are saying that when THEY caricature your prophet they are NOT showing you any respect, but when Islam says bad things about other religions, it is showing respect towards them?

Huh?

Re: # 87

Nash

``and Mir Ja`afar (who betrayed the great Tipu Sultan-Allah bless him) ``

mir jafar betrayed sirajudullah (plassey) not tipu. what history books did you read????

This article was a bad joke!

But being anti-Islam is the in thing these days and the olde enemies are coming out of the woodworks like cockroaches and lice that they are...yahood o hinood...but the worst are the so-called muslims who support such islamophobes...today`s equivalent of Mir Sadiq and Mir Ja`afar (who betrayed the great Tipu Sultan-Allah bless him) ...i.e. traitors and Uncle Toms, aka House Niggers (by Malcolm X)....

When the honour of the Best of Creation--may every drop of my blood, my honour and my health and wealth and that of my parents be sacrificed for him!--sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam is being attacked in the EU media from every side, so that the heart is torn and tears of blood are shed, the soul is agonising and life no longer seems worth living, these shameless people can write articles like this criticising the very Faith which our Lord has chosen for us. This issue has united all Muslims together for the Prophet is the heart of Islam and `love of the Prophet is another name for Islam!`

Fidaka Abi wa Ummi Ya Rasool Allah!
Ya Rasool Allah unzar h.aalana!

As the poet said:

Ay h.aas-i h.aasaan-i Rusul waqt- dua hai
Ummat pe teri aaj ajab waqt aan paRa hai
Jo deen baRi dhoom se niklaa tha watan se
Aaj pardes mein gharib ul ghurabaa hai..

al-madad Ya Sayyidi Ya Rasul Allah!

***

and the great ashiq-i-Rasool sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam from Bareilly Sharif in India wrote:

Raza kissi sag-e-Taiyyba kay paon bhi choomay?

Tum aur aah! ke itna dimaagh lay kay chalay!

Re: # 89

I am aware of this selective compilation of verses to prove a certain point of view. As a matter of fact I can compile selective verses to prove that Qura`n is a book on sociology, philosophy, sex, war, or it is a manifesto for all mankind. I am also sure that when you took so much effort to find these verses then you must have seen rebutal to the allegations as well. There are two ways to approach this issue. One approach is with a mind already made up. In this case even if God Himself comes down to earth and talk to you then you wouldn`t budge. Qura`n has described such people through allegories and storys of ancient people. He gave prophets miracles to show people, but when a mind is already made up then nothing has worked in the past and it will not work in the future either.

So in short, we have a prosecutor and judge in you, who puts forth the ``charge sheet`` but would not let accuse present his case. Injustice is a double edged sword; it not only hurts the victim but also that who uses it. So all I beg from you is a 15 minutes of your lifetime; the 15 minutes with an open mind and open heart. In those 15 minutes you have to promise yourself that you will not prejudge; and you will hold your verdict until the evidence is presented to you.

Qura`n is a book about man. It deals with his psychology and his scociology. But it is not just a book of principles. Let me explain it with an example. Just recall, when you were a student in your secondary school (in case you were a science student) and you had to do lab experiments in physics and chemistry. There used to be a book that would guide you how to set up apparatus, mix chemicals and perform experiments. Most of all there was a science teacher or a lab assistant who would demonstrate to you how to conduct experiment. He would guide you through the safety procedures and he would lead you through certain procedures that would yield better results during the exams.

There is an anology to the lab, practicals and teacher or lab assistant in the likes of Qura`n and Prophet Mohammad (pbuh). The instruction manual that he was charged to bring to humanity was only going to be worth something, had it worked. He had to demostrate to a live audience, who would scrutinize each and every thing he would do and say, that the instruction manual was feasible to work in real life situations.

The nature and syntax of this Book is that as if someone is delivering a lecture, speech, instruction, and a sermon at the same time. In other words, the syntax of the sentences in Qura`n is that of a spoken word and not a written word. So when one delivers a lecture, there has to be an audience; the lecture must address the concerns of the audience and the situation at that time. If a lecture was delivered when a war was going on then it must address the issues related to war. In other words, a General cannot deliver a lecture on Mozart and Picaso, when his soldiers are sitting in trenches, about to fire the first shots. So in other words each and every lecture in the Book has a context and a history. If a book were to include all explanations and backgrounds of context in it then it would become unmanagebly huge and it would be of no use. So Allah has made arrangements, so that the people of the future would understand the context of the book as well. Allah, through His Prophet, instructed the people of his time to collate all the verbal instructions and explanation of the verses that he gave to them. A collection of such explanations and history or naration of the incident or predicament for which a verse was revealed is called ``Tafseer`` meaning explanation. So when someone claims that a verse has a certain meaning then he can and he must provide the explanation and background as well. In other words Muslims are not left with a book of vague principles and obscure lines that cannot be put in perspective.

