An alleged quip about the Prophet's penis led to torture and 13-years in jail in Saudi Arabia.
Brian Whitaker
Hadi Saeed al-Mutif grew up in the countryside in southern Saudi Arabia and at the age of 18 started training to become a policeman. Two months into his training, Hadi had gathered with other recruits for afternoon prayers, as required by the rules. "Let us pray upon the Prophet .." the Imam said - at which point Hadi allegedly quipped: "... and upon his penis".
A couple of his fellow recruits reported Hadi to the authorities at the training centre and he was ordered to stand under the Saudi flag for two hours as a punishment.
That might have been the end of the matter, except that a military inspector happened to be visiting at the time. Instead, this silly incident set in motion a train of events which is still continuing after almost 13 years, involving every level of Saudi Arabia's Byzantine justice system and even reaching the ears of the king.
Read on...
Makes you grateful for the freedom to tell the joke about Jesus saying "I can see your house from here..."
17 comments:
Just scrolled down and read 2 unbelievable comments:
Terl
Comment No. 212963
September 14 13:06
Excellent propganda piece. Your training in being unbiased is working. Your pro Israel stance is hardly showing in your latest articles. People that did not know your history would think you were unbiased.
My opinion on the piece? Those Saudi's are angels. Look at how well they treated that man for saying the blasphemous things he did.
What happens if someone stands up and says "A jewish person blah blah blah? David Irving, a 70 year old British subject, was left to rot in jail in Austria by the British Government. The British government abandoned one of their citizens, a 70 year old man, because he said things that make jewish people unhappy.
But it is those terrible Saudis that are the real bad guys.
This man went to jail for insulting God. That is a serious thing. Are Jews "God" to the British people? You get the same treatment in Britain speaking about jewish people as you do in Saudi Arabia speaking about God.
Or-----------------
We could talk about Afghanistan or Iraq or Lebanon. Did any of those muslim men who were murdered by the invaders even receive a trial? The man in this story did the worst thing in the world, insulted God, and he went to jail and got psychiatric treatment.
Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, and all over the world now that George Bush has confessed to running torture prisons, are picked up for looking muslim, jailed, and tortured.
Who is worse?
A Saudi man insults God. God. And goes to jail and gets psychiatric care.
A muslim anywhere in the world, doing nothing but looking muslim, is kidnapped and tortured for months. He might die or he might not. If he dies, no one will ever know. If he doesn't he will be ruined for life by the torture of the white people holding him captive.
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Brian. Give it up. You cannot propagandize against people who are no worse and perhaps better than the people you are working for. Ever word you write can be turned around and used against the people you work for. This can be done only because it is the white people who are engaged in the worse behavior.
ProfessorKSIA
Comment No. 213142
September 14 15:02
Sir........hats off to TERL who is on a similar moral level to many other decent individuals and me. This sick pervert crossed the red line by a mile and broke Saudi law by his yobbish insulting behaviour. The punishment he has received is light in comparison to his crime.
All those posting on this article who are damming the Saudi' and Muslims should look at the state of youth culture in the west and in particularly in the UK to see how liberal debauched attitudes have lead to a society that values nothing but the immoral. Drink /drug abuse, sexual perverseness, no respect for truth, no respect for other people etc have lead to a godless zombie race. Why criticise those who have no need for such filth to fill their meaningless empty lives.
As for the Saudi pervert his penalty should be according to Islam teachings - nothing more nothing less.
Those comments are satirical, right? RIGHT???!!!
If only.
1. Are there any non-angry Muslims out there?
2. Why is offending the Muslim Brotherhood (the original Islamist group) a bad thing?
Muslim anger grows at Pope speech
BBC News
15/09/06
A statement from the Vatican has failed to quell criticism of Pope Benedict XVI from Muslim leaders, after he made a speech about the concept of holy war. Speaking in Germany, the Pope quoted a 14th Century Christian emperor who said Muhammad had brought the world only "evil and inhuman" things. The head of the Muslim Brotherhood said the Pope's remarks "aroused the anger of the whole Islamic world".
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In his speech at Regensburg University, the German-born Pope explored the historical and philosophical differences between Islam and Christianity, and the relationship between violence and faith. Stressing that they were not his own words, he quoted Emperor Manual II Paleologos of the Byzantine Empire, the Orthodox Christian empire which had its capital in what is now the Turkish city of Istanbul. The emperor's words were, he said: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
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Sheikh Youssef al-Qardawi, a prominent Muslim cleric in Qatar, rejected the Pope's comments, in remarks reported by Reuters. "Muslims have the right to be angry and hurt by these comments from the highest cleric in Christianity," Mr Qardawi reportedly said. "We ask the Pope to apologise to the Muslim nation for insulting its religion, its Prophet and its beliefs."
