Civitas

What is truly insane is the notion that has brought him to be facing trial-- viz. that apostasy from Islam should be a legally recognised offence, save a purely religious one, for which, at worst, ostracism by Muslims should be the only penalty allowable by law. Indeed, the legal practice of punishing it by death should not just be considered insane, but the most flagrant breach of human rights, if there be any such rights at all. Any country which has instituted such a practice should be subject to the severest possible sanctions by the international community.

The story about this man first broke in the English press on Tuesday of this week which was the same day as the Prince of Wales delivered a speech in Egypt, which he is currently visiting as part of an official tour of the Muslim world, in which he will have, reportedly, and quite correctly told his audience that: ‘It’s tolerance, it’s understanding of what other people hold sacred which … is so vital’.

The trouble with espousing this sentiment in that part of the world, however, is that, in all too many parts of it today, what is held sacred is intolerance of what others hold sacred. And, when and where it is, anyone who wishes to practice tolerance faces the question of how much religious intolerance may and should be to tolerated.

The Times, which on Tuesday carried reports both about the Prince of Wales’ speech as well as the plight of the poor Afghani, devoted a leader to this subject, which bore the promising title, ‘Faith and Respect: Why religious intolerance must not be tolerated’. Despite its condemning apostasy from Islam, or from any other religion, being anywhere in the world a criminal offence, the newspaper can be condemned for having ducked the serious issue posed by Islam in having asserted that nowhere in the Koran is apostasy prescribed a capital offence. This allowed it to claim that Islam was as tolerant of Christianity and Judaism as these two other religions were of each other and it. ‘The Prince rightly underlines the importance of respect by one religion for another – especially the three Abrahamic religions’ the editorial ran, before adding that: ‘All three religions commend such tolerance.’

This latter claim is most tendentious, and one wonders why on earth it was ever made. It is all too easy for westerners to avoid having to face up to the very harsh and uncomfortable question about how genuinely tolerant a religion Islam truly is and can be by their denying to be integral to it, as the Times leader does, any morally objectionable tenets such as those of its adherents do who think it prescribes and who as a result impose a death penalty upon apostates from it.

It is all very well for the Times, in support of its claim that Islam is as tolerant a religion as Judaism and Christianity, to cite the apparent extreme moderation of Sheikh Tantawi, rector of the University at which the Prince was due to give his speech. But why should his tolerance prove by itself his religion to be a genuinely and inherently tolerant one, any more than Osama bin Laden’s invoking his religion to preach and practice the most despicable form of intolerance establishes the opposite? They cannot both be right in their interpretations of their religion, and maybe there is no such thing as a definitively correct interpretation of it or of any other religion for that matter. What, surely, matters is not whether ‘Islam’ is or is not as tolerant of other faiths as are the other two ‘Abrahamic faiths’: only that all those who purport to practice any or none of them practice tolerance towards all others who are willing to be tolerant of others who are tolerant of others who are tolerant …. ad infinitum.

When they are not, then all those who uphold tolerance as a value, should be united in their common intolerance of such intolerance. The sad fact is that, even if Islam is as inherently and genuinely tolerant at its core as the Times and Sheikh Tantawi avowedly consider it to be, much of the Muslim world is currently anything but, and it derives its authority for being so intolerant from its religion as it understands and practises it. Until that intolerant part of it becomes tolerant, the idea that Islam is ‘a religion of peace’, rather than something far less benign, remains as much of a fairy-tale as the notion of Santa Claus -- and one in which we would do well to place as little faith as that poor Afghani should find himself having to do who currently finds himself in a jail in Kabul, facing execution, for the in-offence of having placed his faith in Jesus