Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA17730 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 28 Sep 2001 16:21:50 +0100 Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 08:18:03 -0700 From: Bill Spight <bspight@pacbell.net> Subject: Re: Belief & Behavior To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Message-id: <3BB494AB.C6BCEB6F@pacbell.net> Organization: Saybrook Graduate School X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en]C-CCK-MCD {Yahoo;YIP052400} (Win95; U) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-Accept-Language: en References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3102A6D044@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Dear Vincent,
> Just quickly, we must remember that unlike Christianity or, I think,
> Judaism, Islam has no concept of blasphemy. In other words disagreement
> over what the Koran means is actually a central point in Islam, but the
> different divisions sunni, shiite etc. have, in countries like Iran and the
> Taleban's Afghanistan, disavowed this in favour of their authoritarian
> interpretations of the Koran.
>
> This caused all sorts of problems for British muslims trying to get Salman
> Rushdie's book 'The Satanic Verses' banned in the 1980s on the grounds that
> it was blasphemous. First, UK blasphemy law only covers christianity, and
> second Islam has no blasphemy, only apostacy (turning on's back on one's
> faith) which is not a crime (otherwise all us atheists would be locked up!).
>
Could you please explain further? I was under the impression that
Rushdie's "death sentence" was because of blasphemy.
Many thanks,
Bill
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