In order to understand why and how the words of Qura`n move the world please click the following link. The 15 minutes, if you chose to spend with an open mind, might change your life forever.

http://www.iiu.edu.my/deed/quran/understand.html

Re: #88

[Perhaps you have to qualify your statement of ``what Islam says about other religions``. ]


How about THESE verses from the Quran for starters?


9:123 Oh ye who believe! Murder those of the disbelievers and let them find harshness in you.

9: 5 Slay the idolaters wherever you find them

9: 29 Fight those who do not believe in God and the last day... and fight People of the Book, who do not accept the religion of truth (Islam) until they pay tribute by hand, being inferior

3: 85 Whoso desires another religion than Islam, it shall not be accepted of him; in the next world he shall be among the losers.

5: 11 And as for those who disbelieve and reject Our Signs, they are the people of Hell``

9: 28 O you who believe! Verily, the Mushrikûn (unbeleivers) are Najasun (impure). So let them not come near Al-Masjid-al-Harâm (at Makkah) after this year, …

2: 193 Fight them on until there is no more tumult and religion becomes that of Allah”

22: 19“As for the unbelievers for them garments of fire shall be cut and there shall be poured over their heads boiling water whereby whatever is in their bowls and skin shall be dissolved and they will be punished with hooked iron rods. “

9: 23 O ye who believe! take not for protectors your fathers and your brothers if they love Infidelity above Faith: if any of you do so, they do wrong.

25: 52 So obey not the disbelievers, but strive against them herewith with a great endeavor.

66: 9O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be stern with them. Hell will be their home, a hapless journey`s end.

47: 4 When you meet the unbelievers, strike off their heads; then when you have made wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives.

3: 28 Let not the believers take for friends or helpers unbelievers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah. except by way of precaution, that ye may guard yourselves from them. But Allah cautions you (to fear) Himself; for the final goal is to Allah.



I`ll find a miliion more for you if you want.


Let`s begin....

Re: #88

What?

Cat got your tongue?

Or is the excuse that I have put TOO MANY quotes from that wonderful book?

Eh?

Okay then, let`s take these gems one by one:

How about this priceless gem?

9: 29 Fight those who do not believe in God and the last day... and fight People of the Book, who do not accept the religion of truth (Islam) until they pay tribute by hand, being inferior

We will come the rest later.

#87 by Naqshbandi on February 5, 2006 12:19pm PT


whine whine whine

Re: #88


HALLOWWWWWWW

Where are the fearless footsoldiers of the prophet?

HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!


:-)

Re: #87 by Naqshbandi

[When the honour of the Best of Creation--may every drop of my blood, my honour and my health and wealth and that of my parents be sacrificed for him!]


And you might have to sacrifice all that after all, WHEN the AMERICANS come for you!


:)

re: Why the West strides over the rest?
For more than a century now, Freedom of Speech is sacrosanct in the West. It also holds secularism sacred. This evolution took a long time. Europe in the 17th century was a divided camp with lot of religious rivalry. Much has evolved since but unfortunately, similar evolution did not take place in the muslim world.
I was personally shocked when the Bush admin tendered a general reproach for those cartoons. In US First Amendment is sacred. Why should a govt feel compelled to reproach those who were only exercising their Freedom of Speech.
Nobody asked muslims to migrate to scandinavian countries. Having migrated there, they should respect the local traditions and laws. Denmark is a fine eg of a peaceful society being poisoned by Islamists just because some dumbhead chose to publish some cartoons of Prophet Md. Here is where the true nature of muslim ummah comes to focus. Had there been restrained response, non-muslims would have appreciated it and muslims would have much to cheer. Predicatably, the response was one of bewilderment, confusion followed by hurt and protests. It only showed muslim ummah in poor light. Muslims do not seem to have any concept of Freedom of Speech. And, they seem to carry their religion on their sleeve.

