توہین رسالت کے سب سے بڑے مرتکب مسلمان خود ہیں
مسلمانوں کی معصومیت نامی فلم اور اس کے بنانے والوں اور پشت پناہی کرنے والوں کی جتنی بھی مذمت کی جائے کم ہے لیکن کیا اس بات کو چھپایا جا سکتا ہے کہ اس توہین آمیز فلم کو عربی میں ترجمہ کر کے مصر اور دوسرے عرب ممالک میں پھیلانے والے لوگ سلفی مسلمان تھے ؟
کیا اس حقیقت کو چھپایا جا سکتا ہے کہ رحمت اللعلمین کے نام پر تشدد آمیز مظاہرے کرنے والے اپنے ہی ملکوں میں مسیحیوں، یہودیوں، شیعہ مسلمانوں ، صوفی (بریلوی) مسلمانوں اور دوسرے مظلوم گروہوں کے ساتھ جانوروں سے بھی برا سلوک کرتے ہیں؟
آپ سوچیں گے تو آپ کو اسلامی دنیا کی آستین میں سانپ اور مسلمانوں کے ہاں دوہرا معیار صاف دکھائی دے گا، لیکن اس کے لئے آپ کو تمام تر تعصبات کو بالائے طاق رکھ کر یہ سوچنا پڑے گا کہ کیا یہ “مسلمانوں کی معصومیت” نامی فلم اس لئے بری ہے کہ اس کا بنانے والا ایک عیسائی پادری ہے، یا پھر اس لئے بری ہے کہ اس میں معراج انسانیت اور ختمی المرتبت (ص) کی شان میں گستاخی کی گئی ہے؟
اگر آپ کے نزدیک اس فلم کی مخالفت کا معیار ختمی المرتبت صلی الله عالیہ واله وسلم کی شان میں گستاخی ہے تو پھر انصاف سے بتائیے کہ ۔۔۔
کیا جنّت البقیع میں رسول گرامی صلی اللہ علیہ و آلہ وسلم کے صحابہ اور ان کی آل کے مزارات کو منہدم کرکے توہین رسالت نہیں کی گئی؟
کیا رسول اکرم (ص) کی اکلوتی بیٹی کے مزار کو گرا کر ویران کرنے سے حضور صلی اللہ علیہ و آلہ وسلم کی توہین نہیں ہوئی؟
کیا حضور صلی اللہ علیہ و آلہ وسلم کے اصحاب اور آل کے مزارات کو شرک کے مراکز کہنے سے رسول کی توہین نہیں ہوتی؟
کیا رسول اکرم کی اصلی آل (اولاد) جن پر دردو اور سلام کے بغیر سنی اور شیعہ کی نماز مکمل نہیں ہوتی، کیا ان عظیم ہستیوں کے نام چھپانا اور ان کی بجاے پوری مسلمان امت کو آل رسول قرار دینے سے توہین رسالت نہیں ہوتی؟ کیا حجاج بن یوسف، عبدالملک بن مروان،جنرل ضیاء الحق ، ملک اسحاق ، احمد لدھیانوی، ملا عبدالعزیز اور اس طرح کے دوسرے بد کردار لوگ آل رسول ہیں اور کیا ہم ان پر درود اور سلام بھیجتے ہیں؟ اور کیا جنت البقیع میں اور سامرہ میں جن آل نبی کے مزارات کو بم مار کر منہدم کیا گیا اس سے توہین رسالت نہیں ہوتی؟
کیا اس بات کو چھپایا جا سکتا ہے کہ معاویہ ابن ابی سفیان نے حضرت علی اور اولاد رسول پر خطبہ جمعہ میں گالیاں دینے کا رواج ڈالا ، سرکاری مورخ رکھے جنہوں نے محمد اور آل محمد کے خلاف توہین آمیز حدیثیں گھڑیں – کیا ان باتوں سے توہین رسالت نہیں ہوتی؟
کیا اس حقیقت کو چھپایا جا سکتا ہے کہ امام حسین کی شہادت سےآج تک مسلمان حکومتوں نے اور تکفیری گروہوں نے چن چن کر آل محمد کو قتل کیا ان کے مزاروں پر حملے کیے بنو امیہ، بنو عباس کے دور میں آل محمد اور آل علی کو بے دردی کے ساتھ شہید کیا گیا اور مسلمانوں کی اکثریت اس ظلم پر خاموش رہی – کیا اس ظلم سے توہین رسالت نہیں ہوئی؟
کیا یہ حقیقت نہیں ہے ہماری حدیث کی کتابیں رسول اکرم کی وفات کے دو سو سال بعد تدوین کی گیئں اور ان میں دشمنان محمد و آل محمد کی گھڑی ہوئی حدیثیں ڈالی گئیں ان کتابوں میں بہت سی ایسی حدیثیں ڈال دی گئی ہیں جن سے براہ راست رسول اکرم کی توہین ہوتی ہے – دراصل راج پال کی گستاخانہ کتاب رنگیلا رسول میں بہت سا مواد مسلمانوں کی حدیث کی صحیح کتابوں سے لیا گیا تھا – کیا ایسی کتابوں کو صحیح کہنے اور بعد از قرآن معتبر سمجھنے سے توہین رسالت نہیں ہوتی؟
کیا حضور کے مزار کی جالی کو چومنے والوں کو ڈانٹنے اور انہیں مشرک کہنے سے حضور (ص) کی اہانت نہیں ہوتی؟
کیا اولیائے کرام کے مقدس مزارات پر دھماکے کرنے سے حضور (ص) کی اہانت نہیں ہوتی؟
کیا بے گناہ لوگوں کو قرآن مجید کی آیات پڑھ پڑھ کر جانوروں کی طرح ذبح کر دینے سے قرآن اور پیغمبر (ص) کی توہین نہیں ہوتی؟
کیا مسجدوں میں نمازیوں کو گولیاں مار دینے سے اسلام اور پیغمبر اسلام (ص) کی اہانت نہیں ہوتی؟
کیا بیت المقدس پر اسرائیلی قبضے اور فلسطینیوں کی در بدری کے باوجود سعودی حکمرانوں کی امریکہ اور یورپ کی خوشامد سے اسلام اور پیغمبر اسلام (ص) کی اہانت نہیں ہوتی؟
کیا اپنے آپ کو طالبانِ اسلام کہنے والوں کے ہاتھوں بچیوں کے سکول بند کرانے اور عورتوں کو مجمع عام میں پیٹنے سے اسلام اور پیغمبرِ اسلام (ص) کی رسوائی نہیں ہوتی؟
آپ جس بھی مذہب اور جس بھی مکتب سے تعلق رکھتے ہوں، اپنے ضمیر سے پوچھئے کہ عورتوں اور بچوں کی چیخ وپکار کے درمیان کلمہ گو مسلمانوں کوکلمہ پڑھتے ہوئے، بسوں سے اتار کر موت کے گھاٹ اتار دینے سے اسلام اور پیغمبرِ اسلام (ص) کی شان میں اضافہ ہوتا ہے یا توہین ہوتی ہے؟
امریکی پادری ٹیری جونز اور اس کے ہمنواوں کو یہ جرات صرف اسی لئے ہوئی ہے کہ وہ ہمارے دوہرے معیار اور دوہرے پن سے آگاہ ہیں۔ وہ جانتے ہیں کہ جب مسلمان خود ہر روز پیغمبرِ اسلام (ص) کی توہین کرکے “مجاہد اسلام” طالبانِ اسلام ” اور “خادم حرمین شریفین” رہ سکتے ہیں اور کوئی ان کا کچھ نہیں بگاڑ سکتا تو پھر انہیں مسلمانوں کے احتجاجات کو خاطر میں لانے کی کیا ضرورت ہے۔
آج گلیوں اور بازاروں میں ظالمانہ طور پر شہید کے جانے والوں کا خون ہم سے کہہ رہا ہے کہ اے فرقوں اور علاقوں، نعروں اور تنظیموں، قبیلوں اور ٹولوں میں بٹے ہوئے مسلمانو! اگر ناموس رسالت (ص) کے تحفظ کے لئے مخلص ہو تو میری طرح ظاہر و باطن کو ایک کر دو، جس کے نام کا کلمہ پڑھتے ہو، جس کی امّت کہلاتے ہو، اسی کی محبت کو زندگی کا معیار قرار دو، چاہے گستاخ رسول کوئی بھی ہو، اس کی سزا ایک ہی مقرر کرو ۔۔۔ بصورت دیگر نعرے لگاتے رہو اور احتجاج کرتے رہو
یقین جانیں ہمارے دوغلے پن، دوہرے معیار اور کھوکھلے احتجاجوں کو دیکھ کر ٹیری جونز،طارق فتح، سلمان رشدی، ایمن زواہری، حکیم الله محسود، ملک اسحاق وغیرہ ہنستے ہوں گے چونکہ وہ جانتے ہیں کہ جو قوم دوہرے پن اور دوہرے معیار کی عادی ہو جائے اسے ذلت و رسوائی کی گھاٹیوں سے کوئی نہیں نکال سکتا۔
(فیس بک سے ماخوذ )
Look in Your Mirror
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: September 18, 2012 269 Comments
On Monday, David D. Kirkpatrick, the Cairo bureau chief for The Times, quoted one of the Egyptian demonstrators outside the American Embassy, Khaled Ali, as justifying last week’s violent protests by declaring: “We never insult any prophet — not Moses, not Jesus — so why can’t we demand that Muhammad be respected?” Mr. Ali, a 39-year-old textile worker, was holding up a handwritten sign in English that read: “Shut Up America.” “Obama is the president, so he should have to apologize!”
I read several such comments from the rioters in the press last week, and I have a big problem with them. I don’t like to see anyone’s faith insulted, but we need to make two things very clear — more clear than President Obama’s team has made them. One is that an insult — even one as stupid and ugly as the anti-Islam video on YouTube that started all of this — does not entitle people to go out and attack embassies and kill innocent diplomats. That is not how a proper self-governing people behave. There is no excuse for it. It is shameful. And, second, before demanding an apology from our president, Mr. Ali and the young Egyptians, Tunisians, Libyans, Yemenis, Pakistanis, Afghans and Sudanese who have been taking to the streets might want to look in the mirror — or just turn on their own televisions. They might want to look at the chauvinistic bile that is pumped out by some of their own media — on satellite television stations and Web sites or sold in sidewalk bookstores outside of mosques — insulting Shiites, Jews, Christians, Sufis and anyone else who is not a Sunni, or fundamentalist, Muslim. There are people in their countries for whom hating “the other” has become a source of identity and a collective excuse for failing to realize their own potential.
The Middle East Media Research Institute, or Memri, was founded in 1998 in Washington by Yigal Carmon, a former Israeli government adviser on counterterrorism, “to bridge the language gap between the Middle East and the West by monitoring, translating and studying Arab, Iranian, Urdu and Pashtu media, schoolbooks, and religious sermons.” What I respect about Memri is that it translates not only the ugly stuff but the courageous liberal, reformist Arab commentators as well. I asked Memri for a sampler of the hate-filled videos that appear regularly on Arab/Muslim mass media. Here are some:
ON CHRISTIANS Hasan Rahimpur Azghadi of the Iranian Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution: Christianity is “a reeking corpse, on which you have to constantly pour eau de cologne and perfume, and wash it in order to keep it clean.” http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1528.htm — July 20, 2007.
Sheik Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi: It is permissible to spill the blood of the Iraqi Christians — and a duty to wage jihad against them. http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5200.htm — April 14, 2011.
Abd al-Aziz Fawzan al-Fawzan, a Saudi professor of Islamic law, calls for “positive hatred” of Christians. Al-Majd TV (Saudi Arabia), http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/992.htm — Dec. 16, 2005.
ON SHIITES The Egyptian Cleric Muhammad Hussein Yaaqub: “Muslim Brotherhood Presidential Candidate Mohamed Morsi told me that the Shiites are more dangerous to Islam than the Jews.” http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3466.htm — June 13, 2012.
The Egyptian Cleric Mazen al-Sirsawi: “If Allah had not created the Shiites as human beings, they would have been donkeys.” http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3101.htm — Aug. 7, 2011.
The Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan video series: “The Shiite is a Nasl [Race/Offspring] of Jews.” http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/51/6208.htm — March 21, 2012.
ON JEWS Article on the Muslim Brotherhood’s Web site praises jihad against America and the Jews: “The Descendants of Apes and Pigs.” http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/51/6656.htm — Sept. 7, 2012.
The Pakistani cleric Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai: “When the Jews are wiped out, the world would be purified and the sun of peace would rise on the entire world.” http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/51/6557.htm — Aug. 1, 2012.
Dr. Ismail Ali Muhammad, a senior Al-Azhar scholar: The Jews, “a source of evil and harm in all human societies.” http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/51/6086.htm — Feb. 14, 2012.
ON SUFIS A shrine venerating a Sufi Muslim saint in Libya has been partly destroyed, the latest in a series of attacks blamed on ultraconservative Salafi Islamists. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19380083 — Aug. 26, 2012.
As a Jew who has lived and worked in the Muslim world, I know that these expressions of intolerance are only one side of the story and that there are deeply tolerant views and strains of Islam espoused and practiced there as well. Theirs are complex societies.
That’s the point. America is a complex society, too. But let’s cut the nonsense that this is just our problem and the only issue is how we clean up our act. That Cairo protester is right: We should respect the faiths and prophets of others. But that runs both ways. Our president and major newspapers consistently condemn hate speech against other religions. How about yours?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/opinion/friedman-look-in-your-mirror.html?smid=tw-share
مسلمانوں ہوشیار
سپاہ صحابہ ایک شدت پسند دہشتگرد اور فرقہ پرست ٹولہ ہے اس کا مقصد صرف مسلمانوں کو تقسیم کرنا، اور سعودی حکم پر اسلام دشمن مغربی طاقتوں کی مدد کرنا ہے!! جس کی مثال آج واضع ہوگئی
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=407220399342317
سنا ہے جنگلوں کا بھی کوئی دستور ہوتا ہے
سنا ہے شیر کا جب پیٹ بھر جانے
تو وہ حملہ نہیں کرتا
ہوا کی تیز جھونکے درختوں کو ہلاتے ہیں
تو مینا اپنے گھر کو بھول کر
کوے کی انڈے کو پروں میں تھام لیتی ہے
سنا ہے گھونسلے سے
جب کوئی بچہ گرےتو
سارا جنگل جگ جاتا ہے
ندی میں باڑھ آجانے
کوئی پل ٹوٹ جائے
تو کسی لکڑی کی تختےپر
گلہری سانپ چیتا ور بکری
ساتھ ہوتے ہیں
سنا ہے جنگلوں کا بھی کوئی دستور ہوتا ہے
خداوند جلیل و معتبر دانا بینا و منصف اکبر
ہمارے شہر میں اب
جنگلوں کا ہی کوئی دستور نافذ کر
Blasphemous book ‘Rangeela Rasool’ was nothing but a compilation of Hadith from Muslim books
Rajpal, a fanatic Hindu publisher, was killed by a Muslim in Lahore for publishing his dirty work ‘Rangeela Rasool’, a propaganda against the prophet. Astonishingly, his book, Rangeela Rasool contained excerpts from Muslim books such as Sahih Muslim, Sahih Bukhari, etc. We all know what does Rangeela (colourful) mean.
I feel ashamed whilst pasting some hadith from Sahih (Authentic) Hadith Books, considered most reliable after the Quran. If Dianand deserved death, what are your opinions regarding the author of these books.
According to Sahih Muslim, Sahih Bukhari and the other books from Sahah e Sittah, the Prophet Muhammad was a tyrant and a cruel man…
Bukhari Volume 1, Book 4, Number 234: Narrated Abu Qilaba: Anas said, “Some people of ‘Ukl or ‘Uraina tribe came to Medina and its climate did not suit them. So theProphet ordered them to go to the herd of (Milch) camels and to drink their milk and urine (as a medicine). So they went as directed and after they became healthy, they killedthe shepherd of the Prophet and drove away all the camels. The news reached the Prophetearly in the morning and he sent (men) in their pursuit and they were captured andbrought at noon. He then ordered to cut their hands and feet (and it was done), and theireyes were branded with heated pieces of iron, They were put in ‘Al-Harra’ and when theyasked for water, no water was given to them.” Abu Qilaba said, “Those people committedtheft and murder, became infidels after embracing Islam and fought against Allah and His Apostle .”
The Prophet was obsessed with sex and couldn’t control his sexual instinct…
Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 6: Narrated Anas: The Prophet used to go round(have sexual relations with) all his wives in one night, and he had nine wives.Bukhari Volume 1, Book 5, Number 270: Narrated Muhammad bin Al-Muntathir: on theauthority of his father that he had asked ‘Aisha about the saying of Ibn ‘Umar(i.e. he didnot like to be a Muhrim while the smell of scent was still coming from his body). ‘Aisha said, “I scented Allah’s Apostle and he went round (had sexual intercourse with) all hiswives, and in the morning he was Muhrim (after taking a bath).”