Here's an interesting comment I found on the thread to this Samizdata blog. It saved me making the same point.
"...appeared to link Islam and violence. ... As Muslims all over the world protested, with effigies of Benedict XVI burnt during demonstrations...."
How do people keep making that link? It can't be the worldwide protests every time someone says boo. It can't be the burning effigies (or burning cars, or burning embassies, or burning women's faces). It can't be the last pope was, you know, shot by a Muslim. It has to just be our racism. Our completely unreasonable Western racism.
There was a good comment on the radio this morning, when some guy summed up this Pope thing as "Nazi offends bigots, who cares?". Anyway apparently the Pope is back in the Muslim Brotherhood's good books, so that's all right then. No doubt Hamas will be apologising soon for the attacks on churches in the West Bank too. Oh and Allah forbid anyone sould associate Islam and terrorism, as Musharraf fears.
Pope sorry for offending Muslims
BBC News
17/09/06
Pope Benedict XVI has apologised in person for causing offence to Muslims in a speech in Bavaria last week. He said the medieval text which he quoted did not express in any way his personal opinion, adding the speech was an invitation to respectful dialogue. ... Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood described the Pope's remarks as a "sufficient apology".
The Pope appeared on the balcony at his residence at Castel Gandolfo outside Rome for the Angelus blessing on Sunday. ... "I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims," he told pilgrims. ... "These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought. "I hope this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with mutual respect."
Hours before the Pope spoke, two churches in the West Bank were attacked with firebombs in what was believed to be a reaction to the Bavaria speech. And in the Somali capital Mogadishu, an Italian nun was shot dead by gunmen. The shooting may have been connected to strong criticism of the speech by a radical Somali cleric.
... In his speech at Regensburg University on Tuesday, the German-born Pope quoted Emperor Manuel II Paleologos of the Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire.
Stressing that they were not his own words, he quoted the emperor saying: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." He also said violence was "incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul".
Reactions to the speech came from such leaders as Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who said efforts to link Islam and terrorism should be clearly opposed. Street protests were held in Pakistan, India, Turkey and Gaza.
Brilliant from Liddle.
The Pope should have been aware that Islam always reacts to western allegations that it is not a peaceful religion by mass outbreaks of vituperation, denunciation and acts of jihadic violence. That this is a paradox seems not to be even remotely recognised by many Muslims. Commenting on the Pope’s speech, Tasnim Aslam, a spokeswoman for the Pakistani foreign ministry, came out with this little piece of doublethink beauty: “Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence.”
You've said sorry, Holy Father - now demand a price
The Sunday Times Comment
by Rod Liddle
September 17, 2006
The Muslim world is in ferment, or even more ferment than usual, as a result of a speech given by Pope Benedict XVI at Regensburg University. Ben took a swipe at the notion that Islam is an inherently peaceable, easy-going, happy-go-lucky credo with a core philosophy that proclaims hey, why not live and let live, huh? Rather, he let slip: “Everything Muhammad brought was evil and inhuman,” which has an agreeably crusading, unequivocal ring to it, I think you’ll agree. He was quoting — as you will be aware — the 14th-century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus and in doing so invoked outpourings of loathing from Jakarta to Jeddah.
You can bet your life that by the time you read this, some Catholic priest toiling away in a godforsaken, dusty hellhole — Sudan, perhaps, or Turkey — will have been smacked about a bit, or had his church burnt down or been arrested without charge. The Pope should have been aware that Islam always reacts to western allegations that it is not a peaceful religion by mass outbreaks of vituperation, denunciation and acts of jihadic violence.
That this is a paradox seems not to be even remotely recognised by many Muslims. Commenting on the Pope’s speech, Tasnim Aslam, a spokeswoman for the Pakistani foreign ministry, came out with this little piece of doublethink beauty: “Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence.”
The murderous Muslim Brotherhood was the first out of the blocks, demanding that all Islamic countries cut their ties with the Vatican.
The “liberal and moderate” Islamic scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi (pro death penalty for homosexuals, female circumcision, suicide bombings against Jews and other similarly tolerant stuff) has insisted the Pope must apologise. Soon the placards will be out, the effigies, the foam-flecked demonstrators and attacks by adolescent suicidal nutters.
Pope Benedict is due to visit Turkey quite soon, but this trip has been placed in jeopardy by his gentle reminder that Islam has had a tendency to gain converts through violence. There have been demands from Ankara that he should apologise if he wishes to set foot on Turkish soil.
