{"id":5345,"date":"2016-09-22T17:37:59","date_gmt":"2016-09-22T22:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=5345"},"modified":"2016-09-22T17:37:59","modified_gmt":"2016-09-22T22:37:59","slug":"religious-purity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2016\/09\/22\/religious-purity\/","title":{"rendered":"Religious Purity"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Palestine<\/strong><\/em> the forces of religious purity are at work. Adnan Abu Amer reports in AL Monitor<\/strong><\/em>:<\/p>\n

… since Sept. 9,\u00a0Khaled al-Khalidi<\/a>, a professor of Palestinian history at the Islamic University in Gaza with ties\u00a0to Hamas, has been posting statements on social media calling for the enactment of an anti-blasphemy law, provoking\u00a0a storm of reactions online<\/a>. …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Khalidi, the head of the\u00a0Palestinian Encyclopedia<\/a> of Historiography Documentation, told Al-Monitor that his move\u00a0is a response to\u00a0the spread of destructive ideas among Muslims in Palestine, such as\u00a0not believing in the Prophet Muhammad\u2019s hadith, which open\u00a0the door to intellectual deviation\u00a0and ideological mistakes. He bemoaned\u00a0the failure of Gaza\u2019s authorities to fend off these ideas, especially the Ministry of Religious Affairs\u00a0and associations concerned with the welfare of future generations.<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cAs a result, I will soon\u00a0form an association of scholars to defend Islam from the erroneous interpretations of some religious scholars. I was accused by some of those who departed from religion of adopting the ideas of the Islamic State<\/a>, but this will not scare me.\u00a0I will keep fighting them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reaction has not been entirely positive:<\/p>\n

The call for an anti-blasphemy law stirred a wild wave of reactions. Palestinian intellectuals\u00a0across the Gaza Strip and the West Bank argued over\u00a0Khalidi\u2019s suggestion. On Sept. 10, journalist Bothaina Ashtowi<\/a>\u00a0expressed\u00a0objections to\u00a0Khalidi\u2019s idea and\u00a0called for\u00a0solving more pressing\u00a0problems in Gaza before demanding an anti-blasphemy law. On Sept. 14, one citizen,\u00a0Abu Bakr al-Banna,\u00a0expressed support for\u00a0the idea<\/a>, attacked “blasphemers” for “distorting the image of the companions of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad” and called them infidels, warning them they were headed\u00a0for the “ash heap of history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opponents of such a\u00a0law recall what happened in some stages of Islamic history, when some enlightened figures\u00a0such as\u00a0al-Farabi,\u00a0Ibn\u00a0Sina,\u00a0Al-Ma’arri, Abu\u00a0Bakr\u00a0al-Razi\u00a0and\u00a0Ibn\u00a0Rushd\u00a0were\u00a0accused of blasphemy<\/a>\u00a0and killed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In some ways, the forces of religion seem to be in a constant fight to sow division, much like those who like to throw the epithet RINO<\/strong><\/em><\/a> within the GOP<\/strong><\/em>. And I’m almost dumb-founded by a\u00a0 statement by Saleh al-Raqab<\/a>, the former minister of religious affairs and endowments:<\/p>\n

The Palestinian Penal Code<\/a> should be amended to impose a penalty on insulting a divine being and to prosecute those who promote deviant ideas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

If a divine being is insulted, it can take care of responding to the insult itself, no? In fact, it’d be more impressive than if a human agency implemented punishment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Palestine the forces of religious purity are at work. Adnan Abu Amer reports in AL Monitor: … since Sept. 9,\u00a0Khaled al-Khalidi, a professor of Palestinian history at the Islamic University in Gaza with ties\u00a0to Hamas, has been posting statements on social media calling for the enactment of an anti-blasphemy \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5346,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5345\/revisions\/5346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}