Bukhari Volume 1, Book 6, Number 298: Narrated ‘Aisha: The Prophet and I used to takea bath from a single pot while we were Junub. During the menses, he used to order me toput on an Izar (dress worn below the waist) and used to fondle me. While in Itikaf, heused to bring his head near me and I would wash it while I used to be in my periods(menses).The Prophet used to forget his prayers…
Bukhari Volume 2, Book 22, Number 321: Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet offeredone of the evening prayers (the sub-narrator Muhammad said, “I think that it was mostprobably the ‘Asr prayer”) and he finished it after offering two Rakat only. He then stoodnear a price of wood in front of the Mosque and put his hand over it. Abu Bakr and ‘Umarwere amongst those who were present, but they dared not talk to him about that (becauseof excessive respect for him), and those who were in a hurry went out. They said, “Hasthe prayer been reduced?” A man who was called DhulYadain by the Prophet said (to the Prophet), “Has the prayer been reduced or have you forgotten?” He said, “Neither have Iforgotten, nor has the prayer been reduced.” He said, “Certainly you have forgotten.” Sothe Prophet offered two more Rakat and performed Tashm and then said Takbir andperformed a prostration of Sahu like his ordinary prostration or a bit longer and thenraised his head and said Takbir and then put his head down and performed a prostrationlike his ordinary prostration or a bit longer, and then raised his head and said Takbir.
The Prophet was bewitched…
Bukhari Volume 4, Book 53, Number 400: Narrated Aisha: Once the Prophet wasbewitched so that he began to imagine that he had done a thing which in fact he had notdone.The Prophet (who was a Blessing for all) cursed and mistreated his guests…
Muslim Book 032, Number 6285: A’isha reported that two persons visited Allah’sMessenger (may peace be upon him) and both of them talked about a thing, of which Iam not aware, but that annoyed him and he invoked curse upon both of them and hurled malediction, and when they went out I said: Allah’s Messenger, the good would reach everyone but it would not reach these two. He said: Why so? I said: Because you haveinvoked curse and hurled malediction upon both of them. He said: Don’t you know that Ihave made condition with my Lord saying thus: O Allah, I am a human being and that fora Muslim upon whom I invoke curse or hurl malediction make it a source of purity andreward.The Prophet orders women (including his own wives) to suckle grown up men…
Muslim Book 008, Number 3424: ‘ A’isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported that Sahlabint Suhail came to Allah’s Apostle (may peace be eupon him) and said: Messengerof Allah, I see on the face of Abu Hudhaifa (signs of disgust) on entering of Salim (who isan ally) into (our house), whereupon Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) said:Suckle him. She said: How can I suckle him as he is a grown-up man? Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) smiled and said: I already know that he is a young man ‘Amrhas made this addition in his narration that he participated in the Battle of Badr and in thenarration of Ibn ‘Umar (the words are): Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him)laughed
Muwaata Malik Book 30, Number 30.2.12: Yahya related to me from Malik from IbnShihab that he was asked about the suckling of an older person. He said, ”Urwa ibn az-Zubayr informed me that Abu Hudhayfa ibn Utba ibn Rabia, one of the companions of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, who was present at Badr, adopted Salim (who is called Salim, the mawla of Abu Hudhayfa) as the Messengerof Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, adopted Zayd ibn Haritha. He thought of him as his son, and Abu Hudhayfa married him to his brother’s sister, Fatimabint al-Walid ibn Utba ibn Rabia, who was at that time among the first emigrants. She was one of the best unmarried women of the Quraysh. When Allah the Exalted sent downin His Book what He sent down about Zayd ibn Haritha, ‘Call them after their true fathers. That is more equitable in the sight of Allah. If you do not know who their fatherswere then they are your brothers in the deen and your mawali,’ (Sura 33 ayat 5) people inthis position were traced back to their fathers. When the father was not known, they weretraced to their mawla.
“Sahla bint Suhayl who was the wife of Abu Hudhayfa, and one of the tribe of Amr ibn Luayy, came to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him andgrant him peace, and said, ‘Messenger of Allah! We think of Salim as a son and he comesin to see me while I am uncovered. We only have one room, so what do you think aboutthe situation?’ The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said,’Give him five drinks of your milk and he will be mahram by it.’ She then saw him as afoster son. A’isha umm al-muminin took that as a precedent for whatever men she wantedto be able to come to see her. She ordered her sister, Umm Kulthum bint Abi Bakr as-Siddiq and the daughters of her brother to give milk to whichever men she wanted to beable to come in to see her. The rest of the wives of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, refused to let anyone come in to them by such nursing. They said, ‘No!By Allah! We think that what the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, ordered Sahla bint Suhayl to do was only an indulgence concerning thenursing of Salim alone. No! By Allah! No one will come in upon us by such nursing!'”This is what the wives of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, thoughtabout the suckling of an older person.”
The Prophet Urinated while standing…Bukhari Volume 1, Book 4, Number 224: Narrated Hudhaifa: Once the Prophet went tothe dumps of some people and passed urine while standing. He then asked for water andso I brought it to him and he performed ablution.
If you show such hadith to any non-muslim, he would definitely label Prophet Muhammad as a ‘Rangeel Rasool’. We have killed Dianand, what about such hadith books which are deteriorating the standard of Prophet Muhammad? If Muslim brothers are over with elevating the companions of the prophet, they should ponder over it and stop deteriorating the standard of the Prophet and his ahlulbayt with such propaganda. The above was just a demo, those books are filled with such filthy narrations.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/52676935/35/Rangeela-Rasool
The manner in which the Salafist-associated Egyptian television channel al-Nas and its televangelist, Sheikh Khalid Abdullah televised the till then obscure video suggests that the idea was to inflict maximum political damage on US-Arab/Muslim relations as well as to gain political ground lost to their domestic rivals, the Muslim Brotherhood. The role al-Nas television and Abdullah played in disseminating the nasty video has conveniently been ignored by those bent upon burning US diplomatic missions and killing its diplomats.
Up until al-Nas televised the video almost no one had heard of it and with merely a handful of online hits, its developer Morris Sadek aka Sam Bacile and his backers were clearly failing in what they had set out to do.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20129\20\story_20-9-2012_pg3_2
agreed with kaalchakra….
@Bashir Ahmed, agar ham ne islami Nizaam nafiz kia hota to hamen janglon k dastoor ki zaroorat na parti.
Muslims of Pakistan,Egypt,Bangladesh,Indonesia are degrading their own prophet by burning their homelands and killing fellow muslims.This is not what Mohammad (saw) is all about. His whole teachings are about humanity. The only people who understand this and follow sincerely are Ahmadies. Why don’t you ( Thekedar of Islam) learn from them. God Almighty says if you walk towards me, I will run towards you. In your case, you are running towards Him and He is even running faster because He and His Prophets are ashamed of you. May you be guided.AMEN
This blog is full of lies and sectarian bias. translations are malafide and facts have been distorted. what a pity that some people calling themselves muslims will go to such extents to satisfy their own base desires and wishes
Free Speech in the Muslim World? Ask the Egyptian TV Station That First Aired the Anti-Islam Movie
inShare
SEP 19 2012, 10:24 AM ET 46
The story of Al Nas TV shows that there is room in Muslim societies for tolerating religiously offensive ideas.
For all the damage that mobs and armed groups have done in majority-Muslim nations in the past week, there is one target that they missed. The mobs in Cairo, one of many cities where protests followed the Innocence of Muslims video ridiculing the Prophet Muhammed, overlooked the Egyptian TV station that had actually broadcast it, Al Nas TV. Egyptian prosecutors have now issued arrest warrants for eight people in the United States with connections to the film — but they, too, overlooked the TV station.
While the film’s creators have received the attention they craved, it’s more illuminating to focus on Al Nas TV, which made them famous. The station’s story even suggests one possible answer to the problem of offensive speech in a number of volatile majority-Muslim societies.
The video, aired by Al Nas, was the latest slight to Islam that has prompted widespread violence. Now the new Arab democracies may be forced to consider how to balance speech rights with popular demands for blasphemy restrictions. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has repeated its call for an international convention against giving offense to religion. Tunisian leaders said the crisis underlined the need for a blasphemy law, of the sort that already exists in countries such as Pakistan. We’re told of a cultural divide between the West, with its traditional freedoms, and majority-Muslim countries extraordinarily sensitive to insults to Islam.
A lesson of Al Nas TV is that maybe this divide is not so great after all. The Egyptian station was broadcasting in a manner that Westerners would recognize — airing a controversy and discussing its implications — and its staff has reason to hope for Western-style protection of speech.
Al Nas, the name of which translates as “the people,” is financed by the Saudi government and associated with the conservative Salafist movement. Its Muslim employees broadcast the crude portrayal of the Prophet Mohammad to fellow Muslims, even though Muslims are forbidden from making images of the Prophet.
A reconstruction of events by the McClatchy news service indicates the TV station was more than a bystander. The offensive film clip was almost unknown — an irrelevant piece of trash on the Internet — until a film producer managed to place a tiny item in an Egyptian newspaper. But it wasn’t until the TV broadcast that things really blew up.
The hosts played an extended clip of the video dubbed in Arabic, pondering what should be done. One, Khalid Abdullah (whose past enlightened statements include the analysis, “Iran is more dangerous to us than the Jews”), asked if anyone had apologized. His co-host Mohammed Hamdy declared, “An apology is not enough. I want them convicted.”
Hamdy’s anger is understandable. But if he wants someone convicted for offensive speech, shouldn’t he start with himself?
After all, Hamdy is in Egypt, where the government need not follow America’s Constitutional protection of free speech. If Egyptian prosecutors can accuse a filmmaker in the United States of “threatening national unity” or “assaulting Islam,” crimes that carry the death penalty, surely they can actually arrest the men in Cairo who propagated the video.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that Egyptian authorities should arrest Hamdy; I hope that they don’t. But there is a way he could defend his role in this incident: by invoking the principle of free speech.
This is essentially what the station has already done. In presenting the video, the broadcasters explained that they spread offensive speech because the public needed to be informed of in injustice. “No other TV channels would do this,” Abdullah declared on the air. “Respectable media should bring this out. We have nothing more precious than the Prophet.”
In other words, Al Nas was using the freedom of speech in the same way it is exercised in other countries, including those in the West. Exposing outrages is a central role of the free media, after all. Informing the public is a vital part of democracy, and will be essential in the Arab world as democracy spreads.
Now that even conservative Islamists have proven themselves reliant on free speech, it’s hard to see how Egypt can go back. The next logical step would be for Egyptians of all beliefs to insist upon free speech. The best response to offensive speech is usually not to convict the speaker, ban their words, or storm some foreign embassy. It’s far more effective to answer speech with speech, to engage with the offending idea openly and, hopefully, discredit it.
The public can even use free speech to question the media if it behaves irresponsibly. Some public questioning of Al Nas has begun, and the TV station is on the defensive. “We did not mean… to harm the national unity,” insisted Essam Rady, the editor of the program, in an interview with NPR. He said the program merely “monitors what happens on the Egyptian street,” and that if Al Nas really wanted to incite riots, the station would have played even more of the video than it did.
Rioters bear responsibility for rioting, not TV anchors. But Al Nas broadcasters must now ask, as Western journalists sometimes do, if they lunged at an incendiary story and ended up getting used. Film producers who were salivating to smear Muslims must have been thrilled when Al Nas became a distributor for their product. If they’re going to have a democracy, Egyptians are stuck with free speech — and also with the responsibility to use it better than Al Nas did this month.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/09/free-speech-in-the-muslim-world-ask-the-egyptian-tv-station-that-first-aired-the-anti-muslim-movie/262567/
Complaint Against Egyptian TV Host Who Aired ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Raises Free Speech Issue
by Mike Giglio Sep 21, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
A legal complaint against the Egyptian TV host who aired ‘Innocence of Muslims,’ claiming that his show created unrest and sectarian tension, has prompted a defense that appears to cite freedom of expression—which the host has been railing against.
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Khaled Abdullah seems an unlikely person to find himself facing accusations of religious crimes. The top-billed host on al-Nas, a TV channel popular with Salafists, he is one of the country’s best-known Islamist personalities—and one of its most controversial too, famous for delivering inflammatory rhetoric with a finger-pointing flare. It’s Abdullah who is usually the one leveling charges of offending the faith.
This was the case on Sept. 9, when the host decided to air a clip of an obscure film called Innocence of Muslims on his show. The film centered on a take-down of the Prophet Muhammad, whose very depiction is considered a red line by many Muslims. It was painfully low-budget and amateurish, available only on YouTube. Until it appeared on Abdullah’s show, in fact, according to an in-depth report by McClatchy news service, not many people had paid it any mind.
That changed once Abdullah stepped into the mix. Prefacing the airing by warning his audience that the clip would be controversial—“No other TV channels would do this,” Abdullah said. “Respectable media should bring this out”—he channeled his trademark outrage against the film, which quickly began to go viral on the Internet.
Three days later, anger took hold on Cairo’s streets. Demonstrators stormed the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, tearing down the American flag, then spent subsequent days clashing with police. Similar protests, often violent, soon spread throughout the Muslim world—one, in the Libyan city of Benghazi, led to an attack that took the life of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.
This week, Egypt’s general prosecutor issued arrest warrants for eight people over the film—including seven Egyptian Coptic Christians thought to be behind the project. The move was seen as symbolic, with its targets all believed to be living abroad. But the nature of the charges—which include harming national unity and insulting religion—still sent a powerful message.
One liberal activist is now trying to send a message of his own. On Thursday, Amr Imam, a Cairo lawyer, filed a legal complaint of a similar bent—but this one has Abdullah in its sights.
In the complaint, Abdullah is accused of using his Sept. 9 show to create sectarian tension and instigate unrest. He could face jail time if convicted, but Imam says he doesn’t expect a legal win. Instead, he seems more concerned with making a point—that someone who uses religion as a weapon could just as soon find it used against himself. “This is a way of accusing him of insulting religion,” Imam says.
The complaint alleges that the furor surrounding the film has resulted in a blowback against Egypt’s Coptic Christians, who make up an estimated 10 percent of the population. It cites three additional men for related crimes—Abdullah’s co-host on the day the film was aired, another controversial religious personality accused of burning a Bible during the embassy protest, and a sheikh who allegedly uploaded the film to his YouTube channel. In seizing on the film, the complaint states, Abdullah and the others “instigated and committed blasphemy and discrimination.”
The complaint wants to make a point—that someone who uses religion as a weapon could just as soon find it used against himself.
On his Sept. 9 show, Abdullah attempted to head off any accusations such as Imam’s, making sure to mention that the Coptic Church had condemned the film, as the McClatchy report notes, because “some will say we are inciting violence against Copts to create sectarianism.”
And he dismissed any talk of legal action when word of Imam’s attempt at litigation first emerged. “Religious figures have a say in political matters as well. Their opinions exceed the walls of mosques. But when people do not like what we have to say, they file a lawsuit. How is this democracy?” he told Daily News Egypt earlier this week.
Some observers have noted that Abdullah’s defense sounds something like an argument for freedom of expression, even where blasphemy is concerned. “In presenting the video, the broadcasters explained that they spread offensive speech because the public needed to be informed of in injustice,” author and NPR Morning Edition co-host Steve Inskeep wrote for The Atlantic. “In other words, al-Nas was using the freedom of speech in the same way it is exercised in other countries, including those in the West. Exposing outrages is a central role of the free media, after all.”
Imam argues that this is the kind of freedom of expression that Abdullah and others who have seized on the film have been railing against. And he paints his legal move as a way to voice the frustrations of many of his fellow liberals who have despaired over the channeling of religious passions in Egypt’s public discourse—which he says came to a head with the film. “Some Islamists use religion as a first line of defense in political confrontations,” he says.
But not everyone agrees that Imam’s intended message is the right one to send. “We’re defending freedom of expression,” says Ahmed Ezzat, the legal director for the Cairo-based Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression. “So we can’t press charges against others over something they expressed, even if we disagree.”
With Hassan el-Naggar in Cairo.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/21/complaint-against-egyptian-tv-host-who-aired-innocence-of-muslims-raises-free-speech-issue.html
A trailer for a movie Innocence of Muslims, described by Reuters as depicting the Islamic prophet, Muhammad “as a fool, a philanderer and a religious fake” and showed him having sex, was shown on YouTube.[39] NBC News described the trailer as depicting Muhammad “as a womanizer, a homosexual and a child abuser.”[43] The film was supported by the U.S. pastor Terry Jones, who had previously angered Muslims by announcing plans to burn the Quran publicly.[44] Reuters cite the broadcast of an excerpt of the trailer for the film, Innocence of Muslims, on Egyptian TV network al-Nas on Saturday September 8 on a show, hosted by Sheikh Khalid Abdallah, as “the flashpoint for the unrest.” Prior to the 2011 revolution, Egyptian authorities periodically suspended al-Nas for “promoting religious or sectarian hatred.”
^ “U.S. Agencies Didn’t Issue High Alert Over Mideast Threat”. Reuters. September 14, 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2012/09/14/world/middleeast/14reuters-protests-warnings.html?ref=innocenceofmuslimsriots
U.S. Agencies Didn’t Issue High Alert Over Mideast Threat
By REUTERS
Published: September 14, 2012 at 1:34 AM ET
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. officials say they believe an Arabic talk show last Saturday showing parts of an anti-Muslim video made in the United States was the spark that set off violent attacks on U.S. missions in Libya and Egypt, but acknowledge the broadcast did not prompt a major upgrade in security precautions.
