IDEA 41
Freedom of Speech and its Limits (A)
Is the one city of Rome more valuable in your eyes than the whole heaven of gods, that you prohibit your poets from uttering any injurious words against a citizen, though they may with impunity cast what imputations they please upon the gods, without the interference of senator, censor, prince, or pontiff? [Augustine. The City of God, Book II, Chapter 12]
In his diatribe against Roman paganism, Augustine ridicules the sanctity of gods who would tolerate all kinds of slander and criticism directed at them, even though the Roman state prohibits similar attacks against mere mortals. Many Muslims could extrapolate from that line of argument an analogy with the issue of blasphemy in Islam. Do the good names of GOD, the prophets (peace be upon them), the companions of the Prophet (may GOD bless him and give him peace), and various holy figures in Islamic history suffer from public abuse, either malicious or inadvertent, and does such defamation constitute actionable harm?
As I said in my previous post, even if such offensive language could be controlled in the past — and it usually could not — it is certainly uncontrollable now. The scope of derogatory opinion and expression regarding Islam and its venerated objects, compared to what good can be said about them, is like one dark and infinite space against another cosmos of similar extent. No one but GOD can comprehend it adequately enough to render fair judgement on all of it. Given how constricted our view of it is, we act most justly when we refrain from diving into it selectively, depending on what we happen to see or hear at some particular moment, and penalizing one statement out of billions.
This is one reason why I believe Augustine’s criticism is irrelevant. The main difference between Roman gods and Roman citizens is one not of rights but of knowledge and power. Even in paganism, the deities presumably knew enough about their human underlings to measure what was said about them and mete out their punishment whenever and however they saw fit. What is hypothetically true about false gods, for the sake of argument, is absolutely true about AL-LAH, Who not only hears but also responds, Who not only condemns slander but also provides the freedom by which that slander is committed. He cannot be harmed, and thus cannot be protected. The same is true of all the deceased, including the Prophet (may GOD bless him and give him peace). If impugning them is an offence, the actual offended parties are those whose feelings have been hurt, namely living believers and the community of the faithful. The dead are beyond harm in this world, and The Ever-Living is not only invulnerable but also fully Capable of deflecting any harm, intended or otherwise, back upon the perpetrator.
A second reason for ignoring this kind of crime is that the Qur’an itself, as I said before, is full of offensive opinions — far more than one would expect in a holy book — and they are dealt with on the same page, both explicitly and within the context of a divine message. They are like pieces of trash that the ocean allows to float on its surface to demonstrate its power in tossing it around. If the believers find any opinion about anything or anyone to be as outrageous as what they find in the Qur’an, then they have the divine option of reproducing that ocean in their own books, journals, pamphlets, and online content. They can take comfort in the freedom that GOD has given them to dismantle and obliterate false views and unfair comments by a deluge of positive material.
He sends down water from the sky, and then the valleys flow according to what they can hold, and so the torrent bears a swelling froth. From what they smelt in fire, making ornaments and tools thereby, there comes a froth comparable to it. By this does GOD express what truth and falsehood are. Regarding what is scum, it disappears as useless. As for what is beneficial to mankind, it stays upon the earth. By this way does AL-LAH make parables. (Q13:17)
The torrent of truth we find in the Qur’an and in the open book of this world bring along with it bits of flotsam and jetsam — matters hardly worthy of our time and effort if we are going with and contributing to that flow. But if we become obsessed with this or that item of trash, there can only be two reasons. Either it is trash that is definitely causing harm to someone in our community — and that could include non-Muslim members who deserve our protection — or we are benefiting from or contributing to the proliferation of that trash in some way, and thus have ulterior motives in calling the public’s attention to it, despite its ephemerality.
The second reason leans on the first, of course. Claims will be made that this or that opinion or expression is indeed harmful to the community. A healthy community, presided over by wise, experienced judges, will need to investigate and determine whether harm has indeed been done, or whether the accusation is spurious.
But the concept of reputational harm is a valid one; slander and libel are actionable offences in Islamic law, and almost two whole pages in Suratin-Nur discuss defamation and how it should be regarded and punished. We will, GOD willing, try to discover what principles are involved in this limitation on free speech, as the topic extends far beyond accusations of fornication and adultery to practically any kind of offensive speech.
Download the PDF version for free at Ideas Inspired by the Qur’ān – Mont Redmond complete version, or purchase a hard copy at Ideas Inspired by the Qur’an: Redmond, Mont: 9781738842506: Books – Amazo
