The World's Stupidest Fatwas

"No central authority controls doctrine in Islam, one of the world’s great religions. The result? A proliferation of bizarre religious edicts against targets ranging from Salman Rushdie to polio vaccinations."

Foreign Policy, July 2007

Is it extreme to defend free speech?

"I organised the Parliamentary campaign that last year voted down – by a margin of one – a Government plan to outlaw the incitement of religious hatred. Recent outbursts by the likes of Mr Bukhari make that vote all the more crucial for freedom of expression.
Those who argue for such laws say that one should separate the person from the ideology: hate the sin but love the sinners. But I don’t just hate Nazism, for instance. I hate Nazis. We should all hate Nazis. It is not just their ideology which is loathsome, they are loathsome people. So I believe I should be entitled to incite hatred of Nazis, short of inciting violence. My words ought not to be intimidating to any Nazi of fragile disposition. But the language I used could well – I hope - be insulting to any self-respecting Nazi."

Dr Evan Harris (MP), National Secular Society, 08.03.2007

The Muslim faithless

Ridiculing and questioning Islam, Muhammad, the Qur'an and religion in general is an ancient tradition in Muslim countries.

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Those Muslims who condemn such literature and views as un-Islamic and new-fangled western imports are obviously unaware of their own history. Some 12 centuries before these modern writers, Ibn al-Rawandi was establishing a controversial reputation for himself as the Richard Dawkins of ninth-century Baghdad (probably the wealthiest and most advanced city in the world at the time).

Belonging, as he did, to a more poetic age, his most famous work was not entitled The Allah Delusion, but had the more colourful title of The Emerald Book (Kitab al-Zumurrud). Nevertheless, he was no less sparing than Dawkins would be in his indictment and rejection of the divine authorship of the Qur'an, Muhammad's status as a prophet and organised religion. He argued that humans possess the gift of intellect, by which they can judge right and wrong, rendering the prophets and scripture superfluous.

According to Dawkins, most of the modern scientists who talk of "God" do so in the loosest possible sense of the word. Likewise, many of the greatest scientists of Islam's golden age sailed pretty close to the wind and, like their modern counterparts, were often deists rather than theists.

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Islam's glory was a secular one based on knowledge and science. This is what makes the current drift towards scripture, ritual and conservatism in many Muslims so alarming. Just because dictators and foreign meddling spoiled the modern secular experiment, that does not mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Khaled Diab, Guardian, June 30, 2007

Salman Rushdie is not the problem. Muslims are

"Members of Parliament, as well as the Pakistani government, amplified the condemnation of Britain, feeding cries of offense to Muslim sensibilities from Europe to Asia.

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As a Muslim, you better believe I am offended – by these absurd reactions.
I am offended that it is not the first time honours from the West have met with vitriol and violence. In 1979, Pakistani physicist Abdus Salam became the first Muslim to win the Nobel Prize in science. He began his acceptance speech with a verse from the Quran.
Salam’s country ought to have celebrated him. Instead, rioters tried to prevent him from re-entering the country. Parliament even declared him a “non-Muslim” because he belonged to a religious minority. His name continues to be controversial, invoked by state authorities in hushed tones."

Irshad Manji, Times Online, June 21, 2007