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On Tuesday, four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in an attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that U.S. officials said may have been planned by one or more militant factions. On the same day, protesters in Cairo breached the U.S. Embassy’s walls, and the protests have since spread to other countries, including Yemen, Bangladesh and Kuwait.
An Egyptian TV network, al-Nas, broadcast last Saturday what its presenters described as extracts from an English-language film denigrating the Prophet Mohammad, which it said had been uploaded on the YouTube website by “migrant Coptics,” a reference to exiled members of a Christian sect with a large minority presence among Egypt’s Muslim majority.
The clips broadcast on al-Nas were taken from a short film available on the Internet. It is called “Innocence of Muslims,” and portrays the Prophet – played by what appears to be a young American actor – as a womanizer, thug and child molester.
Three U.S. officials said the broadcast did not prompt strong warnings from intelligence agencies or the State Department of possible threats to U.S. diplomatic missions in the Islamic world.
One official, who like the others spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was at least one specific warning about possible unrest in the region that was circulated within the government, but was not so alarming as to lead to a major upgrade in security for a possible emergency.
The lack of a major upgrade in precautions may show how difficult it is for officials to assess threats that first emerge on social media. The threats can seemingly come out of nowhere and gather strength rapidly.
The events also underline the role of the Middle East’s more freewheeling media, loosened from state restrictions after the fall of longtime dictators.
For many Muslims, any depiction of the Prophet is blasphemous, and caricatures or other characterizations have in the past provoked violent protests across the Muslim world.
“The number of potentially inflammatory things that are said or broadcast every week (is so large) … that warning about all of them would be useless,” said Paul Pillar, former top U.S. intelligence analyst for the Middle East and South Asia. It was “impossible to predict” the kind of violent reaction that occurred in Libya, Egypt and elsewhere.
One U.S. official said, “You can’t freak out on everything that’s broadcast.”
That official and others said the airwaves and Internet were filled with hateful material and U.S. authorities could be “crying wolf” if they issued a warning every time an anti-Islamic broadside was aired or posted online.
A senior congressional official said the question of what the United States knew about pre-September 11, 2012, threats and what it did about them would likely be examined in legislative inquiries into the Libyan and Egyptian violence.
Another aide indicated it would be difficult to fault U.S. agencies on the issue.
ATTORNEY GENERAL TO MANAGE PROBE
U.S. facilities in the Middle East were already on heightened alert earlier this week due to the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington.
The FBI has opened an investigation into the killings in Benghazi. U.S. officials said Attorney General Eric Holder was cutting short a foreign trip and would return to Washington on Friday to manage the Libya investigation.
Al-Nas is an Egyptian Islamic satellite channel whose programming ranges from Islamic scholars delivering religious edicts to shows about cooking and medicine.
Before Egypt’s 2011 revolution, authorities periodically suspended privately owned religious satellite channels such as al-Nas, many of which follow conservative Salafi Islam, for allegedly violating broadcasting licenses by promoting religious or sectarian hatred and providing dubious medical advice.
U.S. officials believe that al-Nas’ Saturday broadcast of a talk show hosted by Sheikh Khalid Abdallah was the flashpoint for the unrest.
Egyptian political scientist Omar Ashour said Abdallah was a controversial Islamist host of a TV show that specialized in criticizing liberals, often inviting firebrand commentators to mock secular Egyptians. His show tends to be popular with Salafi Muslims, but not with followers of the more mainstream Muslim Brotherhood that dominates Egypt’s government.
A European security official said intelligence reporting indicated the inflammatory clips from the American film run on the talk show had been translated and dubbed into Arabic by Copts, possibly members of the sect living in the United States.
In their commentary on the film clips, the hosts of al-Nas’ program alleged the material had been uploaded by “migrant Coptics,” according to Flashpoint Global Partners, a firm that monitors militant websites for government and private clients.
According to Flashpoint’s translation, the al-Nas presenters at one point in their introduction to the anti-Mohammad film, specifically mentioned “radical pastor Terry Jones,” the Florida preacher who staged a number of anti-Islamic events over the past year. Jones has confirmed he was involved in promoting the film.
Al-Nas (TV station)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Al-Nas
Launched 2006
Country Egypt
Headquarters Cairo
Al-Nas (Arabic: قناة الناس) (meaning “The People Channel”) is an Egyptian Islamist television station founded in January 2006 and broadcast from Cairo.
Al-Nas drew worldwide attention in September 2012, when host Sheikh Khalad Abdalla played a clip of Innocence of Muslims a few days prior to the 2012 diplomatic missions attacks.[1][2][3]
It was founded by Saudi Arabian investor Mansour bin Kadsa (alt. Mansur Bin Kadasah), first playing Arabic pop songs and dream interpretation shows, but with a few months it began converting into a religious channel, bringing well known Islamic preachers to the screen regularly.[4][5]
Salafi scholar Muhammad Hussein Yacoub also appears on the channel, and also worked to successfully ban all female presenters from the channel.[4][5] Abu Ishaq Al Heweny (alt. Shaykh Abu-Ishaq al-Huwayni) also appears, and helped ban the music and women, asserting that women’s appearance on the screen was a great sin.[5]
[edit]References
^ http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2012/09/egyptian-outrage-peddler-who-sent-anti-islam-youtube-clip-viral/56826/
^ http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/obscure-film-mocking-muslim-prophet-sparks-anti-u-s-protests-in-egypt-and-libya/
^ http://world.time.com/2012/09/13/the-agents-of-outrage/2/
^ a b El-Sayed, Mohamed (4 March 2010). ‘Screens to heaven’, Al-Ahram Weekly
^ a b c (26 June 2007). Radical religious Al-Nas TV gains influence in Egypt, Arab Media & Society
[edit]External links
http://www.alnas.tv – website
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Nas_(TV_station)
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2010/988/feature.htm
http://www.arabmediasociety.com/index.php?article=273&p=0
‘Screens to heaven’
More and more conservative religious channels are appearing on the small screen, changing the way people consume religion, writes Mohamed El-Sayed
One of the figures of Al-Nas channel promoting unorthodox opinions
One of the figures of Al-Nas channel promoting unorthodox opinions
Twenty minutes to ten in the evening in Studio No. 6 in the Media Production City in 6 October governorate on the outskirts of Cairo. The heavily bearded, turbaned preacher Mohamed Hussein Yaqoub reviews final instructions about the positions of the cameras with the director before he goes on air on the religious satellite channel Al-Nas. At 10pm, images of a turbulent, dark blue sea and a tear-stained face appear on the screen against the background of a religious song, heralding the beginning of the popular “Fadfada” show.
Ensconced in his tiny mud-brick grocery shop in the small village of Al-Qarnashawi in Beheira 200km from Cairo 22- year-old and lightly bearded Ahmed Mustafa is glued to the screen of his TV set, tuned to his favourite religious show. The camera pans and settles on Yaqoub’s face. “How is the state of your relationship with God today?” asks the lay preacher after a long introduction replete with prayers.
The topic of the show is death, to the delight of Mustafa. “I used to lead a life of sin, watching obscene movies and committing immoral acts,” he says. “Watching religious channels, and especially this series about death, has changed my life,” he adds. “Having watched several episodes of this series on Al-Nas, I feel that the sheikh is talking to me, telling me that death is at the door,” Mustafa says.
For over four years now, Mustafa has been a loyal viewer of the religious satellite channels that flooded onto the small screen in the past few years. For decades, religious preaching in the Egyptian media was confined to a few specialised religious newspapers and magazines mostly issued by state- affiliated establishments like Al-Azhar or programmes aired by the state-run Holy Quran Radio Station. In addition, there were audio- and video-cassette tapes containing religious sermons given by Islamic scholars and lay preachers, as well as a small number of TV shows aired on the state TV channels.
However, with the proliferation of satellite channels in the Arab world in the 1990s, hitting more than 300 channels in 2009 and mostly owned by businessmen, and as Arab satellite broadcasting began to offer unparalleled opportunities for media businesses and advertisers, broadcasters began to think about launching specialised religious channels to cater to the growing number of pious people in the Arab world.
Amidst such favourable circumstances, a host of religious channels were launched over the last decade. The most popular were launched by Saudi businessmen. The first, Iqraa, was launched by the Saudi billionaire Saleh Kamel in 1998 as part of the ART satellite television network. Saudi businessman Prince Walid bin Talal then launched Al-Resala in 2006 as part of the Rotana satellite network, and Saudi businessman Mansour bin Kadsa followed suit the same year by launching Al-Nas in 2005, which started as an entertainment channel broadcasting Arab pop songs and the interpretation of dreams, and afterwards was converted into a religious channel.
Apparently the resounding success of Al-Nas as a religious channel persuaded the businessman to convert another entertainment channel he owns, Al-Khalijia, into a religious station as well.
A SCREEN WILL LEAD YOU TO HEAVEN: This is the slogan that appears on a small sticker on the seat of a Cairo bus. It refers to the television channel Al-Nas, giving the station as the source of religious knowledge that will lead people to enter Paradise and including a photograph of the Salafi preacher Yaqoub.
The rise of conservative Islam in Egypt since the second half of the 1970s, due to Egyptians working in the Gulf bringing home with them that region’s brand of puritanical religious thought, provided favourable circumstances for the flourishing of religious channels. “The decision to turn Al-Nas from a channel broadcasting songs and the interpretation of dreams into a religious channel came after viewers asked us to do so,” says Atef Abdel-Rashid, a pioneer of religious satellite channels and founder of the Al-Nas, Al-Khalijia, Al-Baraka and Al-Hafez channels.
Abdel-Rashid believes that, “the sources of religious knowledge were limited before the emergence of the religious channels. Listening to the Holy Quran Radio Station, a sermon at a mosque, or a 10-minute daily programme on state TV were the only sources of religious knowledge.” He adds that, “the religious stations have presented new sheikhs and lay preachers in new shapes, and that’s why people have been attracted to them.”
The emergence of the religious satellite channels could be seen as an attempt by Saudi businessmen to capitalise on the growing tide of Salafism in the Arab world, or a desire by Salafi preachers, who have gained popularity through their sermons in mosques, to reach out to a wider audience.
“The Salafists have taken a great interest in the satellite media, seeing it as one of the most effective platforms for building a direct relationship with their audience. The image interacts with the language, producing a high level of communication,” says Hossam Tammam, researcher and expert in the Islamist groups’ affairs. “For the owners of the channels, the preachers have served as a golden opportunity to attract viewers to the religious channels, since they already enjoyed popularity before appearing on these stations.”
While some observers believe that the rise of the religious channels is a predictable result of a free-market economy, others think that the Egyptian government has sought to encourage the Salafi current in order to act as a counterweight to the country’s largest Islamist opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood. The fact that many of the religious channels are headquartered in Egypt and transmit via the state-owned satellite NileSat gives some credence to this supposition.
All the channels need a licence from the authorities and work under the umbrella of the Ministry of Investment in the Free Media Zone in 6 October governorate. “Contrary to our expectations, the government did not object to the establishment of the channels, and astonishingly it has not interfered with our work,” says Abdel-Rashid.
Critics of the religious channels accuse them of keeping away from discussing people’s daily problems. “The new preachers who appear on the religious satellite channels focus on attracting the audience by programmes about morals and behaviour, without dealing with the problems of the nation under the pretext of keeping away from politics. This is because they have a list of taboo subjects from the official media and the security establishment,” says Montasser El-Zayyat, a lawyer for Islamist groups.
However, in reply Abdel-Rashid says that, “religion, not politics, is our business. If we decided to discuss politics on the religious channels, Arab governments would not be happy with us.” He adds that, “opposition forces might make use of the channels to criticise governments. We’re only concerned with indoctrinating people in religion. When one of our clerics touched upon political issues, we notified him that it was prohibited.”
Abdel-Rashid says that, “we agree with the government on about 90 per cent of issues, and we disagree with it on 10 per cent of issues. We have decided not to debate those 10 per cent of issues.”
A RINGTONE WILL LEAD YOU TO HEAVEN: “Call 1748 from any mobile, or 0900 0341 from any landline, and download a ringtone for your mobile phone that will lead you to heaven,” runs a commercial made by Al-Nas. The cost of one download is as cheap as LE1.5. While most religious channels have adopted the “spreading of Islam and the teachings of the Holy Quran and the Prophet” in their mission statements, they fail to mention that they are also meant to make a profit.
In fact, revenues generated from interactive services like downloading “Islamic” ringtones and logos are the main sources of the profits of these channels. Al-Nas, for example, has gone so far as to use the voices of its preachers saying prayers, transforming them into ringtones that can be downloaded for a small charge.
Generating profits from interactive tools is not limited to downloads. Innovative means have also been developed to increase revenues from television viewers. “Pray for me so that my daughter can get back her good health, Sheikh Mahmoud,” read an SMS sent by Ibrahim Gad from Cairo that appeared on the ticker running across Al-Nas’s screen during lay preacher Mahmoud El-Masry’s Fadfada programme. A prayer following Gad’s SMS read, “May God cure your daughter and all Muslim patients afflicted by disease.”
Running commercials that take as long as an hour and that are mostly presented by bearded presenters is another profit- generating tool. Commercials range from goods like crystal vessels and luxurious sheets to cups and chinaware. Tickers bearing information about products can also be seen at the bottom of the screens of most of the channels.
While some commentators see this as an abuse of religion for worldly purposes, the owners of the channels think otherwise. “I don’t find anything wrong in financing religious channels from the revenues of call-ins and SMSs or even from commercials,” retorts Abdel-Rashid.
“The monthly budget of a religious channel is estimated at hundreds of thousands of Egyptian pounds, and these have to be covered. Multinational companies and well-known brands do not broadcast commercials on our screens, so we have to use such tools to generate money,” he says, adding that the annual budget of a religious channel ranges from LE3 to LE40 million.
While the religious channels seek revenues by broadcasting such commercials, they also host people promoting alternative medicine and “Prophetic Medicine” as remedies for incurable diseases. Adel Abdel-Aal, for many months hosted by the Al-Nas and Al-Khalijia channels and advertised as a doctor specialising in alternative medicine, was stopped by the prosecutor-general from appearing on TV in March 2008, since he had no qualification to practise medicine.
FATWA FALLACIES: Asked by the presenter for his view on the reasons behind the emergence of swine flu, the heavily bearded doctor was quick to give an answer. “Swine flu started in Mexico because it, like the United States, produces pornography and because it raises millions of pigs, whose meat God has forbidden us to eat.” He added that, “eating pork in general causes cancer, high blood pressure, increased cholesterol, and hundreds of other diseases.”
Apart from the customary calls of divine retribution that viewers hear from fulminating sheikhs on religious channels, a quick glance at the content of the religious edicts on the channels reveals the extent to which these stations adopt an illogical approach to religion. One of the religious edicts broadcast on one of the channels made it impermissible for a naked woman to stand in front of a male dog, for example.
By its nature, Salafism sticks to the practices of the Prophet and his companions, namely the Salaf. Yet modern Salafis take a stance against other cultures, especially Western culture, and therefore many of the fatwas, or religious rulings, issued on the channels demonise the West. “What we see in the West is not civilisation. It is only technology,” said one lay preacher who appeared surrounded by hundreds of followers in a sermon on the West aired by the Al-Hidaya channel. “The West lacks morals, so it does not have [real] civilisation. How can they have a civilisation while they allow gay marriages?” the preacher asked.
For Salafis, who tend to interpret the Quran literally, there are no grey areas. The world is divided into infidels and believers, and the West clearly lies in the former category. Therefore, dialogue with the “other” is unlikely to take place, at least in theory. Some Salafis accuse non-Salafi preachers of compromising their principles in order to gain fame or influence. In a recent speech, a popular Salafi cleric mocked the “artist” Amr Khaled, for example, when Khaled is in fact a non-Salafi preacher.
The puritanical religious discourse adopted by the preachers has also ruffled the feathers of the scholars at Al-Azhar in Cairo, the seat of moderate Sunni Islam. “The problem with these channels is that they have imported and promoted austere versions and schools of Islam that do not have roots in most Arab countries, and especially do not have roots in Egypt,” said Sheikh Gamal Qotb, former head of the religious edicts committee at Al-Azhar. “These schools — the Hanbali, Wahabi and Ibn Taimia schools — were suitable for certain places and certain times,” he added.
Qotb accuses the channels of promoting unorthodox opinions and edicts that cause confusion among audiences. “The [Salafi] preachers seek sensationalism in issuing strange edicts based on weak opinions, and these have caused confusion,” he says. Qotb also warns against the possible negative impacts of watching programmes featuring Salafi preachers. “They should take care, given that their programmes are watched by young people and children, and they should be careful about what they say,” he adds.
What gives credence to Qotb’s views is the fact that attempts to adopt a “modern” approach to religion on the channels is received with contempt by the Salafi preachers. Because of famous preacher Amr Khaled’s relatively modern approach to preaching, Salafi sheikhs appearing on the Al-Nas channel, like Mohamed Hussein Yaqoub and Abu Ishaq Al-Howeini, threatened to boycott the channel when it hosted Khaled on one of its programmes in 2007.