A subtle and astute politician, perhaps Benedict should apologise for having caused offence — and then demand by way of reciprocation that Turkey — Islam’s democratic representative in the West — return to Christian denominations the land it has confiscated from them, allow the Christian churches to open seminaries (which they are barred from doing), make it easier to build new churches, and lock up Turks who terrorise priests. And maybe allow Turks to convert from Islam to Christianity without fear of official or unofficial reprisal. A fair exchange?
Here's the relevant section of the Pope's speech for anyone interested to read for themselves what caused all the fuss:
In this lecture I would like to discuss only one point -- itself rather marginal to the dialogue itself -- which, in the context of the issue of "faith and reason," I found interesting and which can serve as the starting point for my reflections on this issue.
In the seventh conversation ("diálesis" -- controversy) edited by professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the jihad (holy war). The emperor must have known that sura 2:256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion." It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under [threat]. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Koran, concerning holy war.
Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels," he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably ("syn logo") is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats.... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...."
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: Not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practice idolatry.
As far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we find ourselves faced with a dilemma which nowadays challenges us directly. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true?
You can find the full speech here.
Incidently, the Pope has apologised for any offence caused by the quotation but has not retracted the question he asked in the speech about the role of violence in Islam.
I think the BBC's reporting of this story has been a bit misleading. The BBC writes that 'the Pope apologised in person for causing offence to Muslims'. This is what the Pope actually said:
"I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address ... which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims," the pontiff said.
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He stressed that the passages were taken from a medieval text which did not "in any way" reflect his personal thoughts.
"I hope that this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect," he added.
So, the Pope has expressed regret at the way his speech was interpreted but he hasn't (as the BBC reported) apologised.
I have the strong feeling that it is impossible to be any kind of fundamentalist AND have a sense of irony.
Maybe security personnel at airports should test for irony?
Pope Benedict Criticizes Islam
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
September 19, 2006
Peter Hitchens (brother of Christopher) on the Pope controversy:
Nearly as bad as the manufactured rage over the Pope's lecture has been the liberal media's coverage of the issue. Every time I heard it under discussion on the BBC or Sky TV, the presenters seemed to have entirely accepted that the Bishop of Rome (as we traditional Anglicans call him, noting in the splendid Article 37 that he 'hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England' ) was in the wrong. His alleged mistake was attributed to the Pope's 'lack of experience' or the ineptitude of his advisers. They let various spokesmen and women for Islam rant away unchallenged.
If the question "What gives you the right to be so upset when Islam itself is so hostile to Christianity?" was ever asked, I didn't hear it. Did anyone else?
And then, when the Pope issued his carefully-worded statements - regretting the wrath but not regretting what he had said - it was immediately billed as an 'apology' and then trumpeted as 'the first apology by a Pope in the history of the Roman Catholic Church.'
You can imagine how much the enemies of religion enjoyed that. But it's simply not so. Read the statements. If the Pope regrets anything, it is that the main message of a subtle and clever speech ( though a very dull one) has been lost in the frenzy. His plea for reason in religion seemed to me to be, well, almost Anglican in its good, old-fashioned sense.
[...]
If any serious Muslims really were disturbed by the Pope's lecture, I suspect it was because they recognised in Joseph Ratzinger the same tough single-mindedness and determination that they themselves show. And, in a Europe where Muslims generally get what they want from weak and complacent leftist establishments, they see Joseph Ratzinger as a serious opponent in a continent of pushovers. They are right to do so.
But what of the liberals? When Islam is a stage more powerful than it is now, and begins to demand more and applications of Sharia in European cities, will they then regret their failure to stand up for the man who is in many ways best qualified to defend our open society from the veil, the Mullahs and the other things Islam brings with it? They will nor like these things when they arrive, as the Netherlands has already found.
The Left's flirtation with the Mosque is one of the oddest alliances in the history of either politics or religion. Surely it cannot last much longer? I can see why Islam is happy to take the benefits the alliance gives it. But quite how people such as Ken Livingstone justify their position, I do not know. You can pay too high a price for your votes.
You can find the full article here.
Melanie Phillips on the Pope:
The Pope’s initiative, which is continuing to produce Islamic unrest, is surely a highly significant event. It marks the point at which Christianity finally decided to fight back against the attempt to dethrone both it and the civilisation which it has inspired. The much-touted idea that a subtle and sophisticated political player such as the Pope could possibly have failed to anticipate the reaction his words would cause is clearly absurd.
The full blog entry can be found here. It's definitely worth reading the whole thing (the analysis of the Pope's strategy and the report on Home Secretary John Reid's clash with an Islamic Extremist are very interesting).
Intimidating the West, from Rushdie to Benedict
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
September 26, 2006
Hear the one about the Mozart opera with Mohammed being beheaded?
