Don't Like What Someone's Saying? Do Not Sit With Them.

Mustafa Akyol had an interesting piece in the New York Times yesterday:

The only source in Islamic law that all Muslims accept indisputably is the Quran. And, conspicuously, the Quran decrees no earthly punishment for blasphemy . . . Nor, for that matter, does the Quran command stoning, female circumcision or a ban on fine arts. All these doctrinal innovations . . . were brought into the literature of Islam as medieval scholars interpreted it . . .

Tellingly, severe punishments for blasphemy . . . appeared when increasingly despotic Muslim empires needed to find a religious justification to eliminate political opponents...

Before all that politically motivated expansion . . . the Quran told early Muslims, who routinely faced the mockery of their faith by pagans: 

“God has told you in the Book that when you hear God’s revelations disbelieved in and mocked at, do not sit with them until they enter into some other discourse; surely then you would be like them.” 

 Just “do not sit with them” — that is the response the Quran suggests for mockery. Not violence. Not even censorship.

I was reminded of this when I read the comment of Rachid Kadmar, 33, a French citizen from Lyon. This individual said of the Charlie Hebdo magazine editors, “They deserved murder.”

No, Rachid. You deserve an education.