18, April 2016
Pakistan’s blasphemy law
Last Monday, the Islamic scholar, Arafat Mazhar, gave an
interesting talk at Stanford University to clarify Pakistan’s blasphemy law.
Mazhar has been on a personal crusade to educate the
public on how the law has been hijacked and misinterpreted by self-styled imams
to suit their own political agendas. Much to his amazement he discovered that
the much revered imam in Pakistan who is responsible for the current
interpretation of blasphemy, is not versed in Arabic, and could not therefore
accurately interpret the original texts. It appears that in an effort to
encourage group thought and create mortal fear for doubters or ‘apostates
(non-believers),’ Pakistan deems a just punishment for insulting the prophet
and apostates is death. Simply stated, – you blaspheme, you die. The option of life imprisonment was made
defunct after a 1991 Federal Shariat Court judgement. According to Mazhar, the law’s original text forbade such punishment. Junaid Jamshed, a pop icon and widely heard
Islamic evangelist, went viral on the Internet, in which his remarks were
perceived as blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad and his wife, Ayesha. He
was sentenced to death but in spite of recanting in public and re-affirming his
faith his death sentence has not been overturned. If this climate of intolerance continues, there is
little hope of Pakistan surviving as a democratic society.
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