(CSM) Blasphemy riots: less about theology, more about power plays

Posted by Kendall Harmon

The mobs that killed the US ambassador to Libya and assaulted the US Embassy in Egypt may have been provoked by a blasphemous portrayal of the prophet Muhammad, but Muslim scholars and analysts alike say the attacks have little justification in Islamic theology. Instead, they reflect societies roiled by power struggles and competing ideologies – in which Muslims are used as pawns for political gain.

“The punishment for blasphemy and even the definition for blasphemy is not in the Quran. There are some hadiths that address it, but it’s ambiguous,” says Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom in Washington. “So it’s very vague and … it’s manipulated by those who want to raise a mob and wield power within a society.”

She cites other recent examples of blasphemous incidents being exploited for political purposes, including the protests in Afghanistan and Pakistan over Florida pastor Terry Jones burning the Quran, fanned by the Taliban, and a Danish newspaper’s denigrating cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, exploited by Arab governments upset with the Bush administration’s push for democracy in the Middle East.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam

3 Comments
Posted September 15, 2012 at 2:00 pm [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Cennydd13 wrote:

It seems to me that in these societies, the only people who have “rights” are those who are in power and those who are extremists and religious zealots; the rest are nothing more than mere pawns to be used to further their causes and agendas.  They have no more regard for freedom than the man in the moon does.

September 16, 9:57 am | [comment link]
2. tgs wrote:

Islam from its very founding under Muhammad has focused on expansion with the aim of ruling the world under an Islamic religious government. That’s almost two thousand years of continuous pushing for expansion. What we have today is just the latest version - the latest attempt. Frankly, it will never stop until the Islamic religion as started under Muhammad changes and I’m not holding my breath for that to happen.

September 16, 2:08 pm | [comment link]
3. Cennydd13 wrote:

Islam has never changed its goal from the very beginning, and we all know what that goal is:  the abject subjugation of free people everywhere…..Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddhists, etc…..and if we can’t be subjugated, then we must all be killed.  The very symbols of Islam tell us that, and one of those symbols is the scimitar…...the curved sword of the Islamic world. 

The ultimate goal of Islam is the reestablishment of the Caliphate which once ruled the Mediterranean world from Arabia to Moorish Spain and the shores of northern Africa to the Atlantic Ocean, and they will use that sword to accomplish that goal if they have to.  This cannot be allowed to happen.  Islam, despite its plea of being a “peaceful” religion, is anything but “peaceful.”

September 16, 10:13 pm | [comment link]
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