God and all his prophets should be protected from insults

˹O believers!˺ Do not insult what they invoke besides Allah or they will insult Allah spitefully out of ignorance. This is how We have made each people’s deeds appealing to them. Then to their Lord is their return, and He will inform them of what they used to do. (Al-An’am, 108)

A new anti-Islamic film ‘The Innocence of Muslims’ has been released in America. Unable to control their venom and hatred for Islam, some of the western secular-liberal elites and those infatuated with their culture, have once again unleashed a vicious attack on our beloved Prophet ﷺ.

لَتُبْلَوُنَّ فِىٓ أَمْوَٰلِكُمْ وَأَنفُسِكُمْ وَلَتَسْمَعُنَّ مِنَ ٱلَّذِينَ أُوتُوا۟ ٱلْكِتَـٰبَ مِن قَبْلِكُمْ وَمِنَ ٱلَّذِينَ أَشْرَكُوٓا۟ أَذًۭى كَثِيرًۭا ۚ وَإِن تَصْبِرُوا۟ وَتَتَّقُوا۟ فَإِنَّ ذَٰلِكَ مِنْ عَزْمِ ٱلْأُمُورِ

You ˹believers˺ will surely be tested in your wealth and yourselves, and you will certainly hear many hurtful words from those who were given the Scripture before you and ˹from˺ the polytheists. But if you are patient and mindful ˹of Allah˺—surely this is a resolve to aspire to. (Ali-Imran, 186)

The film’s creator – Sam Bacile aka Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, an Egyptian Coptic Christian, is not the first to produce a drama insulting the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. In 1889 Henri de Bornier, a French poet and dramatist wrote an anti-Islamic play called Mahomet. Even though the Ottoman Caliphate was in a declined state and dubbed the ‘sick-man of Europe’, the French Prime Minister Charles de Freycinet banned the play in 1890 after opposition from the Caliphate.

“Bornier himself was the victim of blind and unreasoning Muslim prejudice in regard to his Mahomet. The play was being rehearsed in 1889 when a Turkish newspaper reproduced from a French journal the news of its forthcoming production. The French Foreign Ministry assured the Turkish ambassador in Paris, Es’at Pasha, that the play did not constitute an attack on the Prophet and on the cherished beliefs of the Muslims. Bornier pointed out that the Persian ta’ziyas or passion plays regularly depicted the death of Muhammad as well as those of the Shi’ite martyrs, and he offered to accept prohibition of his work’s being played in Algeria and Tunisia.

These arguments still failed to satisfy the Turkish authorities, and in 1890 the head of the government, Freycinet, banned the production of Mahomet in France, a prohibition which, it was reported, gave much pleasure to the Sultan Abd al-Hamid II. It must be admitted that Muslims would undeniably find offensive a play in which their Prophet killed himself because of a woman and because of inferiority feelings vis-a-vis Christianity, but there is no evidence that either the Turkish ambassador or the Sultan had seen the play, much less read it, when they first objected to it.

The French government’s surrender to this Turkish pressure was plausibly attributed by Martino to the contemporary political situation, for in 1889 the German Emperor William II was beginning his journey to Istanbul and the Near East, and France feared to do anything which might drive Turkey further into Germany’s arms; the susceptibilities of France’s numerous Muslim subjects in North Africa must also have been a consideration. Not till 1896 were excerpts from Mahomet presented to the public in a special arrangement for theatrical declamation. Since Bornier’s time, no major European dramatist seems to have essayed a play on the life of the Prophet.“[1]

After failing to defeat Islam and its noble values intellectually all the western secular-liberal elites have left are insults, lies and fabrications. These attacks will ultimately fail. They will strengthen the believers and they will generate greater interest in Islam among the non-Muslim populations in western countries who are embracing Islam in ever greater numbers.

يُرِيدُونَ لِيُطْفِئُوا نُورَ اللَّهِ بِأَفْوَاهِهِمْ وَاللَّهُ مُتِمُّ نُورِهِ وَلَوْ كَرِهَ الْكَافِرُونَ

“They desire to extinguish Allah’s Light with their mouths but Allah will perfect His Light, though the disbelievers hate it.” (as-Saff, 61:8)

Samuel Huntington said, “The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”[2]

A future Caliphate will use all its political, economic and military resources to protect the honour of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and all the other Prophets including Adam, Noah (Nuh), Moses (Musa) and Jesus son of Mary (Isa ibn Maryam), peace be upon them all.

An important point to note when responding to such provocations and insults is that extra-judicial actions and violating citizen agreements are prohibited in Islam. We have a very stark example from the time of the Prophet ﷺ when one of the companions Salama ibn Akwa was faced with such a situation. Even though he was a warrior and military commander he did not respond violently to the insults against the Messenger ﷺ and simply moved away from the polytheists who were abusing the Messenger ﷺ. This is because he and the rest of the Muslims had just signed the treaty of Hudaibiyah with the Quraish in Makkah and so were under an ‘ahd (contract). This is similar to Muslims living in western and other countries. This does not mean there is no response, but the response is intellectual using all legal means available to address such situations.

Salama ibn Akwa narrates,

فَلَمَّا اصْطَلَحْنَا نَحْنُ وَأَهْلُ مَكَّةَ وَاخْتَلَطَ بَعْضُنَا بِبَعْضٍ أَتَيْتُ شَجَرَةً فَكَسَحْتُ شَوْكَهَا فَاضْطَجَعْتُ فِي أَصْلِهَا قَالَ – فَأَتَانِي أَرْبَعَةٌ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ مِنْ أَهْلِ مَكَّةَ فَجَعَلُوا يَقَعُونَ فِي رَسُولِ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم فَأَبْغَضْتُهُمْ فَتَحَوَّلْتُ إِلَى شَجَرَةٍ أُخْرَى

“When we and the people of Mecca had concluded a peace treaty and the people of one side began to mix with those of the other, I came to a tree, swept away its thorns and lay down (for rest) at its base; (while I lay there), four of the polytheists from the Meccans came to me and began to talk ill of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. I got enraged with them and moved to another tree.”[3]