Demonstrating their commitment to intellectual freedom and free speech, the mullahs of Iran have struck again, this time issuing a death fatwa against an Azerbaijani writer who has criticized Islam:
One of Iran's most senior clergymen has issued a fatwa on an Azeri writer said to have insulted the Prophet Muhammad.
The call on Muslims to murder Rafiq Tagi, who writes for Azerbaijan's Senet newspaper, echoes the Iranian fatwa against Indian writer Salman Rushdie.
It was issued by the conservative Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Fazel Lankarani.
The writings of Rafiq Tagi sparked recent demonstrations outside the Azerbaijani embassy in the Iranian capital, Teheran.
The Iranian media is reporting that Grand Ayatollah Lankarani's followers inside the republic of Azerbaijan wrote to him asking for advice about what they called "the apostate writer".
They accuse the Azeri writer of portraying Christianity as superior to Islam and Europe as superior to the Middle East.
They allege that he has ridiculed all the sanctities of Islam and done it knowingly, fully aware of the consequences of his action.
In response, Grand Ayatollah Lankarani is said to have issued a fatwa calling for the death of the writer and also the person responsible for publishing his articles.
And the problem isn't just this one Iranian fascist, nor just Iranian Islam as practiced under the Khomeinists. Islam in general is intolerant of those who criticize or challenge it, or even depict it in a way its followers might not like: just ask Salman Rushdie or Theo van Gogh or Naguib Mahfouz, or a bunch of Danish cartoonists.
One of the essentials of democratic society, indeed, civilizational progress, is the ability to speak and criticize freely, without fear of repression or physical harm. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, herself a refugee from Islam and under threat of death for daring to criticize it, has identified this intolerance of criticism and the inability of most Muslims to ask probing questions of their society and religion (and to tolerate them from others) as one of the key reasons why Islamic civilization has been so stagnant. (Her book, The Caged Virgin, should be on your must-read list.)
Until men like Mr. Tagi are able to speak and write freely and critically, without fear of reprisal, Islamic society has little hope of curing the ills that plague it.
LINKS: More at Michelle Malkin's site and Jihad Watch.
Recent Comments