Category Archives: Blasphemy

Violence and Mainstream Islam

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Bengladesh-demos

Hundreds of thousands of Bengladeshi Muslims demonstrate and chant ,“Allah is great, hang the atheist bloggers.”

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April 8th, 2013 by Andrew Bostom:

Against the backdrop of 20,651 jihadist attacks since 9/11/2001, and the hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Dhaka, Bengladesh (hat tip Jihad Watch) on the march this past week, demanding the execution of “atheist bloggers” for “blaspheming” Islam, I was re-reading V.S. Naipaul’s second brilliant travelogue account of Asian Islamdom, circa 1995,  Beyond Belief.

Naipaul’s five month 1995 journey included sojourns in Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia, supposedly more “moderate,” overall, than Arab Islamdom. Beyond Belief contains this simple, elegant description by a secular Pakistani journalist, i.e., a private apostate, who found mainstream Islamic violence unacceptable. Identified only as “Salman,” he proffered this explanation about the roots of traditionalist, mainstream Islamic violence—which must be considered when applying the term “moderate” to mainstream votaries of Islam:

…[T]he idea of jihad, holy war…was a special Muslim idea. He [Salman] explained it like this: “In Christianity, Christ died for all Christians. He can ensure heaven for them. In Islam, Mohammed can only make a submission in your favor for being a follower of his. It is only Allah who makes the final decision on the merit won by your good deeds. Nothing is greater, so far as goodness goes, than jihad in the name of Allah.” [Naipaul interjects] Jihad was not meant metaphorically. “The word of the Koran is taken very literally. It is blasphemous even to think of it as allegory. The Koran lays great store in jihad. It is one of the sayings of Mohammed–not in the Koran, it’s one of the traditions—‘If you see an un-Islamic practice you stop it by force. If you do not possess the power to stop it, you condemn it verbally. If not that also, then you condemn it in your heart.’ As far back as I can remember I have known this. I think this tradition gives the Muslim license to act violently.” [Naipaul adds] …he [Salman] understood both their [Muslims] need to win merit as followers of Mohammed, and also their fear of hell. [Salman again] “Endless whipping with fiery flames, and fire beyond imagination. Having to drink pus. It’s very graphic in the traditions. In the Koran there’s just mention of the fires and the endlessness of punishment.”

The canonical hadith alluded to by Naipaul’s “Salman,” are cited below, including the delightful spectacle of drinking pus in Hell:

I heard the Messenger of Allah say: “Whoever among you sees an evil action, let him change it with his hand (by action); if he cannot, then with his tongue (by speaking out); and if he cannot, then with his heart (by hating it and feeling it is wrong), and that is the weakest of faith.” [Sahih Muslim, The Book of Faith, Chapter 20, Clarifying That Forbidding Evil is Part of Faith; Faith Increases and Decreases; Enjoining What is Good and Forbidding What is Evil Are Obligatory; [177] 78- (49), pp.143-44, from: Vol. 1 English translation of Sahih Muslim From Hadith no. 01-1160, translated by Nasirrudin al-Khattab, Darussalam Books, Riyadh, 2007.]

Amr ibn Shu’ayb reported from his father on the authority of his grandfather that the Prophet said, “The arrogant will be (rasied and) gathered on the Day of Resurrection as ants in the garb of mankind. They will be covered with disgrace from all sides and they will be driven to a cell in Hell named Bulas. They will boil in the fire of Fires and will be given to drink the pus of the people of the Fire, extremely bad in odor.” [From Jami Tirmidhi (2500)]

 

Through A Projector Lense Clearly

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images (38)By Andrew Bostom:

Andrew Harrod has revealed the sad reality which marred an otherwise remarkable event at The Heritage Foundation,  “Silent Conquest: The End of Freedom of Expression in the West”: the Muhammad images under discussion were blurred out, effectively kowtowing to the very Islamic “blasphemy” law being decried.

