Nothing reveals the deep chasm between Muslims and others more starkly than the way Muslims react when their sacred symbols are challenged. Unlike the West, where protest tends to follow legal, rational, and rights-based avenues, the Muslim reaction is often explosive and primal — an eruption of fury that bypasses intellect and jumps straight to rage. It’s as though everything taught in mosques, schools, and homes was not about contemplation, but rehearsals in aggression.
This isn’t a mere cultural variation. It reflects a deeply entrenched mindset — one steeped in latent hatred of the ‘other’, trained to revere texts without understanding them, and quick to reach for historical precedents as shields against any form of scrutiny or reform. The Muslim doesn’t flare up when a fellow human is insulted — but loses composure if a symbol is touched. Even if that symbol, historically, was the subject of doubt or desecration by Muslims themselves.
You never see a Muslim take to the streets to denounce the crimes of ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, or Hezbollah — even though he insists, “These people do not represent true Islam!” As if a verbal disclaimer were enough to clear the record. But when it comes to a cartoon, or a statement criticising Muhammad or the Qur’an, he suddenly erupts with fury and floods the streets, demanding vengeance.
You don’t see Muslims protesting against poverty, ignorance, rape, the oppression of women, child marriage, female genital mutilation, the flogging of homosexuals, or torture in Islamic prisons. None of that seems to offend them. None of it touches a nerve or tarnishes the image of their religion in their eyes.
And you’ll never hear a Muslim admit that the Qur’an, the hadiths, and the biography of Muhammad contain violent, exclusionary, and blood-soaked content that no longer fits in today’s world. On the contrary — they insist these teachings are “valid for all times and places,” dragging us back 1,400 years into a mindset of conquest, banditry, and religiously justified killing.
And if anyone dares to say that out loud, the Muslim immediately pulls out the accusation of “Islamophobia” — as if every critical thought outside his ideological bubble is a conspiracy against Islam, rather than a rational attempt to examine the roots of religious violence. It’s a ready-made label, used to silence every discussion and kill any honest attempt to understand the real source of the problem.
Burning the Qur’an? No. Burning the illusion of its infallibility. This is not about insulting Muslims, but exposing the insult Muslims have inflicted upon themselves for centuries through lies and hollow glorification. Civilisations thrive when they are brave enough to criticise themselves — not when they kill those who criticise them.
Let’s start with the sacred book itself. Ironically, the first organised burning of the Qur’an was not by Orientalists or atheists, but by order of Caliph Uthman ibn Affan.
He commanded the collection of Qur’anic manuscripts and the burning of all others. This act alone dismantles the myth that the Qur’an was always viewed as a sanctified, untouchable object. Uthman himself doubted the linguistic precision of the text, reportedly saying: “There are errors in the Qur’an, but the Arabs will correct them with their tongues.”
So, God makes mistakes — and the Arabs fix them?
Subsequent rulers tampered with the text too. Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, a tool of Umayyad power, allegedly modified eleven parts of the Qur’an.
Before him, Caliph Marwan ibn al-Hakam ordered the burning of Hafsa’s manuscript — the very version upon which Uthman’s compilation was based.
How does such blatant manipulation align with the narrative of divine preservation? And why is the religious establishment silent about these contradictions?
Even more, the case of Caliph al-Walid ibn Yazid, who shot arrows at the Qur’an while drunk and mocked its verses, saying: “You threaten every tyrant and rebel; here I am, a tyrant and rebel. When you meet your Lord on Judgment Day, say: Al-Walid tore me apart.”
If a contemporary writer or artist did that, they’d be declared an apostate and face death threats. Yet, where are the Friday sermons condemning al-Walid? The Islamic heritage lacks principles; it flows with power, mutates with authority, and justifies what benefits the throne.
Even today, so-called ‘defence’ of the Qur’an often humiliates it more than its critics. In Saudi Arabia (2004), protesters held Qur’ans to protect themselves from police brutality — only to have those Qur’ans trampled under boots, with no outrage from clerics or officials. What sanctity crumbles with a single stomp?
Historically, when the war between Ali and Muawiyah reached deadlock, Amr ibn al-As proposed raising Qur’ans on spears — a political trick, not a gesture of reverence.
The Qur’an became a prop in a power play, a war tactic, not a source of ethical authority. It was brandished like a shield, not opened for guidance.
It is ironically absurd that this widespread outrage is not limited to the Islamic world alone — it extends to Muslims living in Western societies as well, despite their residence in democratic countries that uphold freedom of expression and opinion. The anger erupts the moment a caricature is published or a critical article touches upon Islamic beliefs, yet a deafening silence prevails when it comes to internal texts that undermine the very foundations of the religion.