In the following article from The Observer, the author puts the whole cartoon saga in perspective:
http://www.sulekha.com/news/nhc.aspx?cid=443873
(A few bad cartoons are no reason to fall out

A few bad cartoons are no reason to fall out I thought I knew exactly where I stood on freedom of speech. But the furore over the depiction of Muhammad raises issues even passionate rationalists must reconsider

Henry Porter
Sunday February 5, 2006
The Observer

Would I have published the cartoons of Muhammad? No, they aren`t funny and, frankly, they aren`t worth the trouble. Do I applaud and defend the freedom to publish such offensive, asinine work? Yes, and that is my immovable position, as intransigent as the Muslims who have demonstrated across Europe and the Middle East.

But is that defiant secularism good enough for the 21st century? Maybe it is time for all of us in Europe to move a step or two in the direction of our Muslim neighbours and concede that the offence taken is no small matter.

I admit that I may have a long way to go on this. On Tuesday evening, I punched the air when the government was defeated on the Lord`s amendments on the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill which means that a person may now only be charged with using `threatening language`, rather than the more inclusive `threatening, insulting and abusive language`.

Freedom of speech was served well by the Labour MPs who joined the opposition to vote against the government. Quite apart from the issue of liberty, the original wording was poor and underlined that the law should only be used to police the most odious and inflammatory expression.

That would appear to include the cartoons that were republished all over Europe last week in what seems to be an extremely hostile and provocative gesture, especially as they are so bad. But it can also be seen as an assertion of the values handed down from the pioneers of the Enlightenment. A little nervy perhaps, a little too red in the face , but sincere none the less.

When pushed, these values are as dear to Europeans as religious truth. To see them reduced and watered down to pacify a value system that is thought to be less developed than ours, less humane and less tolerant is anathema to us. We detest the relativism that weighs different beliefs as equal, simply on the grounds that they are sincerely held. We insist on the freedom, indeed the necessity, of making distinctions and sometimes voicing disapproval. (my comments: very well said! Freedom of speech is worth defending at all costs)

I know exactly the moment when I absorbed my loathing of religious and political extremism. In my first year at university, while idling one day in the library, I came across an account of Voltaire`s campaign against the authorities in the case of 69-year-old Jean Calas, a Protestant merchant from Toulouse who was executed for killing his son, Marc-Antoine, in 1762. Though there was never ever any evidence, Jean and his eldest son, Pierre, and his wife, Anne-Rose, were rumoured to be trying to prevent Marc-Antoine converting to Catholicism.

To the last, Jean refused to confess. On the day of his execution, the priests insisted that he must repent before dying. The question ordinaire was applied, in which his arms and legs were stretched on the rack. The question extraordinaire followed in which he was compelled to drink 20 jugs of water. Before being strangled, his limbs were broken.

With the energy of a modern investigative journalist, Voltaire set about exposing the trial as an exercise in religious bigotry. It was the first time anything like this had been done. Three years later, the conviction was overturned and Calas was posthumously pardoned.

As Ian Davidson writes in Voltaire in Exile, it was `a key moment in the history of European penal reform`. More than that, the newly energised 68-year-old campaigner had driven a stake into the nexus between the church and state. He followed this up with the Treatise on Tolerance, where he defined toleration as the product of human frailty and error. Since none of us has exclusive rights on wisdom, and since we are all flawed and liable to inconsistency, we must allow for each other`s failings.

These, together with his pronouncements on free speech, are the core attitudes that passed from the Enlightenment to the European secular societies of today. Why would we fight this long battle against one church only to make concessions on our liberty to another? The victory won by Voltaire defines us, as much as faith defines Muslims.

And yet, as Oliver McTernan, author of Violence in God`s Name, points out, there is a difference between a healthy secular state and the blinkered secularism that has grown up since Marx and Freud which denies the existence of God and so neglects the importance of the faith of strangers. When we negotiate with a man in a turban and long beard, we see an extremist, not a believer; we consider his religion, in McTernan`s words, as `little more than excuse for something else`. We misconstrue what is important to him, just as he is liable to underestimate the deep roots of our secular culture.

Our dealings in the Middle East and with Muslim minorities in Europe would certainly improve if we simply accepted that their religion is a singularly important motivating force. That the great secular gift of democracy has been used in the Middle East to return so many leaders whose politics is principally their faith must be enough to suggest that our analysis about what we can do for Arab countries is quite wide of the mark.

We are ignoring the message of four reasonably democratic elections held since President Bush announced his democratic mission. Arabs are not going to buy the secular model, just as we aren`t going to accept Sharia law and the return of priests to our courts and assemblies.

