In a comment to my post about Bill Maher, M. Simon quoted the mother of one of the Paris terrorists:
Coulibaly’s mother and sisters have condemned the Paris attacks,saying they offer their ‘sincere condolences’ to the families of those killed.
‘We condemn these acts,’ they said in a statement.
‘We absolutely do not share these extreme ideas. We hope there will not be any confusion between these odious acts and the Muslim religion.’
This is a familiar refrain, and one that I — and most civilized people — want to believe.
The fact is, the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful people who want to get along with other people (including infidels like Christians, Jews, Pagans, or even atheists).
But concerns have been voiced about Islam having too much what Glenn Reynolds mentions as a possible “branding problem.” There are moderate Muslims who have plenty of good will, but is that enough?
What troubles me is that to a certain extent, the branding problem may emanate from the very source of Islam itself: the Koran and the words and actions of the Prophet.
If we look at the Paris attacks as an example, the murderers (whom I am sure believe themselves to be executioners rather than murderers) believed that the cartoonists had committed the crime of blasphemy, by insulting the Prophet. The idea that anyone who insults the Prophet deserves death is hardly a radical idea in Islam.
It is mainstream.
And you don’t even have to draw a cartoon to be guilty. In at least 13 countries, merely being an atheist merits the death penalty. Atheism, of course, denies the existence of Allah, the truth of the Koran, and any legitimacy of leadership by the Prophet, so it is definitely insulting and or annoying.
Punishing such insults and annoyances with death is grounded in the words of the Koran and the personal example of the Prophet.
I think that this passage from the Koran is a problem for Islam’s branding image:
Those who annoy Allah and His Messenger – Allah has cursed them in this World and in the Hereafter, and has prepared for them a humiliating Punishment. Truly, if the Hypocrites, and those in whose hearts is a disease, and those who stir up sedition in the City, desist not, We shall certainly stir thee up against them: Then will they not be able to stay in it as thy neighbours for any length of time: They shall have a curse on them: whenever they are found, they shall be seized and slain (without mercy).
At the risk of sounding blasphemous, the above might cause many people to wonder whether the Prophet himself would have approved of what the Kouachi brothers did in Paris.
So yes, there is a branding problem. Not only do moderate Muslims need to speak up more loudly, but there needs to be massive reform.
Especially in those many countries where the French journalists would have been sentenced to death.
Comments
10 responses to “Can we clear up “any confusion between these odious acts and the Muslim religion”?”
Thanks!
Islam is badly in need of a reformation. Trouble is who ever would lead it would HAVE to be killed by those “true” to the faith.
Branding problem? Death for apostasy pretty much insures that the brand of Islam sticks to one’s hide all too well. 🙂
Branding problem? If only. The problem is religion qua religion. Didn’t Christianity have the same, ah, problem a few centuries back? And how about those Sikh terrorists in Kashmir and the Buddhists in Burma? What was Soviet Communism but a religion of death camps and slave labor?
You are much too forgiving, Eric. How many more attacks should we wait for their moment of reformation? A proper solution to the 1200 year Muslim campaign of terror and death is to wipe the world clean of it. Give the bastards what they preach – destruction and death.
Would they say they were sorry if they lived in a moslem country?Remember arab street reaction cheering when they heard about 9-11 until their governments told them to stop cheering or else.
Unless one is Moslem, calling Mohammud “the Prophet” seems incorrect. He is not a prophet for Christians, Jews, etc.
“The fact is, the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful people who want to get along with other people”
What evidence is there for that? The so-called moderates do nothing to stop the violence and frequently celebrate it when it happens. They give aid and comfort to the jihad. They lie repeatedly about what Islam actually teaches and its history. Just because they don’t kill you themselves doesn’t mean they tolerate a pluralistic society. Their tendency to isolate themselves in Muslim enclaves and keep non-Muslims out attests to the proposition that they in fact want Islamic supremacy, not co-existence.
Mohammud himself did far worse. He regularly used intimidation and terror and wrote it into the Quaran.
Just a few samples…
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/023-violence.htm
In Pakistan the murderers who shot up France were celebrated by some as avengers of the Prophet.
OC wrote;
“Unless one is Moslem, calling Mohammud “the Prophet” seems incorrect. ”
Indeed. I prefer the appellation Fuckhead Mohammed aka Allah’s Left Testicle.
I don’t consider the phrase “the Prophet” to be a statement that I consider Muhammad “the” prophet, or even “a” prophet (of which there are many more). It reflects a title bestowed on him by Muslims and in that sense is simply a descriptor, not my opinion. Saying “Jesus Christ” does not mean whoever says that considers Jesus to be “The Anointed One.” Or that the Buddha is “The Enlightened One.”
Moreover, in the context of discussing “insulting the Prophet,” it would have been awkward and time consuming phraseology to call him anything else. The Prophet is the way he is referenced in the Koran, so I went with that, because my argument is with the text.
I suppose some quotation marks around “the Prophet” might have been in order, but it seems a little busy.