“O’ Beloved freedom! How many crimes committed in your name!” said Madam Rolan. Freedom doesn’t mean stripping others from their dignity, honor and standing, neither it mean aggression on the others’ rights, religions and holiness, by mocking and sarcasm. If your concept of freedom includes all the above, then you are in a dire need to reassess your thoughts and creed, because you are mixing up concepts and meanings of right and wrong.
You are contaminating high values with your mean deeds, by equating mocking with freedom, and by equating the word of “freedom” with the word of “sarcasm”. You should wipe out the word “freedom” from you dictionary, replacing it with words like “mocking or sarcasm”, or any other words that bear the meanings of evil and injustice, letting mankind know your real intentions, so we can preserve the real meaning of freedom without deformation as what happened to you.
If you revise your bible – which we believe in as Muslims except for some distortions, as we believe in Jesus and all prophets – you will find commandments that prohibit taking the word “freedom” as an excuse to commit evil and injustice: “For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.” [Peter1 2:16,17] How can your newspaper commit such a crime of mocking of the Muslims’ sacred beliefs, and mocking of the prophets of God under the cloak of liberty; isn’t that what your bible warned of?
And even if you don’t believe in Muhammad [PBUH] as a prophet, then where is the right of others concerning not defamation of their religions and sacred beliefs?, and where is the right of Muslims that live in your country? While the bible is calling you: “And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself”. [Leviticus 19: 33,34], “Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow. And all the people shall say, Amen.” [Deuteronomy 27:19].
Is it justified to you to abandon all what your religion imposed upon you under the cloak of liberty? What we understood from these commandments is that you can not give yourself the right of mocking Islam under the cloak of liberty, that is because making mock of others is evil and injustice, and that is what these commandments warned of. If you deny these commandments and what it entails, then you must announce that you are not committed to the bible and don’t believe in its teachings.
But let me be frank with you that what you did wasn’t really out of liberty as you say. If you search in your heart a little bit you would find that you committed this crime out of two reasons:
1. Complete ignorance of what you mocked of, so I invite you to learn about Islam and know its teachings and basis, and to read the fair books about prophet Muhammad [PBUH]. I am completely convinced that if you be fair enough with yourselves you will know what crime you committed, and what injustice you perpetrated. If you don’t believe in Islam and not convinced of what it teaches, at least be fair enough in your dealing with religions and sacred beliefs of other people. Sure you want other people to deal with you in fairness, and it is the recommendation of the bible as it says: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” [Matthew 7:12].
2. The second reason of your crime, from my point of view, is blind fanaticism against Muslims, which has been so deeply rooted in your culture that became a major element of your collective psychology, based on extreme, fanatic and misleading writings published in the west about Islam and Muslims. These writings always hide the truth, blind the hearts, and conceal the last revelation of God to mankind, that was revealed to prophet Muhammad [PBUH], and deprive people from their right of knowing and reading it, although God is talking to you with the name “people of the book”, and invite you to believe in Islam: (O People of the Book ! there indeed has come to you Our Messenger, after a break in the series of Messengers, who makes things clear to you lest you should say, `There has come to us no bearer of glad tidings and no Warner.’ So a bearer of glad tidings and a warner has indeed come to you. And ALLAH has power over all things.) [Ma’eda:19], (Say, `O People of the Book, exceed not the limits in the matter of your religion unjustly, nor follow the low desires of a people who went astray before and caused many to go astray, and who have strayed away from the right path.’ ) [Ma’eda:77]
I don’t know how the blind fanaticism so concealed your minds that a well-known newspaper like yours strayed far away from the scientific methods of dealing with this matter, even gone beyond the justice with the “other”. Can your newspaper mock the Holocaust? If you claim that your cartoons go under the banner of “freedom of express” then prove that by mocking the Holocaust in Nazi Germany or other crimes that prohibited by your law.
Even if you did so, there is a big difference between mocking and criticism, a long way between criticizing something that you don’t agree with in a scientific method, and between using criticism as a tool of mocking and insulting others. How can you let yourself mire in this swamp?
Criticism is not a crime in Islam, nor there is a suppression in practicing it.. but what kind of criticism? It is the wise criticism that is widely accepted between rational people, that is based upon scientific steps, and a logic rules, in an atmosphere of justice and good argument. Islam can’t accept a criticism based on immoral rules, or criticism that doesn’t aim for truth , or even those which is based on ignorance and mocking and lying, that mislead the people, and stray them away from the truth. That is what your Bible warned of: “Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue.” [Psalms 120:2], “The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright: but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness.” [Proverbs 15:2].