One day later (Wednesday, March 20, 2013), I participated in a stirring event with my colleagues and friends, Rabbi John Hausman, Lars Hedegaard, Robert Spencer, and Tiffany Gabbay. The video of that forum and discussion, can be seen here.

Our event also included specific shots from “Silent Conquest” with the unblurred images of Lars Vilks’ cartoon , and the more renowned Jyllands-Posten Danish cartoons.

That video snippet is embedded, below:

 

 

 

 

ACT! for America Launches National Free Speech Campaign

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On September 25, 1789, Congress passed the Bill of Rights, anchored by the very important First Amendment. Today, our cherished right of freedom of speech is under assault. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) wants to criminalize speech that “denigrates” Islam. Muslim Brotherhood connected organizations and their politically correct enablers regularly engage in name calling and character assassination to silence those who dare speak out about the threat of radical Islam.

This is why, on September 25, 2013, 224 years after the passage of the Bill of Rights, patriots across America will host events and educate the public about how freedom of speech is under attack – and what we all can do to protect it.

Free_Speech_Day

 

WHEN: SEPTEMBER 25, 2013

 

WHAT: HIGHLIGHTING AMERICA’S COMMITMENT TO FREE SPEECH AND THE ONGOING EFFORTS BY THE OIC AND THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD TO STRIP US OF THAT FREEDOM.

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  1. Commit to host the event on September 25, 2013.
  2. You must hold the event in an indoor location where a video can be shown and access can be controlled (versus an outdoor venue), such as:
    - Meeting in your home
    - In a church, synagogue or other house of worship
    - In an American Legion, VFW, or similar hall
    - A public library
    - A hotel meeting room
  3. You also have the option during the day on September 25th to hold up signs and hand out printed materials at public venues, such as street corners.
  4. You will be provided instructions and materials to use at your indoor event and at outdoor public venues (if you choose that additional option).
  5. Commit to this being an educational event, not a confrontational event. Our goal is to help people understand how their free speech rights are under assault, not to get into confrontations with those who disagree with us.
  6. Put the word out and get RSVP’s for the indoor event so you will know how many to expect, to ensure your venue is adequate.

ACT! for America will announce how many “Freedom of Speech Day” events will take place and will advertise exact locations of each venue for those hosts who confirm to us that they want us to.

 

In this series of national webcasst, ACT! for America documents the growing worldwide clamor for suppression of speech perceived as “offensive” to Islam, and what ACT! for America is doing to combat this increasingly serious threat to the First Amendment:

Part One with Brigitte Gabriel and Guy Rodgers:

 

Part Two with Deborah Weiss:

 

Part Three with Guy Rodgers:

 

 Sign ACT! for America’s letter opposing this threat to free speech!

An Open Letter to Members of the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, and the State Legislatures 

Oppose the Implementation of UN Resolution 16/18:
A Threat to Free Speech

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), an organization of 56 Muslim states and the Palestinian Authority, has been trying for more than a decade to win UN-wide support of a resolution that calls on nations to prohibit speech that allegedly “defames” religion.

However, the evidence is clear that the OIC is concerned primarily about any speech it views as being critical of Islam, what it calls “Islamophobia.”

In the past, the United States has opposed such resolutions, correctly asserting that they are contrary to our First Amendment right of free speech.

In 2011, at the U.S.’s request, the OIC drafted a new resolution that would supposedly balance America’s constitutional protection of free speech with OIC concerns about “Islamophobia.” This resolution passed, with U.S. backing.

This new resolution, UN Resolution 16/18, no longer uses language such as “defamation,” but instead uses European-style hate speech language that has been used to criminalize speech critical of Islam in countries such as Austria and the Netherlands.

The OIC is now aggressively working to implement its definition of the resolution. Its position is clearly spelled out in a February 18, 2013, article in the Saudi Gazette entitled “OIC gears up to get denigration of religions criminalized.”

Given that the OIC is now pushing for nations to criminalize speech that it views as “Islamophobic,” we, the undersigned, call on our legislators to pass resolutions opposing the implementation of UN Resolution 16/18 as both unnecessary and a threat to America’s constitutional protection of free speech.

