Slandering a Prophet

There is a difficulty to reconcile here: the death sentence in Islamic law for slandering a prophet, set against what has just been said — that prophets are merely men — and also the idea that people find God in their own time, which might be at sixteen for this person, or at forty. How is that consistent?

Well, consider that if you slander another human being you are whipped in Islam. If I accuse somebody here of adultery, the Islamic punishment is that I am whipped, because that is prohibited to do; and there are very severe consequences for it, because of its impact on society. If you do something to a prophet, it is very serious — with the idea that the prophets are impeccable in their character, that they are people who have only brought good for human beings. And if you do want to say something about them, then you say it not in the public space but in the private space: again, that is between you and God. But if you bring that out into the public space, then it creates a type of tension in the society that is very serious, according to the Muslims.

And to add to that: many of the people who persecuted the Prophet (peace be upon him) — physically persecuted him — he forgave. Absolutely, he forgave them.

Now, if it was a non-Muslim who did it, it is very different: it goes under a different category than if a Muslim did it. This law relates to Muslims who say bad things about the prophets of Allah. It is prohibited in Islamic law for a person to blaspheme any prophet; but for a Muslim, it is a death penalty. For a non-Muslim, they are tried; and if they become Muslim — if it was towards the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) — then it is not applied. If they do not, and they say that they adhere to what they said, then it is.

Because it is prohibited for the Muslims even to curse false gods. The Qurʾān says: do not curse the false gods of other people.

And that came later: initially the Muslims were saying bad things about the gods. So even for a Muslim, they are not supposed to make fun of Hindu objects of worship — to laugh about Krishna, or Vishnu, or Shiva. We are not supposed to do that. If it is in the private space, that is another matter; but publicly, I should not do that. I should not disparage what other people hold sacred.