Blasphemy

When a caricature on Prophet Mohammed(PBUH), published in a newspaper, can lead to violent protests erupting in the Arab world with economic boycotts, threats of retaliations and envoys being recalled and embassies closed; a filmmaker can get murdered in cold blood for making a short film about Muslim Women who shift from total submission to dialogue with God; it is not hard to imagine the fate meted out to a semi-porn video reviling the Prophet on YouTube. Ever since a fatwa was issued against Salman Rushdie for his infamous Satanic Verses, a volcanic reaction for blasphemous expressions offending the sensibilities of Muslims has become an expected reality. It is not unheard of the state to ban books, movies or even disallowing an author from exercising his/her legitimate right to freedom of expression in the interest of public order. This paper, which is originally a part of the thesis “Freedom of Expression and Maintenance of Public Order: Contemporary Issues and State Response,”...

L’effervescence médiatique est retombée, mais les attentats de Paris n’en finissent pas de mettre en question nos modes de pensée et même notre langage. Docteur en rhétorique et Chargé de recherches à l’Université libre de Bruxelles, Loïc Nicolas diagnostique les maux des mots...

The essay opens with some background information about the period in which J.S. Mill wrote. The discussion revolves around the concept of blasphemy which Mill considered to be highly problematic. Tagging unpopular views as ‘blasphemous’ amounted to abuse of governmental powers and infringed on the basic liberties of the out-of-favour speakers. The discussion on blasphemy sets the scene to the understanding of Mill's concerns, his priorities and consequently his emphasis on the widest possible liberty of expression. Section 2 presents the Millian principles that are pertinent to his philosophy of free speech: liberty and truth. Section 3 analyzes Mill's very limited boundaries to freedom of expression, asserting that the consequentialist reasoning had led Mill to ignore present tangible harm. It is argued that democracy is required to develop protective mechanisms against harm-facilitating speech.

The present article seeks to analyze the way in which the blasphemous figure of God in Dolce agonia by Nancy Huston allows the author to describe the sacred element in human life, seen as deprived of transcendental character. This is possible thanks to the three aspects of the text dependent on the type of God’s figure, which are: the contrast between passages marked by the cynical God’s voice and passages focused on man’s life filled with suffering; the tone and the appropriation of time var-iations and, finally, the double character of God who, at the same time, is indifferent to man’s lot while touched by his capacity of love.

The book is a significantly enlarged version of Tareen’s doctoral dissertation ‘The Limits of Tradition: Competing Logics of Authenticity in South Asian Islam’ at Duke University from 2012. Tareen focuses on key aspects of two 19th century debates in Northern India: i) during the first decades of the 19th century between Fazl-i Ḥaqq Khayrābādī (1796-1861) and Shāh Ismāʿīl (1779-1831) on intercession, and ii) in the last decades of the 19th century between Ashraf ʿAlī Thānvī (1863-1943) and Aḥmad Razā Khān (1856-1921) on whether the Prophet had knowledge of the hidden.

Book censorship has a long history. Until the Enlightenment in the 18th century, virtually all governments and powerful churches suppressed words and ideas they
considered threatening – which meant, for the most part, words and ideas thought to be subversive or blasphemous. By contrast, America in the mid-19th century, taking its cue from England, began the official suppression of books and ideas not about politics or religion but about sexuality. The targets were ideas and information that threatened dominant attitudes about women's role, about reproduction, and about social control of sexual behavior.
Today in the U.S., books are not suppressed very often through the criminal prohibitions of obscenity law. But they are the subject of unending censorship battles in public schools and libraries – and here, the targets of disapproval include religion, politics, violence, magic, vulgar words, and disobedience of authority, in addition, of course, to sex. Sometimes these battles are national in scope – as, for example, when Congress passed a law in 2000 requiring most American schools and libraries to install privately manufactured Internet filters that block tens of thousands of valuable Web pages. The Supreme Court upheld this law in 2003..

The essay opens with some background information about the period in which JS Mill wrote. The discussion revolves around the concept of blasphemy which Mill considered to be highly problematic. Tagging unpopular views as " blasphemous " amounted to abuse of governmental powers and infringed on the basic liberties of the out-of-favour speakers. The discussion on blasphemy sets the scene to the understanding of Mill's concerns, his priorities and consequently his emphasis on the widest possible liberty of expression. Section II presents the Millian principles that are pertinent to his philosophy of free speech: liberty and truth. Section III analyzes Mill's very limited boundaries to freedom of expression, asserting that the consequentialist reasoning had led Mill to ignore present tangible harm. It is argued that democracy is required to develop protective mechanisms against harm-facilitating speech. Zangwill for their sharp and constructive comments. The article is dedicated to the memory of Geoffrey Marshall with whom I had many hours of deliberations on the scholarship and influence of JS Mill. I cannot think of a better teacher. 2

A study of Scottish Post-Punk band The Jesus and Mary Chain’s 1985 debut album Psychocandy. This thesis explores its contribution to the Post-Punk movement. It will argue whether the album was blasphemous or if it reawakens the innocent spirit of Early Rock ‘n’ Roll and Punk that Post-Punk was lacking.