Shariah’s Assault on Free Speech: Warriors Who Refuse to be Silenced

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The Center for Security Policy is pleased to broadcast Shariah’s Assault on Free Speech: Warriors Who Refuse to be Silenced, a program of the Irwin M. and H. Ethel Hausman Memorial Free Speech Speakers’ Series in Stoughton, Massachusetts on Wednesday, March 20, 2013. The event will begin at 7:00PM.

To attend in person, please purchase tickets and RSVP.

Also being made available live on youtube for free:

About the Speakers

12Lars Hedegaard is a portrait of courage, tenacity, and wit, under even the most trying circumstances.  Hedegaard is President of the Danish Free Press Society, a historian and a journalist. He is also the survivor of a recent assassination attempt on his life last month in his home in Denmark.
Lars Hedegaard in the Wall Street Journal | Lars Hedegaard and the Enemies of Truthfulness

16 Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of twelve books, including two New York Times bestsellers, The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (both Regnery). His latest book is Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry Into Islam’s Obscure Origins (ISI).

19Tiffany Gabbay serves as Assistant Editor and Foreign Affairs Editor for TheBlaze and has been a writer for over a decade. Her passion for politics and expertise in Middle East affairs was fostered at an early age by her father, a successful entrepreneur and Israeli war hero. Previously, Tiffany worked as a journalist on Capitol Hill where she interviewed some of the Beltway’s biggest names including Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Sen. Dick Durbin and many others.  She is a graduate of the National Journalism Center in Washington, D.C. and studied communications at the London Institute – University of the Arts, London.

21Andrew G. Bostom (MD, MS) is an author and Associate Professor of Medicine at Brown University Medical School. He is also well known for his writings on Islam as the author ofThe Legacy of Jihad (2005), and editor of 2008 anthology of primary sources and secondary studies on the theme of Muslim antisemitism,The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History. In October 2012 Bostom published his third compendium Sharia versus Freedom: The Legacy of Islamic Totalitarianism (Prometheus Books).

Michael Graham is a talk radio host, writer, and conservative political commentator. The author of four books, including the first major publisher book on the Tea Party movement-”THAT’S NO ANGRY MOB, THAT’S MY MOM!” (Regnery, 2010)-Michael is also a columnist for the Boston Herald.

Ten Key Points on Islamic Blasphemy Law and Non-Muslims

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Qadi-IyadBy Andrew Bostom:

Qadi Iyad (d. 1149), the great Almoravid jurist, from his seminal Ash-Shifa, which includes one of the most authoritative analyses of Islamic blasphemy law’s treatment of non-Muslims: “Once Islam was firmly established and Allah had given it victory over all other religions, any such detractor that the Muslims had power over and whose affair is well-known, was put to death.”

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There is an intensifying global campaign to impose Islamic blasphemy law on non-Muslims, including those living outside Islamdom, in non-Muslim societies.

What follows are ten key points on the doctrinal origins and practical implications of this global campaign:

1)      According to the Sunna (the traditions of Muhammad and the early Muslim community), by using foul language against the Muslim prophet Muhammad, Allah, or Islam, the non-Muslim transgressors put themselves on a war footing against Muslims, and their lives became licit (such as the poet Kaab b. al-Ashraf, who composed poems denigrating Muhammad, and was assassinated). [see 1.1, 1.2, 1.3]

2)      This “offense” was then constructed and legitimated by Muslim jurists when Islam was politically, militarily and economically dominant, so that it was expected that the non-Muslims under Islamic rule would not denigrate the religion of Islam, nor cast aspersions on its major figures or institutions. [see 2.1,2.2, 2.3]

3)      The jurists saw any such denigration as an unacceptable hostile act, punishable by death, automatically, as per three of the main Sunni schools of Islamic Law (Maliki, Shafii, Hanbali), and the major Shiite schools. According to the fourth major school of Sunni Islamic law, the Hanafi, the punishment of a non-Muslim guilty of blasphemy is left to the discretion of a Muslim judge. The death penalty was in fact most often applied by the Hanafis. (see 3.1, 3.2)