But what should we to think of the crowds in Gaza, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia demonstrating against a few bad drawings published in a far-off snowy land by a paper they`ve never heard of? Are we to defer to them when the reaction seems so out of proportion to the offence? Are we to beg forgiveness on al-Jazeera? Bend to every religious group that wants a play taken off, prosecute every nasty little skinhead shooting his mouth of in a pub? No is almost always the answer.

In an episode of The Simpsons shown last week, Homer placed a peanut on a shrine to Ganesh belonging to Apu, the Indian storekeeper. Apu protests mildly. `No offence, Apu,` Homer responds cheerily, `but when they were handing out religions, you must have been out taking a whiz.` Imagine the reaction across Islam if Homer had said to this to a cartoon Muslim, not a Hindu. (my comments: of course, in such a scenario, the whole muslim world would be up in arms, much as it is doing today. An average hindu is spiritually and intellectually much more evolved than an average Abdul)

Heightened Islamic sensitivity is something we are going to have to take on board.

Was it right to publish those cartoons? Probably not. Was it sensible to republish them? Probably not. We should accept that it has caused deep offence to people whose religion we do not fully comprehend. But, equally, Muslims must allow for the error in a continent of free but flawed societies. They should understand that our societies are not simply based on godless consumption and self-indulgence, but on one or two deeply held convictions.

Both sides are spoiling for a fight on this one and there is a fair amount of unattractive posturing. When push comes to shove, I have to say that I would take a lot more notice of the outrage in the Middle East if I had not come across dozens of anti-semitic cartoons published in the Arab press.

The striking part of Arabic Jew-baiting is that it is as prevalent, nasty and dehumanising as it ever was in Nazi Germany. Newspapers published in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Oman and UAE all use demonic images of stereotypical Jews (big nose, black coat and hat and laden with money bags) pulling the strings behind the scenes in US politics, buying political influence and spreading death, terror and disease. Josef Goebbels would have felt quite at home reading these newspapers.

They are unacceptable and would, if published here, cause an outrage equal to last week`s, but this does not seem to have occurred to the Muslim spokesman or clerics that I have heard on the subject.

I am not sure if there is an equivalence between racism and blasphemy, other than in effect, but I do know that we both have to move towards each other on these issues. The tensions of the 21st century require us to show toleration and understanding and that means using a bit more common sense, not standing on our dignity or claiming the right of unyielding principle or that God is offended by a few bad cartoons.

I am for restraint on both sides and my immovable position has moved... a little.)
Sridhar

re: more protests: now in New Zealand!
http://www.sulekha.com/news/nhc.aspx?cid=443872
It seems muslims are just waiting for this to happen. No sooner were these cartoons published than they were up in arms, protesting, exercising the same right of freedom that is denied in their own muslim homeland from where they had migrated.
This makes non-muslims wonder: why is this such a big issue?
And, can an average muslim ever see modernity?
Can the muslim nations ever do something tangible that would improve the human race: some discovery, some scientific invention?
The fact is that much of progress in the oil rich Middle East is by simply importing all the goodies from the West. When a suicide bomber in Gaza wraps his body with ammunition, he is using a western technology. When the rabid mullahs on the streets of Pakistan shout over the internet or TV channels, they are again using a proven technology imported from the West.
In the absence of anything tangible, the muslims seem to say: islam is all we got and we are going to flaunt it at every opportunity!
Sridhar

re:a European protest of another kind
While Europe is in a tizzy over the cartoon issue, its corporate sector is protesting against a take over bid, the biggest of its kind in European history, this time by an Indian, Lakshmi Mittal.
http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901060213-1156507,00.html
Sridhar

re:a European protest of another kind
While Europe is in a tizzy over the cartoon issue, its corporate sector is protesting against a take over bid, the biggest of its kind in European history, this time by an Indian, Lakshmi Mittal.
http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901060213-1156507,00.html
Sridhar

