Charlie Hebdo (Paris) Shooting of 12 people

Yasir Qadhi, an assistant professor of Islamic studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, said he took a more nuanced view.

“Loving the prophet is a necessary requirement of (faith). Defending his honor is a sign of belief. This is done by following his teachings and practice, not by murdering in his name,” Qadhi wrote in a widely shared Facebook post. “Even for those who believe that the penalty for blasphemy should be death: by unanimous consensus of all the scholars of Islam, this must take place after a legitimate trial, by a qualified judge, appointed by a legitimate Islamic state. Under no circumstances does Islam allow vigilante justice.”

“The damage these people do to the image of the prophet is much more than cartoonists do to our prophet,” Qadhi, who is also dean of academic affairs at Houston-based AlMaghrib Institute, said in an interview, adding that he believed “Muslims in the modern world need to talk and engage about blasphemy in Muslim countries. But no reputable cleric is calling for laws like that in America or Paris.”

The nasty cartoons falsely attributed (*) to Nabi (Sallallaho Alaihe Wassallam) are over the web now with millions having access to them.

(*) I don't believe that Nabi (Sallallaho Alaihe Wassallam) can actually be depicted in a picture or cartoon

Bill Donohue comments on the killing of 12 people at the Paris office of the newspaper Charlie Hebdo:

Killing in response to insult, no matter how gross, must be unequivocally condemned. That is why what happened in Paris cannot be tolerated. But neither should we tolerate the kind of intolerance that provoked this violent reaction.

Those who work at this newspaper have a long and disgusting record of going way beyond the mere lampooning of public figures, and this is especially true of their depictions of religious figures. For example, they have shown nuns masturbating and popes wearing condoms. They have also shown Muhammad in pornographic poses.

While some Muslims today object to any depiction of the Prophet, others do not. Moreover, visual representations of him are not proscribed by the Koran. What unites Muslims in their anger against Charlie Hebdo is the vulgar manner in which Muhammad has been portrayed. What they object to is being intentionally insulted over the course of many years. On this aspect, I am in total agreement with them.

Stephane Charbonnier, the paper’s publisher, was killed today in the slaughter. It is too bad that he didn’t understand the role he played in his tragic death. In 2012, when asked why he insults Muslims, he said, “Muhammad isn’t sacred to me.” Had he not been so narcissistic, he may still be alive. Muhammad isn’t sacred to me, either, but it would never occur to me to deliberately insult Muslims by trashing him.

Anti-Catholic artists in this country have provoked me to hold many demonstrations, but never have I counseled violence. This, however, does not empty the issue. Madison was right when he said, “Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as the abuses of power.”