Kuwait: New Death Penalty for Blasphemy

by Mohshin Habib
June 14, 2012 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3104/kuwait-death-penalty-blasphemy

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So what should international human rights organization regard as the threat: the Quran, Quranic instructions, or the people who are just following its recommended path?

Kuwaiti lawmakers have passed a legal amendment authorizing the death penalty for Muslims who curse their God or the Quran, or who defame their Prophet Mohammed or his wife. In the amended article, if the defendant publicly repents and apologizes for the crime, the penalty will be reduced to five years in jail, a fine of 10,000 Kuwaiti Dinars (KD), or both.

The approved article states that non-Muslims who commit the same crime face at least 10 years in jail. Some MPs demanded the death penalty should also apply to them as well. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan boast the same death penalty law for blasphemy. In other Muslim countries, there are different interpretations to executing people who are outspoken and have different opinion. The Islamic States also never tolerate apostasy, conversion, or freedom from religion.

Islam is a belief. It is not clear in any Muslim country why a man before a court in any Muslim country would be termed Muslim if he does not believe in the religion, or possibly any religion, just because he happened to be born into a home in which Islam happened to be the religion of the family living there.

Overriding Kuwaiti disapproval, international human rights organizations, including the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, expressed deep concern. The Chairman of USCIRF, Leo Leonard, said he judged these penalties as alarming and contrary to international human rights standards.

As the commission recognizes the Quran as a holy script for the Muslims, however, the question arises as to how can the commission can feel concerned about the new law if the law has been derived from the Quranic instructions of which they ostensibly approve?

Although most Islamists formally say that the Quran itself does not prescribe any earthly punishment for apostasy, in fact Sharia Law and Islamic schools of jurisprudence strongly advocate that an apostate must be either executed or imprisoned until he or she re-converts to Islam. In the last 1400 years, Islam has been always harsh and brutal to non-believers, apostates and people who might have different opinions. Here is what Quran says on these issues:

But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever you find them. - 4:89
Therefore, we stirred among them [unbelievers] enmity and hatred, which shall endure till the Day of Resurrection, when Allah will declare to them all that they have done. - 5:14
O believers, take not Jews and Christians as friends; they are friends of each other. Those of you who make them his friends are one of them. God does not guide an unjust people. - 5:54
Make war on them until idolatry is no more and Allah's religion reigns supreme - 8:39
O Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight. If there are 20 steadfast men among you, they shall vanquish 200; and if there are a hundred, they shall rout a thousand unbelievers, for they are devoid of understanding. - 8:65
It is not for any Prophet to have captives until he has made slaughter in the land. - 8:67
Allah will humble the unbelievers. Allah and His apostle are free from obligations to idol-worshipers. Proclaim a woeful punishment to the unbelievers. - 9:2-3
When the sacred months are over, slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. - 9:5
Believers! Know that idolators are unclean. - 9:28
Fight those who believe neither in God nor the Last Day, nor what has been forbidden by God and his messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, even if they are People of the Book, until they pay the tribute and have been humbled. The unbelievers are impure and their abode is hell. Humiliate the non-Muslims to such an extent that they surrender and pay tribute. - 9:29
Whether unarmed or well-equipped, march on and fight for the cause of Allah, with your wealth and your persons. - 9:41
O Prophet! Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites. Be harsh with them. Their ultimate abode is hell, a hapless journey's end. - 9:73
Allah has purchased of their faithful lives and worldly goods, and in return has promised them the Garden. They will fight for His cause, kill and be killed. - 9:111
Fight unbelievers who are near to you. 9:123 [Different translation: Believers! Make war on the infidels who dwell around you. Let them find harshness in you. (Another source: ) Ye who believe! Murder those of the disbelievers....]
As for those who are slain in the cause of Allah, He will not allow their works to perish. He will vouchsafe them guidance and ennoble their state; He will admit them to the Paradise He has made known to them. - 10:4-15
Allah has cursed the unbelievers and proposed for them a blazing hell. - 33:60
Unbelievers are enemies of Allah and they will roast in hell. - 41:14
When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks, then when you have made wide slaughter among them, tie fast the bonds, then set them free, either by grace or ransom, until the war lays down its burdens. - 47:4 [Different translation: When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads, and when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly.]
Those who are slain in the way of Allah - he will never let their deeds be lost. Soon will he guide them and improve their condition, and admit them to the Garden, which he has announced for them. - 47:5
Muslims are harsh against the unbelievers, merciful to one another. - 48:25
Muhammad is Allah's apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers but merciful to one another. Through them, Allah seeks to enrage the unbelievers. - 48:29
Prophet! Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal sternly with them. Hell shall be their home, evil their fate. - 66:9
The unbelievers among the People of the Book and the pagans shall burn forever in the fire of hell. They are the vilest of all creatures. - 98:51

These verses have been directly informed by the Quran – and are being taken literally. So what should international human rights organizations regard as the threat: the Quran, Quranic instructions, or the people who are just following its recommended path?

Related Topics: Mohshin Habib

UK: Radical Megamosque Opposed by Muslims

by Irfan Al-Alawi
June 14, 2012 at 4:45 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3110/uk-radical-megamosque

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Craig's views are hardly anti-Muslim. Rather, he has questioned the character and intentions of Tabligh i Jamaat in terms shared by the overwhelming number of Muslims who know all too well the reality of Deobandi Islam in South Asia. Craig should be supported by Muslims.

In 1996, British adherents of Tabligh i Jamaat [TJ], the Muslim preaching movement that reflects the fundamentalist Deobandi ideology of the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban, purchased a large tract of land in an industrial area of West Ham, in the London Borough of Newham. The property was formerly a chemical factory, but TJ proposed to erect a "mega-mosque" there, serving tens of thousands of worshippers, with extensive visitors' and conference centres, guest hostelries, a religious school, and parking space.