4)      On February 19, 1989, Iranian theocrat Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa condemning author Salman Rushdie to death (along with those involved in the publication of Rushdie’s book, The Satanic Verses), while promising eternal salvation to any Muslim “martyred” in this cause. As noted by Muhammad Hashim Kamali, who, since 1985, has taught Sharia and jurisprudence, as a professor of law at the International Islamic University of Malaysia, in his authoritative Freedom of Expression in Islam: “…no serious Muslim commentator has challenged the basic validity of the Ayatollah’s fatwa. Adjudication was generally viewed to be necessary if only to find out if Rushdie was willing to repent.” The fatwa wrought targeted murders in Europe and Japan, and  a mass killing in Turkey.

5)      This orthodox Islamic doctrine—incorporated, for example, into the “modern” Pakistani legal code (295C: “Use of derogatory remarks, etc; in respect of the Holy Prophet. Whoever by words, either spoken or written or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.”) has wreaked havoc, in our era, particularly among Pakistan’s small Christian minority community.

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Blasphemy Mucho—How Sharia Kills Free Speech

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Losing free speech via the toxic synergy of mainstream, supremacist Islam, and Western self-loathing

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By Andrew Bostom:

Al Qaeda’s English language magazine “Inspire,” in its latest edition, has expressed the jihad terror organization’s outrage over the “Innocents of Muslims” video trailer, an amateurish production, which merely depicted some of the less salutary aspects of the Muslim prophet Muhammad’s biography, based upon the sacralized Islamic sources.

These threatening statements appear on p. 4:

O Muslims, the film produced in America which insults our Messenger Muhammad comes in the chain of  the crusade attacks on Islam. In response to these consecutive assaults, the Muslim ummah revolted in honor  of their noble Messenger. The plot of the enemies backfired and became a disgrace and shame on them, a penalty for their insults on the status of the Prophets, violation of the sacred lands and trespassing the boundaries of war ethics. Meanwhile, the status of our Messenger remains high and honorable. No insult could  ever tarnish him. Whoever hates him is cut off from success and prosperity in this world and the Hereafter… We affirm that defending the honor of the Prophet is an inevitable obligation in Islam upon the Muslim ummah, every individual as per his capability… We call upon our brothers in the West to fulfill their Islamic obligation. They are obliged to defend the Prophet, for they are more capable of crushing the enemy at his heart.

The violent nature of those threats is made explicit in imagery featured on pp. 14-15, entitled, “Wanted Dead or Alive for Crimes Against Islam.” The images (also published here via MEMRI) are accompanied by statements, “Yes We Can,” “A Bullet A Day Keeps the Infidel Away,” and “Defend Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him,” and include photographs of the nine men(complete with misspellings of some of their names, underneath) threatened with death, ostensibly for “blaspheming” Islam’s prophet, and the Muslim creed itself.

Photographs of the two women targeted do not appear on the pp. 14-15 magazine layout; only their names are printed, beneath the photos of the men. The full list of eleven who were made licit for killing, is below:

Geert Wilders: Founder of the Dutch Party for Freedom;

Morris Sadek: Egyptian-American Coptic Christian who disseminated the video “Innocence of Muslims”

Carsten Juste and Flemming Rose: Editor-in-chief and cultural editors at Jyllands-Posten when the Danish cartoons of Muhammad were published

Kurt Westergaard: Cartoonist whose drawing of the turban-bomb Muhammad became the most renowned of the cartoons.

Lars Vilks: Dutch cartoonist who published his own Muhammad drawings subsequent to the Jyllands-Posten cartoons

Stephane Charbonnier: Editor of Charlie Hedbo, a French satirical magazine

Terry Jones: Florida preacher who has burned Korans in protest of Islam.

Salman Rushdie: Author of The Satanic Verses, whose experiences reflect “The Rushdie Rules,” more than two decades later.

