Invented ‘crimes’

THEhorrendous massacre at France’s satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, by demented religious fanatics in the name of Islam, must be condemned without reservation by true followers of the Prophet Muhammad.

Even if this controversial publication made fun and invariably insulted Islam and its founder, nothing can justify the savage overreaction by Muslims slaughtering their victims while hypocritically calling out “God is Great”.

These reprehensible and premeditated murders betray the uplifting and inclusive tenets of Islam, and heap incalculable opprobrium and shame on Muslims worldwide. The cowardly and despicable killings perpetrated by these immigrant young Algerian men are the direct product of a warped theology implanted by traditional Islamic clerics.

The conventional clergy’s toxic propaganda has substituted Islam’s tolerant divine text with intolerant manmade sources like the subsequent questionable hadith, the medieval shari’ah (a medley of masculine timebound opinion) and risible contemporary rulings (fatwahs).

It is these combined theological innovations that have “legitimised” new rules transforming all criticism and/or mockery of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad into a major religious sin.

But in reality, these are just manufactured “crimes” that have no legitimacy in the Holy Qur’an. It is certainly not the responsibility of selfproclaimed defenders of the faith to punish. There is not a single Qur’anic verse that condones the formal execution of those guilty, either of “blasphemy” or “apostasy” – both invented crimes in terms of Islam’s transcendent teachings.

The sacred text repeatedly confirms that the Creator alone “is the Master of the Day of Judgement” (1:3) and that He solely will deal exclusively with his creation (74:11).

Furthermore, the Prophet Muhammad was lampooned as a serial sorcerer and a crazy poet. But he simply