And here are two pieces by Muslim writers that say depictions of Muhammed have not always been considered wrong. [This one](Malice in Dallas :: Middle East Forum) is by someone I don’t know, a Sufi Muslim named Stephen Schwartz who is executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism in Washington, DC. He says: “Notwithstanding the superficial remarks found on all sides, Muslims do not uniformly prohibit depiction of the presumed likeness of Muhammad – pictures of the Prophet are found widely in classical Islamic art, especially in its Persian, Turkish, and Indian forms. Whether living beings should be portrayed in decorative arts has been debated for centuries by Muslims, as well as Jews. It was once even a topic of controversy among Christians.”
[The other](Does Islam Prohibit Drawing Mohammed? :: Middle East Forum) is by Tarek Fatah, a founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress and columnist in the Toronto Star. He says: “At the root of Muslim protestations is the false belief that Islam prohibits the depiction of Prophet Mohammed. There is no prohibition on creating images of Prophet Mohammed in the Qur’an. Up until the 14th century; such depictions were common in the non-Arab Muslim world. On my website, www.tarekfatah.com, I have posted many depictions of Prophet Mohammed, drawn mostly by Muslim artists. Even if it were true that such depictions were prohibited, the prohibition would not be applicable to non-Muslims.” He goes on to criticize Americans and particularly American Muslims for wanting to censor.
This kind of thing is a problem in Islam, Christianity and Judaism as “fundamentalism” arose. Christian fundamentalism of the kind we see in America only dates to the late 19thC and Jewish fundamentalism is perhaps even newer. Both have older roots, of course, but their current forms are much more modern than ancient even as they claim a permanence as the genuine expression of original revelation.
To relate this to Islam, imagine that you are Tarek Fatah and you want to talk about drawings of Muhammed. Or you want to publish your translation of the Quran, one which treats the inherent ambiguities in the Arabic text in a somewhat more accepting manner. Or imagine you are simply a scholar who wants to publish material about the origins of the Quran as we know it. Extremists may kill you. Other Muslims will insist you are defaming the Prophet. Others will say you are provoking violence. Others will say you should be censored and prevented from publishing your blasphemous or provocative material. Others say you are dealing in hate speech and should be fined or even imprisoned under criminal law. That is why Tarek Fatah argues we must not allow these people to censor us and we must not use their violence to prevent others from speaking out. Geller is out of the mainstream but the truth is many countries actually prohibit every single thing I mentioned: no questioning of the Quran, no translations that may be considered as disrespecting the tradition. Violation can mean prison or even a death sentence. We can go even further: people are sentenced to prison for saying they don’t believe or even that they don’t believe in the literal and absolute nature of Muhammed’s revelations. This actually happens.
I honestly do not understand the alarmism over Sharia law supposedly coming to the U.S.
What is the scenario in which Sharia could be imposed on U.S. citizens in direct contradiction to our Constitutional rights? (ie. execution for depicting Mohammed). How would that possibly happen?
Seriously. I mean, a mentally ill person easily gets his hands on an automatic weapon because it’s in his home, walks into an elementary school, and mows down dozens of first graders — literally blowing some of them to pieces — and yet nobody can get through our Congress one smidgeon of gun control legislation. Not even background checks. Second Amendment rules despite the slaughter of dozens of first graders.
But sure, the Muslims could swoop in while we’re asleep and impose Sharia law if it weren’t for people like Pam Geller exposing them. Right.
Application of religious law in civil disputes. This exists in Britain and some other countries: rather than have disputes brought into the civil system, they allow an essentially religiously defined procedure - similar to a binding mediation but not exactly - in which the parties' religious law and custom is applied. Problem? Cases exist in Britain and elsewhere where people, notably women, have been forced into these religious procedures and thus have had their civil rights denied. This is a problem with fringe Judaism in a certain but not exactly the same way as well, notably in the way civil courts defer to religious rulings on divorce and related issues. It's a tough line for a society and European "multiculturalism" has meant not so much integration but maintenance of existing custom, no matter how regressive (especially toward women). With fringe Judaism, the issue is similar but somewhat different because those groups are largely self-isolating and their ultimate authority rests in exclusion or shunning of those who don't go along. As you can tell, I'm opposed to putting religious courts/decisions ahead of civil social rights.
Application of external law, as in the laws and decisions of other countries. States that have acted about Sharia law have mostly focused on this. I think it's an over-blown worry.
Wouldn’t a notable exception be Yigal Amir’s assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yizhak Rabin? “Amir has said he shot Rabin out of religious conviction, to prevent the return of the West Bank to the Palestinians” according to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/daily/may99/amir14.htm .