Salafi preachers who have influence over the content aired by channels like Al-Nas, Al-Baraka and Al-Rahma are against the “modern” approach to religion adopted by preachers like Khaled because Salafism places a strong emphasis on mimicking the pious ancestors. While they categorically reject Western styles of dress, for example, Salafis view the manners of the Prophet, wearing a long beard for example, as a constant reminder of their commitment that will help them to avoid sin. Such choices are reflected visually on the Salafi stations, where preachers wear long beards and the same type of clothing that the first generations of Muslims would have worn.
SCREENING WOMEN OFF: Fully veiled presenter Omayma Taha enters the studio of Al-Hafez dressed in black. The director sets up the camera, and lights are directed onto the chair that Taha will sit on before her appearance on air in her “Ayat wa Akhawat” programme. All the men leave the set, as they should not be in the same room as a woman, according to Salafi thought.
Taha was perhaps the first woman to appear on a television channel wearing the niqab, or complete face and body covering. Her clothing reflects Salafi views on gender relations and the impermissibility of men and women being present together.
Abdel-Rashid does not find any problem in Taha’s appearance on the screen, arguing that priority is given to the content of the programme rather than to her appearance. “Other channels give female presenters the opportunity to wear revealing clothes on the screen. Religious channels gave an opportunity to women wearing the niqab to appear on the screen,” he says.
“These women are part and parcel of society. The appearance of the presenters was a response to the demands of numerous female viewers, who asked the channel’s administration to put female, rather than male, presenters on, so that they might not be seduced by the appearance of men,” he points out.
Other channels, like Al-Nas, have adopted a stricter approach towards women by excluding female presenters from the airwaves. The channel got rid of its female presenters under pressure from Salafi figures like Mohamed Hassan and Mohamed Hussein Yaqoub, who believe that women ought not to appear on TV. One of the staunchest critics of female presenters on TV is Abu Ishaq Al-Howeini, a Salafi sheikh taught by leading Salafi figures like Saudi sheikhs Abdel-Aziz bin Baz and Ibn Othaimin and the Jordanian sheikh Mohamed Nasreddin Al-Albani. Al-Howeini has stipulated that no woman should appear on the screen of any of the channels affiliated with Al-Nas. He believes that a woman, even if fully veiled, could be seductive.
WHAT OF THE FUTURE? “Why don’t our honourable [moderate] preachers and intellectuals combat Salafi preachers who call for narrow-mindedness? Why don’t they combat the chaos of religious channels and new preachers who issue fatwas without having necessary religious knowledge?” wondered President Hosni Mubarak last week during his speech on the occasion of the Prophet Mohamed’s Birthday.
Yet the pioneer of the religious satellites, Abdel-Rashid, believes that they contribute much to the stability of society. “I have met many senior government officials and told them that they should thank and support the religious channels because we have played an important role in making poor people content with their lives. The religious channels counter the influence of the extravagant ways of living broadcast by the entertainment channels. Our preachers advise the poor to remain contented with their lives and to seek compensation in the hereafter.”
The popularity of the religious channels is undoubtedly on the rise. “We can measure our popularity from the thousands of call-ins and SMSs swamping the programmes,” Abdel-Rashid says. “You also find cafés switching to the religious channels when they turn on the TV,” he adds.
Abdel-Rashid believes that the religious satellite channels will continue to multiply, but that they will also become more specialised. “The market has reached saturation point as far as sermonising programmes are concerned. The audience for the religious channels wants new programmes. However, demand for religious programmes will increase, especially among the younger generations,” he says.
“The future is for more specialised channels: one channel specialising in religious edicts, another in Quran recital, another in the Sunna, or women’s issues. Al-Hafez will branch out into one channel for reciting the Quran, another for explaining it, a third for the Sunna, etc,” he adds.
A survey conducted by the Egyptian Radio and TV Union in 2007 showed that Al-Nas was then the most-viewed channel in Egypt, coming ahead of the Egyptian Satellite Channel and the Egyptian First Channel. Another survey conducted by Egyptian TV showed that 38 per cent of those interviewed watched Al-Nas, while the Egyptian Satellite channel only received 19 per cent of viewers.
Observers have sounded alarm bells about the possible negative impacts of such conservative religious channels. “The government has dealt with the religious channels from a purely commercial, security perspective,” says Tammam.
“Any businessman can launch a religious channel as long as it does not talk about politics. This is a superficial approach. The government has not objected to the mushrooming of the channels because they help distract people from political opposition to the government. This is made crystal clear by their content, which is devoid of any political discourse and is concerned only with religious rituals.”
Tammam also believes that audiences are now suffering from a flood of religious discourse. “Without a shadow of doubt, there will be negative consequences on people’s behaviour as a result of the mushrooming of these channels. The prevailing conservative Islam will ultimately lead to the erosion of moderate Islam, which is the Egyptian tradition, as well as to the decline of the official religious establishments. This could affect the religious coherence that Egypt has always enjoyed.”
TOO LATE TO ACT? “I can confidently tell you that there are people in every home who are influenced by the religious channels,” says Abdel-Rashid. “I can also tell you that numerous women wear the veil or the niqab as a result of watching the religious channels. This impact can be measured through the thousands of daily call-ins, SMSs and questions posed to preachers on the channels,” he adds.
Abdel-Rashid’s remarks have the ring of truth about them, especially as the sound of Quranic recitals emerges from almost every house in the Al-Qarnashawi village. One hardly sees a woman in the village who is not wearing a black niqab. “All the members of my family watch the religious channels throughout the day,” a fully veiled woman says. “For many years we have yearned to see a channel that caters to our religious needs and through which we can communicate with our favourite sheikhs,” she adds.
“These channels have changed our lives and even our children’s lives,” she said with an eye on the TV screen tuned to the Al-Nas channel.
“Yes, I do like the religious channels very much, and I follow what is said in the programmes dedicated for children as well,” says her eight-year-old daughter. No wonder the little girl is cloaked in a black niqab.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2010/988/feature.htm
Radical religious Al-Nas TV gains influence in Egypt
BBC Monitoring
Analysis by Muhammad Shukri of BBC Monitoring on 26 June
Al-Nas (The People) TV, an Arabic-language religious satellite TV channel which broadcasts 24 hours a day from the Media Production City in 6 October City in Egypt, has mesmerized Egyptian and Arab viewers generally.
A few months after its launch in January 2006 as a station focusing on social and entertainment content, the channel’s administration decided to turn it into a Sunni religious TV, a move that has attracted millions of viewers to the channel in Egypt and across the Arab world.
The channel is owned by Saudi businessman Mansur Bin Kadasah and is managed by Atif Abd-al-Rashid.
Programmes
The channel presents a variety of religious programmes focused on the precepts of Islam and the teaching of the Koran.
The best known programmes are Fadfadah (Heart-to-Heart Talk), Sabah al-Iman (Morning of Faith), Duniyah wa Din (Life and Religion), Ma’a al-Nas (With the People) and Al-Tariq Ila al-Janna (The Way to Paradise). The channel also presents a programme called Bursat al-Iman (Market of Faith), in which Islamist-oriented economists discuss economic topics from an Islamic perspective.
Phone-in programmes, such as Fatawa (Fatwas), are also carried on the channel to answer questions from viewers about religion, society, the economy and other topics. The duration of the programmes ranges between one and two hours.
Popular preachers
Most of the preachers who appear on Al-Nas TV are well known on the Egyptian scene. They include Muhammad Hassan, Safwat Hijazi, Salim Abu-al-Futuh, Abu-Ishaq al-Huwayni, Muhammad Husayn Ya’qub and Mahmud al-Masri, who are known as hard-line Salafi shaykhs.
Before joining the channel, most of these preachers used to give religious sermons at mosques which were attended by a large number of people.
Their sermons are recorded on tapes and widely sold in kiosks and shops. But the launch of the channel has provided those preachers with a great opportunity to take their message to a greater number of viewers in Egypt and in the Arab and Islamic world.
The preachers are observed to steer clear of politics. They focus instead on the teachings of Islam, how people should respect God through their deeds and relationships, and how they should prepare themselves for the afterlife.
Some indirect reaction to developments in the Arab world can, however, be observed at the conclusion of their sermons, when they usually pray to God to protect and strengthen the Islamic nation and make it united, referring to the situations in the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Lebanon.
The appearance of these widely-known preachers on the station has played a key role in attracting such a large number of viewers, who tend to trust those preachers, given that they are not affiliated to the government, and are not graduates of Al-Azhar, the official religious institution, seen as supporting government policies.
Growing influence, government reaction
“A screen that takes you to Paradise” is the logo of the station. It appears between programmes and sounds very attractive to Muslims. The station has apparently become the talk of the street. People from various segments of society can be seen discussing what was broadcast on Al-Nas the previous night. A very great number of SMS messages can be seen on the bar of the TV screen, praising the TV and the preachers for their role in raising the awareness of the people about their religion. Callers from Egypt and several Arab countries participate in call-in programmes to ask about what is halal (religiously permissible) and what is haram (religiously impermissible).
The growing influence of the channel and the appearance of those preachers on its screen seems, however, to have raised the hackles of the Egyptian government, which has unleashed an attack against the channel through its affiliated religious clerics.
Egypt’s Mufti Shaykh Ali Jum’a was quoted some months ago as describing the satellite TV’s preachers as unprofessional. However, the channel has moved to further widen its influence by launching a website, http://www.alnas.tv, which provides several services, including live streaming and schedules of the programmes.
Objectives
On its website, the channel explains that its aims are to “serve the nation and spread religious and worldly knowledge” and “present distinguished Islamic and social media”. It stresses that its policies are based on “not violating the teachings of the true tolerant religion of Islam” and “respecting all segments of society and Islamic sects and fiqh [jurisprudence] schools”. The channel also says it “addresses ordinary people and takes an interest in the concerns of the masses”, emphasizing that it depends, for its operating expenditure, on “commercials” and “phone calls”, and that it does not “accept any donations”.
Female presenters dismissed
In a controversial step that has further demonstrated the Salafi (hardline) orientation of the TV, the channel’s administration in August 2006 decided to dismiss all its female presenters, including those who were veiled. Egyptian independent daily Al-Misri al-Yawm at the time quoted an anonymous source at the channel as saying that the decision had come in response to the wish of Shaykh Abu-Ishaq al-Huwayni, a prominent Egyptian Salafi preacher, who agreed to present programmes on the TV provided that the female presenters were suspended because, according to him, the voice of a woman is “awrah” (private, and should not be exposed) and her appearance on screen is a great sin.
Atif Abd al-Rashid, the channel’s director, was quoted by the same daily as saying that the decision had come mainly in response to the wishes of viewers and some channel preachers. “I am not against a woman appearing on screen. The evidence is that some commercials in which women appear are still carried in some programmes. My view is that the appearance of a preacher or a female doctor giving knowledge beneficial to people is better than a female presenter asking guests questions,” Abd al-Rashid told the daily.
Al-Nas “danger”, Israel wants it shut down
According to the World Islamic Media Organization’s website, the Israeli press some months ago launched a sharp attack on Al-Nas TV, describing it as a “danger” to the state of Israel. The Israeli press claimed that the TV incites children to attack Jews and declare war on them. The Israeli press and websites said that Al-Nas TV follows the same line as the Lebanese Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV. An Israeli news website quoted some parts of a children’s programme presented on Al-Nas, saying that the programme urges children to seek martyrdom and to hate Jews. The Israeli press further claimed that Al-Nas TV is funded by hard-line and “terrorist” groups, and it must therefore be shut down.
It is noteworthy that it was on Al-Nas TV that Egyptian preacher Safwat Hijazi issued a controversial fatwa in which he allegedly permitted the killing of Israeli Jews in Arab countries and Palestinian territories. Although the preacher later retracted his fatwa, stressing that it had been misunderstood, the Egyptian Ministry of Endowments issued a decision suspending his preaching licence. He also faced legal investigation over the fatwa.
The channel is broadcast on Nilesat 102 at 7 degrees west; frequency 11919 MHz; polarization horizontal; symbol rate 27500; FEC 3/4.
Its website is http://www.alnas.tv
Source: BBC Monitoring research 26 Jun 07
http://www.arabmediasociety.com/index.php?article=273&p=0
The Agents of Outrage
The deadly attacks on U.S. diplomatic outposts in Egypt and Libya raise the question, Did the Arab Spring make the Middle East more dangerous?
By BOBBY GHOSH | @ghoshworld | September 13, 2012 |
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Soon after that, the thread was picked up in Egypt by a TV host every bit as inflammatory and opportunistic as Jones: Sheik Khaled Abdallah of the Islamist satellite-TV station al-Nas. Supported by unknown backers, the channel traffics in demagoguery and hatemongering. Abdallah is its star. In previous broadcasts, he has called the revolutionaries of the Arab Spring “worthless kids” and condemned newspapers that don’t support his views. But he reserves his harshest criticism for the country’s Coptic Christians, who make up about a tenth of the population.
For Abdallah, the fact that a Copt was promoting an anti-Muhammad film endorsed by the Koran-burning pastor was too much. On his Sept. 8 show, he broadcast some of the clips, now dubbed in Arabic. In one scene that was aired, “Muhammad” declares a donkey the “first Muslim animal” and asks the creature if it likes the ladies. Abdallah’s show, complete with the offensive video, was also posted on YouTube, and it has attracted over 300,000 views.
Abdallah’s show was a dog whistle to the Salafists, a fundamentalist Islamic movement that makes up the second largest faction in the Egyptian parliament. For months, organized Salafist groups had been protesting in small numbers in front of the U.S. embassy in Cairo, calling for the release of Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheik currently in a North Carolina prison, convicted for plotting a series of bombings and assassinations in the 1990s. They were joined on Sept. 11 by prominent leaders like Nader Bakar of the Salafist Nour Party and Mohammed al-Zawahiri, brother of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s longtime deputy and now head of al-Qaeda.
(SPECIAL: U.S. Ambassadors Who Have Died in the Line of Duty)
The leaders had left by the time the mob attacked the embassy and took down the U.S. flag, while Egyptian security forces, hopelessly outnumbered, mostly just watched. The crowd eventually dispersed. Afterward, some Salafist leaders said the flag was snatched by members of a soccer-hooligan group known as the Ahli Ultras.
Not far from Egypt’s western border, in the Libyan city of Benghazi, on the anniversary of the 2001 attacks at the World Trade Center, the Muhammad movie had provoked another mob of several hundred mostly Salafist protesters to gather at the U.S. consulate. Many witnesses have since fingered a group known as Ansar al-Shari‘a for organizing the protests; the group denies it.
Ambassador Stevens, visiting from Tripoli, was an unlikely target. He had worked closely with the leaders of the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi and was well liked by most Libyans. But some reports now suggest that lurking amid the mob was a more malevolent force: members of the local chapter of al-Qaeda.
Only the previous day, Ayman al-Zawahiri had issued a new videotaped statement from his hideout, confirming the death of his Libyan deputy Abu Yahya al-Libi in a June U.S. drone strike and calling for him to be avenged. Reports from Benghazi say armed jihadists infiltrated the protesting crowds. An al-Qaeda-affiliated group known as the Imprisoned Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades is suspected to have carried out the attack. The White House was still scrambling a day after the attack to piece together what happened and whether it could have been prevented. A senior Administration official said the Benghazi attack was “complex” and “well organized” but would not comment on reports that it was planned in advance by militants using the protest as a diversion.
The terrorists struck twice: one set of grenades forced consulate staff to flee the main building while a second targeted the building to which they were evacuated. The attack did not appear spontaneous or amateurish. Stevens, foreign service officer Sean Smith and two others were killed. The ambassador was declared dead from smoke inhalation.
If Muslims responded violently to every online insult to their faith, there would be riots in Cairo and Benghazi every day of the year. The Internet is full of malefactors who constantly say, write or broadcast appalling things about Islam. (And there are plenty of Muslim Web nuts who vilify other belief systems.) It is the outrage machine, manned by people like Bacile, Jones and Abdallah, who push matters into anger overdrive. They know the outcome of their efforts will be violence and subversion. These men are enabled by media — mainstream and fringe alike — that give them air to bloviate and a political culture that makes little effort to take away their oxygen.
Before the Arab Spring, this chain of events would likely have been stopped early. Dictators like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Libya’s Gaddafi either blocked Internet access to prevent their people from seeing inflammatory material (among other things) or used their security agencies to crack down on protests long before they could reach critical mass.
(MORE: Egypt, Libya: Fundamentalisms Unleash Havoc)
But democratically elected governments don’t have recourse to such draconian methods. Still unused to power, they are unsure how to deal with angry demonstrations, especially when they are mounted by powerful religious or political groups. The tendency has been to look the other way and hope the demonstrators run out of steam.
It doesn’t always work. The Salafists in Libya were emboldened by the failure of the government in Tripoli to crack down on them when they recently desecrated Sufi shrines. The Minister of the Interior (he has since resigned) said he didn’t want to risk the lives of his security forces in order to apprehend the culprits. “The Libyan authorities have been irresponsibly lazy in confronting this threat,” says Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch. “They have a choice to make. Are they going to be a country connected to the outside world, or are they going to allow a small number of people in their midst to make that impossible?”
