THE ISSUE: ABUSE OF THE PROPHET

their hundreds of verses, there is not a single verse which gives the command to kill an abuser of the Prophet. Those who support this concept cite certain verses of the Quran, but these are totally irrelevant to the issue concerned. For instance, Ibn Taimiyya quotes in his book, Al-Sarimul-Maslul ‘ala Shatimir-Rasul certain verses, one of which is: Those who annoy God’s messenger will have a woeful punishment. THE QURAN 9: 61 The Quran and Hadith have not given any command to kill an abuser of the Prophet. The ‘woeful punishment’ mentioned in this verse of the Quran clearly refers to the punishment in the life after death, rather than punishment in this world. It is irrational to fail to differentiate between killing in this world and punishment in the next world. Punishment in this world is the result of a sentence pronounced in a human court, whereas punishment in the next life will result directly from the divine verdict. These punishments differ entirely from one another in nature. The argument that a Quranic verse equates retribution in the after-life with punishment in this world is totally without logic. The second source of Islamic Shariah is the Hadith or the sayings and deeds of the Prophet. But those who advocate executing the command to kill any abuser of the Prophet will not find a single line to support their argument. They might establish their stand if they could quote a tradition of the Prophet which clearly says, ‘Anyone who abuses your Prophet should be killed.’ But we can say with certainty that in the whole body of Hadith literature, no such authentic tradition has been recorded by anyone. Imam Muhammad bin Ahmad Az Zahbi (d. 1348) wrote, ‘A Hadith which is not known to Ibn Taimiyya is not an authentic Hadith.’ But even Ibn Taimiyya, renowned as a great religious scholar, failed to present an authentic Hadith to this effect. In his book he quotes a tradition, the authenticity of which he is not quite certain. Its wording is as follows, ‘Anyone who abuses any of the prophets should be killed.’ Ibn Taimiyya himself wrote of this Hadith that it was possibly fabricated, and that only if its authenticity were proved, could it serve as an argument that abusers of the prophets should be killed.