Little attention was paid to the "mega-mosque" project until Londoners, both Muslim and non-Muslim, were disturbed to learn that, if realized, the TJ complex would appear adjacent to the new Stadium built for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. The successful bid for London to host this year's Olympic Games came in 2005, almost a decade after TJ obtained the parcel on which it intended to place the "mega-mosque." The Stadium opened last month. The Games will commence on 27 July. Opposition to the "mega-mosque" has left its future unresolved.

Community representatives opposed to the "mega-mosque" have demanded enforcement of an agreement between TJ and Newham Council, announced in February 2011, and calling for TJ to submit a valid planning application for the construction within one year. Absent such documentation, TJ was supposed to remove its temporary structures and car-park paving.

The February 2012 deadline for a construction application passed without TJ's compliance. Having defaulted on that promise, TJ is left with a makeshift "Islamic" presence close to the Olympic Stadium.

The organization held a public event in February at which it described its vision ambitiously, including a mosque eight stories high and apartment buildings of from four to seven stories each. Public-relations propaganda cannot, however, substitute for fulfillment of a solemn, legal commitment made to local authorities and disregarded.

The TJ project has been renamed several times, having been described originally in promotional literature as the "London Markaz" ("Center" in Arabic). But while London already has a Central Mosque in Regents Park, financed mainly by Saudi Arabia, the London "mega-mosque" was designated as a hub for TJ activities in Europe. It has also been called the "Masjid-e-Ilyas," to honour, presumably, Ilyas Al-Kandhlawi (1885-1944), founder and first "ameer" or "commander" of TJ. More recently it was entitled the "Abbey Mills Mosque" after the industrial zone in which it was to be opened. It is now known as the "Riverine Centre," an innocuous name, and is listed in online mosque directories as the "Riverine Centre/Masjid-E-Ilyas/Markaz."

TJ leaders in the UK were delighted with the prospect that the "mega-mosque" would tower over the Olympic Stadium, and provide TJ with benign media attention during sports broadcasting. In 2007, Abdul Khaliq, TJ representative and "mega-mosque" director, stated, "We would like to think that the Olympic authority will use it as the Islamic quarter of the 2012 Games." TJ was encouraged by Ken Livingstone, the radical Labour Mayor of London from 2000 to 2008, who endorsed the scheme, and denounced its critics as prejudiced against Muslims and purveyors of false information. (Livingstone, it should be noted, lost his bid to regain his old post in London's recent mayoral vote, in which Conservative Boris Johnson was re-elected.)

Alan Craig, leader of the Christian Peoples' Alliance and a former Newham Council member, has been an outspoken and activist opponent of the "mega-mosque;" his views on it and TJ, however, are hardly anti-Muslim. Rather, Craig has questioned the character and intentions of TJ in terms shared by the overwhelming number of Muslim adversaries of Deobandi radicalism. Craig has described TJ correctly as "fundamentalist, separatist, sexist, and anti-social," and has warned that the "mega-mosque" would harm community relations and integration of Muslims in London.

Muslims against the "mega-mosque" once included a group called "Sunni Friends of Newham," who warned that the TJ plan would discriminate against Muslims unaffiliated with the movement, alienate non-Muslims, and radicalize Muslim youth. The Muslim antagonists to the TJ campaign – knowing all too well the reality of Deobandi extremism in South Asia – collected 2,500 signatures on a petition against the "mega-mosque" but faded from the scene, apparently because of TJ pressure.

MegaMosqueNoThanks, an organization led by Craig, has most recently called attention to TJ's failure to abide by its 2011 voluntary and binding undertaking made to Newham Council. To emphasize, TJ pledged to produce a valid planning application before February of this year. The movement did not carry out its agreed duties. Craig has said, "Not for the first time TJ has failed to keep an undertaking. The group has an history of breaking planning laws, flouting building regulations and breaching solemn agreements. Its track record is one of negligence and irresponsibility. We are urging Newham Council to move them off the site and to knock down the buildings."

Craig and other non-Muslims challenging TJ and the "mega-mosque" should be supported by Muslims concerned about preventing alienation between non-Muslims and them. The continuing penetration of Deobandism is a problem everywhere South Asian Muslims are found. In Afghanistan and Pakistan the Deobandi-inspired Taliban wage open terrorism. India's Muslim minority of 160 million is divided as the Deobandis have seized positions in community institutions. Bangladesh is the scene of annual TJ assemblies drawing millions of participants. TJ and other Deobandi agents claim to have taken over a majority of UK mosques.

In the U.S., the influence of Deobandism and of the Pakistani jihadist followers of Abu'l Ala Mawdudi (1903-79) predominates among South Asian Muslims, who account for a plurality of American Muslims. Marcia Hermansen of Loyola University in Chicago has written that followers of Barelvism --the majority trend among Muslims in the Indian subcontinent and the South Asian Sunni communities abroad -- have given up organizing a body to represent their interests in America. Barelvis are traditionalists opposed to Deobandism, and who support instead Sufi spirituality and who proclaim loyalty to non-Muslim authorities. According to Hermansen, their "failure may have occurred as a result of factors specific to the Muslim subculture in the United States, for example, the fact that most community organizations were already controlled by anti-Sufi Islamists" -- an assessment that is unfortunately accurate.

Alan Craig and others drew a necessary line against TJ and Deobandi penetration of European Islam in denouncing the "mega-mosque." Their current demand is legally sound. The debris of the "mega-mosque" imposture should be cleared away from West Ham before the end of next month and the beginning of the Olympics. It is a blight on London, and on the standing of moderate, traditional, and conventional British Muslims.

Related Topics: United Kingdom | Irfan Al-Alawi

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