The recent Charlie Hebdo incident urged my inner
self to write about it!
I haven’t ever read any of Charlie Hebdo’s work so I
first decided to know more about Charlie Hebdo. Charlie Hebdo roughly
translates to “Charlie Weekly”, is a
weekly publication that covers French Politics through Cartoons, Satirical
Articles and Jokes. The magazine was founded in 1969, and was resurrected in
1992 following a three-year hiatus.
Although its editor-in-chief Stephane Charbonnier,
who was killed in the attack, has said that he considered the magazine a
leftist-pluralist publication. Its biting satire habitually targeted the
government, high profile politicians and organized religion.
This is not the first time the magazine has been attacked;
in 2011 there was a fire bomb attack in its offices. But they believed that
avoiding offence for a short term would damage French Secular Culture for a
long term.
How you may ask!
In France “Laïcité” that is
Secularism has such importance that it has been described as a “FOUNDING MYTH”
of French Republic.
The magazines recent cover was about Islam phobic France.
The last tweet before the attack was a cartoon depicting ISIS leader Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi offering politically correct “best Wishes” for holiday season.
(I do not have the permission to post any Charlie
Hebdo cartoon)
In 2012 in an Interview with Le Monde, Charbonnier explained “I do not feel as though I’m
killing someone with my pen. When Activists need a pretext to justify their violence,
they always find a way.” He further stated “what I am stating maybe a bit
pompous, but I prefer to die standing then living on my knees.”
A number of Cartoons have emphasised that the
magazine’s chief target was extremism and not Islam.
Now this research about Charlie Hebdo leads me to
know more about the Prophet Mohammad of Islam and why is it an Offence to draw
him.
Prophet Mohammad is believed by Muslims and Bahá'ís to be a messenger and prophet of God, Muhammad is almost universally considered by Muslims as the last prophet sent by God to mankind.
Born approximately in
570 CE in the Arabian city of Mecca, Muhammad
was orphaned at an early age; he was raised under the care of his paternal
uncle Abu Talib. After his childhood Muhammad primarily worked as
a merchant.
Occasionally Mohammad would retreat to a cave in the mountains for several nights of seclusion and
prayer; later, at age 40, he reported at this spot, that
he was visited
The revelations (each
known as Ayah, lit. "Sign [of God]"), which
Muhammad reported receiving until his death, form the verses of the Quran, regarded by Muslims as the
"Word of God" and around which the religion is based. Besides the
Quran, Muhammad's teachings and practices (sunnah), found
in the Hadith and sira literature,
are also upheld by Muslims and used as sources of Islamic law.
I read many articles over Internet and literally found
nothing that stated that Drawing Prophet Mohammad was a sin. I actually found a
lot of Images of the Prophet!
I was shocked!
If drawing the Prophet was a sin then
how were there so many Images of the Prophet? I searched some more and then I found
some reasons.
Fundamentalists of Islam support the
idea that any depictions
of Mohammad must be forbidden, but in fact such
depictions had not been prohibited until the 16th or 17th century and they are
never condemned in the Quran.
So that means it is a view of a group
that any Visual Depiction of the Prophet is an offence and not of the whole
religion.
To know more about it I asked some of my
Muslim friends over the Internet what they felt about the Incident and how
would they react about the drawings of their Prophet.
I got a lot of different views but to ease it down I categorized them in two parts,
1) Who were totally against the idea of the images of prophet!
2) Who took it a little bit casually!
So most of the posts mainly belonged to the first group; mainly consisted of
the haters as I would state them. They
were mostly in support of whatever happened in France. They thought that the
attack was to avenge their Prophet. Some random person went as far as to say
that anyone who would Insult their Prophet would be cursed by Allah and the
true Muslim would always be there to AVENGE on behalf of his Allah.
To this I was like “meh!”
P.S. If that guy or those who think he
is right are reading this Blog then keep reading cause you’ll definitely find
more urge to kill me!
So I was almost about to shut my lappy
down after reading these posts when I came across another post.
It said, “I am totally against drawing
our Prophet, peace be upon him, but that is my decision! I cannot force anyone
else to believe in my beliefs. And there is nothing in the Quran that states
that Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, cannot be drawn. We Muslims do not
prefer to draw him because he was so great, such a saint that any artist, no
matter how talented, cannot do Justice to the Prophet’s Image, peace be upon
him.”
I was surprised to see this Insight about Prophet by him. He gave me an appropriate reason that the Muslims must believe for
not supporting the drawings of the Prophet.
His comment made me search further
through more posts to find out what normal (not radical) Muslims thought about
this Incident.
That’s when I found more people
believing that the Charlie Hebdo Incident is a shame for Humanity.
To shorten things out, there were people
belonging to the Muslim community who thought that “Allah never asked Muslims
to avenge; he said you should go to war
only when you are being evicted from your house.” “Muslims have the belief
of not drawing the Prophet, but that does not mean the world will follow it.
The Christians have the tradition of celebrating Christmas, do we follow that?
The Hindus have the tradition of worshiping Cow’s, does that stop us from eating
Cow meat? No! Then why should the world follow our believes?” and a lot more
such Posts!
These posts made me realize that it’s
not a religion that spreads Terror. Any Religion cannot be that low that it can
be ridiculed by an art of an artist! It is just what our mentality is!
Every religion has some bad guys, but
there are a lot more good guys to nullify the bad guys' deeds! In this moment of when our Freedom is in danger, we all have to stick together and fight against these TERRORISTS!
I, pledge that no matter what is my
Religion is, will always belong to the most Important Religion first. That is HUMANITY.
May the souls of the martyrs rest in
peace!
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