Kano Blasphemy Trial: Why I Think Killing Culprit is a Disservice to Islam and all Muslims
The Nigerian social media space has been tensed up since 10th August because an Upper Sharia Court in Kano sentenced Yahaya Aminu Sharif to death by hanging. Sharif — a singer — blasphemed the Prophet Mohammed in one of his songs. Nigerian Christians and Muslims have flooded their Facebook and Twitter timelines with deluges of biased and a very few unbiased opinions about the Sharia Court’s judgment.
Muslims who condemn the sentence have repeatedly pointed out that the capital punishment that the Sharia prescribes for blasphemers is more of human commandments than a command from Allah (God), because the punishment isn’t found anywhere in the Quran (the highest and final authority in Islam). Its authority is in Islamic jurisprudence or fiqh (an infinitely daedal sphere that is made up of a pantheon of Islamic schools of thoughts and traditions).
What the social media comment sections of major online Nigerian news outlets show is that quite a considerable number of Muslims in Northern Nigeria applaud the sentence. They are the ones at the comment sections keelhauling and firing invective at Northern and non-Northern Muslims, and Christians who condemn the sentence. They claim Muslims who don’t applaud the sentence have no substantive Islamic knowledge, don’t love the Prophet Mohammed and Islam enough and therefore, aren’t Muslim enough. They tell Christians to stop meddling in the matter and also quote several verses from the book of Leviticus, in an attempt to silence Christian critics by reminding them that even the Bible repletes with capital punishments. But the question they haven’t answered is: though verses in Leviticus prescribed capital punishment for blasphemers, has any court ever sentenced to death those who blasphemed Jesus or Jehovah? Or has an irate Christian mob ever lynched those who blasphemed Jesus or Jehovah?
The online comments didn’t come off as something new to me. I was born and raised in Kano. I also schooled there. Time and time again, I have heard many Northern Muslims say that they love the Prophet Mohammed so much that they can die and kill for him. This fearfully dangerous notion that the highest version of love is to be willing to die or kill for whom or what one loves, is the reason they think they are more Muslim than other Muslims who don’t subscribe to the notion.
Is love really love when it becomes a great disservice to whom or what you love? I doubt it is. In a world where Islamophobia hunts and torments all peaceful Muslims in Nigeria and around the world because some people have unfairly, inextricably married Islam to terrorism and violence, to get feverishly violent against, kill, or sentence a blasphemer to death in the name of Islam is a great disservice to Islam and all peaceful Muslims. That’s just one instance of the disservice. Let’s look at another blow of disservice such morally reprehensible actions deal to Islam.
Sharif isn’t the first Northern Muslim to be sentenced to death for blasphemy, but none of the cases before Sharif’s led to the eventual execution of the culprits. Just as we see in Sharif’s case, previous cases drew comments and pillorying from Christians, but Northern Muslims who support the decisions of the Sharia Court then and now are wont to tell Christians to refrain from talking about the matter because it is none of their business since the culprits are Northern Muslims.
Of course, that thoughtless response is usually made with outright forgetfulness that everyday Muslims and Muslims clerics are never tired of proselytizing that the door of Islam is forever wide open to Christians, atheists, and other non-Muslims who wish to convert to Islam. The problem is, saying that a Muslim who blasphemed the Prophet must be killed is equal to telling Christians and other people outside Islam that Islam is a religion that has no place for repentance and mercy. It never occurred to me that a Christian or anyone would want to convert to a religion where adherents worship a merciless God who gives no opportunity for repentance and puts the capital punishment for one’s sins in the hands of fellow sinners.
“In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.” All genuine Muslims are enjoined to start every good thing they want to do with that sentence. The Quran and other uncountable Islamic books that are published start with that sentence. But here are some Muslims presenting Allah as the Most Merciless and the Most Graceless, and yet claim they are better Muslims. What a total disservice to a religion they claim they love! What a fearfully wrong presentation of Islamic teachings about sin, forgiveness, and repentance!
How does all this affect Northern Muslims who have a balanced, nonviolent, and thorough knowledge of Islam?
On this matter, it’s beneficent to remember that Boko Haram was started by, and is still populated by Northern Muslims who perverted Islamic teachings and principles, intentionally misinterpret Scriptures, call all Muslims who don’t agree with them “infidels”, and consequently thought it a great service to Islam to kill the Muslim “infidels” — which is why the terror group has killed more Muslims than Christians and why all Muslims disowned members of the group.
Based on that remembrance, it wouldn’t be wide of the mark to say Northern Muslims who say they can kill and die for the love of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed, support capital punishment for blasphemy, and call other Muslims who don’t agree with them names and attack them on social media, are non-activated versions of Boko Haram members. Yes, that’s what they are! If that claim roils you because you think it’s unfair and wrong, I think the remembrance of how Boko Haram started should mollify you.
These non-activated versions of Boko Haram members, just like the real, activated Boko Haram members, strengthen the hate and promote the stereotypes that a lot of Southern Christians have against all peaceful Northern Muslims who don’t support capital punishment for blasphemers. That’s how these peaceful Muslims attract hate for a view they don’t hold or support. That’s how it affects them.
Ironically, like Northern Muslims who have a balanced, nonviolent, and thorough knowledge of Islam, even Northern Muslims who hold Boko-Haram-like views not only detest it when ignorantly bigoted hateful Christians from the South call them Boko Haram, they also detest it when they are unfairly judged and hated because of the terrorism of Boko Haram. They use every opportunity to fairly execrate the unfair treatment and dangerous generalization. That’s good enough, but they can do the best thing by not always trying to draw blood or go violently crazy whenever they adjudge an action to be disrespectful to Islam.
I have Muslims in my family and some of my benefactors are Muslims. Through them, I have seen Islam in its true form, so I’m convinced that Islam is truly a religion of peace. When it appears as though someone disrespects Islam or when someone actually disrespects Islam, all Northern Muslims must see it as an opportunity to once again present Islam as a religion of peace. They shouldn’t take delight in squandering the opportunity by promoting the wrong “Islam is violence” narrative.
Most importantly, we must all learn to respect the faith and spiritual things that our fellow Nigerians hold dear.
On Silencing Christian Critics and Commentators
Northern Nigeria and Islamic countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia have shown repeatedly that “blasphemy” can be used to punish minority groups by making it a boundlessly elastic term that can accommodate any manipulatable actions or words of the would-be victims, which would then be used to trap and punish them.
Time and time again, Christians in Northern Nigeria have been accused of blasphemy and lynched by an irate Northern Muslim mob. When you probe the cases, you find out that it really wasn’t clear how blasphemy was defined, and what the victims said or did that amounted to blasphemy before the street jurists of the Extrajudicial Courts sentenced them to death by lynching. To cite the most recent case, in 2016, Mrs Bridget Agbahime was accused of blasphemy and she was beheaded. No one knew what she said or did that attracted charges of blasphemy. The only thing close to knowing what she said or did was the story that she stopped some Muslims from performing ablution in front of her shop.
Though the current case is the case of a Muslim (a member of an Islamic sect considered to have heretical views)who blasphemed the Prophet, Christians can’t look the other way on the matter, because Christians in the North are potential victims of vague accusations of blasphemy. It’s even morally wrong to try to silence them from expressing their views and calling for attitudinal change on a topic that may lead to their death in the future.