Blurb: "Premodern cities envisioned themselves as ideally homogenous and sacred communities, stoutly opposing any form of heresy or religious deviance. Due to early modern policy laws, God’s wrath would destroy the community inevitably, if Christian authorities wouldn’t punish those sins and crimes decisively and severely. Actually, historical reality didn’t parallel the ideal of a perfect society. On the contrary, urban societes were heterogenous and socially differentiated. Moreover religious heterogeneity definitely took root with the Reformation in the long run.
How did early modern urban communities deal with diversity? How did town dwellers and authorities react to confessional deviance? And how did they react to certain conduct, that – for instance in cases of blasphemy or adultery – was deemed unchristian and considered to query society’s core values, respectively. Who defined both deviant confessions and deviant religious manner? By what means did religious or legal as well as civic fundamental norms, e.g. ‘good neighbourhood’, or simple pragmatism matter? The articles collected here answer these and other questions using the examples of different Central European cities."

Klappentext: "Vormoderne Städte waren in ihrem Idealbild homogene Sakralgemeinschaften, die allen Ketzereien und religiösen Abweichungen entschlossen entgegentraten. Wenn eine christliche Obrigkeit diese Übel nicht energisch bekämpfe, so verkündeten zahlreiche Polizeiordnungen, dann drohe der göttliche Zorn unweigerlich das gesamte Gemeinwesen zu vernichten.
Tatsächlich entsprach die historische Realität angesichts eines hohen Maßes an sozialer Differenzierung und Heterogenität diesem Idealbild nie – erst recht nicht, nachdem die Reformation religiöse Heterogenität auf Dauer etabliert hatte. Wie gingen Städte in der Frühen Neuzeit mit dieser Verschiedenartigkeit um? Wie reagierten Stadtbewohner und Obrigkeiten auf konfessionelle Abweichungen oder Verhaltensweisen, die – etwa in Gestalt von Gotteslästerung oder Ehebruch – als unchristlich galten und die Werte der städtischen Gemeinschaft in Frage stellten? Welche Akteure waren an der Definition eines abweichenden Bekenntnisses oder abweichenden religiösen Verhaltens beteiligt? Welche Rolle spielten religiöse, rechtliche und andere, bürgerliche Leitnormen wie gute Nachbarschaft oder simpler Pragmatismus? Die Beiträge des Bandes gehen diesen und weiteren Fragen vergleichend am Beispiel ausgewählter Städte nach."
reviewed by Jordy Geerlings in h-net (URL: https://networks.h-net.org/node/15337/discussions/61692/review-g%C3%B6ttlicher-zorn-and-shadows-doubt); John Jordan in German History (doi:10.1093/gerhis/ghu019); Peer Frieß in sehepunkte 13 (2013), 7/8 (URL: http://www.sehepunkte.de/2013/07/22545.html); Gerhard Koebler in ZIER (URL: http://www.koeblergerhard.de/ZIER-HP/ZIER-HP-03-201
3/GoettlicherZornundmenschlichesMass.htm); Monika Mommertz in: VSWG 101, 4 (2014), 528-9; Silke Törpsch in: WerkstattGeschichte 64 (2013), 143-145.

By the thirteenth century, canon law conirmed the legal classiication of blasphemy and gave it a clear criminal status. With the assertion of royal power, blasphemy became not only a religious transgression but a political crime. The blasphemer was denounced as a social menace. From the sixteenth century on, the religious repression against the Protestant Reformation assimilated blasphemy to heresy. Blasphemy then turned into a formidable religious category.

This paper provides a brief introduction of the relationship between dissidence and religion in the post-Soviet context through the figure of the holy fool and positions the behavioral paradigm of foolishness-for-Christ in relation to the signature work of three political performance artists- Pussy Riot, Oleg Mavromatti, Petr Pavlensky – each of whom was accused of ignition of religious hate by the Russian law. I attempt to convey the importance of blasphemy to the reading of this artwork through references to the hagiographies of St Symeon Salos and St Nikola the Fool - both paradigmatic behavioral paradigms of holy foolery.