Well, no you didn't and neither can anyone else:
Mozart censor faces a backlash
By Roger Boyes
'Muhammad' opera is becoming test of how many concessions West should make
THE German Government tried yesterday to defuse an international row that erupted after a nervous opera house called off a Mozart performance because it featured the decapitated head of the Prophet Muhammad.
I think the situation is very similar to the canecellation of Bezhti. Not so much fear of offending, as fear of physical violence.
The decision to call off the performances of Idomeneo was made by Kerstin Harms, the director of the Deutsche Oper, after she read a security assessment by the Berlin police.
The report was drawn up after an anonymous tip-off from an opera-goer who saw the production in 2003. The informant told the police that the audience had reacted angrily to the sight of the decapitated head of Jesus but had slumped into an “ominous silence” when the blood-streaked head of Muhammad was held aloft.
Police saw this as a possible sign that performances could be disturbed by Islamic fanatics. Frau Harms calculated that the risk to the audience — 2,000 people can be accommodated in the opera house — and to the cast was too great.
It's a tad thorny - Steyn would probably argue that we should all be willing to die for that production to go ahead, but I'm wondering how many of us would attend if we thought there was a significant risk of injury or death.
Quick update on the opera story.
The decapitated Mohammed, Jesus and Buddha are additions by the opera director and not part of Mozart's original libretto. Doesn't change much with regard to the debate, but it does mean that the scene was self-conciously provocative rather than being something from another era that is now being viewed through a 21st century prism. However, the right to freedom of expression, however, is not (or should not be) lessened just because this is a modern interpretation. (Compare and contrast with the recent treatment of Marlowe. (First blodded in the cartoons thread.)
'In the northern city of Mosul, a priest from the Syriac Orthodox Church was kidnapped last week. His church complied with his captors’ demands and put up posters denouncing recent comments made by the pope about Islam, but he was killed anyway. The police found his beheaded body on Wednesday.
Muslim fury over Pope Benedict XVI’s public reflections on Islam in Germany a month ago — when he quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor as calling Islam “evil and inhuman” — has subsided elsewhere, but repercussions continue to reverberate in Iraq, bringing a new level of threat to an already shrinking Christian population.
Several extremist groups threatened to kill all Christians unless the pope apologized. Sunni and Shiite clerics united in the condemnation, calling the comments an insult to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. In Baghdad, many churches canceled services after receiving threats. Some have not met since.'
Full New York Times' report here.
We are in a war to the death – craven concessions won't win it
By Janet Daley
Telegraph
27/11/2006
Who would have thought it? Half of Europe – the half that was so smug about having buried God several generations ago – is waiting in real trepidation for the outcome of a theological argument. When Pope Benedict XVI flies to Turkey tomorrow, he will embody the most potentially incendiary confrontation between Islam and the West since the defeat of the Turks at Vienna in 1683 brought an end to Islamic conquest in Europe.
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To understand the life-or-death significance of what the Pope does and says when he arrives in Istanbul, it is necessary to see this confrontation for what it is. This will involve some traumatic re-adjustment for most of the opinion-forming class in Britain. The first assumption that will have to go is the premise that Islamist terrorism can be understood in pragmatic, politically rational terms: in other words, that it can be addressed with the usual mechanisms of negotiation, concession and amended policy.
The most readily accepted version of this is that a change to our policy in the Middle East will remove the grievances that "fuel" Muslim terrorism. The Cabinet has apparently been advised that all foreign policy decisions over the next decade should have the goal of thwarting terrorism in Britain and that this should involve "a significant reduction in the number and intensity of the regional conflicts that fuel terror activity". So Britain is contemplating constructing a foreign policy, specifically in the Middle East, that is designed to give in to terrorist blackmail.
Never mind that the hereditary grievance of almost all British-born Muslim terrorists is the Kashmir question, to which the almost entirely irrelevant Palestine issue has been tacked on by political manipulators with larger ambitions. (The easiest way to make a connection between the Palestine-Israel conflict and the problem of Kashmir is to construct a global theory of persecution in which British-born Muslims may see themselves as born into a victimhood perpetrated by all non-Muslim nations upon Islam.
That, as it happens, chimes perfectly with the true goal of Islamism, which is global supremacy.) So this ignominious posture – what you might call the "save our own skin; who cares what happens in the rest of the world?" view – is based on a false premise. It is not adjustments to our stance on Israel-Palestine that the international Islamist terror movement wants.
That demand was just a bin Laden afterthought that went down a treat with the old reliable anti-Semitic interest in Europe. What Islamic fundamentalism plans to achieve (and it has made no secret of it) is a righting of the great wrong of 1492, when the Muslims were expelled from Spain: a return of the Caliphate, the destruction of corrupt Western values, and the establishment of Sharia law in all countries where Muslims reside. That is what we are up against.
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