Political Islam in the News

CSPII Commentary: In a sermon titled “The Virtue and Status of the Companions in Islam,” Saudi scholar Ali al-Shibl says hatred or abuse of specified companions constitutes unbelief that removes a person from Islam, and he recites Koran 48:29 describing Mohammed’s followers as “harsh against the unbelievers, merciful among themselves.” The sermon closes with the prayer asking Allah to exalt Islam, the Sunnah and their adherents, and to abase unbelief, polytheism, religious innovation and their adherents.

CSPII Commentary: John Cleese was referred to Britain’s Prevent programme for calling Islam open to ridicule, and he answered that criticism of Islam is not racist and that the complaint was comedy material. Pickthall’s Koran 5:33 sets the penalty for those who “make war upon Allah and His messenger” as killing, crucifixion, amputation, or exile, the verse classical law uses against open defiance and that hate-speech rules now echo. The Islamic pressure is used to shut down critique and questions.

CSPII Commentary: Selma Blair says her 2024 Instagram line on Islam cost her brands, agents, and friends within a day, and the pile-on matches the pattern of punishing critics while helpers of the faith amplify the penalty. Pickthall’s Koran calls those helpers the ones who “made their abode in the city and in the faith” and “love those who flee unto them,” which is the same role the industry played here.

CSPII Commentary: The Organiser list ties several West Bengal Durga Puja attacks, from the 2014 Burdwan blast to the 2024 Howrah burning of a Durga murti, to mobs treating other gods’ images as things to smash. Pickthall’s Koran gives the model in Abraham, who “reduced them to fragments, all save the chief of them,” the same precedent Mohammed followed when the idols were cleared from the Kaaba.

CSPII Commentary: An Arabic sermon by Abdullah al-Basri praises Mohammed’s companions as men through whose blood and sacrifices “the strongholds of unbelief and hypocrisy fell” (هَوَت مَعَاقِلُ الكُفرِ وَالنِّفَاقِ). It says Allah sent them “to conquer lands” (لِفَتحِ البِلادِ), credits them with defeating unbelievers and apostates and toppling Persian and Roman thrones, and presents them as models whose deeds Muslims should emulate.

CSPII Commentary: Koran 2:221 says "Wed not idolatresses till they believe"