The domain of religion is thought to be rapidly losing significance in the age of secularization. But in contemporaneity, pertinent is the fact that religion has not been wiped away completely or even become any less significant. The religious laws are constantly under process of revision to be in consonant to social and political change. The case of Salman Rushdie in this regard is very well known. He was accused of blasphemy and a fatwa of death was pronounced against him from Iran. This article attempts to evaluate the reasons as to why this fatwa which is just a legal opinion became so important and generated reactions from every part of the world irrespective of sectarian divides in Islam. It also analyses the opinions of the two Islamic schools of thought in the Indian subcontinent-Deoband and Barelvi on the issue of blasphemy and the negotiations they make within their legal discourses to arrive at conclusions with regard the conflictual Islamic and secular laws. Despite emanating from the same Islamic school of jurisprudence-Hanafi but still varying in important aspects of religion, they adopt divergence with regard to the issue of blasphemy.

Focused on Nikolai Gogol’s absurdist tale, “The Nose” (1835), this article is an investigation into the concealed representation of suppressed and marginalized libertine and anti-religious discourses in nineteenth-century Russian literature. The author identifies overlooked idiomatic phraseology, forgotten specificities of the Imperial hierarchy (the Table of Ranks), and allusions to religious customs and Christian rituals that would have been apparent to Gogol’s readers and shows how some were camouflaged to escape censorship in successive drafts of the work. The research builds on the approaches to Gogol’s language, imagery and plot developed earlier by the Russian Formalists, Tartu-Moscow semioticians, and a few other scholars, who revealed the latent obscenity of Gogol’s “rhinology” and the sacrilegious meaning of the tale’s very specific chronotope. The previous scholars’ observations are substantially supplemented by original findings. An integrated analysis of these aspects in their mutual relationship is required to understand what the telling details of the story reveal about Gogol’s religious and psychological crisis of the mid-1830s and to demonstrate how he aggregated indecent Shandyism, social satire, and religious blasphemy into a single quasi-oneiric narrative.

This unfinished book manuscript develops an argument for a critical theory of humor and is based on revised lectures used in teaching Philosophy of Humor for many years. It argues for a pragmatic and anarchist theory of humor and liberated culture, and against the new puritanism and cancel culture ethics that are impacting the practice of stand up comedy today.

This article traces the trajectory of the Hindu nationalist imagination of the Kaaba in Mecca as an ancient Shiva temple. It argues that, though the narrative is old, it was the transition from text to digital images that resulted in violent offence controversies in India and Bangladesh. The entire book is Open Access at
https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/123481

Barelwis are estimated to constitute between 50%-60%of the Muslim population in Pakistan in contrast with 20%-25% Deobandis, 15% percent Shia s and 5% Salafis/Wahhabis.

The Deobandis are responsible for more than 90 % of militancy, 100 % of suicide bombings and other indiscriminate massacred in the country. Barelwis, however, are the least violent among the Muslim community, responsible for less than 1 % of militancy.

A new narrative and ideology is spreading among Barelwi Muslims which has led to the glorification of those who kill in the name of Prophet Muhammad (Peace and Blessings be upon Him) in order to “protect his honour and dignity”. 

This essay examines the historical background of the Barelwi movement and the recently popular narrative “Gustakh e Rasool ki ek hi Saza, Sir tan se Juda” and will explore the countering of this form of extremist ideology, promoting a counter narrative with the tradition of Islam.

On October 3, 1992, when Sinéad O’Connor called the Pope “the real enemy” and tore up his picture, the backlash was fierce; the episode effectively ended her career. But, when you think about it, her stunt wasn’t that different from other things that have been done on the show. From George Calrin’s opening monologue on the very first episode (where he essentially calls religion a crutch that can leave you permanently disabled), to sketches like “Djesus Uncrossed,” “God is a Boob Man,” and “The Religetables,” SNL has never been afraid to be blasphemous and sacrilegious. And I haven’t even mentioned The Church Lady, that time Jesus made fun of Tebow in the Bronco’s lockeroom, and that time Louis C.K. implied God was a serial killer. There was backlash about all these episodes too. So why didn’t they end anyone’s career? In this paper, I’ll explore these sketches and acts (and the public response to them) to try to get to the bottom of all of this. Ultimately, I’ll argue, they didn’t end anyone’s career because they probably make a pretty good point. And with that in mind, I’ll conclude by arguing that…well… we probably all owe Sinéad O’Connor a huge apology.