Why the violent fuss over a cartoon?? If the obscenely rich Arab countries had invested in to ten more al -Jaziras and hundreds more of print media of quality standard and educated the public as to what Islam is, this situation would have never arisen.
There has never been a picture or a bust of Muhammad from the 6th century AD till today. So who knows what he looked like? The likeness in the cartoon—see at 97—reminds me of films of my old days such as the Thief of Baghdad when, even then it was the in thing fore Hollywood to depict the Mid-easterners as vicious and rogues. My spouce says he looks more like a Singh or a Rajpoot! So there you have it!
As far as the other cartoon about seventy two virgins is concerned, for Muslims who would want to believe that hadis(story) books concocted about two centuries after Muhammad, are part of the article of their faith, I suggest they should rejoice as it only enhances their faith.
@89 Ramanujan
How very selective just like the priests! With this sort of representation, if it was true I would be ashamed of being called a Muslim.
You must be aware of the verses in chapter four where the overtly sexual priests have given blank cheque to their flock, the permission to marry four wives, with their OWN version of concocted conditions, although that particular verse starts with ‘IF…’ and ends with ‘Then, only…’
I therefore give you a comparison of just one of this selective rendering with a scholarly one where the whole situational context of the verse is presented:
Yours 2: 193 Fight them on until there is no more tumult and religion becomes that of Allah”. Indicating that there is force, compulsion and pre-emption in conversion to Deen.
2: 193 And fight the aggressors `until` persecution is eliminated and there remains no compulsion in religion, the freedom that God has ordained (2-256). Any one accepting the Deen of Allah must do so freely and for HIS sake alone. (emphases) And if the aggressors desist, then let there be no hostility except against those who displace peace with warfare( also please refer to 22-40)-from ‘The Qur’an as it explains itself` by Dr. Shabbir Ahmad.
Such scholarly and contextual interpretations are now, thankfully available on the web, so I don’t have to take more of Chowk’s space. Rashid

If she is so sensitive she should tell Musharaf to kick out Osama and his toadies out of Pakistan ?

---

Europe’s uncivilised ways
Nasim Zehra

The writer is an Islamabad-based security
analyst and adjunct professor at SAIS Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC

Leaving the politics of it aside, the issue is a fairly straightforward one. It is simply about values. The Danes who published the cartoons ridiculing the Prophet (pbuh) of my faith, degrading and attacking my religion, also claim they merely exercised their right to freedom of expression. Then there were others in Europe who rose to the defence of the Danish act insulting the Prophet. They did so by also republishing the blasphemous cartoons. As far as I can see they undermined a fundamental value of humanity; the value that calls for sensitivity towards another, the value that calls for not hurting another person.

There is no battle to be fought with those who indulged in the ugly act of deliberately insulting my Prophet. I am numbed with outrage over this uncivilised act they have committed. I would simply say to them, yours are not civilised ways. Whatever your claims to the contrary, they actually betray a people with a reactionary mindset.

There are those who become possessed by anger when confronted with difficult and challenging situations. Anger halts our ability to probe and to reflect. Instead, depending on our location in life, if we are advantageously placed we self-righteously give ourselves the licence to pronounce verdict and take action to right a wrong, as many European publications have done. This is their crass response to the growing post-9/11 anti-Islamic sentiment. And for people in the business of opinion-making to indulge in such reactive acts is extremely dangerous. It is highly irresponsible. These are people who must play the role of promoting greater understanding — pulling people away from extremist thought and action, not joining the vanguard of anger-prompted extremism.

Policy-makers and the opinion-making community in the West have opted to conduct the discourse on terrorism using a terminology that has unwittingly but dangerously indicted 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. Terms like Muslim terrorists, Islamic terrorists and Islamic terrorism has led to the demonisation of Muslims and of Islam. Whatever the European papers may claim they are upholding by ridiculing the Holy Prophet, they would have not contemplated doing so in a pre-9/11 environment.

Social tensions may have existed in pre-9/11 Europe, but post-9/11 these tensions have vastly augmented. Muslims make for easy targets. So does their faith. This is how a section of Europeans have opted to express their resentment against the terrorist attacks, as is evident from the contents of the cartoon itself.

This is a season of acute polarisation. For example, if the online responses of the public are any guide, this act of insulting the prophet has unfortunately received widespread public support in many European countries. The thrust mostly is that there is no reason to compromise on our value of freedom of expression, that if Muslims cannot deal with this they must leave, that Muslims are hypocrites because they show no tolerance towards minorities but expect to be shown tolerance. In some cases, individuals have argued that such cartoons should often be printed to get the Muslims to ultimately be more accepting of freedom of expression! They say this is what we do to our own. Sadly so, we would say. Everyone to their own. But please do not drag our revered ones, those who we believe was the Messenger of God, into your messy notion of freedom of speech. You have evolved into a culture which licenses unlimited permissiveness. Despite our own mistakes, our many shortcomings, our morally and intellectually anaemic leadership, there are some touchstones of our civilisation. Those include respect of religion and faith in God Almighty.

