The Issue of Blasphemy

PUBLISHER’S NOTE the Prophet’ is not a subject of punishment. Instead, sound arguments should be presented to address the mind of the blasphemer. God sent more than one lakh prophets to different regions. Their contemporaries almost always responded negatively by using abusive language. (Quran, 36:30, 16:101, 7:66) However, the Quran does not prescribe physical punishment for them. Rather the Quran commands the Prophet to refrain from using abusive language in retaliation: “But do not revile those they invoke instead of God, lest they, in their hostility, revile God out of ignorance.” (6:108) Many such verses in the Quran show that we have to abstain from negative reactions until the last moment in such situations. Incidents that are termed today as abusing the Prophet were prevalent during the life of the Prophet as well. When the Prophet presented his message before the Arabs, they misbehaved with him. Here are some of the epithets given to prophets as mentioned in the Quran: “a liar” (40:24), “possessed” (15:6), “a fabricator” (16:101), and “a foolish man” (7:66). However, nowhere does the Quran prescribe any physical punishment for these offences. It clearly shows that ‘abuse of the Prophet’ is not a subject of condemnation or seeking punishment; rather, it is a subject of removing their misunderstanding through sound arguments to address their minds. In other words,