Grumpuss
Active Member
"Should"? Take it up with the English Parliament then. It's a society that doesn't value freedom of speech, as much as some others do.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Is the Quran fireproof?
- Thread starter Notanumber
- Start date
leibowde84
Veteran Member
My opinion is that it should not be a crime at all, no matter where you are. Whether it is a crime in England is beside my point.
Grumpuss
Active Member
The law of the land is the law. The United Kingdom doesn't agree with you.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Nevertheless, I think they are wrong. I understand that the OP was asking whether it, in fact, is a crime. So, I would have to see caselaw to make a reasonable judgment on that. I don't know enough about british free expression law.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
It's funny, every single person got the OP question wrong. It is, in fact, a hate crime to burn the quran in the UK. I don't agree with it, but the law is the law and many people have been charged for it.
Grumpuss
Active Member
Uhh, it's in the OP's article. The United Kingdom has hate crime laws, and no freedom of speech. A guy got arrested for burning a Quran in an online video.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
You are wrong. Britain has freedom of speech, it just isn't as robust as it is in the US. There are limitations to freedom of speech in Britain, just as there are limitations to freedom of speech in the US. There are just more restrictions in the UK.
Grumpuss
Active Member
If it make you feel better to say so, fine. There is no constitutional guarantee of free speech in Britain. It's an open democratic society, but prosecuting someone for speaking their mind is also a shared feature of totalitarianism. It's all fine and well to say that it's just "hate speech" that is banned and subject to prosecution, but who decides which speech is hateful and which isn't?
leibowde84
Veteran Member
I believe that the courts decide. There is hate crimes in the US as well, just not for mere speech. I would assume the guidelines are similar.
Grumpuss
Active Member
There is no such prosecutable crime for "hate speech" in the United States, no. You can say anything you want about races, religions, genders, etc., while tattooed in swastikas and draped in a Confederate flag. I doubt you'll make too many friends or have much success in your career though. The only real rule is you can't use that speech to incite violence.
This is the nice thing about having a true constitution- the government can't turn on a dime and deny certain civil rights built into the law.
Confucian Mormon Buddhist
Member
Is the Quran fireproof? Let's test it and see!
Oh, the real question is if you should be arrested for burning it. **** no, I couldn't care less about protecting somebody else's religion, especially THAT one.
Oh, the real question is if you should be arrested for burning it. **** no, I couldn't care less about protecting somebody else's religion, especially THAT one.
Grumpuss
Active Member
Just don't do it in the UK.
Not out of a particular respect for that religion, but out of a particular fear that someone in that religion will commit some horrible act of violence against you, right?
Confucian Mormon Buddhist
Member
Even less good of a reason to ban the burning of it. I'd rather we meet those people head-on than bow to them.
Honestly, though, burning Qurans is kind of stupid. Book burnings are showy, but they mostly make the guy doing the burning look like a cretin and creates sympathy for the censored work. You know, the Streisand Effect. I'm anti-Islam because of my knowledge of early Islamic history, and I think educating people on the Quran, Hadiths, and Sira/Sura (forgot the exact name?) is the best way to explain the fundamental problems with the religion. Tends to be that the people who are most pro-Islam (who aren't Muslims, of course) are the least knowledgeable about it.
Notanumber
A Free Man
The problem with educating people on the Quran is that it is being portrayed, as the ‘Religion of Peace’ and those people believe the spin.
What educator in their right mind is going to run the risk of telling it like it is?
What educator in their right mind is going to run the risk of telling it like it is?
Grumpuss
Active Member
Except that's not the tack most of the world is taking. Most of the world is just waiting, hoping the extremist elements will fade and go away, and accept the massacres as they come, for fear that doing anything about them will ignite a holy war 100x as bad.
Such people have done the math. They know we're in for several hundred Bataclan/Pulse shootings, and a few dozen 9/11s. If that's only 200,000 people- even if all of them are innocent children, they're okay with that.
Book banning / burning has been done by extremists of all varieties. The intent is always the same: to erase alternative philosophies and stifle individualism. Bolsheviks did it, Brownshirts did it, McCarthyists did it. Hell, even wussy liberals did it with Huckleberry Finn.
The Leftists' obsession with painting Muslims as victims is bizarre. Most mainstream "moderate" versions of Islam are hideously conservative, abusive of women and intensely xenophobic of non-Muslims. Courting illegal aliens makes much more sense: at least such a group of people represent a vast potential voting bloc.