Deliberately defiling the Prophet is a highly irresponsible act. It is bound to have a negative social and political fallout. It exacerbates the existing social tensions among locals and the Muslim population. Within the Muslims it is bound to create more alienation and resentment towards the westerners who have chosen to be completely indifferent towards the faith and feelings of Muslims across the world. It is the arrogance of these westerners they will resent. Like millions of westerners who have opted to not view terrorists as a fringe phenomenon within Muslims and instead refer to terrorism as Islamic terrorism, many Muslims too will wrongly implicate westerners across the board for this blasphemous act against the Prophet.

At the popular level we require a rollback of the school that promotes the dangerous talk of clash of civilisations. For now the cartoon incident will merely serve to reinforce the worst of what many Muslims may believe of an increasingly intolerant Europe.

The framing and the discussion of the issue of terrorism has created a permissive environment which is responsible for this caricaturing of the Prophet; of hurting the feelings and ridiculing the faith of a huge section of the entire human race. They paid no heed to the protests. Instead they resented and condemned the nature of the protests. True, the protests should have been calmer. Frenzied outrage was unnecessary as were threats to kill. But nothing justified the reprinting of those insulting cartoons across many European countries including France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Switzerland.

The leadership in most of these countries has not been willing to contest the wisdom of publishing cartoons that are highly disrespectful to other peoples’ faith. In fact the degree if insensitivity of the Danish prime minister can be gauged from the fact that, after the September publication, he repeatedly ignored requests by Muslims in Denmark to meet with them. What he conveyed, essentially, was ‘I really don’t give a damn’. Muslim leaders subsequently repeatedly went to the Middle East and other Muslim countries and showed them what the Danish papers had done. Eventually the reaction acquired these proportions.

In Denmark, anti-Muslim sentiment has been growing at a rapid pace for the last ten years. The Fogh Rasmussen government has actively sought to dispel and block Muslim residents from Denmark. The cartoon is just the tip of the iceberg.

However, it is basic common sense that the notion of freedom of expression cannot be translated into unlimited freedom to abuse another’s faith. But the way many Europeans have selectively applied the principle of freedom of expression is also intriguing. When the ancient Buddhas in Afghanistan were criminally destroyed by the Taliban, the Europeans screamed murder the loudest. We all did too in the Muslim world.

What was that protest for? So the destruction of history is blasphemous but the attempted destruction of a people’s faith and deeply treasured symbols is not? This is the perversity of postmodernism which seeks the right to destroy and deconstruct selectively and give that right a sacred status. Also, if the freedom of expression is so sacred, how many European papers have dared support what the Iranian president said about questioning the reality of the holocaust?

Clearly the principle of freedom of expression has to be practised within some rationale and egalitarian framework. It cannot be an elitist concept which a special colour or creed will have more right to exercise. Why does this right not respect another’s right to choose what is sacred to them, since that what is sacred is not at the cost of undermining another’s interests? Islam abhors suicide bombings and terrorism. Increasingly, Muslim leaders are condemning this openly. Are the Europeans so generous in applying their concept of freedom of expression at the cost of causing great pain and injury to the Muslim world? Is it because their bohemianism has a method to it? The method is to attack and disrespect those who are generally viewed as the politically, scientifically and economically downtrodden of the human race, the weak and the lambasted, the violated and the angry — the reactive and seething?

These are not the ways of a civilised people. These are ways towards pushing for a grand and mad conflict of civilisations. Will the European media see wisdom is stepping back and reviewing their dangerous notion of freedom of expression? For now the limited apologies that have come were perhaps prompted by the widespread anger and protests emanating from the Muslim world. But wisdom and true civilised behaviour demands that we internalise the limits of our own freedoms where it begins to undermine the freedom of another.

Otherwise a free-for-all world would best be described by Yeats’ perennially poignant poem ‘The Seconding Coming’:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre/ The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/ Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/ Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,/ The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere/ The ceremony of innocence is drowned;/ The best lack all convictions, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity.

Clearly if it moves ahead unchecked, this unguided or self-righteous ‘passionate intensity’ will ultimately become the undoing of the human race. We need to reflect on our ways of being, especially those preaching wildly damaging forms of freedom of expression.

Email: nasimzehra@hotmail.com