At least Libya’s President Mohamed el-Magariaf swiftly apologized to all Americans for the attack on the consulate and promised to hunt down those responsible: 24 hours after the attack on the embassy in Cairo, Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsy had not issued a similar statement. When he finally did, he seemed less concerned with what had happened at the embassy and more with the affront to the Prophet, which he condemned “in the strongest terms.” The Muslim Brotherhood, on its Twitter feed, condemned the Benghazi attack but made no mention of the one in Cairo.
The Egyptian government’s almost insouciant response, hardly in keeping with the country’s status as the second largest recipient of U.S. aid, will rankle both President Obama and his domestic critics. In the hours after the attacks in Cairo and Benghazi, Republicans piled on the President, questioning the wisdom of his outreach to Islamist political forces like the Brotherhood. Even political allies were moved to wonder whether Egypt could really be a reliable friend.
(MORE: Romney Criticized for Political Turn After Ambassador’s Killing)
Morsy’s silence has been interpreted by Egyptian analysts as a reluctance to prod the Salafists, whose help he may need to get anything done in parliament. But other political figures were equally pusillanimous. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, a prominent liberal secular leader, tweeted, “Humanity can only live in harmony when sacred beliefs and the prophets are respected.” That kind of timidity empowers not only the Salafists but also instigators like Abdallah and his American counterparts.
For an understanding of what can happen when the industry of outrage is allowed to function without check, look at Pakistan, where hatemongers continually stoke anger not only against faraway foreigners but just as frequently — and with more deadly results — against their own people. Minorities like the Ahmadiyya sect are an easy target for extremist TV hosts like Aamir Liaquat Hussain, a former Minister of Religious Affairs. On his show broadcast by Geo TV in 2008, guest scholars declared the Ahmadiyyas “deserving to be murdered for blasphemy.” Soon after, two members of the sect were killed. Hussain was forced to apologize and leave Geo but has since returned to the station.
(PHOTOS: Protesters Scale U.S. Embassy Walls, Tear Down American Flag)
Other Pakistani provocateurs target the Shi‘ite community, which makes up 10% to 20% of the population. Militant groups with links to political parties as well as the country’s all-powerful military are frequently behind violent attacks against Shi‘ites. Criticism of such groups is often denounced by extremist preachers as blasphemy, which is punishable by death under Pakistani law.
When Salman Taseer, the governor of the country’s largest province and an outspoken critic of the blasphemy law, was killed by his bodyguard last year, the murderer was declared a hero by many. Munir Ahmed Shakir, the influential imam of Karachi’s giant Sultan Mosque, is just one of many who have pronounced as “non-Muslims” all those seeking to amend the blasphemy laws.
The new normal in Egypt and Libya is not as perilous as in Pakistan. Not yet. But as the fledgling democracies of the Middle East struggle to cope with the genies unleashed by the Arab Spring, you can count on the industry of outrage to work overtime to drag the Middle East in that direction.
— With reporting by Ashraf Khalil/Cairo, Jahanzeb Aslam/Islamabad, Aryn Baker/Beirut, Vivienne Walt/Paris and Massimo Calabresi, Mark Thompson, Elizabeth Dias and Jay Newton-Small/Washington
Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/09/13/the-agents-of-outrage/#ixzz27KQPz0bk
Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/09/13/the-agents-of-outrage/#ixzz27KPz3VrO
Obscure Film Mocking Muslim Prophet Sparks Anti-U.S. Protests in Egypt and Libya
By ROBERT MACKEY and LIAM STACK
Video of Egyptian protesters on the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo ripping the American flag apart.
¶Our colleagues in Cairo have more on these events in a more recent news article.
¶Updated | 8:13 p.m. Angered by reports in the Egyptian media that members of the Coptic Christian diaspora in Washington had produced a crude film mocking the Muslim prophet, protesters climbed the walls of the United States Embassy in Cairo on Tuesday and tore down the American flag. Later, a Libyan security official told Reuters that armed militiamen had attacked the United States consulate in Benghazi, killing a staff member.
¶A a 14-minute trailer for the English-language film, which was posted on YouTube in July, attracted little attention until last week, when a version dubbed into Arabic was posted on the same YouTube channel and then copied and viewed tens of thousands of times more. (The Arabic version was removed from the filmmaker’s YouTube channel after this post was originally published.)
¶Although there was initial confusion about who made the film, The Wall Street Journal reported that the drama, titled “Innocence of Muslims,” was produced and directed by an Israeli-American, Sam Bacile, a California real-estate developer who called Islam “a cancer,” in an interview. Mr. Bacile told The Journal that he raised $5 million from about 100 Jewish donors and shot the two-hour movie in California last year.
¶Last week, an Egyptian-American Copt known for his broadsides against Muslims drew attention to the trailer in an Arabic-language blog post and an e-mail newsletter in English publicizing the latest publicity stunt of the Florida pastor Terry Jones, reviled in the Muslim world for burning copies of the Koran. Reached by telephone in Florida, a representative of Mr. Jones seemed unaware of the film, but hours later the pastor sent The Lede a statement by e-mail in which he complained of the attack on the embassy in Cairo and announced plans to screen the trailer for the film on Tuesday night. He said that it “reveals in a satirical fashion the life of Muhammad.”
¶The Coptic activist, Morris Sadek, did not respond to a request for an interview, but he is an ally of Mr. Jones and his blog post features a photograph of the two men at a tiny, anti-Islam protest outside the White House in June. Later, he told The Associated Press that he planned screenings of the film.
¶Although Mr. Sadek never claimed in his e-mail promoting Mr. Jones to have produced the movie — which dramatizes the life of Muhammad, incorporating scenes based on slurs about him that are often repeated by Islamophobes — three days after he passed around a link to the film’s trailer, a Cairo newspaper reported that the leader of an Egyptian political party had “denounced the production of the film with the participation of vengeful Copts, accompanied by the extremist priest Terry Jones.”
¶The same day, a scene from the film — in which an actor playing a buffoonish caricature of the prophet Muhammad calls a donkey “the first Muslim animal” — was broadcast on the Egyptian television channel Al-Nas by the host Sheikh Khaled Abdalla.
Video of a scene from a film mocking the Muslim prophet as shown on Egyptian television Sunday.
¶Last year, the Egyptian-British journalist and blogger Sarah Carr wrote, “Sheikh Khaled Abdalla is part of a school of particularly shrill religious demagogues who turn every possible event into an attack on Islam.” She added that Sheikh Khaled regularly attacked Egypt’s Coptic Christian community.
¶The Egyptian news media reports appear to have drawn much more attention to the obscure film trailer, which was posted on YouTube by someone using the name Sam Bacile who failed to respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
¶As Menna Alaa reported for The Egypt Independent, photographs and video posted online showed the protesters at the embassy in Cairo on Tuesday ripping the American flag apart and raising a black jihadist flag with the words, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.”
¶The Cairene blogger who writes as Zeinobia reported there were “also pro-Al Qaeda chants unfortunately,” which was particularly striking on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.
¶Mostafa Hussein, a psychiatrist and blogger, pointed to a photograph that showed that the protesters had also scrawled the name Osama bin Laden on a sign outside the embassy.
Mostafa Hussein@moftasa
Ben Laden written on US embassy sign. Yeah right you are protesting an insult to Islam. twitpic.com/atkjvd /via @Mad_Darsh
11 Sep 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
¶Zeinobia also reported that confusion about the origins of the film was so general that one group of fundamentalist Muslims was “calling for another huge protest at the embassy of Netherlands, demanding its closure because the Dutch government is producing an insult film against Islam.” Dutch diplomats responded with a statement denying these claims, she noted.
¶The Egyptian blogger who writes as The Big Pharaoh noted that one sign wielded by a protester outside the American embassy in Cairo even called for “the expulsion of Coptic Diaspora from Egypt.”
The Big Pharaoh@TheBigPharaoh
A protester demanding the expulsion of Coptic Diaspora from Egypt LOL pic.twitter.com/XIfTvPqc
11 Sep 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
¶Before the protesters attacked the compound, the U.S. mission in Cairo issued said in a statement: “The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.” Later, the embassy’s official Twitter feed condemned both the provocative film and the attack on the compound.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/obscure-film-mocking-muslim-prophet-sparks-anti-u-s-protests-in-egypt-and-libya/
http://youtu.be/lnM_NuW0r9M
Mike Giglio (Sep 21, 2012). [Mike Giglio “Complaint Against Egyptian TV Host Who Aired ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Raises Free Speech Issue”]. The Daily Beast. Retrieved 22 September 2012.
Nancy A. Youssef and Amina Ismail (September 15, 2012). “Anti-U.S. outrage over video began with Christian activist’s phone call to a reporter”. McClatchy Newspapers. Retrieved 22 September 2012.
Original broadcast(Elmo Khales TV on YouTube) cited by New York Times.
“Obscure Film Mocking Muslim Prophet Sparks Anti-U.S. Protests in Egypt and Libya”. New York Times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnM_NuW0r9M&feature=youtu.be&t=1m45s
The Egyptian Outrage Peddler Who Sent an Anti-Islam YouTube Clip Viral
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JOHN HUDSON 11,992 ViewsSEP 13, 2012
Everyday Americans spout off hours upon hours of offensive statements about Islam. So how on Earth did a poorly-produced, wildly obscure 14-minute YouTube clip spark violent uprisings from Yemen to Afghanistan to Algeria to Egypt? The answer is Sheik Khaled Abdullah, an Egyptian TV host who latched onto a trailer of the U.S. film Innocence of Muslims on Sunday, a move that has stoked anti-American sentiment across the Muslim world.
At the outset of the controversy, the U.S. media focused on the blowhard producer of the film Sam Bacile, a pathological liar of sorts, who allegedly tricked his cast and crew into making the grotesquely offensive movie and lied to the mainstream media about his identity and the film’s financing. While Bacile’s lies have made for an interesting media sideshow, he never would’ve become a headline if his film hadn’t sparked an international incident. So the question remains: Why this shoddy YouTube clip and why now?
The original trailer of Innocence of Muslims was posted to YouTube by Bacile in July, but never gained attention until last week when it was translated into Arabic and linked to by an Egyptian-American Copt Morris Sadek in an Arabic-language blog post. Around that same time, Koran-burning Florida Pastor Terry Jones began promoting the film to practically no effect in the U.S. But it did gain the attention of a Glenn Beck-style TV pundit in Egypt: Sheikh Khalad Abdalla, a host on the Islamist satellite-TV station al-Nas. On Sept. 8, Abdullah lit the match that set this entire international incident in motion and broadcast an offensive clip of the trailer in which a man playing Muhammad calls a donkey “the first Muslim animal.” Here’s the fateful moment of Abdullah on TV playing the clip:
Shortly following Abdullah’s broadcast, views of the video began increasing rapidly and Cairo news outlet Youm7.com reported that the leader of an Egyptian political party “denounced the production of the film with the participation of vengeful Copts.” That clip of Abdullah’s show has now attracted over 300,000 views.
So what do we know about this guy? The New York Times Lede blog has described Abdullah as a man who’s “part of a school of particularly shrill religious demagogues who turn every possible event into an attack on Islam,” quoting Egyptian-British journalist Sarah Carr. According to Time’s Bobby Ghosh, Abdullah’s channel “traffics in demagoguery and hatemongering. Abdallah is its star. In previous broadcasts, he has called the revolutionaries of the Arab Spring ‘worthless kids’ and condemned newspapers that don’t support his views.” Apparently, his main beef is Egypt’s Coptic Christians, a minority that makes up about about one tenth of the population. According to Ghosh, the broadcast really took off thanks to Abdullah’s viewership among Salafis:
Abdallah’s show was a dog whistle to the Salafists, a fundamentalist Islamic movement that makes up the second largest faction in the Egyptian parliament. For months, organized Salafist groups had been protesting in small numbers in front of the U.S. embassy in Cairo, calling for the release of Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheik currently in a North Carolina prison, convicted for plotting a series of bombings and assassinations in the 1990s. They were joined on Sept. 11 by prominent leaders like Nader Bakar of the Salafist Nour Party and Mohammed al-Zawahiri, brother of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s longtime deputy and now head of al-Qaeda.
Thus far, the international protests surrounding the film have attributed to at least one death: A protester was killed in Yemen today after hundreds stormed the U.S. Embassy. (The four U.S. deaths at the U.S. Embassy in Libya yesterday have been attributed to a coordinated plot by a small terrorist group that took advantage of the unrest caused by the film.) The discouraging takeaway from all of this is there doesn’t seem to be an evident way of stopping this sort of incident from happening again. In a democracy of 300 million people, citizens will say and do things offensive to Islam, and that’s their right. If a film that resembles a low-budget high school play like Innocence of Muslims can cause a firestorm like this, it certainly won’t be the last.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2012/09/egyptian-outrage-peddler-who-sent-anti-islam-youtube-clip-viral/56826/
Anti-U.S. outrage over video began with Christian activist’s phone call to a reporter
Egyptian protesters gather around a burning vehicle in downtown Cairo early Saturday before police cleared the area after days of demonstrations against a film ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad. | Anonymous/AP
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Story | New violence sweeps countries across Islamic world
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Story | Islamists targeted U.S. diplomats with gunfire, RPGs in planned assault, witness says
On the Web | More world coverage from McClatchy
By Nancy A. Youssef and Amina Ismail | McClatchy Newspapers
CAIRO — A crude video about the Prophet Muhammad that triggered an unprecedented outbreak of anti-American protest last week moved from being a YouTube obscurity in the United States to a touchstone for anger across the world through a phone call less than two weeks ago from a controversial U.S.-based anti-Islam activist to a reporter for an Egyptian newspaper.
Morris Sadek, a Coptic Christian who lives in suburban Washington, D.C., whose anti-Islam campaigning led to the revocation of his Egyptian citizenship earlier this year, had an exclusive story for Gamel Girgis, who covers Christian emigrants for al Youm al Sabaa, the Seventh Day, a daily newspaper here. Sadek had a movie clip he wanted Girgis to see; he e-mailed him a link.
“He told me he produced a movie last year and wanted to screen it on Sept. 11th to reveal what was behind the terrorists’ actions that day, Islam,” Girgis said, recalling the first call, which came on Sept. 4. Sadek, a longtime source, “considers me the boldest journalist, the only one that would publish such stories.”
Girgis said he watched the movie and found it insulting. He didn’t want to write about it. But Sadek called Girgis back and urged him to, telling him he could not deny that the movie existed.
Two days later, Sept. 6, Girgis published a three-paragraph article, calling the movie “shocking” and warning it could fuel sectarian tensions between Egyptian Christians and Muslims. Girgis concluded that the video “is just a passing crisis that doesn’t affect the bond between Muslims and Copts.”
In hindsight, that sentiment seems wildly optimistic. Five days later, thousands of Egyptians stormed the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and burned the American flag while as many as 125 armed men overwhelmed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, killing the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. Three days after that, protests in 23 countries included the sacking of the German embassy in Sudan and the burning of the American School in Tunisia.
Whether the Benghazi attack was linked to anger over the video remains uncertain – witnesses have said there was no protest preceding the attack – but the trauma of those deaths will likely scar U.S. perceptions for years, and while Saturday seemed calm across the region, the U.S. State Department made clear it fears the violence has not ended. In a statement, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the Obama administration remained concerned about developments in Sudan.
“We have requested additional security precautions as a result of yesterday’s damage to our embassy.,” she said. “We are continuing to monitor the situation closely to ensure we have what we need to protect our people and facility.”
Sadek did not respond Saturday to requests for comment.
How Grigis’ short item spread is a reminder of how interconnected the world has become. An Islamic web forum picked up Girgis’ story the day after it was published. Girgis’ newspaper also ran an interview that day with Wisam Abdel Warith, the head of a television station, the Wisdom, that’s affiliated with the ultra conservative Salafist strain of Islam.
When asked about the movie, Warith urged the leaders of Egypt’s Coptic community to condemn the movie, though he gave no indication he had seen it.
“The Church has to reveal its position clearly,” Warith said. “Either it disclaims itself from those who produced the movie or it remains silent and that means they condone it.”
By Sept. 8, other newspapers started picking up the story. Al Youm al Sabaa ran another story, this time noting that Egyptian politicians criticized the movie.
But the story remained off the front pages, still considered a local piece about an Egyptian in America fueling a sectarian crisis here, not about how the West treats Islam. That was the case until last Sunday, when Khalid Abdullah, the premier commentator for al Nas, a popular Salafist television station, aired the clip on his show.
Abdullah’s co-host, Mohammed Hamdy, introduced the topic by apologizing for what he was about to share with his audience. He noted that the Coptic Christian church had condemned the movie, Sadek and Florida pastor Terry Jones, who Girgis wrote backed the movie as well. Jones’ threats to burn Qurans inflamed Muslims in 2010 and 2011.
The Coptic condemnation was important to note, Abdullah said, because “some will say we are inciting violence against Copts to create sectarianism” by airing the clip.
The scene aired on al Nas blurred the face of the woman, in accord with Salafist beliefs that a man should not engage with an uncovered woman who is not his wife. But it left the man’s image clear, even though Muslims are forbidden to make any attempt to recreate Muhammad.
“What is this stupidity?” Abdullah asked, after the station aired the clip, concluding later that the creators of the film “want to inflame Egypt.”
Abdullah asked if anyone had apologized for creating such a film. His co-host responded, “An apology is not enough. I want them convicted.”