Molly Norris: American cartoonist who proposed “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” as a protest against both censorship and the proscription of published images of Muhammad

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Somali-born Dutch activist and politician;

Predictably, the mainstream media outlets reporting this latest example of Al Qaeda’s so-called “anti-Islamic radicalism” (across the political spectrum, from the rather odious blame the victim Atlantic account, to the factual, if short shriftassessment of The Weekly Standard), failed to connect these threats to an earlier, more egregious action by a prominent Muslim nation: the Egyptian state security court’s November 28, 2012 verdict, which sentenced to death seven expatriate Coptic Egyptians, including Morris Sadek, as well as American pastor Terry Jones, for “blaspheming” Islam—i.e., the same Sadek and Jones targeted subsequently by the Al-Qaeda “Inspire” layout. Egyptian Judge Saif al Nasr Soliman stated plainly when the ruling was issued,

The accused persons were convicted of insulting the Islamic religion through participating in producing and offering a movie that insults Islam and its prophet.

The late November, 2012 Egyptian court verdict re-affirms mainstream, institutional Islam’s Sharia (Islamic law)-based lethal punishment for speech critical of the Muslim creed. More disturbing, however, is the abject failure of contemporary Western media, academic, and political elites to accurately convey that reality—a living, liberty-crushing doctrinal and historical legacy I will elaborate herein.

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Spot the ‘Xenophobic Butcher’

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Andrew Higgins

By Andrew G. Bostom:

In my earlier blog about NY Times agitprop journalist Andrew Higgins, who calumniated a real journalist and historian, Lars Hedegaard, I mentioned Higgins’ warped hagiography of The Danish Muslim Society, and its two recent leaders, whose role in fomenting the cartoon riot carnage – 200 dead and over 800 wounded — Higgins failed to discuss.

Higgins also singled out for praise Minhaj ul Quran International, which he characterized as “the Danish offshoot of a controversial group in Pakistan that has taken a hard line at home against blasphemy.” Diana West, citing a 2006 article “Free Speech in Denmark“,  which was co-authored by Lars Hedegaard, notes that Minhaj ul Quran’s leader, Tahir ul-Qadri wrote these words, consistent with the Sharia, on the universal application of Islamic “blasphemy” law:

The act of contempt of the finality of the Prophet (peace be upon him) is a crime which can not be tolerated whether its commission is direct or indirect, intentional or un-intentional. The crime is so sanguine that even his repentance can not exempt him from the penalty of death.

Although ul-Qadri, of Pakistani descent, tried to deny his own words, in a failed effort at sacralized Islamic dissimulation, or “taqiyya,” watch the video, below, which captures his proud championing of Pakistan’s blasphemy law and its lethal consequences for non-Muslims, in particular.

 

These liberty-crushing, murder-inciting remarks of ul-Qadri were apparently of no concern to Mr. Higgins. But Higgins did find time to label Anders Gravers (using, perhaps, a deliberately vicious pun on his trade), “a xenophobic butcher from the north,” because Gravers opposes the aggressive efforts of Denmark’s Muslims to Islamize Danish society.  Compare Gravers’ peaceful exercise of free speech,  voicing his strong opposition to Sharia encroachment in his native Denmark, to ul-Qadri’s unabashed call for the murder of non-Muslim “blasphemers”-and then lying about that heinous record of support for the application of Islamic blasphemy law.

Who is the “xenophobic butcher” again, Mr. Higgins?

Lars Hedegaard and the Enemies of Truthfulness

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Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. ..Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter? Milton

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by Andrew Bostom:

Last week I noted how Michael Coren of Canada’s Sun TV was far bolder than any of his US television network colleagues in dealing with Islam’s threat to Western free speech, epitomized by Coren’s interview of Danish journalist and historian Lars Hedegaard, who survived an assassination attempt by a likely Muslim assailant, still at large. No such interview with public airing on television was conducted by any major US television network—ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, CNN—not even the self-proclaimed “alternative” to “stultifying political correctness,”  and “champion” of free speech, The Blaze TV.