Black Metal is an underground musical genre, descended from Heavy Metal and born in the late 80s in Scandinavia. In this dissertation, we are aiming to reconstruct its genesis before showing how it builds its aesthetics alongside the concepts of transgression and transcendence. Taking a fundamentally multidisciplinary perspective, we aim to maximise the genre’s characteristic parameters by addressing a large number of bands, mostly from Europe. The analysis addresses both the lyrics and the accompanying music, including the harmonic, melodic and rhythmical elements of the speech and the various instrumental techniques. Black Metal’s stage attitudes and iconography are also important contributions to the overall modes of expression. They have all been analysed in the context of the musicians’ personal ideologies, ethics, and beliefs, including their literary, philosophical and spiritual aspects, to provide a holistic understanding of this thirty-year-old genre.

Né à la fin des années 1980 en Scandinavie, le Black Metal est un genre musical underground, descendant du Heavy Metal. Nous avons tenté, dans cette thèse, de reconstituer tout d’abord sa genèse, avant de montrer comment il a construit son esthétique, au travers des concepts de la transgression et de la transcendance. Grâce à une analyse fondamentalement pluridisciplinaire, nous avons observé un grand nombre de paramètres caractéristiques du genre en convoquant un panel conséquent de groupes, majoritairement européens. Il est ici question des aspects musicaux, détaillés grâce à des analyses du langage harmonique, mélodique et rythmique, ainsi que des techniques de jeux instrumentales. Une place importante est aussi accordée à l’observation minutieuse des textes. Les attitudes scéniques et l’iconographie du Black Metal sont aussi des facettes auxquelles nous avons consacré de nombreux paragraphes au sein de cette recherche doctorale. Emaillées des références littéraires, philosophiques et spirituelles des musiciens, l’éthique, les idéologies, les croyances représentent également d’incontournables clefs de lecture en vue de la compréhension de ce genre déjà trentenaire et encore insuffisamment traité au niveau universitaire en France.

This article explores the relevance of the “freedom to copy” with regard to our fundamental interest in the freedom of communication – including the freedom of speech and artistic expression as well as the freedom of access to information – and confronts the ‘liberal’ claim for an ideally unrestricted freedom to copy with opposing interests urging for restrictions of the production or circulation of copies of certain signs or images, and thus for censorship.

Disgusted with ISIS, some Kurds turned away from Islam following the fall of Mosul in 2014. Many became atheists, while others sought comfort in Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism, according to converts, was the “original” religion of the Kurds before they embraced Islam. In 2015, two Zoroastrian centers opened in Sulaimani, both of which are recognized by the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq. Notably, neither has tried to recreate Zoroastrianism the way it is currently and has been historically practiced in Iran and South Asia. Instead, they have created their own versions of Zoroastrianism, which is nationalist, postmodern, and liberal. Kurdish Zoroastrians argue that the reason Kurds are “backward” is Islam. They seek to rectify the present situation through a Kurdish “authenticated” and “original” form of Zoroastrianism. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at these two centers, the present article examines this new religious movement in Sulaimani, an important city in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. It analyses the rise and distinctiveness of Kurdish Zoroastrianism looking at how Zoroastrian Kurds articulate their views on Islam, women’s rights, human rights, and Kurdish independence.

This MA thesis argues that blasphemy can be a tool for institutional critique in political art through the case studies of Oleg Mavromatti, Pussy Riot and Petr Pavlensky. The
celebration of artists such as Pussy Riot for their performance work in the global art discourse and the dismissal of the role of blasphemy as a conservative accusation by an oppressive state cannot adequately account for the construction of meaning around the events in Russian culture. Due to a particular formation of liberal Orthodox identity, which is informed by the affiliation of dissidence and religion in Russia and the Soviet Union, the accusation of blasphemy by Orthodox individuals or through federal law functions as a revelation of a larger truth behind a mask of hypocrisy. This thesis deconstructs the
presumed universality of the post-Enlightenment notions of institutional critique and constructs a semiotic structure that accounts for seeing blasphemy as a form of institutional
critique in the post-Soviet art and culture wars.
Blasphemy becomes a form of critique through the presence of the chronotope of holy foolery, an Orthodox ascetic tradition of institutional critique, anti-authoritarian behavior and a radical imitation of Christ. Artists that are appropriating the topos can be
defined by the behavioral and aesthetic characteristics of the historical practice, which are best exemplified in the vitae of St Symeon Salos, a holy fool who committed acts of sacrilege
in holy places and against clergy to reveal a larger corruption and feigned religiosity of Christians. The unification of church and state under Vladimir Putin’s presidency has fostered the revival of the tradition of institutional critique from within a religious tradition and a competing narrative over secular and sacred space among conservative and liberal Orthodox worldviews that have been defined by the post-Soviet art wars.