Criticism of Islamism - Limits On Freedom of Expression

Limits On Freedom of Expression

According to Graham Fuller, a long-time observer of Middle Eastern politics and supporter of allowing Islamists to participate in politics: "One of the most egregious and damaging roles played by some Islamists ... has been in ... ruthlessly attack and institut legal proceedings against any writings on Islam they disagree with."

Some of the victims of Islamist enforement of orthodoxy include Ahmad Kasravi, a former cleric and important intellectual figure of 1940s Iran who was assassinated in 1946 by the Fadayan-e Islam, an Islamic militant group, on the charge of takfir.

Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, "a 76-year-old practicing Muslim" and theologian was hanged in a public ceremony in Khartoum, January 18, 1985, "following a hasty, ill-prepared trial." Taha had preached that of the two kinds of verses in the Qur'an - those revealed in Mecca and those revealed in Medina - the Medina verses were intended only for Muhammad's own instruction and were not eternally valid principles of Islam as those revealed earlier in Mecca were.

Maybe the most famous alleged apostate attacked by Islamists has been Egyptian Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz. He has been harassed and almost killed by assailants, stabbed in the neck. Others include novelist Salahaddin Muhsin who

... was sentenced to three years hard labor for writings that `offended Islam`; feminist novelist Nawal al-Sa'dawi has been repeatedly tried in court for anti-Islamic writing and her husband ordered to divorce her as a Muslim apostate, although the charges were ultimately struck down; Islamist lawyers also charged Islamic and Arabic literature professor Nasr Abu Zayd with apostasy for his writings on the background of the Qur'an, and his wife was ordered to divorce him. ..."

Egyptian author Farag Foda was assassinated on June 8, 1992 by militants of the Gamaa Islamiya as an example to other anti-fundamentalist intellectuals.

While the perpetrators of the killing and physical intimidation have been Islamic extremists, the Islamists working within the system are not innocent. Author Gilles Kepel points out that in Egypt "Islamist moderates and the extremists complemented one another's actions." The more establishmentarian "moderates" declare a modernists or secularist an apostate; the extremists then carry out the death sentence against the alleged apostate. In the case of Foda's killing, establishmentarian Sheik Mohammed al-Ghazali ("one of the most revered sheiks in the Muslim world"), testified for the defense in the trial of Foda's killers. "He announced that anyone born Muslim who militated against the sharia (as Foda had done) was guilty of the crime of apostasy, for which the punishment was death. In the absence of an Islamic state to carry out this sentence, those who assumed that responsibility were not blameworthy."