I had a speech last week in which I discussed the French President Macron’s remarks on Islam being ‘a religion in crisis across the world’. I drew the audience’s attention on the French side of the issue and said that the Muslim world’s response needs more maturity as we cannot afford to go on a killing spree. Following is an abstract of the speech.

French President Emmanuel Macron remarked that Islam is a religion in crisis globally following the recent decapitation of a French teacher over his showing of Charlie Hebdo’s supposedly ‘blasphemous’ caricatures in his freedom of expression class. The Muslim world has reacted strongly to it with the Turkish President going so far as to say that Macron has lost his mind. I have carefully selected these two pieces of news to present to you – two highly polarised sides to the same issue. While we perfectly understand the Muslim side, I think more effort needs to be put in to understand the French side.

Since the start of the current clash and even before that when Charlie Hebdo’s office was attacked in 2015, I have discussed the issue of blasphemy with many people and it strikes me how most of us believe that blasphemy is hate speech and is therefore, illegal in France itself. That’s unfortunately not true. While French freedom of expression has its limits; hate speech being one of them, religious blasphemy doesn’t fall under its umbrella. Hate speech, as defined by the French Act of 1881, is defamation of people but not divinities or religion. And it’s perfectly understandable why post-French-revolution France would not protect religion. The highest French ideal is democracy and such protections of faith tend to lead to concentration of power with custodians of faith who in turn may derail democracy. French’s historical aversion to church is another factor.

It is also wrong to view this crisis as a West Vs Islam situation. There are many undercurrents to it which need to be understood. For example, the French Muslim attacks have been carried out by Muslims who belonged to the lower financial stratum of French society. They might have already had a grudge against the French society for not having allowed them equal opportunity to flourish and when this situation came up, it may have just blown the lid off. We need to ponder why rather well integrated Muslims were not involved in any of those attacks? Perhaps by virtue of their social and financial status, they had no prior grudges and hence, were able to recognise the satire and handle it more maturely.

As Muslims, we need to make a distinction between people who blaspheme for the sake of it and those who do because they are unaware of the role of the Prophet in the formation of the modern egalitarian society. It is up to us how we choose to introduce the latter to the great man: by engaging in a productive dialogue or by going on a killing spree. I think the choice is not hard to make.

My speech was met with mixed reaction with most of the audience booing me for being a “liberal” – apparently a hate-worthy species in Pakistan. Some came over to pour appreciation for having said what needed to be said and demonstrating the courage to share my opinion with an unreceptive crowd. Regardless of their disapproval, they said, my speech had at least managed to disturb the audience’s calm equilibrium, which comes from living in a cocoon protected from the outside world, by exposing them to a wildly different view point which would surely trigger more discussions. I responded that as long as there are discussions, there is hope.

It concerns me to see that the literalist hardliners are gaining traction in our polarising world. Not surprisingly, their interpretations are also the root cause of religious violence. One of the problems with literalist interpretations is that they tend to assert greater authenticity for themselves than warranted for an interpretation. This is because they derive their “infallibility” from their proximity to The Text and this is where the problem lies. By gaining a higher moral ground, they discredit bolder interpretations as heretic and therefore, eliminate any possibility of a respectful dialogue. If a dialogue occurs after all, it is merely a concession than a mutually informing discussion. The first step should be to restore dialogue between the two schools of thought for a modern understanding of the religion. The bottom line of that dialogue could be a consensus on the principle that if the outcome of an interpretation is not in line with the spirit of Islam (e.g. violence), there’s something wrong with it no matter how close it may seem to The Text. Islam is the religion of mankind and as mankind evolves there’s no way, Islam would remain static. I’m sure our religion, if interpreted correctly, has solutions to the modern dilemmas and has the capacity to lead us out of the frantic chaos the world is plunging in. If only, we gather the courage to free it from the people who have held it hostage.