The average Muslim does not protest the overwhelming presence of myths and legends within their religious books, nor do they utter a single word against texts that, often unknowingly, mock their own Allah and Muhammad. Instead, such texts are blindly regarded as sacred components of an untouchable creed.
No one dares to re-examine the two canonical collections — Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim — despite the fact that they contain hadiths which, if read aloud by any critic in a public space, would immediately trigger accusations of insulting Islam and the Prophet. And yet, those very texts are met not with outrage or critical scrutiny, but with deeper veneration and unthinking defence.
These legends have become a form of collective addiction. Over 1.5 billion Muslims live in a state of shared delusion, clinging to the literalism of these texts without comprehending their implications, refusing even to ask questions or seek the truth.
None of the caricatures or satirical articles has ever gone so far as to accuse Muhammad of attempting to rape a woman — yet such accusations exist within the most authoritative Islamic sources, considered sacred second only to the Qur’an. We also find narrations about verses being abrogated, deleted, or altered, yet this never provokes anger or even inquiry among the faithful. So where is the outrage against those who attributed these stories to their Prophet, their God, and their holy book?
The shocking paradox is that these same believers insist that the Qur’an is perfect and incorruptible, while readily accusing the sacred scriptures of other religions of distortion and fabrication — as if their entire religious identity depends not on confronting the flaws within, but on discrediting the beliefs of others.
Fast-forward to today: Muslims still attach their fate to this convoluted heritage. They rage when a Qur’an is burned abroad, threatening global vengeance, yet remain silent when Qur’ans are desecrated at home, or when people are enslaved, tortured, or silenced in the name of religion. Everything in their tradition permits violence, desecration, insults, and manipulation — as long as it’s done by insiders, not outsiders.
This mentality doesn’t reject criticism due to intellectual disagreement — it rejects the very premise of criticism. For Muslims, the text sits above reason. Power trumps the individual. Time itself froze fourteen centuries ago. What should have evolved into spiritual consciousness calcified into collective fascism — fuelled by hatred, glorifying emotional outbursts, and demonising inquiry.
These facts are only ever seen in the Arab world as attacks on ‘constants.’ But what kind of constant trembles at a cartoon or an Instagram post? What kind of faith collapses under verbal critique? This fragility exposes not a noble steadfastness, but a psychological and intellectual deficiency — a mind governed by instinct, not thought, and by identity, not truth.
The West entered postmodernity through the agony of Enlightenment: revolting against its own history, religion, and institutions. Meanwhile, the Muslim demands global respect for his beliefs — yet respects no one else’s. He demands others avoid his sacred symbols, even as his own tradition is a catalogue of assaults on the sacred symbols of others.
A story that recently spread across social media says:
A journalist once asked the Dalai Lama:
“What would you do if someone threw a sacred Buddhist book into the toilet?”
The Dalai Lama immediately replied:
“Sir, if someone throws a sacred Buddhist book into the toilet, the first thing I’d do is call a plumber.”
When the journalist finished laughing, he told him:
“That’s the most logical answer I’ve ever heard.”
The Dalai Lama then added:
“It’s possible that someone might blow up a statue of Buddha, or burn down a Buddhist temple, or kill monks and nuns… but I will never allow that person to make Buddhism appear as a violent religion.”
“You can throw a holy book in the toilet, but you can never throw compassion in the toilet. You can’t flush away peace or love.”
“The book is not the religion. The statue isn’t the religion. Nor is the temple. All of these are merely containers of the religion.”
“We can print more books, build more temples, we can even train and educate more monks and nuns… but when we lose our love and respect for others and for ourselves, and replace those feelings with violence — only then will the entire religion end up in the toilet.”
We don’t know whether the story is true or fictional — and frankly, it doesn’t matter. What matters is the message it carries.
Is the essential thing the book — or the ideas and spirit it contains?
Is it the temple — or the values, conduct, and spiritual faith that believers are meant to embody?
Is it the religious figure — or the values and essence of the religion itself?
The Islamic discourse will never evolve unless it is stripped of sanctity and deconstructed with honesty. And unless Muslims admit that the first violators of their holy book were their own leaders.
The path to salvation lies in dismantling these illusions, breaking the aura of untouchability, and accepting that what is called sacred is merely a historical product — authored by men, exploited by rulers, and recycled by jurists under the banners of obedience and consensus.
The Muslim’s true battle is not with the West — but with his own reflection. With his paralysed mind, and selective memory. He must choose: continue worshipping symbols, or finally start questioning them.
إرسال تعليق