Angry in the Great White North

The Canadian government is not going to allow the judicial system to become the enforcer of the Sharia:

The Canadian government has refused demands from the country's Muslim leaders to expand a law banning hate propaganda so that it covers cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad such as the ones that have sparked worldwide protests.

Patrick Charette, press secretary to Justice Minister Vic Toews, told Reuters that Canada's new Conservative government has no plans to broaden the scope of the 36-year-old law.

"The provisions covering hate propaganda ... as they stand strike a balance between the freedom of expression and also the rights of minorities to be protected from hatred," Charette said. "It's broad enough right now."

Or too broad, but either way, opening it up now, in this environment, would lead to an inevitable expansion of the law that no one would be able to say anything about Muslims except that they're great.

And let's be real here. This is not about protecting all faiths. This is about kowtowing to Islamic sensibilities. This is about implementing Islamic law here, to apply to everyone, Muslim or not.

Of course, they wouldn't actually say that:

Syed Soharwardy, president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, said the law must be expanded to outlaw insults against "all prophets and messengers of God, all divine books," including those of Christianity and Judaism.

"If somebody insults them, if somebody makes fun of them, they should be guilty of a hate crime and the law should be changed to reflect that," he said.

The problem with these "moderates" is that their attitudes really aren't all that moderate. Take Ibrahim B. Syed, Ph. D., of Louisville, Kentucky, who wrote that apostasy is not a capital offense, despite what many Muslims believe.

Sounds moderate, right?

Any scholar who says the death sentence applies to leaving the faith, then the convict is to be given a life-time to repent, and this is the view of Sufyan al-Thawri, Ibrahim al-Nakha'ee, Shamsuddeen al-Sarakhshi, Imam al-Baji and, by strong implication, Ahmad Ibn Taimiya. One must conclude that the death sentence is not for "simple apostasy" (mujarrad al-ridda), but for apostasy accompanied by treason and sedition, or by the abuse and slander (sabb) of the Noble Prophet.

Right, abuse and slander by the apostate gets you a date with the guy holding the scimitar. Much more moderate than killing app apostates, I suppose.

To be fair, Syed makes it clear that people must not be compelled to convert.

Sounds moderate, right?

From the above verses it can be argued that religious freedom and the absence of compulsion in religion requires that individuals be allowed adopt a religion or to convert to another religion without legal penalty.

In fact, the death penalty should only be applied in two specific circumstances.

More moderation, right?

Furthermore, the Qur'an has strictly disallowed the imposition of the death penalty except in two specific cases. One of them is where the person is guilty of murdering another person and the other is where a person is guilty of creating unrest in the country (fasa'd fil-ardh) like being involved in activities that create unrest in a society, for example activities like terrorism etc.

An activity that creates unrest. Like doodling a cartoon, perhaps?

The fact is, the Sharia is not a model for Canadian jurisprudence. Even in its most liberal implementation, one that is not the typical implementation is most Islamic countries, it seems, the code still runs counter to the basic tenets of Western liberalism.

And given the wildly different interpretations of Islamic law (which always amazes me, since Islam is supposed to be so straightforward and literal), there is no guarantee that a law to protect Muhammad from ridicule today won't be expanded dramatically over time.

Would naming the prophet without the traditional "peace be upon him" written afterward be considered an act of disrespect?

The government can see the slippery slope, and aren't going anywhere near it. That means that people like Soharwardy are going to be sorely disappointed. Canadians are not going to make special rules for the Prophet, since it is clear that rules like those are potentially dangerous to everyone, Muslim or not.

I guess they'll have to put up with Ezra Levant doing his job as a journalist and a publisher.