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Download PDF Version of the Report Religion Without Compulsion RELIGION WITHOUT COMPULSION Knowledge to Challenge Blasphemy and Apostasy Laws RELIGION WITHOUT COMPULSION Knowledge to Challenge Blasphemy and Apostasy Laws A report from the Oslo Coalition’s project on New Directions in Islamic Thought March 2021 © The Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or Belief Norwegian Center for Human Rights PO Box 6706 St. Olavs plass NO-0130 OSLO https://www.jus.uio.no/smr/english/about/id/oslocoalition/index.html Design and print: 07 Media AS Oslo, March 2021 TABLE OF CONTENTS About this report ...............................................................................5 Summary ..........................................................................................7 Apostasy,blasphemy and related terms .......................................10 Introduction: An Islamic dilemma ..................................................... 11 Article 18 and 19 of the ICCPR .....................................................14 The problem of apostasy and blasphemy laws ................................. 15 Re-examining tradition ....................................................................18 The Qur’an and Sunna ..................................................................... 21 Qur’anic verses ...........................................................................24 Questioning the claim to consensus ................................................25 Changing circumstances, new paradigms ........................................27 Opening a space and building knowledge for new approaches ..........29 ABOUT THIS REPORT The Oslo Coalition is an international and legal sciences; public intellectuals network of experts and representatives and policy advocates. All shared from religious and other life-stance a commitment to engaging with the Islamic communities, academia, NGOs, international tradition to bring about reform informed organisations and civil society, based by modern understandings of the freedoms at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, of expression and belief. We held three University of Oslo. The mission of the Oslo international workshops, one in Oslo Coalition is to promote the freedom and two in Istanbul, and published FEI, of religion or belief (FORB) as a common on which this report is based. good for the benefit of everyone in every This report is intended for policy-makers, society. It does so by creating spaces stakeholders and advocates as a resource for scholars, experts and activists to explore for developing knowledge-based arguments relevant issues; publishing research for legal reform. It serves as a companion and resources; and working with partners guide to the book, summing up lessons to teach and build competence about FORB. and key arguments we have learned from Since 2004, the Oslo Coalition project the expert discussions and written “New Directions in Islamic Thought” has contributions. It is written from an observer’s organised nine international workshops point of view, and seeks only to showcase and produced three books on burning issues various lines of inquiry and scholarship of reform from within the Islamic tradition: that make the problem clear and bear New Directions in Islamic Thought (2009); promise for solving it. Gender and Equality in Muslim Family Law We have therefore not sought to develop (2013) and its companion report Justice a consensus statement. The individual Through Equality, and most recently authors cited are not responsible for each Freedom of Expression in Islam: Challenging other’s arguments or for the use we have Blasphemy and Apostasy Laws (2021), made of their work in this report. all published by I.B. Tauris. Below, we refer For the full version of the key scholarly to these publications as NDIT, GEMFL, JTE findings and arguments as developed and FEI respectively. by the expert participants, and the evidence Since 2012, the project has brought together and literature they cite, please see the book a diverse group of Muslim experts to discuss chapters and other key resources referenced freedom of expression and freedom of religion under “Further reading” in each section. or belief in Islamic law and modern Muslim Christian Moe societies. The experts included religious Muhammad Khalid Masud Kari Vogt scholars; academics in the social, human Lena Larsen About this report 5 SHORTHAND REFERENCES NDIT Kari Vogt, Lena Larsen and Christian Moe (eds). New Directions in Islamic Thought: Exploring Reform and Tradition. London: I.B. Tauris, 2009. GEMFL Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Kari Vogt, Lena Larsen and Christian Moe (eds). Gender and Equality in Muslim Family Law: Justice and Ethics in the Islamic Legal Tradition. London: I.B. Tauris, 2013. JTE Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Kari Vogt, Lena Larsen and Christian Moe. Justice Through Equality: Building Religious Knowledge for Legal Reform in Muslim Family Laws. A Report on the Oslo Coalition’s Muslim Family Law Project. Oslo: May 2013. https://www.jus.uio.no/smr/english/about/id/ docs/oc/justice-through-equality.pdf FEI Muhammad Khalid Masud, Kari Vogt, Lena Larsen and Christian Moe (eds). Freedom of Expression in Islam: Challenging Apostasy and Blasphemy Laws. London: I.B. Tauris, 2021. 