That same day, the Mufti of Al Azhar University, the chief source of Sunni Islamic thought in the Arab world, condemned the clip for “insulting the prophet” and noting it was produced by “Copts living abroad.”
Facebook pages started appearing, urging Islamists and youth to protest Tuesday, the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Jones had called for putting Muhammad on trial that day in a web message, which is why, protest organizers said, they scheduled it for that day. Calls started coming into the U.S. embassy as well, catching everyone there by surprise.
“People were writing to us asking what the role of the U.S. government has in this video. What are you going to do? Who produced this?” said one U.S. official at the embassy who did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly. “Our initial response was: What video?”
But as the embassy learned about the planned protests and the video’s content, officials there said, they immediately recognized the potential problem. They called leaders of the groups calling for the protest and apologized for the film, according to recipients of the call. They told them the film does not represent how Americans see Islam. In a statement posted on the embassy’s web page, they condemned the video.
But it was too late. Nader Bakkar, a spokesman for the conservative Islamist Nour Party and one of those who received a phone call from the embassy in the hours before the scheduled protest, said there was no going back. It was now a religious duty to defend the prophet, he said.
On Monday, a day before the scheduled protest, newspapers reported on the upcoming protest, saying it was called because Americans must pay for allowing such a movie to be produced. Major newspapers wrote about the Coptic church disavowing the movie. Islamic groups called for those who produced the movie to be punished. Bakker told another the newspaper, al Masry al Youm, there should be a law that forbids insulting the prophet. “This is the least” that needs to happen, he said.
By mid afternoon Tuesday, protesters started gathering in front of the embassy, chanting against the United States. By 5 p.m. some scaled the 12-foot wall protecting the compound, set a ladder against the flagpole and brought down the American flag. They replaced it with an Islamic one. A protester handed the American flag to those sitting on top of the wall, and they began tearing at it. Whatever remained of the flag was eventually burned.
Five hours later, in neighboring Libya, attackers launched an assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, killing Ambassador Christopher Stevens, tech officer Sean Smith and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.
The violence made the movie an international story, and Muslims across the world planned to gather Friday, after prayer, in response to a film most had never seen. At least seven people were killed and thousands of police officers were deployed around the world to protect U.S. sites.
Zaid Akl, a political analyst at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said the protests were about far more than the United States and its views on Islam. It was a means for frustrated Egyptians to rehash longstanding problems here – police abuse, unemployment, as well as defending the faith.
“These are same issues people protested in 2005 and 2010 and last year. Nothing has changed,” Akl said. “What is happening now is not conducive to any society-based dialogue.”
Girgis, for his part, never thought the story would go beyond Egypt.
“I regret publishing the story because of the events that took place in the Islamic world but I am a journalist, and it is news,” Girgis said. “If it wasn’t me publishing it, it would have been someone else.”
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/09/15/168613/anti-us-outrage-over-video-began.html#storylink=cpy
How ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Spread Around the Globe and Killed a US Diplomat
An anti-Islamic film wound up on Egyptian TV, leading to a deadly clash.
By ELIZABETH FLOCK
September 12, 2012 RSS Feed Print
Egyptian protesters climb the walls of the U.S. embassy during protests in Cairo, Egypt.
The identity of the filmmaker behind the anti-Islamic video “Innocence of Muslims” remains unclear, but the way the film spread before it reportedly led to the angry protests that killed a U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans can be more clearly traced.
The film appears to have first popped up on YouTube in July, in the form of a 14-minute English-language trailer. Few watched it. The film was reposted to YouTube last week, this time dubbed into Arabic. And according to the New York Times Lede blog, that version was soon copied on YouTube again and again.
But the film only really picked up steam when it was posted to “Nacopticas,” a blog run by an Egyptian-American lawyer and Coptic Christian named Morris Sadek. Also on Sadek’s site: a photo of himself alongside Terry Jones, the Florida pastor infamous for having burned copies of the Koran.
Sadek is known for his anti-Muslim screeds, and for having had his Egyptian citizenship revoked in May 2011 after he allegedly called for attacks on Egypt. Sadek, who lives in the U.S., has filed multiple, unsuccessful lawsuits to regain his citizenship.
But Sadek’s promotion of the film didn’t stop with his blog. In an interview with the Associated Press, he told the wire service he promoted the film on Egyptian television stations as well. Sadek did not respond to request for comment from U.S. News.
A broadcast on one station, an Egyptian channel called Al-Nas, appears to have been the tipping point for the film.
Al-Nas is an immensely popular, and very religious channel whose motto is “a channel that will take you to heaven.” Earlier this week, a complaint was filed against Al-Nas for allegedly “inciting strife between Muslims and Christians” in an unrelated incident.
A scene from the trailer of “Innocence of Muslims” was broadcast on Al-Nas just days ago by host Sheikh Khaled Abdalla. The particularly controversial scene depicted the prophet Muhammad as a “buffoonish caricature,” according to the Lede.
While the Quran does not ban visual depictions of the prophet Muhammad, some Islamic traditions see it as deeply disrespectful.
Within 48 hours of Al-Nas’s broadcast, hundreds of protesters were climbing the walls of the United States embassy in Cairo in protest, and an armed mob was setting fire to the consulate in Benghazi. U.S. ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was killed in the attack, the first time an ambassador was killed in the line of duty since 1979, along with three other Americans.
According to the AP, the maker of the film has now gone into hiding.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/09/12/how-innocence-of-muslims-spread-around-the-globe-and-killed-a-us-diplomat
Sayyed Nakvisson
Dear friends,
This is a call to protest against the anti-Islam, anti-prophet, sacrilegious material that has been available….
not on Youtube, not on Google…
but in the mosques and libraries and homes of many many Muslims, for centuries…
When shall we raise voice against the filthy, dirty, perverse, sacrilegious ”narrations” about our prophet in the books like ”Sahih” Bukhari, Muslim etc… fabricated by the so-called companions and followers of Muawiyah, his mother Hind (the woman with unmentionable qualities) and Abu Sufiyan (please note that I didn’t call him Muawiyah’s father)?
Or was it the Zionists and the Americans who wrote up those narrations and added them to the Muslim books as part of a conspiracy?
Does anyone dare to mention this fact on the media that the source of all the contemporary attempts to desecrate the holy prophet are mostly taken from the centuries old and highly sanctified Islamic books? Any Shia Muslim or any moderate Sunni Muslim??? It needs a lot of courage to speak the truth. No one ever would. Too dangerous to spit it out bluntly. But what is the solution?
The easiest way out: blame it all on America and the Zionists.
Note: Before you jump to the conclusion, please be informed that I despise the hegemony and arrogance of the USA and the Zionists as much as you do, may be even more. And yes, I do not recognise the state of Israel.
Like · · Follow Post · September 20 at 6:28pm
Sabah Hasan, Hassan Turi, Sadia Salam and 17 others like this.
Ali Abbas Taj This needs to be mentioned and discussed openly. This nasty movie has the same source as the nasty book by Salman Rushdie.
Mavia paid people to fabricate such hadeeth to elevate himself. Part of elevating himself was to take down the “Rutba” of Rasool Allah pubh.
The kings of Saudi are no different they and their paid mullahs are doing the exact same thing. The want to destroy the green dome of Prophet pubh and wipe out and love and reverence for our Prophet pubh.
In the end what they want is to prove that there maybe someone by the name of Mohammed but what is important is the Quran. We are most qualified because we are kings and since we are kings therefore Allah must want this.
This is flawed people have justified murder from the Quran in this manner.
September 20 at 6:45pm · Like · 10
Sayyed Nakvisson sure! and Muslims from all schools of thought, must have the open-mindedness to discuss this in a literary and scientific way and reject all the fabricated narrations that insult our prophet.
September 20 at 6:49pm · Like · 7
Ali Abbas Taj If the Pakistani Media will not talk about it we should publish about it in Western media.
September 20 at 7:01pm · Like · 4
Sayyed Nakvisson I shall write about it. Pakistani or any Muslim media will never. But the point here is not to insult the majority of Muslims.. the point we are trying to make here is that what is more important? Sanctity of the so-called Sahih books and the narrators.. or the sanctity of Rasulullah (pbuh).
September 20 at 7:05pm · Like · 5
Ali Abbas Taj I think some Pakistani Media will publish it. We should have Urdu translation.
September 20 at 7:09pm · Like · 3
Sayyed Nakvisson will do!
September 20 at 7:10pm · Like · 2
Mozan Rock Have you seen Movie ?
September 20 at 7:14pm · Like
Mozan Rock Was it Based on Hadiths ?
September 20 at 7:15pm · Like
Sayyed Nakvisson even if this particular film wasn’t, this does not make the authors and narrators of the filthy narrations in the hadith books, off the hook.
September 20 at 7:18pm · Like · 3
Sayyed Nakvisson there should be a post-humus trial of all those ”narrators” no matter how much glorified and lionised they are in the standard, unauthentic history
September 20 at 7:20pm · Edited · Like · 2
Ali Abbas Taj This is very important. Sayyed Nakvisson you should write in some detail. Most Muslims do not even know about this. So you have to kind of educate.
September 20 at 7:25pm · Like · 1
Sayyed Nakvisson that is right!
September 20 at 7:25pm · Like
Sayyed Nakvisson the article shud be ready in 3-4 days
September 20 at 7:26pm · Like · 4
Ali Abbas Taj If someone can help with Urdu translation that could be a big plus.
September 20 at 7:27pm · Like · 5
Mozan Rock I think I would be better to bann all Hadith’s Book. From Mauta to دار قطنی
September 20 at 7:29pm · Like
Sayyed Nakvisson The film ”Innocence of Muslims” has a number of scenes whose references have been taken from the Bukhari or Muslim I guess. Classical ones are as follows:
– In one scene the actor playing the prophet goes to Warqah bin Nofal, a Christian priest, and he helps him to ”make up” a religiomn. This clearly is taken from whaty the majority of Muslims believe that it was Waqah who told the prophet that he actually was a prophet and that he did not need to be scared and worried. Astaghfirullaha Rabbi Wa Atoobo Ilaih.
– In another scene, the actor says, no revelation has come so I am going to jump down from a mountain and take my life. This clearly is taken again from Muslim or Bukhari, where it is said that when Wahi did not come for some time, the prophet wanted to commit suicide.
La’nat ullah e Ala’l Munafiqeen wal Kaazibeen. May god’s curse be on those who have fabricated these narrations, even if they are venerated by some as the companions.
It is about time that the Muslims search their homes for the filth instead of putting all the blame on the enemies. The enemies get all the material from your books, oh Muslims. If you have to condemn someone, then first condemn those who wrote those books centuries ago.
September 24 at 10:05am · Like · 10
Sabah Hasan Mozan Rock, I have not seen the movie, but I have read Rusdhie’s ‘Satanic Verses’ and watched Rushdie on CNN at the time of that controversy where he said that one of his courses at Cambridge was Islamic Studies and that what he had written in the book was mentioned in “the most respected books of Muslims” (his words, not mine). He named the Sahihs of Muhammad ibne Ismail Bukhari and Muslim Naishapuri specifically.
In a discussion over a year ago on Samaa TV, on the suggestion of ASS Karachi chief Aurangzeb Faruqui that we should review all books and “throw away” (darya burd kr dain) the ones that insulted the Sahaba (r.a) or the Ummuhaat al-Momineen (r.a), the response of MWM’s Central Spokesman Maulana Hasan Zafar Naqvi was that this would require us to review all books over the past fourteen centuries including some that are very respected among a large section of Muslims. His suggestion was to “live and let live.”
It is noteworthy that only two Muslims have liked the initial (and some other) posts, and none has participated in this discussion.
September 24 at 7:00pm · Edited · Like · 8
Scheheryar Masood Stop explaining scenes, the main question is, why the huck the SOB played the role of Holy Prophet PBUH? How dare he?
September 24 at 6:56pm · Like · 1
Sabah Hasan Welcome to the discussion Scheheryar ….. as Sayyed Nakvisson has painstakingly made the point, Muslims themselves have opened the doors over the centuries.
September 24 at 6:59pm · Like · 8
Sabah Hasan The books named by Sayyed Nakvisson insult not only the Sahaba (r.a) and Ummuhaat al-Momineen (r.a), but also Allah, the Holy Prophet (sawas) and his Ahlebait (a.s). We have, however, never heard a whisper of protest – much less a call for qitaal – in this respect from the self-styled Sipah of the Sahaba or most other Muslims.
September 25 at 3:43am · Like · 6
Ali Abbas Taj Muslims clearly need to look at their own books more objectively. Try to find the roots of these problems rather than burning down the house.
September 25 at 5:17am · Like · 9
Najmul Hasan sayyed nakvisson you are such a nuisance little beast, ultimately you are disguise agent of US and Isreal. Intentionaly or unintensionaly, paid or unpaid you propogate US Ideology and their rubbish propagandas……
you dont have to mention at this criticle time such a controversial statement which can tear apart the strength of muslims unity and the love and affection they built amongst them !!!
you truth aint important to us, its just a piece of shit you do, what we are concern is that all such hadiths included in these books are not valid and its just a compilation of hadiths not its authencity, so watever its written its not correct our sunni brother and ulama do also believe !!!
My brother plz dont be a part of such things it will ruin your akhrirat… wassalam
September 25 at 5:40am · Like · 1
Najmul Hasan ali abbas taj you are good person hoosh k naqun loo yaar…..he is playing a US game here. think over it.
September 25 at 5:46am · Like · 1
Najmul Hasan hmm !! nice to hear from brothers, learn from the wise or wait for the time come n teach u….
September 25 at 8:31am · Like · 1
Natasha Mohammed Zai Najmul Hasan…….I agree with Sayyed Nakvisson, and that makes me a US or MOSSAD agent? Thats your theory?
September 25 at 9:07am · Like · 8
Najmul Hasan hahahaha !!!!!
September 25 at 9:13am · Like
Najmul Hasan Fact and controversial view that is favoring US or its allies, and harming muslims and their unity can only come from Pentagon or some embassy !!!!
My concern is just we muslims are about to become united against the power and that power wants us to keep disputing with each other…
so that we get less concern over the matter of US bullshit !!
September 25 at 9:15am · Like · 1
Najmul Hasan Sayyed Nakvisson your controversial statement have hurt alot, but I must submit my apology for going too harsh !!! plzz think over it ….
September 25 at 9:18am · Like · 1
Natasha Mohammed Zai Najmul Hasan…… Fact and controversial view that is favoring US or its allies, and harming muslims and their unity can only come from Pentagon or some embassy !!!!…………………………..now try changing ‘from Pentagon or some embassy’ to ‘ Muslims themselves’….and see if that does not sound right too.
September 25 at 9:25am · Like · 4
Mureed Khan Khattar i also agree with Sayyed Nakvisson, and by that virtue i am also US,Mosaad, Raw agent.:(
September 25 at 9:27am · Like · 5
Najmul Hasan well if they are the purchased muslims by US, you are definitely right…. I agree
September 25 at 9:27am · Like
Asif Mall Logican fallacy of “Adhominen” seems to be in action here; basically when we aren’t able to respond academically to an arguement, then we attack the person who presented the arguement by coming up with unbelieveable conspiracy theories of RAW, Mossad & CIA.
September 25 at 9:33am · Like · 7
Natasha Mohammed Zai Purchased by US, India, whoever…does not change the fact that Muslims kill more Muslims daily than do America or Israel or the ALiens.
September 25 at 9:36am · Like · 2
Asif Mall I am sure RAW, Mossad & CIA take highly intelleligent people in their ranks; please don’t insult these professional agencies by labelling every Tom, Dick & Harry to be their agent – simply because you don’t agree with someone’s arguement 😉
September 25 at 9:40am · Like · 3
Najmul Hasan Natasha Mohammed Zai you are right, but muslims are soo poor to buy a bread for their lunch, buying bullets is rich people job…..so its clearly known and offcourse proved that American are the prime financers of these terrorist who kills muslims more than their agencies do….
September 25 at 10:30am · Like
Najmul Hasan Asif Mall apart from these agencies there are people who are financed or are blackmail to fulfil the desires of US and its allies…
so offcourse you are who are cheap doesnt get poistion in CIA or Mossad….
September 25 at 10:32am · Like
Natasha Mohammed Zai Sorry, but i cant kill off any more grey cells by arguing further.
September 25 at 10:47am · Like · 1
Asif Mall I agree Natasha, so people are cateogory 5 brain washed and beyond help; no point wasting precious time on them.
September 25 at 2:37pm · Like · 1
Sabah Hasan Najmul Hasan what in your esteemed opinion shall be a good time to face the truth stated by Sayyed Nakvisson?
September 25 at 3:45pm · Like · 4
Najmul Hasan hope my this clearification is a proper reply of your question…Sabah Hasan.
September 26 at 4:30am · Like · 1
Najmul Hasan M grateful to you for asking the question of time !!!!
Right now my opinion that I mentioned above was not time firstly, my concern was using the fact to shelter US & Isreal ….
