The terror attack on Charlie Hebdo is undoubtedly tragic, barbaric and condemnable despite the controversial nature and approach of the former. It is to be noted that one among the killed was a French Muslim policeman who sacrificed his life in the defence of the French state and its liberal values. The incident also points to the fact that Muslims, mostly of North African origins, are well assimilated in the French bureaucracy, economy and society. This was quite obvious during my visit to Strasbourg and Paris a couple of years ago. Nevertheless, the Charlie Hebdo incident has raised many questions regarding the role of Islam and Muslims in France, the attitude and response of the French state and society towards Islam and its Muslim population and, importantly, the role of the media and free speech. The following attempts to address such concerns.
To begin with, like all religions, Islam does have an added emphasis on social relations. It guides its followers to believe in human dignity in terms of sanctity of life, property, honour and reason. None has the right, in religion, to take someone’s life without due right and the due right is to be ascertained and adjudicated by the state either established by the Muslims themselves or accepted by them as they normally do in Europe or the US. If someone kills someone without due right, such an act has been forcefully admonished by Islam and is thus likened to the killing of the whole of humanity. Here, it becomes pertinent to highlight the significance of reciting God’s name before slaughtering an animal/bird. Muslims, indeed the Jews and Christians too, are religiously required to perform the said ritual so as to symbolically and psychologically realise the fact that a human is not the creator of the life that he has taken.
Besides providing the principles for social relationships, Islam also lays the basis for political organisation. In this respect, once a state (collective order) is established through the consensus of Muslims, the state has the legal right to defend its citizens along with naturalised or contracted communities. Any breach of the rules of the game will entail due punishment. In the context of seventh century Islam, the nascent Islamic state was constantly under threat at the hands of internal and external actors. Once attacked physically, the Islamic state did resort to military means to defend itself. In this respect, we as Muslims need to go beyond apologia: Islam did require the use of the sword against those immediate addressees of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH,) who denied his prophetology and the oneness of God knowingly and consciously, and this despite the fact that comprehensive argumentation had been completed with them when they still refused to believe in the fundamentals of Islam on account of the negativity of their ego in terms of taking pride in tribal legacy and values grounded mostly in immorality and illogic. More importantly, this practice of God is not specific to the last prophet but was also applicable through selected prophets in the past too. For example, Moses was a chosen messenger who was assigned the task of freeing the children of Israel from the Egyptian pharaoh. The miracles of Moses and the death of the pharaoh and his troops are a case in point. Nevertheless, this principle and practice of God was time bound. After Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his companions, this religious injunction cannot be invoked to justify attacks on any individual or community. Hence, the invocation of it, most recently in France, on the part of certain Muslims — yes Muslims since murdering someone does not makes one non-Muslim — is textually unfounded.
Textually unfounded is also the collective claim of Charlie Hebdo and the like who love to depict and project Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as a terrorist and a polygamous individual. By default, such an approach has internationally dubbed Islam as a religion of barbarism, extremism and terrorism. Indeed, the previous and present edition of Charlie Hebdo in particular and some other western newspapers in general has done no service to the west-based tradition of independent inquiry and objective analysis. To add insult to injury, the publishing of my prophet’s caricature in this week’s edition of Charlie Hebdo is not only ahistorical and atextual but also immoral, inhuman and illogical.
I cannot be a follower and supporter of Charlie Hebdo if it cannot bring forth solid Quranic evidence to its claims. I cannot be Charlie who has misunderstood and misused the otherwise very effective concept and practice of freedom (of speech). I am not Charlie who has violated the concept of social, if not moral, responsibility. How can you claim to be liberal, secular and civilised if you cannot determine the social limits of your actions? Do you think it is socially and culturally wise and acceptable behaviour to emotionally and psychologically hurt hundreds and thousands of your fellow French (Muslims) and more than one billion Muslims around the world? Do you not think your caricatures are a modified version of hate speech? Is bigotry not a crime in this civilised world of yours?
Moreover, if Charlie is so liberal and such a staunch believer in free speech, can it exercise its freedom to publically abuse the French, if not the US, president? Can it publically speak or write anything, yes anything, that is termed as anti-Semitism? By the way, can Charlie publically worship Hitler, if not Mussolini, as its hero? Charlie, if you are such a lover of free speech, then please ask your authorities not to charge Dieudonné –a French comedian — for violating free speech in the context of Paris attacks.
In view of the aforementioned, I should be given the choice to post that I am not Charlie who is immoral, illogical and inhumane. Rather, I am a human who believes in human (and animal) dignity, objectivity, harmony and peace. I am a Muslim who believes in Islam logically. I am a conscious follower of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), who helped the needy, married widows, fathered orphans, fed the poor, taught wisdom, informed us of what would happen after his death and who forgave his enemies. I am sure, had Charlie caricatured the Prophet (PBUH) in his lifetime, he would have smiled and pardoned him since he was the prophet of mercy.
In conclusion, I request Charlie and its followers to use non-abusive jargon to register their protest. Similarly, I urge Muslims to please follow their Prophet’s (PBUH) practice and not harm others in anger and revenge. Rather, they should protest peacefully and argumentatively. Moreover, I call upon the French government in particular and the west in general to avoid any policy that discriminates against Muslims and other minorities. At such a critical time, reason and knowledge are the true guides.
The writer is an independent political scientist and the author of Military Agency, Politics and the State in
Pakistan. He tweets @ejazbhatty