Kunwar Khuldune Shahid tells us about a reactionary cleric who finds himself hoist by his own petard fatwa.
Pakistani pop singer turned religious cleric Junaid Jamshed has been accused of blasphemy recently. Jamshed has now taken refuge in London, rightly fearing for his life in Pakistan.
The allegation occurred after Jamshed re-enacted a hadith which suggests that the Prophet Muhammad’s youngest wife Ayesha occasionally faked illness to seek her husband’s attention. The re-enactment was entitled ‘even the prophet’s company cannot tame a woman’.
Jamshed is notorious – or renowned, depending on who you talk to – for his misogynistic views. He is on record as saying:
“If you want a happy life, do not teach your wives how to drive a car. Do not let her go outside. She might leave you.”
He has also said that “A husband only involves himself in an extra marital affair because his wife isn’t doing enough. She is to be blamed.”
He has also advocated a ban on women driving, drawn connections between respect and how much a woman covers herself, and generally espoused the view that women are men’s possessions.
Hmm. Is it very wrong of me to feel glad that he feared for his life in Pakistan and had to run away to horrible kuffar London? It probably is, but I do all the same.
Jamshed, who is on record as saying that ‘secularism is a curse’, is now taking refuge in a society that has secular laws, vying to dodge the ramifications of the jurisprudence that he has endorsed for 17 years.
Despite Britain’s increasing number of Sharia courts – 85 at time of writing – which are limited to financial and familial matters, Jamshed knows he is perfectly safe in Britain, a country that epitomises everything that’s ‘wrong’ with the ‘evil West’.
He was wise enough to not go into exile in Saudi Arabia, the country that is the epitome of Jamshed’s version of Islam, which is intolerant, fundamentalist and extremist.
The Saudi legal system is based on Sharia law and does not have a penal code. Therefore, in Saudi Arabia, where Jamshed’s endorsed law prevails, the punishment for his comments about Ayesha would be left at the mercy of a judge’s interpretation of the Sharia law, which more often than not leads to decapitated heads.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that harsh laws and punishments seem so desirable until they are applied to oneself?