At this time you know why muslims are in this large number on earth, because of the compromises of Holy prophet (s.a.w.w) if he has been avoiding munafiqeen and mushkireen (that entered in the world of Islam just to safeguard themselves or have malicious intensions).. so you wouldn’t have found muslims in such a large quantity on earth…
Coming back on your question about time, it is the right time to address this fact but not by us my dear, this is ridiculous. The fact will be studied and will be pointed out by their own generation and I have been evident of this, it happens. And in this case we will be more united. After that we wil have chance to tell our awaken muslims about the sacrifices of bibi fatima, hazrat ali, imam hasan and imam hussain and so on….
but sheltering US & Isreal is not tolerated…
September 26 at 4:37am · Like · 1
Euceph Ahmed Sayyed Nakvisson, do you mean to include the Nahjul Balaghah in your protest too, or is it just the Bukhari and Muslim you’re talking about?
September 26 at 5:46am · Like
Mohsin Saghir Bibi Ayesha said, “The Prophet used to place a pillow in my lap even though I would be menstruating, and then he would recite the Quran.” [Bukhari-Book of Bath pg 197 #292].
September 26 at 6:07am · Like · 1
Mohsin Saghir “A woman presented herself to the Prophet. He intently gazed at her from head to toe and then lowered his head.” (He was not interested in her.) [Bukhari-Book of Nikah 3:71 #113]
September 26 at 6:09am · Like · 1
Mohsin Saghir The Messenger (S) used to visit all nine of his wives every night. [Bukhari-Vol 3 pg 52 Book of Nikah, #34]
September 26 at 6:12am · Like · 1
Mohsin Saghir The Messenger (S) used to have intercourse with all of his wives in one hour of the day and night (without taking a bath) and these (wives) were eleven. The narrator tries to preempt an objection by stating that he had the (sexual) power of 30 men. [Bukhari-Vol 1 pg 189, Book of Bath #266]
September 26 at 6:13am · Like · 1
Mohsin Saghir The Prophet said that the best man amongst his followers is the one who has the greatest number of wives. [Bukhari-Vol 3:52 Book of Nikah #62]
September 26 at 6:15am · Like · 1
Mohsin Saghir Bibi Ayesha said to the Prophet, “Won’t you rather graze your camel onto a tree whose leaves have not yet been grazed?” ‘Arwa bin Zubair said that Ayesha meant she was the only virgin the Prophet had married. [Bukhari-Vol 3 Book of Nikah pg 55 #71]
September 26 at 6:16am · Like · 1
Mohsin Saghir After the fall of Khyber, people described the beauty of Safia Bint Hui, the new bride of a slain enemy soldier. The Prophet chose her for himself. On the way to Madina he camped and had intercourse with her. His companions did not know if she was a wife or a concubine. Later, a veil was drawn between her and the men-folk and they came to know that she was a wife. [Bukhari-Book of Sales and Book of Nikah 3:57 #78]. Elsewhere, the narrator of the wicked story states that Safia was initially given to Wahia Kulbi, but because of her beauty, the Prophet chose her for himself, and asked Wahia to pick another woman.
September 26 at 6:19am · Like · 1
Mohsin Saghir Bibi Ayesha said to the Prophet, “Ah! My head is bursting.” He said, “I wish it did and I would pray for your forgiveness.” Ayesha responded: “You want me to die so that you can spend the next night with another wife.” [Bukhari-Vol 3 pg 247 Kitab-ut-Tibb, The Book of Medicine, #626]
September 26 at 6:21am · Like · 1
Ali Abbas Taj Euceph Ahmed we should not try to make a false neutrality here. First of all Nahaj ul Balagah is not a book of Hadeeth. It is sermons and letters of Hazrat Ali A.S.
Second the purpose of the post is to academically and respectfully identify the reasons and inspirations behind the books and movies that come out disrespecting the Holly Prophet Pubh.
Unless we do this more books like “Rangeela Rasool”, Satanic Verses and movies like “The Innocence of Muslims” will continue to damage the “hurmat” of our Prophet.
September 26 at 6:23am · Edited · Like · 6
Najmul Hasan well done Mohsin Saghir you are very innocent too !!!! I want to say something people fear innocent people wont understand…
September 26 at 6:28am · Like
Ali Abbas Taj We should also be extremely careful. While trying to identify and demonstrate the reasons behind this, we should not disrespect or alienate any one. Hazrat Ayesha A.S. was Umm Ul Momineen and respected by all.
The shia Marajae are very clear on this point.
September 26 at 6:29am · Like · 5
Ali Abbas Taj Why can we not discuss this and respect Umm Ul Momeineen at the same time? Perhaps these are false Hadeeth that defy logic for the most part and TRUELY need to be excluded.
September 26 at 6:31am · Edited · Like · 5
Mohsin Saghir yes sure we all respect Bibi Ayesha (ra) very much. But what do u think that Bukhari etc r respecting Bibi?
September 26 at 6:31am · Like · 6
Mohsin Saghir Sahi Bukhari is the major source of insult of Holy Prophet and others. So being a muslim we should accept that fact …..
September 26 at 6:33am · Like · 7
Ali Abbas Taj Well I don’t think we should condemn an eminent book of Hadeeth either. Just the Hadeeth that are nonsensical and against the spirit of Quran need to be expunged.
It has to be done by mutual consent of Ulema.
September 26 at 6:37am · Edited · Like · 5
Ali Abbas Taj Of course what we need more than anything else is Unity of Shia and Sunni as well as all Pakistanis.
And unity of all Muslims worldwide.
This cannot truly happen unless we reflect and reform without prejudice and with an open mind.
September 26 at 6:44am · Like · 4
Ali Abbas Taj Shia and Sunni United Vs. Nasibis
http://criticalppp.com/archives/228889
September 26 at 6:44am · Like · 2
Mohsin Saghir Ali Abbas Taj i agree with u but ignorance is itself a big problem of our so called Muslim Nation. There are many for those respect n honor of Bhkhari is important and there are also many those even did not touch Bukhari but would come out to defend that book. That is problem of our society.
September 26 at 6:46am · Like · 6
Ali Abbas Taj Ignorance is a problem one that we have overcome with knowledge. Positively through social media and our writings, videos and any other means.
We have to do this keeping the “hurmat” of our religion while peacefully living with all other religions.
Especially our brothers of the book or Ahl e Kitab brothers and sisters.
The closest cousins of Muslims are Christians by far. While Muslims wait for Mahdi a.s. together we wait for Jesus a.s.
We can invite each other to each other’s faith and/or live together in peace like brothers and sisters while we wait for Jesus a.s. to set the record straight.
September 26 at 6:51am · Like · 5
Mohsin Saghir Tell me how many of Muslim World read ”The Satanic Verses”? i think very few. All of us responded on ”suni sunai’. The most problematic part of rushdi book was quoted from an Islamic book of “Sirat Ibn-e-Ishaq”. That is 1st book of Holy Prophet’s biography and write down in near 140 hijri. All of us condemned Rushdi but no one tried to expose the source of insult.
September 26 at 6:54am · Edited · Like · 9
Asif Mall The controversial movie maker seems to look like an innocent child after reading what the Hadith narrators have written about the Prophet – as quoted above by Mohsin Saghir.
September 26 at 6:58am · Like · 2
Mohsin Saghir if we will show our Holy Prophet to the world through the eyes of Bukhari etc then b sure u me or anyone else can’t stop the stream of isult. If we really want to stop it then show real n true face of our beloved Holy Prophet to the world through the pure eyes of our Holy Imams. That is only solution.
September 26 at 7:00am · Like · 3
Ali Abbas Taj Mohsin Saghir with social media you have a platform. Write a blog piece based on above discussion without disrespecting anyone. Simply to speak the truth about Holy Prophet.
Simply to stop this nonsense, put in in few words so people can read it. Preferably in Urdu and English.
Simply for peace.
September 26 at 7:01am · Like · 2
Ali Abbas Taj I promise that it will be circulated widely.
September 26 at 7:02am · Like · 1
Mohsin Saghir Ali Abbas Taj i agree with u n i will try to do so.
September 26 at 7:10am · Like · 2
Sky Blue AN APPEAL : These have been contentious issues now for centuries ; issues that have kept the Ummah divided. There is a need to discuss them BUT please realize that present times are NOT appropriate for touching and discussing these contentious issues. The society is already charges and polarized on sectarian lines. What we need is unity among various sects and various religions in Pakistan. I beg everyone to please keep these contentious issues for a later time when Insha Allah we have the proper environment to discuss them. Till then we can restrict these issues to our personal study with the overall view that those who hold a different view too are adherents of all the basic principles of Islam. Please do not contribute to further polarization and hence violence. Bhaiyo Behno, Khuda ka khauf karain.
September 26 at 7:34am · Like · 1
Najmul Hasan Sky Blue Strongly Support your statement….
September 26 at 7:58am · Like
Ali Abbas Taj I am not sure if I agree @sky blue and Najmul Hasan. This post is only to do with the Prophet PUBH and why such slanderous books are written and movies made?
Why is it necessary to make this sectarian?
Why is it not possible to have a intelligent respectful discussion like good Muslims?
There is nothing and no one more dear to Muslims than Prophet Mohammed. Otherwise there is no Islam. These are not contentious issues, this is s NASIBI conspiracy to degrade Prophet Mohammed so the level of the king can be elevated.
This is still going on today.
IF you do not address it, it will only get worse.
September 26 at 8:54am · Edited · Like · 2
Ali Abbas Taj Sky Blue if this keeps going on social media will not wait for an appropriate time to clear the facts and everyone with a camera and an agenda will be posting videos about Prophet Mohammed PUBH. The truth must be revealed about Prophet Mohammed PUBH and Nasibi Hadeeth must be rejected.
We must take the lead in intelligent discussion UPFRONT rather than have more of these movies and books come out.
September 26 at 8:57am · Like · 2
Ali Abbas Taj The MAIN problem is if some makes a movie or writes a book that is complete fabrication and total slander it is one thing.
However on the other hand if some one makes a movie or writes a book BASED on books that MUSLIMS consider THEIR books, it is a very serious problem.
In today’s fast paced world of information and ideas the longer you hide it under the carpet the more damage it does.
September 26 at 9:01am · Edited · Like · 3
Sayyed Nakvisson Yes, Sky Blue has a point. Exactly now may not be the time. But this is necessary to eradicate those false ahaadit from Muslims’ books. Otherwise, more and more sacrilegious films will be made and books written. These films and books have their sources in these Islamic history books. And as long as they are there, people will keep making use of them.
September 26 at 9:21am · Like
Natasha Mohammed Zai Mohsin Saghir…..ye gads!! Seriously, Bukhari narrates all this? My God, im actually stunned!!
September 26 at 9:34am · Like · 5
Sayyed Nakvisson I remember the year 1998 or so when I used to live in Pakistan and was studying at UET Lahore. One day I went to the library that had a large number of Islamic books. I picked up one volume of Bukhari and started reading random pages. Believe me, it had certain narrations about my beloved holy Prophet, my role model, my grandfather (being a Sayyed) that if they were attributed to my father, I would want to kill the narrator.
September 26 at 9:40am · Like · 6
Asif Mall What Mohsin Saghir has shared is just tip of the iceburg; there are many more such narrations. There is a real danger that someone will eventually make a movie based on these narrations, justifying his actions that he was simply quoting the authenic Hadiths of Muslims ):
September 26 at 10:21am · Like · 4
Najmul Hasan Firstly Sayyed Nakvisson made the comparison of US embassy with his compaign of removing blasphmous qoutes is unjustified entirely !!!
September 26 at 10:31am · Like
Najmul Hasan Secondly if some people feel they can remove the qoutes from the books by quaralling go a ahead practicaly on your own behalf, not taking any dominance or shelter of some fiqaa…..
September 26 at 10:32am · Like
Najmul Hasan Thirdly do not give shelter to your enemy the big saitan US and dont create hatred and disbribution amongst muslims…..
September 26 at 10:33am · Like
Najmul Hasan Sayyed Nakvisson must have made comparison of the orders of Imam Khomaini to Execute salman rushdi in this regard, but i dont find any such order or condemnation for the books you people are refering…so well said by Huma Hasan…
September 26 at 10:37am · Like
Najmul Hasan Generally Marajias do not condemn these books vocally, but their writings mention the inaccuracy found in them openly. Few examples tafsirs of Allama Tabatabai, Ayatollah Jaffar Subhani and Ayatollah Shirazi, Ghadeer by Ayatollah Subhani, and of course Peshawar Nights. just to name a few.
What I mean to say is that these are very technical things and need expertise. Common man better work for unity, not division.
September 26 at 10:38am · Like · 1
Sabah Hasan Najmul Hasan I agree with your point that we should oppose any efforts by the US-Zionist lobby to blaspheme against all the holy prophets (pbut) and other respected personalities. That effort, however, cannot be divorced of purging the Israiliaat introduced by such accursed persons as Ka’ab al-Ahbaar, many of which have found their way into the so-called ‘Sahih’ books as ‘ahadeeth’. Such fiction is the basis of much of what ‘Muslims’ like Rushdie and Co or ‘Christians’ like Pastor Terry Jones and Co have based their harangues on, no doubt encouraged by the same establishment that makes it a crime to eulogize Hitler and the Nazis.
On some points of fact:
* As clarified by Ali Abbas Taj above, ‘Nahj ul Balagha’ (The Peak of Eloquence) is not a book of ahadeeth, but a compilation of sermons, speeches and letters of Hazrat Ali (a.s) selected by Sayyed Razi. In any case, there has never been any hint that this compilation contains any blasphemous material.
* The main Shia book of traditions (ahadeeth) is ‘Kafi’, which, unlike the Sahaah-e Sitta (The Six Correct Books) is not claimed even by its compiler to be ‘correct’. It is just a compilation of traditions. In days when just being known as a Shia was enough to get one killed by the Abbaside ‘Muslim’ rulers, Muhammad ibne Yaqub Kulayni collected these traditions along with their sources and compiled them into a book. He made it clear in the preface that it was done on a best effort basis without claim to authenticity due to obvious constraints. hence even to this day the traditions in ‘Kafi’ are not accepted per se because of appearing in that compilation, but vetted on the basis of Ilm aar-Rijaal (Science of History of Narrators) by very, very learned religious scholars.
Attempting to cull prima facie blasphemous material is an act that should create unity among knowledgeable Muslims, and let others know about Real Islam much better. No time is inappropriate for such a sincere effort.
September 26 at 1:45pm · Like · 7
Sayyed Nakvisson Thank you Sabah Hasan for such a concise and comprehensive comment. But as you mentioned, the effort has to be sincere not with the motives to create a Fitnah among the Muslims. Nor should one try to insult others just because they happen to have a school of thought that believes in those books.
It has taken centuries for the Muslims to reach where they are today. So, even if a school of thought believes in some books as a whole that also contain blasphemous material, all the followers of that school of thought cannot be scolded for believing in those books, which they never have read.
September 26 at 7:56pm · Like · 2
Sky Blue Ali Abbas Taj : You said that there is nothing contentious about rejecting the authenticity of Sahih Bukhari other Siha-i-Sitta. I doubt if there are many issues as contentious as this one. I would reiterate my FIRM conviction that this is certainly NOT the right time to discuss these issues without risking further deepening of already existing divisions. I doubt the sagacity of bringing up these issues now when we have sectarian killings, every other person is either wajib-ul-Qatal or at least Kafir ; Pro- Mumtaz Qadri rally attracts 200,000 people and your worthy Railway Minister is tendering Taliban for “Rent a Murderer” service. These issues have survived contentious controversies for centuries and I am sure a discussion on them can certainly await another few year. This is the time to cool down society’s temperature, not raise them any further. In case there is a discussion on this issue, which I consider is further divisive, “aay Allah gawah rehna” I have registered my protest against it and will be out it.
September 26 at 8:17pm · Edited · Like · 3
Ali Abbas Taj You certainly have a point. Sky Blue
September 26 at 8:20pm · Like · 3
Sky Blue Ali Abbas Taj : Thanks.
September 26 at 8:21pm · Like · 1
Sabah Hasan Sky Blue, I shall repeat the question that I put to Najmul Hasan: what in your opinion shall be a good time to face the truth stated by Sayyed Nakvisson?
Another question: is the sanctity of Allah, His prophets (pbut), the Ahlebait (a.s), the Ummuhaat al-Momineen (r.a) and the Sahaba (r.a) more important or that of latter day scholars like Muhammad ibne Ismail Bukhari, Muslim ibne Hajjaj Naishapuri and Muhammad ibne Yaqub Kulayni and their compilations?
By debunking the blasphemous material against the holiest of the holy contained in the so-called Sahih books, shall we be providing ammunition to the likes of Rajpal, Rushdie and Terry Jones on the one hand and Qafri and Sipah-e Sahaba on the other, or doing the opposite?
If in this jehad even if one loses his temporal life shall he not be a martyr and thus be guaranteed a blessed eternal life in the nearness of His dear ones (pbut)?
In my very humble opinion, having already lost a millennium and a half, knowledgeable Muslims should not waste more time in procrastinating on these issues that have sullied the great name of Islam and continue to provide material to enemies of Allah to wage war against Him.
September 27 at 4:11am · Like · 2
Najmul Hasan Sabah Hasan I retreat with my earlier comment, Shia are rich of mujtahideen, Imam khomaini ordered rushdi to execute did he even pointed out anything about these books ???? (We believe Imam khomaini pioneer politician)
So we are guided and we follow ulaama who knows the sensivities of the things in details as said by Huma Hasan….
