#BLASPHEMOUS STORY EXPLAINED FREE#

An ally of the ulema, Zia updated blasphemy laws вЂ“ written by British colonizers to avoid interreligious conflict вЂ“ to defend specifically Sunni Islam and increased the maximum punishment to death.ДЇrom the 1920s until Zia, these laws had been applied only about a dozen times. In Pakistan, the military dictator Zia-ul-Haq, who ruled the country from 1978 to 1988, is responsible for its harsh blasphemy laws. Denmark, Ireland and Malta all recently repealed their laws.Д«ut they persist in many parts of the Muslim world. During the Spanish Inquisition, between the 16th and 18th centuries, thousands of people were tortured and killed for apostasy.Д«lasphemy laws were also in place, if infrequently used, in various European countries until recently.

#BLASPHEMOUS STORY EXPLAINED FREE#

These governments assaulted free thinking, too. Parts of Western Europe were ruled by a similar alliance between the Catholic Church and monarchs. In these regimes, questioning religious orthodoxy and political authority wasnвЂ™t merely dissent вЂ“ it was apostasy. This вЂњulema-state alliance,вЂќ as I call it, began in the mid-11th century in Central Asia, Iran and Iraq, and a century later spread to Syria, Egypt and North Africa. Their followers, Ghazali wrote, could be punished with death.ДЄs modern-day historians Omid Safi and Frank Griffel assert, GhazaliвЂ™s declaration provided justification to Muslim sultans from the 12th century onward who wished to persecute вЂ“ even execute вЂ“ thinkers seen as threats to conservative religious rule. In several influential books still widely read today, Ghazali declared two long-dead leading Muslim philosophers, Farabi and Ibn Sina, as apostates for their unorthodox views on GodвЂ™s power and the nature of resurrection. The most prominent in consolidating Sunni orthodoxy was the respected Islamic scholar Ghazali, who died in the year 1111. The conservative ulema felt that these philosophers were inappropriately influenced by Greek philosophy and Shiite Islam against Sunni beliefs. They developed the Arabic number system used across the West today and invented a forerunner of the modern camera. Muslim philosophers had for three centuries been making major contributions to mathematics, physics and medicine.

Starting around the year 1050, certain Sunni scholars of law and theology, called the вЂњulema,вЂќ began working closely with political rulers to challenge what they considered to be the sacrilegious influence of Muslim philosophers on society. My 2019 book вЂњ Islam, Authoritarianism, and UnderdevelopmentвЂќ traces the root of blasphemy and apostasy laws in the Muslim world back to a historic alliance between Islamic scholars and government. STR/AFP via Getty Images The ulema and the state According to a 2013 Pew survey, about 75% of respondents in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia favor making sharia, or Islamic law, the official law of the land.ДЄmong those who support sharia, around 25% in Southeast Asia, 50% in the Middle East and North Africa, and 75% in South Asia say they support вЂњexecuting those who leave IslamвЂќ вЂ“ that is, they support laws punishing apostasy with death.ДЇirefighters in a factory torched by an angry mob in Jhelum, Pakistan, after one of the factoryвЂ™s employees was accused of desecrating the Quran, Nov.

This class of religious laws is quite popular in some Muslim countries. Apostasy is often charged along with blasphemy. All countries with apostasy laws are Muslim-majority except India. Half of the worldвЂ™s 49 Muslim-majority countries have additional laws banning apostasy, meaning people may be punished for leaving Islam. Among non-Muslim-majority cases, the harshest blasphemy laws are in Italy, where the maximum penalty is three years in prison. Punishment and enforcement of these laws vary.Д«lasphemy is punishable by death in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Brunei, Mauritania and Saudi Arabia. Of 71 countries that criminalize blasphemy, 32 are majority Muslim. Though Bibi was acquitted in 2019, she fled Pakistan. Several people who defended the accused were killed, too, including one of HafeezвЂ™s lawyers and two high-level politicians who publicly opposed the death sentence of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman convicted for verbally insulting the Prophet Muhammad. But since 1990, 70 people have been murdered by mobs and vigilantes over allegations of insulting Islam.

Blasphemous story explained