The Muslim Dark Ages

Yesterday, the Kuwaiti Parliament approved tougher blasphemy laws in Kuwait, calling for the execution of Muslims who insult God, the Koran, the prophets, as well as the wives of Prophet Muhammad. It also calls for the execution of those claiming to be prophets or messengers from God.

There’s a lot to say about how ridiculous blasphemy laws are, the open-ended definition of “insult”, the hypocrisy that comes packaged with such laws, and the ever widening gap between classical Islam and Islamist dogma (contrary to whatever claims Islamists make of representing true Islam). But let’s begin with an important Islamic teaching…

In a popular saying of Prophet Muhammad (known as a hadith, or prophetic narration), the prophet said to his followers: “You will follow in the footsteps of those who came before you [the Jews and the Christians], inch by inch and cubit by cubit. Even if they were to enter a lizard hole, you will follow them.”

This narration (along with others with a similar message) have been used by Islamists to resist Western influences on Muslim communities. For example, when Kuwait wanted to change the weekend from Thursday-Friday to Friday-Saturday Islamist MPs opposed the change, since Saturday is regarded as the Sabbath day by Jews, and the Muslims ought not to imitate them in regarding Saturday a day of rest.

What the Islamists fail to realize is that their dogmatic attitude to religion is a clear replica of the prevalent Christian attitude during the Dark Ages. Blasphemy laws exist in Europe as a product of the Dark Ages (but they have been amended or suspended since Europe recognized the value of human life over religious dogma).

For example, the belief in the Trinity (that God exists in the three persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) was the the orthodox Christian view, whereas the unitarian belief proposed by Arius (which is very similar to the Muslim conception of God, the One) was deemed heretical and punishable by…

… death!

Here is the edict by Emperor Constantine regarding Arian doctrine (from the Wikipedia page on Arianism):

“In addition, if any writing composed by Arius should be found, it should be handed over to the flames, so that not only will the wickedness of his teaching be obliterated, but nothing will be left even to remind anyone of him. And I hereby make a public order, that if someone should be discovered to have hidden a writing composed by Arius, and not to have immediately brought it forward and destroyed it by fire, his penalty shall be death. As soon as he is discovered in this offence, he shall be submitted for capital punishment…..”

This is an extremely dangerous development within the Muslim world, and we can gauge the direction the Muslim world is heading in by reading about the Christian experience with religious fanaticism in political office.

There’s a lot more to say about Islamists and the dangers they pose to human life and happiness, but I’ll keep that for other posts.

It’s important, however, that those who oppose blasphemy laws and the strangling of freedoms to speak out against Islamists and to present reasoned arguments against them.

So I urge you to share this article and to get involved in discussions about matters related to the Islamization of laws and restrictions on political freedoms.

Your life and freedom depend on it.