So we have to follow ulema rather than taking initiative by our own, kindly look and follow Wali e Faqih in this regard….
September 27 at 5:10am · Like
Najmul Hasan Generally Marajias do not condemn these books vocally, but their writings mention the inaccuracy found in them openly. Few examples tafsirs of Allama Tabatabai, Ayatollah Jaffar Subhani and Ayatollah Shirazi, Ghadeer by Ayatollah Subhani, and of course Peshawar Nights. just to name a few.
What I mean to say is that these are very technical things and need expertise. Common man better work for unity, not division.
September 27 at 5:14am · Like
Sabah Hasan Najmul Hasan, do guide me where any Muslim religious scholar has opposed efforts at culling out blasphemous material from any publication.
For the record, the fatwa of Imam Khomeini (ra) was that one who wrote what was contained in ‘Satanic Verses’ is an apostate. Will this fatwa cover only Mr. Rushdie or those who originally compiled that blasphemy?
September 27 at 5:40am via mobile · Like · 1
Najmul Hasan I am confident the fatwa was just for Mr.Rushdie and it is for Mr.Rushdie, we didnt get any update in this regard….
So if the leader isnt in protest of a thing, and that he is right not to be it…
Islam insist on thinking, think positively…..
September 27 at 5:44am · Like
Ali Abbas Taj Najmul Hasan if Marjas do not condemn it, it does not mean you cannot either.
In fact it can mean the opposite. Marjas may be in a sensitive position, you and I are not.
September 27 at 6:25am · Like · 3
Najmul Hasan Ali Abbas Taj then first we have to have istiftaa from concern marja website about this specific issue.
Its a universal issue not domestic so you must know the universal issues are discussed and ordered from maraja if needed…and if not required from maraja, u dont have to worry about….
September 27 at 6:35am · Like
Sabah Hasan Najmul Hasan, what is the basis of your certainty since the fatwa referred to the act and not to the person of Mr. Rushdie?
Since you have referred to the Shia Maraje’, it may be relevant that according to fiqh-e Ja’afari, while taqleed is wajib in furu-e deen, it is haraam in usul-e deen, which include Tawheed, Nabuwwah, and Imamah for which a Muslim is required to use his own intellect. The issues referred in this thread by Sayyed Nakvisson relate to Tawheed, Nabuwwah and Imamah, not to furu-e deen.
September 27 at 6:43am · Edited · Like · 2
Sabah Hasan ^ This would also be consistent with your point that “Islam insists on thinking” for oneself.
September 27 at 6:42am · Like · 1
Sky Blue Qalandar juz do harf-i-laillah kuchh bhi nahin rakhta :::Faqih-i-Shehr Qaroon hay lughat hai Hijazi ka …. …. … (Allama Iqbal)
September 27 at 7:23am · Like
Najmul Hasan well elaborated the furu and Usool e deen, believe is Usool right, but the act of Amarbilmaroof and nae az munkar is Furoo e deen…
hope this much reply is enough for your argument….
September 27 at 7:43am · Like
Najmul Hasan Sabah Hasan bhai
September 27 at 8:18am · Like
Sayyed Nakvisson I hate all those who attribute lies to my prophet, my role model, and also my grandfather, the holy prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). And even if this was my real father who did so, I would hate him and lash out at him. So, for me it doesn’t matter whether it is a Jew or Christian or atheist or Muslims’ caliph who has attributed lies to and inflicted insults upon the holy prophet, directly or indirectly. The only reason I do not argue with Sunni brothers is that they are ”Qaasir” and many of them love ahlulbayt also (please note I said ”also”).
I repeat my stance again, do this ”practically very difficult” exercise to eradicate the false ahaadith or make the Sunni brothers aware of them with a sincere intention. The aim should not be to insult the Sunni brothers but to help them. They also love the holy prophet and once presented with the reality they will themselves send laa’nat on their ”ulema” who wrote those books. Increase the awareness so that they themselves start to hate and take distance from the culprits instead of scaring the Sunnis off by confronting them.
September 27 at 9:37am · Like · 4
Sayyed Nakvisson Imam Hussain was standing in the battlefield of Karbala, looking to the enemy and crying with tears. When asked why he did so, he said: ”Because I see them (the enemy) going to hell.” We should follow Imama Hussain (as).
September 27 at 9:39am · Like · 2
Najmul Hasan Sayyed Nakvisson agar aap Taqleed k qail nae to agey koi behas hi nae, matlb aap khud mujtahid hain (or agar aisa hai tp apka koi amal thik hi nae) and in case you are a proper muqallid then instead of making so much noise, you must ask your relevant mujtahid for the compaign and thought you wanna transmit in the air…..
September 27 at 10:11am · Like
Najmul Hasan who not hate all those who attribute lies to my prophet, my role model, and also my grandfather, the holy prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). And even if this was my real father who did so, I would hate him and lash out at him. So, for me it doesn’t matter whether it is a Jew or US…..
September 27 at 10:13am · Like
Sayyed Nakvisson I was just going to say Namaaz. Oops. I forgot something. I should have asked my Marja before doing Wudhoo.
September 27 at 10:14am · Like · 1
Najmul Hasan off course u do ask your marja how to do wudhoo wats surprising in it, you ask your marjaa how to offer prayer moreover you do ask your marja how to eat, drink, bath, wear, and even how to enter the toilet how to sleep….you ask this all from marja and follow them if and only if you are a muqallid….means if you follow marja ….
September 27 at 10:17am · Like
Sayyed Nakvisson Sky Blue has a valid point. Let the dust settle and we shall see. But I am afraid an appropriate time will not come so soon. Because what sky blue calls ”sectarian killings” which in reality is ”shia killings” will not stop completely. They have continued for 1400 years in different parts of the Islamic world and will continue, unfortunately so. They will stop completely when the promised hour comes i.e. reappearance of Imam Mehdi.
As regards waajib ul qatl decrees, Shia Muslims never gave such a decree. According to Shia Muslims, even the worst wahabi/salafi and even Nasibis are Muslims and they have not declared any of them Kafir or Waajib ul Qatl ever. Shia Muslims have always tried to create a unity and harmony among different Islamic schools of thought.
Getting back to the point, I am afraid all these fake ahaadith will stay and keep providing raw material to more and more blasphemous movies and books, until the promised hour. So be ready for more insults to Islam and make a strategy of countering them. Because the enemies won’t stop, nor will the fake ahaadith disappear. Perhaps a pessimistic view, but this is my point of view.
September 27 at 11:10am · Edited · Like · 4
Sabah Hasan The acts of Rushdie and Co and Terry Jones and Co are blasphemous and condemnable. Then why have different standards when the same act is committed by compiler of a source book?
Had, God forbid, it been the belief of one sect that the sanctity of some books written by humans is greater than that of Allah, his prophets (pbut), the Ahlebait (as), the Ummuhat al-Momineen (ra) and the Sahaba (ra), the objecting to contents of books blaspheming would have been divisive. It is, however, just the opposite. All Muslims would agree to purge all sources that contain such blasphemy.
And Najmul Hasan this is not an exercise in amr bil marouf or nahi anil munkar but defence of sanctity of basic beliefs of all Muslims.
September 27 at 3:53pm · Like · 5
Sky Blue Sayyed Nakvisson : I used the word “sectarian killing” and not “Shia killing” because I generally avoid even the use of Shia, Sunni etc.
September 27 at 7:27pm · Like
Sabah Hasan Avoiding the use o a word will not change the reality, Sky Blue
Yesterday at 4:12am · Like
Ali Abbas Taj I see your motivation is noble Sky Blue but when we say sectarian killing it implies both side are equally killed, fact is that about 20,000 mostly educated elite of Shia have been massacred.
It is tantamount to genocide.
There comes a point when you have to call a spade a spade.
Yesterday at 8:13am · Like · 1
Sayyed Nakvisson Sky Blue we seem to be 180 degrees apart when it comes to the use of term referring to the killing of SHia Muslims in Pakistan. I am utterly against the use of the term ”sectarian violence” for the reason Ali Abbas Taj mentioned in his comment. For knowing about my stance and arguments in its support, please read my first ever blog (I have written very few).
http://www.nakvisson.blogspot.com/2012/03/sectarian-violence-or-gradual-genocide.html
‘‘Sectarian Violence’’ or Gradual Genocide of Shia Muslims? | Dr. Nakvisson
nakvisson.blogspot.com
Yesterday at 11:09am · Edited · Like · 1
Sky Blue Ali Abbas Taj : I agree Sayyed Nakvisson: So now we are not 180 degree apart.
Yesterday at 11:11am · Like
Sayyed Nakvisson 🙂 wow this was a very positive surprise Sky Blue given the general trend here. 🙂 And it went so quick!
Yesterday at 11:12am · Edited · Like · 3
Ali Abbas Taj I am not surprised when you engage with friends they listen. Good on you Sky Blue
21 hours ago · Like · 2
Danish Tahir Mohsin Saghir “Bibi Ayesha said to the Prophet, “Ah! My head is bursting.” He said, “I wish it did and I would pray for your forgiveness.” Ayesha responded: “You want me to die so that you can spend the next night with another wife.” [Bukhari-Vol 3 pg 247 Kitab-ut-Tibb, The Book of Medicine, #626]”.
i have personally check the said volume, page no and reference, but i haven’t found this hadith at all. on page 247 of vol 3, there is no book of medicine, but book of “Aqeeqa”, so @mohsin saghit, u should come clean and tell me, the exact reference of this hadith (from where u have read or heard this) and how u can post it on a social form without verifying it.
21 hours ago · Like · 1
Danish Tahir After the fall of Khyber, people described the beauty of Safia Bint Hui, the new bride of a slain enemy soldier. The Prophet chose her for himself. On the way to Madina he camped and had intercourse with her. His companions did not know if she was a wife or a concubine. Later, a veil was drawn between her and the men-folk and they came to know that she was a wife. [Bukhari-Book of Sales and Book of Nikah 3:57 #78]. Elsewhere, the narrator of the wicked story states that Safia was initially given to Wahia Kulbi, but because of her beauty, the Prophet chose her for himself, and asked Wahia to pick another woman.
now what should i call you Mohsin Saghir, what should i call you.
the exact text is reproduced as hereunder:
20 hours ago · Like · 1
Danish Tahir Narrated Anas:
The Prophet stayed for three days between Khaibar and Medina,
and there he consummated his marriage to Safiyya bint Huyai. I
invited the Muslims to the wedding banquet in which neither
meat nor bread was offered. He ordered for leather
dining−sheets to be spread, and dates, dried yoghurt and
butter were laid on it, and that was the Prophet’s wedding
banquet. The Muslims wondered, “Is she (Saffiyya) considered
as his wife or his slave girl?” Then they said, “If he orders
her to veil herself, she will be one of the mothers of the
Believers; but if he does not order her to veil herself, she
will be a slave girl. So when the Prophet proceeded from
there, he spared her a space behind him (on his she−camel) and
put a screening veil between her and the people.
20 hours ago · Like · 1
Danish Tahir these are just two examples that shows that you have misreported. i don’t know what to say now when someone posts without checking the references and that too such a sensitive material. i am truly speechless. Now i can understand why people in this thread talks about throwing all the books away. this is the idiocy at its supreme.
20 hours ago · Like · 1
Mohsin Saghir Danish Tahir if u want live in state of deception then i have no objection. There r hundreds insulting hadiths in Bukhari, Muslim etc. And for ur kind information i m not compiler of these books, i just shared what Bukhari and Muslim wrote in their books. And one more thing i verified all hadiths, so don’t try to protect criminals.
19 hours ago · Like · 1
Danish Tahir I need the refernece, exact title of the book and the name of the translator. Unless i dont believe a word of u because i have personally check the two hadiths u mentioned in ur comments and they were not as u told. U added words and fabricated the events in the second hadith and the first one doesn’t exist at all. So if u r reproducing something on a social media which i claims to be false, then plz provide the refernces (source from where u copied these). Or if u dont have any then plz check the material u r goint to post on any media. Wont be commenting again unless the refernces are provided (waiting for them).
19 hours ago via mobile · Like · 1
Mohsin Saghir i shared many more hadiths, so check others if u can’t find one of them.
19 hours ago · Like · 1
Ali Abbas Taj The Bukhari also changes within editions so let us not fight about it, the point is to debunk the hadeeth that degrade the prophet.
13 hours ago · Like · 1
Najmul Hasan Muslims ahh !!!! Imam Zainul Abideen said: Our friends have given us great pain,by unveiling our secrets before the time. Even if they had taken meat from our body and have rosted and have presented us to eat it woudnt have pain that much: .
Danish Tahir I agree with you on this account and I really pray for such people who dont even have minds to think, what are they doing..
Moreover I would like to add, these people here are not representing any school of thought, Its all their personal statements and views…
· Like · 1
Danish Tahir Mohsin Saghir, if two hadeths that u have posted have been proved to be misquoted by you, then i don’t think, i m in need to check others because i won’t be able to believe anything u ll posting from now and onwards.
10 hours ago · Like
Habib Basravi This has been a very interesting discussion. In my opinion there will never be a better time to bring illogical narrations and ahadiths to surface and try to reason it’s authenticity and inner meanings. I am a follower of the Marjah from Iran/Iraq so pardon my biases. I believe Islamic jurisprudence to be best understood and applied by the Marjah’s in Iran and Iraq. I have a source (A student of the Marjah in Qum for the last 12 yrs). I would like to invite him to review the discussions above.
5 hours ago via mobile · Like · 1
Habib Basravi The time is right to bring all such ahadiths up for discussion. I think we have a good mix of educated people in this thread. So what could go wrong. We could beg to differ.
My humblest suggestions to those who have not read the Nahjul Balagha. Please do so, pick just a few sermons and a couple of letters. See if you will not walk away with awe. These are letters and sermons written by none other than Imam Ali (a.s). The Cousin and son in law of our Holy Prophet (PBUH). For iPhone users there is an app for Nahjul Balagha.
5 hours ago via mobile · Like · 1
Sabah Hasan I have cross checked the references given by Mohsin Saghir and found most of the quoted blasphemous ‘ahadeeth’ present in Sahih Bukhari.
I respect the prerogative of those who wish to reject the existence of this blasphemy against the Holy Prophet (sawas) in the primary source i.e. Sahih Bukhari without needing to check its existence. Perhaps they will also be as magnanimous when such material is quoted by the likes of Rajpal, Rushdie or Terry Jones.
Dehshat gardon ki list me, Dr. Ali Raza, Muntizar Imam, Dr. Zulqarnain, Khomani ka naam bhi shamil karlain, jinho ne Ahlesunnat ka bedregh Qatl-e-Aam kia.
I do not understand, that why liberal shias such as this writer can not get out of there shia biased. They try to justify and promote shia agendas. If you think there is no extremism in shai Islam than you are ignorant and blind. I am unable to find any shai so far who is liberal about shiaism. All the sectarian problems are not just funded by Arabs but also Persians. They are supporting and promoting sunnie genocides and they are totally crazy about Ali and his family. They actually worship Ali and his family. They are so extreme that they want to eat the stool of Imam to save their selves from hell fire. They use knives on little babies to morn for Hussain. They act like total crazy and blind when it comes to their rituals. You might want to see what do they say about certain things.
Ibn Babawaih al-Qummi reports the following Hadith in his book “Manlaa Yahdurhul-Faqeeh” (For Him Who Has No Access to A Scholar):
“His (the Imam’s) feces are far better smelling than the fragnance of musk.” [Reported by Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Sa’eed al-Kufi who narrated from Ali b. al-Hasan b. Fidaal, from his father from Abul-Hasan Ali b. Musa al-Ridha] Source: “Manlaa Yahdurhul-Faqeeh” (For Him Who Has No Access to A Scholar), vol.4, page 418, narration # 5914
And we also read what Grand Ayatollah Akhond Mulla Zainul-Abideen al-Galbaigani wrote in his book “Anwaar al-Wilayah”:
فليس في بول المعصومين ودمائهم وأبوالهم وغائطهم استخباث و قذارة يوجب الاجتناب في الصلاة ونحوها كما هو معنى النجاسة ، ولا نتن في بولهم وغائطهم بـل هـــمــا كالمــسك الأذفـــــــر ، بــــــــــل مــــن شـــــرب بولهم وغائطهم ودمهم يـــــحـرم الله عليه الـــنــار واســتــوجــب دخول الجنّة
“There’s nothing (impure) in the urine of the infallibles: their blood, urine and feces (are free of) any filth or dirtiness…nor there is any stink in their urine or feces, rather both are like the Musk. Nay, (in fact) whoever drinks and eat their urine, feces and blood, Allah forbids fire on him, and cause him to enter paradise…the urine and feces of the Imams doesn’t carry impurities or stench, but they are like musk, and whoever drank their urine and feces and their blood, Allah will make Hell fire Haram on them and their admission to Heaven becomes must.” (Anwaar al-Wilayah, p.440)
In the most reliable Shia book of Hadith, Al-Kafi, we read the following:
Abu Jafar said: “For the Imam there are 10 signs: He is born pure and circumcized….and if he farts the smell is of musk.” (Al-Kafi 1/319 Book of Hujja – Chapter on Birth of Imam)
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