6 Religion Without Compulsion: Knowledge to Challenge Blasphemy and Apostasy Laws SUMMARY The right to freedom of religion or belief Apostasy laws, harsh blasphemy laws, and the right to freedom of opinion and the religious and social norms that and expression are precious rights underpin them are a particular problem for everyone, not least for Muslims, for Muslim societies. Beside the death who are often victims of authoritarian rule penalty and other severe criminal or prejudice and discrimination. However, punishments, apostasy has civil-law there is a concern that human rights are effects, such as dissolved marriages. at odds with Muslim belief and identity, Alleged apostates or blasphemers also risk not least where the protection of religion extrajudicial violence. Broadly written laws is concerned. This gives states an excuse violate fundamental freedoms, ignore basic to enforce repressive laws even as they sign requirements of justice, and lend themselves up to human-rights treaties. While some to abuse. They not only affect converts, blasphemy laws were introduced by colonial religious dissenters, and religious minorities, or secular regimes, they are defended they are also abused for political in the name of Islamic law and protecting and economic gain. Their effect is to chill the honour of the Prophet. This religious debate, retard social progress, criminalize legitimation powerfully mobilizes Muslim dissent, and suppress opponents communal identity and individual religious of the powers that be. They also tarnish conscience against perceived threats. the reputation of the religion and the Prophet Muslims thus find themselves in a bind they are meant to protect, associating them between Islam’s perceived humane ideals, with cruel punishments, violence, forced seen as consonant with human rights, belief, and abuses of justice. The plight and repressive policies, cast as the demands of victims of such laws is publicized in global of tradition. But in this dilemma lies media and advocacy networks, feeding an opportunity for reform if it is recognized a spiral of public outrage. as a struggle over interpretations within Fortunately, there are grounds within Muslim Muslim tradition itself. tradition for rejecting the claim that such Here, we report on work by Muslim experts laws are divine and unchangeable. Indeed, that shows that contemporary blasphemy the pre-modern Muslim legal construction and apostasy laws are damaging to Muslim of apostasy and blasphemy was shaped over societies, as well as counter-productive; time by specific historical, social and political reveals weaknesses in the religious conditions, and even by specific events arguments for these laws; argues for freedom in the lives of central thinkers. of religion and expression as Islamic values; The suppression and exclusion of different and opens a space for debate and reform and marginal religious voices also interlocked within the Muslim tradition. with other social hierarchies and exclusions, not least gendered ones. Summary 7 Recognizing the all-too-human nature The claimed consensus of Muslim jurists of the laws opens a space for reform. on the punishment of apostasy Moreover, it turns out that the punishment and blasphemy elides considerable historical of apostasy and blasphemy is not as well disagreement. Early Muslim jurists did widely supported either by the sacred texts agree that a male Muslim blasphemer or by the consensus of the jurists was an apostate and should face the death as is often assumed. penalty, but differed on many related questions. Later influential jurists recorded The Qur’an does not state any punishment these differences, but at the same time in this world for leaving Islam or for insulting denied and suppressed them by claiming religion. Jurists who insisted that it did had a consensus for their own sweeping to resort to far-fetched interpretations. conclusions. Recovering and historicizing The Qur’an does, on the contrary, the traditional diversity of juristic opinion give advice on non-violent ways to deal from distortion might allow Muslims with those who insult God, such as avoiding to challenge the stated rationale for existing them and refraining from exchanging insults. laws and rethink the issue for modern times. Moreover, it contains resources in support of religious pluralism and freedom, among
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