THOUGHT CRIME

THOUGHT CRIME Abominable Accusation IMAM IBN TAIMIYAH AL-HARRANI (661-728 CE) was born in Syria. Among Muslims, he generally occupies the position of a very important religious scholar. He has been given the title of Shaikh-e Akbar or ‘The Great Shaikh’, and his books are given the status of authoritative reference works. In the famous Arabic digital library al-Maktaba ash-Shamila, there are 154 books by him. An article by an Arab scholar Muhammad Habash is available on the Internet. It is titled: ‘Ibn Taimiyah and 428 fatwas under the title: [A person will be asked to] seek repentance or otherwise will be killed’. The author has made an in-depth study of Ibn Taimiyah’s books. In his article, he shows which actions Ibn Taimiyah has, according to his own way of thinking, declared to be crimes that supposedly merit the death penalty. Muhammad Habash cites Ibn Taimiyah’s words in this way: “Such people would be asked to repent, but if they do not repent, they shall be killed”. According to Muhammad Habash, this phrase of Ibn Taimiyah’s appears 200 times in his collection of fatwas or legal opinions, and if other books by Ibn Taimiyah are also included, the number of such “crimes” would amount to 428. Now, which are these “crimes” that Ibn Taimyah refers to. All of them are what could be called “thought crimes”. Muhammad Habash cites some examples from fatwas by Ibn Taimiyah which are given below: Ibn Taimiyah says, that if a person does not say that God is on His throne above the skies, he will be told to repent, and if he does not do so, he shall be killed. If a person says to someone else that he relied on him or that he trusts him, he will be told to repent, and if does not repent he shall be killed. If a mature person does not perform one of the five obligatory prayers or abandons one of the agreed-upon religious obligations, he will be told to repent, and if he does not, he shall be killed. A person who does not say that God is above the seven heavens will, on account of this, be declared a non-believer and shedding his blood will be lawful. He will be told to repent, and if he does not, he will be executed. In Islam, thought crimes are actions that do not deserve punishment at all.