Egyptian Imam Calls for Worldwide Religious Tyranny

Is Islam compatible with democracy and freedom? The answer to this should be 'yes,' but when top Muslim religious leaders call for worldwide tyranny on the basis of religious sensibilities, it's difficult to regard that answer as sufficient. On the contrary, 'no' becomes a stronger response, especially given the failure of moderate Muslims to offer vocal disagreement.

Christianity Today reports:

Grand Imam Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi of al-Azhar University, the world’s highest Sunni Muslim seat of learning, said the Danish prime minister must apologise for the drawings and further demanded that the world’s religious leaders, including him and Pope Benedict XVI, meet to write a law that “condemns insulting any religion, including the Holy Scriptures and the prophets.”

He said the United Nation should impose the law on all countries.

Is Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi an idiot? It’s hard to think that he could be an intelligent, learned man if he really believes first, that a country’s leader can or should apologize for the actions of any of that nation’s citizens and, second, that the United Nations has the power or authority to impose any laws on all countries. I really have to wonder about the intellectual standards at al-Azhar University if someone can become a “Grand Imam” there and still manage to think or say such things.

All that is merely a sideshow, however, to the real problem in his statements: Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi believes that it should be a crime to “insult” a religion, religious scriptures, or religious figures. Who will decide whether a religion or religious figure has been insulted? What if religious believers have different reactions to what I say — what if some find what I say insulting, but others simply regard me as annoying and not guilty of creating insult? How can the courts privilege the reaction of certain Muslims or Buddhists over the reactions of others?

And why stop at religions and religious figures? Why should deceased religious figures like Muhammad be singled out for special protection but not deceased political figures like George Washington, or deceased philosophical figures like Karl Marx? Why should religions like Islam be singled out for special protection, but not secular philosophies like Marxism or Existentialism? There’s no precedent for this in American law, that’s for sure, and it would be difficult to defend in most Western nations.

It’s possible that Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi thinks that people like him should be in charge of deciding what should be protected and what qualifies as an insult. Of course, this is a man who thinks that the UN has the power and authority to impose laws on all nations, so I wouldn’t trust his ability to render fair or reasonable judgments about anything. He and people like him are only making these demands because they lack the political power to enforce their desires — and, ultimately, their desires are little more than a form of religious bullying. The Hackney Gazette accurately observes:

[W]e are now in a position where we have to think more carefully about offending Muslims than any other religious group because their reaction is going to be that much more extreme. So, instead of considering someone’s feelings, it becomes a case of not exercising free expression, opinion or even indulging in comedy out of fear of the consequences.

This time it’s over a cartoon in Denmark, last time it was a play in Birmingham - but the modus operandi was the same, lots of shouting and threats.

In any other culture that would be classed as persecution.

Bullying is the tactic adopted by the fearful and the impotent. Bullies are unable to relate to their peers in civil, civilized, and normal ways. They don’t know how to resolve disagreements peacefully. The are unwilling to accept the fact that not everything always goes their way. Bullies use force, fear, and intimidation to get their way because they are afraid, deep down where they won’t even admit it to themselves, that they cannot achieve respect and acceptance on their own merits — so they are willing to settle for fear instead of respect.

The Muslims calling for the butchering and beheading of those who insult Islam are petty bullies. Muslims calling for worldwide tyranny on the basis of religion are also bullies. Not all Muslims believe this, but do they matter? Given their relative silence, I’d have to say “no.” Moderate and liberal Muslims exist and this must be acknowledged, but existing is not the same as mattering.

On a political, social, and religious level, they only “matter” if they have influence and can make a difference. Right now, they have no apparent influence and aren’t making any clear difference. The extremists and bullies are the ones with the influence and the one’s making a difference. The extremists and bullies are the public, international face of Islam right now. Moderate and liberal Muslims are, for all practical intents and purposes, irrelevant. They exist, but they might as well not exist for all the difference they make in their own community.

 

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