You must know that this already happens all the time in the USA, right? I have seen a number of contracts between Orthodox Jews in New York City in which the parties agree to have all disputes arbitrated before and adjudicated by a Beit Din, and relinquish their rights to proceed in the civil courts. Such provisions are entirely enforceable, to the same extent as any other agreement to arbitrate.
I think Geller probably regrets that Obama didn’t try to shut down her event. That’s probably what she really hoped for. Indeed, she probably thought all those Green Berets were massing to stop her.
I’ve come to the conclusion that we keep hearing about the straw men arguments (either that Geller’s opponents think she “deserved” the attacks, or that somebody wanted to censor her) because that’s how people who support her point of view think–if they don’t like something, they think it should be banned. If something bad happens to somebody they don’t like, then they deserved it–indeed, God did it to them (like Katrina punished sinful New Orleans, for example). And they just assume that other people think the same way.
There were some people who wanted Garland ISD to cancel the event. Stated reasons were not that it was inherently disrespectful or that it didn’t create an environment of tolerance of others’ religions, it was because it might provoke anger and violence. That is catering to the bully, imo.
Who were these people? I note in passing that those people were correct in their predictions, and that the violence could have been much worse than it was.
It occurs to me that this is a bit like deciding what to do if there is a bomb threat to some kind of event. Do you evacuate the people and search for a bomb? Do you cancel the event? There hardly ever is a bomb in such cases, but there could be. What’s the line between reasonable precautions and catering to the bully? I don’t really know where the line is, but I think about this every time I take off my belt and shoes at the airport.
Hunt, I think you underestimate the magnitude of fear many Americans feel after 9/11, Boston marathon, etc about extremists living among us, and this event confirmed that the fear is valid. In this case, the extremists travelled a distance and attempted to kill people without ever having verified that the subject cartoons existed. True lunatics.
Whether these two men would have murdered people if they had not been drawn to this event and killed is open to question, and perhaps they would never have. But they were easily provoked to kill people in this case, so obviously they were dangerous men.
Jmo, but I think Geller was frustrated at not being able to spread fear and loathing of Muslims beyond the fringe already in thrall to her and decided it had been too long — two years! ---- since the Boston Marathon bombing.
She wants more violence at home, since nothing stokes hatred like an attack on the homeland, and it wasn’t happening. Gotta take matters into your hands and make things happen if you want to accomplish your goals.
No one can provoke anyone to do anything he wouldn’t have done anyway. Only a person prone to shooting someone in the name of his religion will shoot someone in the name of his religion. The only question is when he will do it and what he will blame for his actions.
Ms. Geller doesn’t need to spread fear and loathing of Muslims. The actions that some take in the name of Islam does the job quite well without her help.
Here’s how I see it: the people who are either blaming Ms. Geller directly or who prioritize her actions over the actions of the perpetrators are either redirecting their fear toward the party they know isn’t really dangerous instead of the group they know would kill them without a qualm, or they are so deeply invested in setting themselves apart from the unwashed masses that they would choose the dangerous side over making common cause with the rabble. Because if they share concerns and priorities with the rabble, they might not actually be better or smarter or more worthy.
Note that total homicide deaths are less than half of that of suicides, and only about one eighth of accidental deaths. People panic over dying in a terrorist attack, but do not seem to be too concerned about motor vehicle accidents (seeing how carelessly many people drive), tripping and falling, and other daily hazards.
Ucb,
I really despise the type of argument you seem to be making here, which I assume is, since there have been so few terrorist deaths, no one should worry about it and instead fret over car accidents? Humans are quite capable of managing concern over numerous different threats at a time.
“Humans are quite capable of managing concern over numerous different threats at a time.”
Not the rabble who need to be trained and taught by their betters. Heavens, Bay , next thing you’re going to say is that terrorism is more dangerous than genetically modified rice!
The argument is simply that people often greatly misjudge risk of different kinds of events. An example that is not related to terrorism is the fear of dying in a scheduled commercial airline flight crash, even though that risk is lower than that of driving to or from the airport.
Kind of lost me with this paragraph. Oh wait, this is “elites” versus common folk?
So if you oppose what Geller is doing, you are a stuck up elite who chooses to be on the side of murdering lunatic fanatics rather than on the side the properly terrified unwashed rabble. Hmmm. You do like to paint in broad strokes.
“Pig” is a common anti-semitic slur in the Muslim world (where extremist imams call them descendants of apes and pigs), and may have been a reference to the fact that Geller is Jewish.