Sakeenah
Well-Known Member
I think burning any religious text out of hate is disrespectful. I can understand that a non Muslim may disagree with the teachings of the Quran, but to buy one just to burn it is ridiculous.
What are they trying to achieve?
Are they trying to challenge the teachings of the Quran? You don't do that by burning it or insulting our beliefs, but by enganging in dialogue.
Last edited:
Are there are any who are actually interested in a meaningful "dialogue"? What kind of "dialogue" is possible when people are under threat that if they say the wrong thing, there might be violence?
You ask "What are they trying to achieve?" Maybe they're trying to demonstrate that they're not afraid of terrorists who would use Islam as an excuse to commit violence and murder. Maybe they want to challenge the terrorists to come out and fight in the open, rather than hiding in the shadows like cowards (while waiting to strike at the most vulnerable and innocent).
Burning
Most Islamic scholars agree that burning old copies of the Quran, in a respectful manner in a clean place, is acceptable as a last resort.
In this case, one must ensure that the burning is complete, meaning that no words are left legible and the pages have been fully destroyed. At no time should a Quran be burned with the regular trash. Some add that the ashes should then be buried or scattered in running water (see above).
The permission for this practice comes from early Muslims, at the time of Caliph Uthman bin Affan. After the official, agreed-upon version of the Quran had been compiled in a consistent dialect of Arabic, the official version was copied while the old or nonconforming Qurans were burned respectfully.
Correct and Respectful Ways to Dispose of the Quran
~~
<QUESTION>
How does one get rid of unwanted religious literature, such as religious books, leaflets with the name of Allah, etc? Also, please state the ruling on what should be done to the copies of Qur’an that are no longer in a useable state:
<ANSWER>
In the name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful,
With regards to getting rid of unwanted religious and Islamic literature, the great classical Hanafi jurist (faqih), Imam al-Haskafi (Allah have mercy on him) states:
“Books that are no longer benefited from, one should wipe away the names of Allah, His Angels, and His Messengers, and burn the rest. There is also nothing wrong with casting them into a flowing river as they are (i.e. without wiping away those names) or burying them, and this (burying them) is better.” (Radd al-Muhtar ala al-Durr al-Mukhtar, 5/271)
Thus, if one decides to dispose of religious literature, the best thing would be to bury it by wrapping it in something pure first, in a place where people would not normally walk. It would also be permitted to tie the books and papers with something heavy and cast them into a flowing river. Alternatively, the literature may be burnt, but in this case, only after erasing the names of Allah, His Angels and His Messengers.
How to get Rid of Unwanted Islamic Literature? | daruliftaa.com
~~
How much efforts should muslim put in to preserve the old copies of Quran? This certainly requires resources and expertise in preservation. There are many old copies of Quran in various libraries and homes but they are all dusted and in bad condition. How one should act in this situation where there is a desire to save such Mushaaf?.
[...]
1-
Burning, i.e., burning old copies of the Mus-haf in a careful and respectable manner, in a clean and safe place, whilst ensuring that the words are consumed by the fire and the pages are changed.
The scholars based this view on what ‘Uthmaan (may Allaah be pleased with him) did with the Mus-hafs that differed from what the Sahaabah were unanimously agreed upon. Al-Bukhaari (may Allaah have mercy on him) narrated (hadeeth no. 4987) from Anas ibn Maalik that ‘Uthmaan ibn ‘Affaan (may Allaah be pleased with him) ordered Zayd ibn Thaabit, ‘Abd-Allaah ibn al-Zubayr, Sa’eed ibn al-‘Aas and ‘Abd al-Rahmaan ibn al-Haarith ibn Hishaam to make copies of the Mus-hafs. ‘Uthmaan said to the three Qurashi men: If you differ with Zayd ibn Thaabit concerning anything of the Qur’aan, then write it in the dialect of Quraysh, for it was revealed in their tongue. They did that, then when they had copied the pages in Mus-hafs, ‘Uthmaan returned the pages to Hafsah, and he sent to each country one of the Mus-hafs that they had copied, and he ordered that all other copies of the Qur’aan on pages or in books be burned.
