Amid a wave of anger and a rather fleeting agitation, and calls for revenge and boycott, the Muslim Council of Elders, chaired by Mr. Ahmed Al Tayeb, the Sheikh of Al Azhar, has taken a stand on the attacks on Islam and its sacred symbols.
The Council confirmed that there are other options to achieve goals, instead of just anger, and to elevate the values of Islam, while reflecting its civilized character, human values and noble practices in dealing with disagreements with others.
The recent MCE meeting adopted a balanced, calm and productive attitude. It condemned the “systematic campaign” to denigrate the Prophet of Islam and make fun of Islamic beliefs under the banner of freedom of expression.
The Council firmly rejected any misuse of freedom of expression to insult the Prophet Muhammad and the sacred values of Islam. It stressed that freedom of expression must be part of a social responsibility that preserves the rights of others and does not allow trade in religions in political markets.
At the same time, the Council strongly condemned the assassination of a French professor, as well as the stabbing and attempted assassination of two Muslim women near the Eiffel Tower. He said that all these incidents are heinous acts of terrorism, regardless of the perpetrators and motives.
The MCE dealt with the current unrest, which revolves around President Macron’s position towards Islam and Muslims, in a responsible and rational manner. He has brought the language of reason and wisdom to the fore, and understood the reasoning behind calls for incitement, violence and murder by terrorist organizations sometimes associated with the Islamic religion, and provocations from the extreme right, which seeks to distort Islam and entrench a link to terrorism and “separatism,” and promotes hostility against Muslims.
The MCE has chosen a legal and civilized path to counter hate speech in the West, calling for international legislation criminalizing incitement to hatred, discrimination and Islamophobia. It also called on Western academics and intellectuals to tackle the systematic campaign against Islam that places it in arenas of electoral and political conflict and affirmed the need to create a favorable ground for human coexistence and brotherhood.
The crisis of the cartoons insulting the Prophet (pbuh) as well as the statements of French President Macron, who has “Islamic separatism” and has done wrong to link freedom of expression and disrespect for religions, is a recurring crisis in the relations between Islam and the West.
This kind of crisis follows temporal calls, whether it be boycotting products, or inflammatory calls that seek to worsen the storm and exploit its atmosphere to achieve political goals that have nothing to do with supporting Islam.
Restraint in the face of calls for incitement and provocation is the fruit of reason and wisdom that must characterize our Islamic institutions and symbols. It is not only about Arabs and Muslims, whose population exceeds one and a half billion people. It is also about the Muslims of the West, who find themselves in such conflicts between two parties and who suffer greatly from the pressures of this atmosphere of hatred.
The MCE rightly called on them to defend the values of coexistence, peace and citizenship with all the social components of their country, to integrate positively into society, to strengthen their contribution to construction and development while preserving their religious and cultural specificities.
Things are clear in this type of situation. Humanity, which has suffered many world wars and bloody conflicts, does not want a new war that some want to unleash between Islam and others. The relationship between freedom of expression and the violation of religions is also clear and unequivocal.
This relationship is not compromised when it comes to other religions and other things. This is a thorny issue. But we must not lose sight of it when we talk about Islam in particular.
Insulting and ignoring constants and the obvious can open the doors of great evil to safe societies, whether in our Islamic world or in the West itself. The flames of intolerance and sedition will burn everyone and it is hard to pretend that it will be confined to one society or the other.
Religions have exceptional sensitivities that must be respected and recognized if we really want to spread a dynamic of coexistence, tolerance and acceptance. We must all know that there is nothing better to offer terrorist organizations and extremists around the world than to incite sedition by offending a religion.
Everyone must agree that human values such as freedom of expression do not mean opening the door to insulting religions and what is sacred. Binding global legislation must be enacted to criminalize all forms of hate speech on the basis of creed, race or religion.
This is one of the foundations of peace and security in societies. Those who are reluctant to the notion of respect for religions will realize that leaving room for such anti-religious practices and behaviors and their symbols does not bode well.
At the height of the unrest, a European right-wing party leader issued a statement as part of his election campaign, stating that “the Quran is more dangerous than the Coronavirus.” Then, what I fear most in this turmoil is that there are populist regimes and leaders in the Muslim world who are taking advantage of what is happening, as is the case with the Iranian mullahs and Turkish Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
These same regimes commit murder and genocide against Muslims in their own countries, such as Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. They do things that have nothing to do with Islam, such as exploiting displaced refugees as a map to blackmail the West and get money simply because they are a bulwark to prevent refugees from reaching European shores.
These regimes, in a climate of insults against Islam, have found a good opportunity to show themselves as defenders of Islam and Muslims. Far from rhetoric and hyperbole, the legal process chosen by the Muslim Council of Elders is a more effective alternative in the medium and long term to resolve this recurring crisis, not just a temporary affair that will not recur in the future.
