Islam: blasphemy and the law

Islamic definitions of blasphemy is on a collision course with Western law and tradition rooted in the Judeo-Christian experience. Neither Muslims, Christians, or Jews are safe. Part one of an extensive analysis.

Last week on Tuesday, May 13th, Human Rights Watch urged Saudi Arabia to revoke a death sentence. Sabri Bogday, a Turkish man who had a barbershop in the Saudi kingdom, had been given a death sentence in April this year. Mr Bogday was accused of blaspheming against Allah. The incident allegedly took place 14 months ago during an argument with his neighbor, an Egyptian who ran a tailor's shop.

The Egyptian filed the complaint and then disappeared. Mr Bogday admitted charges of "swearing against Allah," but was not given a chance to repent. Mr Bogday retains his Turkish citizenship, even though he has lived in the Saudi kingdom for 11 years. The Turkish government is trying to assist his attempts to have the death sentence removed.

In Afghanistan this weekend, on Sunday May 18th, an apprentice journalist appeared briefly in court. 23-year-old Parwiz Kambakhsh was sentenced to death in Mazar-i-Sharif in the north of Afghanistan on January 22nd this year for blasphemy. Mr Khambakhsh had downloaded an article from an Iranian website, and brought it into his journalism class.

This article questioned why a man is allowed under Islam to have four wives, but a woman is not allowed four husbands. Khambakhsh maintains that he only brought the article into class for the purposes of discussion. He was given only three minutes to prepare his defense when he was taken to court, and the trial took place in secret. On Sunday, an appeal court judge told him he had one week to prepare for his appeal against the death penalty. Khambakhsh told the judge: "I'm a Muslim and will never allow myself to insult my religion."

Back in March 2006, the West was shocked when a court ruled that an Afghan man, Abdul Rahman, was sentenced to death by an Afghan court. Rahman had converted to Christianity. Apostasy, according to Judge Ansarullah Mawlawizadah, was "an attack on Islam." 500 Muslim clerics demanded the death penalty for Rahman. He was smuggled out of the country and now lives in Italy.

Even the Afghanistan Senate approved the death sentence against 23-year-year old Parwiz Kambakhsh. The trainee journalist's plight may be politically motivated - his brother Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi has written on the atrocities committed by a former leader in the Northern Alliance. This man is Haji Mohammed Mohaqeq. It appears that the harshness of Parwiz's sentence may have been intended to silence his brother's reports. Mohaqeq is head of Afghanistan's Religious and Cultural Affairs Commission, and is based in Mazar-i-Sharif.

In Pakistan, harsh laws against blasphemy were introduced by the Islamist military dictator General Zia ul-Haq, who ruled the country from July 1977 until his death in a plane crash in August 1988. Anyone who is officially accused of any of Pakistan's blasphemy laws is automatically taken into custody. These laws will be discussed in more depth later, but in (...)