Emphasizing, yet again, the ongoing, complete dereliction of duty of not only the mainstream legacy media, but so-called conservative outlets such as Fox News and The Blaze, Michael Coren opened his follow-up interview  of Lars Hedegaard, yesterday (2/15/13), with this observation:

You [Hedegaard] should be on every single TV show. This should have been [on] the front page of every newspaper in the civilized world.

To add insult to bitter irony, as described in this news item Friday (2/15/13)from Dispatch International, which Lars Hedegaard continues to edit while in protective seclusion, and reiterated during Coren’s latest interview, Hedegaard has been compelled to sue several Swedish media (including Aftonbladet, Svenska Dagbladet, Sveriges Television, Sydsvenskan and Helsingborgs Dagblad) for libel. The libel charge was filed with Allmänhetens Pressombudsman, (the Press Ombudsman) as well as the Chancellor of Justice.

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In Defence of Lars Hedegaard

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For background on the assassination attempt see my previous post – Another Attempt to Murder Free Speech in Denmark

Chris Knowles of the International Civil Liberties Alliance:

The following is our response to an article on The Copenhagen Post website entitled Hedegaard lashes out following failed assassination attempt.

My organisation the International Civil Liberties Alliance (ICLA) awarded Mr Hedegaard our Defender of Freedom Award last year in the European Parliament.

Unlike many newspapers, he is willing to stand up and speak truth to power.  Newspapers tend to no longer do their job of informing the public and challenging the powerful.  Instead they provide a skewed ideologically driven picture of the world.  Rather than report the facts they choose to demonise individuals like Mr Hedegaard and in doing so deliberately put them in danger.

Lars Hedegaard has shown willingness even to put his life on the line in the cause of freedom.  How many newspaper editors can say the same thing?

ICLA supports Mr Hedegaard’s call to remove the blasphemy clause.  Indeed we call for the abolition of all blasphemy laws worldwide.  This includes laws that are effectively blasphemy laws that are dressed in the clothes of secularism.  For instance the United Kingdom abolished its blasphemy law but incorporated similar restrictions in other laws.  It is the freedom to talk freely about all philosophies that needs to be protected by law.  Blasphemy laws stifle freedom of speech and prevent the progressive development of our society.

Lars, we salute your bravery and your continuing commitment to freedom.

Chris Knowles

International Civil Liberties Alliance

Lars Hedegaard speaks with Michael Coren about surviving an assassination attempt:

Swedish journalist Ingrid Carlqvist and the great Dane Lars Hedegaard of the Free Press Society join Michael Coren to discuss their new enterprise, Dispatch International:

Support Freedom of Speech

Subscribe to Dispatch International

Why Dispatch International?

The mainstream media has deteriorated to a point where it constitutes a threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The fourth estate was supposed to act as corrective to the legislative, judicial and administrative powers but has in fact become a part of the ruling elite. It no longer considers it its duty to criticise or expose.

One survey after another shows that the vast majority of Western journalists suffer from groupthink. They do not inform the public about what is happening in the real world but want to educate and mould the citizens to conform to their own preconceived ideas of what ought to be.

Vast swathes of reality are brushed under the carpet because the mainstream media considers them antithetical to the multiculturalist, cultural relativist, “green” and anti-Judean-Christian ideologies they strive to impose on the public.

This cannot be allowed to stand. The time has come to publish a real newspaper.

On 30 August we will issue a test issue of Dispatch International. It will appear as a print paper in Danish and Swedish with e-versions in Danish, Swedish, English and German.

More languages will be added as the need arises.

If the test issue is all well received as we antitipate, we will commence regular, weekly publication on Thursday, January 3, 2013.

In the meantime, click onto our website: http://www.Dispatch-International.com.

Chief editors are Ingrid Carlqvist, former news editor of the Swedish daily Kvällsposten, and Lars Hedegaard, former editor-in-chief of the Copenhagen daily Information. Ingrid is Chair of the Swedish Free Press Society and Lars of the Danish Free Press Society.