Ibn Battaal (may Allaah have mercy on him) said:
This hadeeth shows that it is permissible to burn books which contain the name of Allaah, and that this is a kind of respect to them and protects them from being trampled underfoot. ‘Abd al-Razzaaq narrated via Tawoos that he used to burn letters that contained the Basmalah when he had collected a good number of them, and ‘Urwah did the same, but Ibraaheem regarded that as makrooh.
Ancient copies of the Qur’aan - islamqa.info
Allahu Akbar!
Most Islamic scholars agree that burning old copies of the Quran, in a respectful manner in a clean place, is acceptable as a last resort.
In this case, one must ensure that the burning is complete, meaning that no words are left legible and the pages have been fully destroyed. At no time should a Quran be burned with the regular trash. Some add that the ashes should then be buried or scattered in running water (see above).
The permission for this practice comes from early Muslims, at the time of Caliph Uthman bin Affan. After the official, agreed-upon version of the Quran had been compiled in a consistent dialect of Arabic, the official version was copied while the old or nonconforming Qurans were burned respectfully.
Correct and Respectful Ways to Dispose of the Quran
~~
<QUESTION>
How does one get rid of unwanted religious literature, such as religious books, leaflets with the name of Allah, etc? Also, please state the ruling on what should be done to the copies of Qur’an that are no longer in a useable state:
<ANSWER>
In the name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful,
With regards to getting rid of unwanted religious and Islamic literature, the great classical Hanafi jurist (faqih), Imam al-Haskafi (Allah have mercy on him) states:
“Books that are no longer benefited from, one should wipe away the names of Allah, His Angels, and His Messengers, and burn the rest. There is also nothing wrong with casting them into a flowing river as they are (i.e. without wiping away those names) or burying them, and this (burying them) is better.” (Radd al-Muhtar ala al-Durr al-Mukhtar, 5/271)
Thus, if one decides to dispose of religious literature, the best thing would be to bury it by wrapping it in something pure first, in a place where people would not normally walk. It would also be permitted to tie the books and papers with something heavy and cast them into a flowing river. Alternatively, the literature may be burnt, but in this case, only after erasing the names of Allah, His Angels and His Messengers.
How to get Rid of Unwanted Islamic Literature? | daruliftaa.com
~~
How much efforts should muslim put in to preserve the old copies of Quran? This certainly requires resources and expertise in preservation. There are many old copies of Quran in various libraries and homes but they are all dusted and in bad condition. How one should act in this situation where there is a desire to save such Mushaaf?.
[...]
1-
Burning, i.e., burning old copies of the Mus-haf in a careful and respectable manner, in a clean and safe place, whilst ensuring that the words are consumed by the fire and the pages are changed.
The scholars based this view on what ‘Uthmaan (may Allaah be pleased with him) did with the Mus-hafs that differed from what the Sahaabah were unanimously agreed upon. Al-Bukhaari (may Allaah have mercy on him) narrated (hadeeth no. 4987) from Anas ibn Maalik that ‘Uthmaan ibn ‘Affaan (may Allaah be pleased with him) ordered Zayd ibn Thaabit, ‘Abd-Allaah ibn al-Zubayr, Sa’eed ibn al-‘Aas and ‘Abd al-Rahmaan ibn al-Haarith ibn Hishaam to make copies of the Mus-hafs. ‘Uthmaan said to the three Qurashi men: If you differ with Zayd ibn Thaabit concerning anything of the Qur’aan, then write it in the dialect of Quraysh, for it was revealed in their tongue. They did that, then when they had copied the pages in Mus-hafs, ‘Uthmaan returned the pages to Hafsah, and he sent to each country one of the Mus-hafs that they had copied, and he ordered that all other copies of the Qur’aan on pages or in books be burned.
Ibn Battaal (may Allaah have mercy on him) said:
This hadeeth shows that it is permissible to burn books which contain the name of Allaah, and that this is a kind of respect to them and protects them from being trampled underfoot. ‘Abd al-Razzaaq narrated via Tawoos that he used to burn letters that contained the Basmalah when he had collected a good number of them, and ‘Urwah did the same, but Ibraaheem regarded that as makrooh.
Ancient copies of the Qur’aan - islamqa.info
Allahu Akbar!
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
When the law is an *** is deserves to be flouted.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
To your own detriment though. You would be put in jail. Probably better to work to get the law changed.