If you or others have a problem in criticizing or understanding Islam, then you may put it forth for discussion and scientific research, and open your newspaper for Muslim scholars to reveal to you what you didn’t understand and discuss your criticism
You are contaminating high values with your mean deeds, by equating mocking with freedom, and by equating the word of “freedom” with the word of “sarcasm”. You should wipe out the word “freedom” from you dictionary, replacing it with words like “mocking or sarcasm”, or any other words that bear the meanings of evil and injustice, letting mankind know your real intentions, so we can preserve the real meaning of freedom without deformation as what happened to you.
If you revise your bible – which we believe in as Muslims except for some distortions, as we believe in Jesus and all prophets – you will find commandments that prohibit taking the word “freedom” as an excuse to commit evil and injustice: “For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.” [Peter1 2:16,17] How can your newspaper commit such a crime of mocking of the Muslims’ sacred beliefs, and mocking of the prophets of God under the cloak of liberty; isn’t that what your bible warned of?
And even if you don’t believe in Muhammad [PBUH] as a prophet, then where is the right of others concerning not defamation of their religions and sacred beliefs?, and where is the right of Muslims that live in your country? While the bible is calling you: “And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself”. [Leviticus 19: 33,34], “Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow. And all the people shall say, Amen.” [Deuteronomy 27:19].
Is it justified to you to abandon all what your religion imposed upon you under the cloak of liberty? What we understood from these commandments is that you can not give yourself the right of mocking Islam under the cloak of liberty, that is because making mock of others is evil and injustice, and that is what these commandments warned of. If you deny these commandments and what it entails, then you must announce that you are not committed to the bible and don’t believe in its teachings.
But let me be frank with you that what you did wasn’t really out of liberty as you say. If you search in your heart a little bit you would find that you committed this crime out of two reasons:
1. Complete ignorance of what you mocked of, so I invite you to learn about Islam and know its teachings and basis, and to read the fair books about prophet Muhammad [PBUH]. I am completely convinced that if you be fair enough with yourselves you will know what crime you committed, and what injustice you perpetrated. If you don’t believe in Islam and not convinced of what it teaches, at least be fair enough in your dealing with religions and sacred beliefs of other people. Sure you want other people to deal with you in fairness, and it is the recommendation of the bible as it says: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” [Matthew 7:12].
2. The second reason of your crime, from my point of view, is blind fanaticism against Muslims, which has been so deeply rooted in your culture that became a major element of your collective psychology, based on extreme, fanatic and misleading writings published in the west about Islam and Muslims. These writings always hide the truth, blind the hearts, and conceal the last revelation of God to mankind, that was revealed to prophet Muhammad [PBUH], and deprive people from their right of knowing and reading it, although God is talking to you with the name “people of the book”, and invite you to believe in Islam: (O People of the Book ! there indeed has come to you Our Messenger, after a break in the series of Messengers, who makes things clear to you lest you should say, `There has come to us no bearer of glad tidings and no Warner.’ So a bearer of glad tidings and a warner has indeed come to you. And ALLAH has power over all things.) [Ma’eda:19], (Say, `O People of the Book, exceed not the limits in the matter of your religion unjustly, nor follow the low desires of a people who went astray before and caused many to go astray, and who have strayed away from the right path.’ ) [Ma’eda:77]
I don’t know how the blind fanaticism so concealed your minds that a well-known newspaper like yours strayed far away from the scientific methods of dealing with this matter, even gone beyond the justice with the “other”. Can your newspaper mock the Holocaust? If you claim that your cartoons go under the banner of “freedom of express” then prove that by mocking the Holocaust in Nazi Germany or other crimes that prohibited by your law.
Even if you did so, there is a big difference between mocking and criticism, a long way between criticizing something that you don’t agree with in a scientific method, and between using criticism as a tool of mocking and insulting others. How can you let yourself mire in this swamp?
Criticism is not a crime in Islam, nor there is a suppression in practicing it.. but what kind of criticism? It is the wise criticism that is widely accepted between rational people, that is based upon scientific steps, and a logic rules, in an atmosphere of justice and good argument. Islam can’t accept a criticism based on immoral rules, or criticism that doesn’t aim for truth , or even those which is based on ignorance and mocking and lying, that mislead the people, and stray them away from the truth. That is what your Bible warned of: “Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue.” [Psalms 120:2], “The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright: but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness.” [Proverbs 15:2].
If you or others have a problem in criticizing or understanding Islam, then you may put it forth for discussion and scientific research, and open your newspaper for Muslim scholars to reveal to you what you didn’t understand and discuss your criticism
Hijri Date Correction:
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