Together with Canadian free speech activist and board member of the Canadian Free Press Society Bjorn Larsen we have set up a company that is protected from any attempt at a hostile take-over.

We can neither be bought, nor will we be dependent on public subsidies or advertising income.

Dispatch International is your paper. We have no other purpose than to keep you informed of all the news that is fit to print – but rarely is.

Let us make this a success.

All best

Ingrid Carlqvist

Lars Hedegaard

Bjorn Larsen

Muhammad at the Movies: The Sequel

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The Innocent Prophetby ANDREW E. HARROD

Internationally-known Koran burner Terry Jones has returned to the  internet with a film condemning Islam’s prophet Muhammad after Jones helped  promote the internet trailer  Innocence of Muslims, a source of global controversy. Posted on Jones’  website Stand Up America, the  over one-hour long movie The Innocent Prophet: The Life of Muhammad from a  Different Point of View uses mainly cartoon images to present Muhammad and  Islam as fraudulent.  Legal actions taken against Jones’ co-producer, the  Pakistani exile  Imran Fisarat now living in Spain, show once again how  free speech  critical of Islam is under threat. Curiously in several respects,   Spanish authorities have acted against Fisarat even though no Muslim  rioters  around the world have expressed outrage against The Innocent  Prophet as was the  case previously with Innocence of Muslims.

An international relations scholar resident in Madrid, Soeren  Kern, has extensively analyzed Fisarat’s background at the Gatestone  website for which Kern works. Firasat obtained political refugee status  in  Spain in 2010 after receiving death threats in his native Pakistan  as well as  Indonesia for condemning Islam after leaving the faith and  marrying a  non-Muslim. Fisarat has continued his condemnation of Islam  in Spain with his  multilingual website entitled World without  Islam/Mundo sin Islam.  In March 2012, Fisarat also filed a petition with  the Spanish  government calling for a ban on the Koran as a violent, hate-filled  book  and threatened to burn a Koran publicly in central Madrid. Firasat   refrained from emulating Jones in America after Spanish police informed  Firasat  that such a burning could be an infraction of Spanish laws  “against offending  religious sentiments.”

Fisarat explained to a Belgian newspaper that he drew his inspiration for The Innocent Prophet from Innocence of Muslims.  Upon hearing  of the killing of Ambassador Christopher Stephens in  Benghazi, Firasat thought,  “Okay, you Muslims, use violence, but we will  continue to make films. One day  one of us will lose.” Similar to Innocence of Muslims (discussed in  detail here, here,  and here), The Innocent Prophet claims to present, in the words of Jones at the  film’s beginning, an  “accurate historical portrayal” of Muhammad’s life,  however critical.  The film, however, merely generally references canonical  Islamic  documents like the Koran and Hadith at the beginning without any   specific references included in the narrative.

Although the production values of The Innocent Prophet are  slightly better than the abysmal Innocence of Muslims, with its cast  and crew drawn partly from the porn industry, the treatment of Muhammad in The Innocent Prophet is no less negative. Jones’ opening monologue  questions whether  Muhammad was an “inspired prophet of God” or a “perverted  madman driven  by his demons.” Likewise, Jones asks whether Islam is a “religion  of  peace” or of “violence and oppression.”

The  somewhat monotonous narration by Fisarat in the following film leaves   no doubt about its answers to these questions. Muhammad grew up a  lonely, poor  orphan who sought to compensate his deprivation by gaining  fame and fortune  through the establishment of Islam as a “false faith.”  Islam allowed Muhammad  and his followers to pillage under the banner of  God in the “greatest mafia  movement of that time.” Islamic veneration of  Muhammad as the final and  greatest of prophets, expressed most  succinctly in Islam’s First Pillar, the  statement of faith or shahada,  meant that Muhammad would be “respected forever.” Islam also allowed  Muhammad  to fulfill his own carnal desires as a “sexual robot full of  lust.” Muhammad’s  resulting “Islamic trap” and “lie” led to the “worst  human massacres in human  history.”

Read more: Family Security Matters

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