On Faith: Blasphemy a Problem for Abrahamic Faiths
Minneapolis, MN (January 6, 2009) - As a regularly featured blogger on the Washington Post/Newsweek's "On Faith" blog, Dr. Aseem Shukla, member of HAF's Board of Directors, has the opportunity to provide a Hindu viewpoint on various issues. Below is Dr. Shukla's latest blog. Please post your comments directly on the "On Faith" site by
clicking here.
Q: Atheists are others are protesting a new law in Ireland, under which a person can be found guilty of blasphemy if "he or she publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion." The penalty is a fine of up to about $35,000. Should Ireland or any nation have a law against blasphemy?
The flap over an absurd and retrograde anti-blasphemy law proposed in Ireland provides a timely occasion to conceptually explore blasphemy itself. Blasphemy, an Abrahamic construct, has held primacy in different eras of religious traditions. The Jews may have paid heed to Leviticus 24:16 stating that those who speak blasphemy "shall surely be put to death" by stoning, and Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century considered blasphemy to be a crime more grave than murder. But when there would be no agreement as to the defnition of blasphemy for those traditions today, where does the question of legislating against it even arise?
While the Enlightenment of the 18th Century may have sparked a trend to render laws against blasphemy an anachronimsm, that rebirth and reexamination is yet to begin in force in Islam. While the Jewish state and nominally Christian states are mostly democratic bastions that revel in freedom of speech, the strictures of Sharia provide no such protections in Islamic states.
Salman Rushdie and the Danish cartoonist can attest, of course, that the liberty to criticize, analyze and provoke is absent not only in Saudi Arabia, Iran or Pakistan, but for the zealous legions of Islamists, blasphemy--as they define it--deserves death anywhere at anytime. Contemporary leaders of Judaism and Islam affirm that the verse of Leviticus or the words of Thomas Aquinas are not to be taken literally in its judgment of blasphemy.
Will the authoritative voices of today's Islam also speak loudly that the Qur'an similarly cannot be read as a literal document? For we know that the governments of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and many others have laws on the book derived from Surah Al-Maidah 5:33, that for those who blaspheme by attacking the Qur'an or the Prophet, the punishment shall be "execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: That is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter."
For Dharmic adherents--the Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains--the arguments are observed dispassionately. For where there is no word for blasphemy, where can there be injunctions against it? While conflicts occurred between followers of these faiths, these Indic religions have promoted debate and discussions as new schools of thought have sprouted very much as Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism sprung from their Hindu roots. Where a core concept of pluralism accepts other paths as potentially equal, divergent views are given space in the religious dialogue.
All faiths have the right to protest--assiduously so--when others take liberties with their faiths. A Danish cartoonist could have been opposed with letters to the editors, peaceful marches outside newspaper offices, meetings with the editorial board. Hindus in the U.S., for example, outraged when university professors pen salacious, pornographic Freudian analyses of Hindu Gods and Goddesses, can work with the university administration to provide the perspective of practitioners an equal voice. And publishers will respond when a book loses legitimacy and credibility.
But the rule of law must protect scholars, professors, artists and publishers. Blasphemy laws do the opposite: they empower the prejudiced, sectarian and bigoted.
Views expressed here are the personal views of Dr. Aseem Shukla, and do not necessarily represent those of the University of Minnesota or Hindu American Foundation.