Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide by Paul Marshall, Nina Shea

moderate countries, even Indonesia, face increasing problems.
    Another feature of current restrictions is that terms such as “apostasy,” “blasphemy,” and “insulting Islam” are invoked without any precision; militias, mobs, and even courts frequently alternate between the terms and come up with new terms of their own, often ones lacking any historical foundation. Whatever particular charge is used, the effect is the same: religious minorities are often threatened and persecuted, critics of the regime may be imprisoned or killed, and debate about the nature of Islam is stifled.

PART III
     

PART IV
     

MUSLIM CRITICISM OF APOSTASY
AND BLASPHEMY LAWS
     
    In this book, we do not analyze the development of notions of apostasy and blasphemy in Islamic or other history, nor do we assess their systematic treatment in Islamic jurisprudence and theology. Our concern is to survey the contemporary use of these notions to justify worldly punishments. Clearly, however, one important step in limiting or stopping their application to repress political and religious freedom is to show that such temporal punishments are not required by Islam. Consequently, we have asked three noted Muslim scholars to address this issue. They all condemn disrespect for others’ beliefs, but they argue that Islam does not require temporal punishments for such offenses or purported offenses. Two of these essays are given in part IV , and one, “God Needs No Defense,” by the late Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid—the former president of Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, and head of Nahdatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization—is the book’s foreword.
    Wahid outlines the nature of belief itself and argues eloquently that God does not need our defense from human blasphemy or, indeed, anything else. Moreover, those who seek to force their limited understanding on others may themselves be committing blasphemy and certainly coarsen Muslim society. He holds that the origins of blasphemy restrictions lie in the political ramifications of early Islam, when apostasy was tantamount to desertion from the caliph’s army. In today’s very different situation, temporal punishments for blasphemy and apostasy threaten not only religious minorities but also the right of Muslims to speak freely about their faith; they also hinder faith itself, which always includes growth and seeking for the truth.
    In chapter 14 , “Renewing Qur’anic Studies in the Contemporary World,” the late Professor Abu-Zayd, who was on the receiving end of extremistattacks and at one point was forced to flee his native Egypt, emphasizes that charges of apostasy and blasphemy are “strategically employed to prevent reform of Muslim societies” and “confine the world’s Muslim population to a bleak, colorless prison of sociocultural and political conformity.” He stresses the enormous social, cultural, and theological diversity in contemporary and historical Islam and outlines the patterns of interpretation used by Muslims. In particular, he argues against an “ahistorical” understanding of Islam and, while carefully never reducing Islam to history, stresses that we need to understand “its historical context … how it emerged and developed within Arabia and other parts of the world.” Only then can we understand how Islam should be manifest in our own situation and “liberate the ‘deep substance’ of the Holy Qur’an’s message.”
    In chapter 15 , “Rethinking Classical Muslim Law of Apostasy and the Death Penalty,” Abdullah Saeed, some of whose writings have been banned in his native Maldives, emphasizes that current human rights discourse is not merely a Western concern: “It is shared by a large number of Muslims as well.” He agrees with Abu-Zayd on the need to understand the political context of early Islam, in particular, the “post-prophetic period against which the classical Islamic law of apostasy was formulated” and