Bill of Rights in Action

World History: The Origins of Islamic Law

U.S. Government: The U.S. and Iran: Time for a New Beginning?

Contemporary Issues: Blasphemy! Salman Rushdie and Freedom of Expression
 

Islamic law represents one of the world’s great legal systems. Like Judaic law, which influenced western legal systems, Islamic law originated as an important part of the religion.

Sharia (shuh REE uh), an Arabic word meaning “the right path,” refers to traditional Islamic law. The Sharia comes from the Koran, the sacred book of Islam, which Muslims consider the actual word of God. The Sharia also stems from the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings and interpretations of those teachings by certain Muslim legal scholars. Muslims believe that Allah (God) revealed his true will to Muhammad, who then passed on Allah’s commands to humans in the Koran.

Since the Sharia originated with Allah, Muslims consider it sacred. Between the seventh century when Muhammad died and the 10th century, many Islamic legal scholars attempted to interpret the Sharia and to adapt it to the expanding Muslim Empire. The classic Sharia of the 10th century represented an important part of Islam’s golden age. From that time, the Sharia has continued to be reinterpreted and adapted to changing circumstances and new issues. In the modern era, the influences of Western colonialism generated efforts to codify it.

Development of the Sharia

Before Islam, the nomadic tribes inhabiting the Arabian peninsula worshiped idols. These tribes frequently fought with one another. Each tribe had its own customs governing marriage, hospitality, and revenge. Crimes against persons were answered with personal retribution or were sometimes resolved by an arbitrator. Muhammad introduced a new religion into this chaotic Arab world. Islam affirmed only one true God. It demanded that believers obey God’s will and laws.

The Koran sets down basic standards of human conduct, but does not provide a detailed law code. Only a few verses deal with legal matters. During his lifetime, Muhammad helped clarify the law by interpreting provisions in the Koran and acting as a judge in legal cases. Thus, Islamic law, the Sharia, became an integral part of the Muslim religion.

Following Muhammad’s death in A.D. 632, companions of Muhammad ruled Arabia for about 30 years. These political-religious rulers, called caliphs (KAY liff), continued to develop Islamic law with their own pronouncements and decisions. The first caliphs also conquered territories outside Arabia including Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Persia, and Egypt. As a result, elements of Jewish, Greek, Roman, Persian, and Christian church law also influenced the development of the Sharia.

Islamic law grew along with the expanding Muslim Empire. The Umayyad dynasty caliphs, who took control of the empire in 661, extended Islam into India, Northwest Africa, and Spain. The Umayyads appointed Islamic judges, kadis, to decide cases involving Muslims. (Non-Muslims kept their own legal system.) Knowledgeable about the Koran and the teachings of Muhammad, kadis decided cases in all areas of the law.

Following a period of revolts and civil war, the Umayyads were overthrown in 750 and replaced by the Abbasid dynasty. During the 500-year rule of the Abbasids, the Sharia reached its full development.

Under their absolute rule, the Abbasids transferred substantial areas of criminal law from the kadis to the government. The kadis continued to handle cases involving religious, family, property, and commercial law.

The Abbasids encouraged legal scholars to debate the Sharia vigorously. One group held that only the divinely inspired Koran and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad should make up the Sharia. A rival group, however, argued that the Sharia should also include the reasoned opinions of qualified legal scholars. Different legal systems began to develop in different provinces.

In an attempt to reconcile the rival groups, a brilliant legal scholar named Shafii systematized and developed what were called the “roots of the law.” Shafii argued that in solving a legal question, the kadi or government judge should first consult the Koran. If the answer were not clear there, the judge should refer to the authentic sayings and decisions of Muhammad. If the answer continued to elude the judge, he should then look to the consensus of Muslim legal scholars on the matter. Still failing to find a solution, the judge could form his own answer by analogy from “the precedent nearest in resemblance and most appropriate” to the case at hand.

Shafii provoked controversy. He constantly criticized what he called “people of reason” and “people of tradition.” While speaking in Egypt in 820, he was physically attacked by enraged opponents and died a few days later. Nevertheless, Shafii’s approach was later widely adopted throughout the Islamic world.

By around the year 900, the classic Sharia had taken shape. Islamic specialists in the law assembled handbooks for judges to use in making their decisions.

The classic Sharia was not a code of laws, but a body of religious and legal scholarship that continued to develop for the next 1,000 years. The following sections illustrate some basic features of Islamic law as it was traditionally applied.

Family Law

Cases involving violations of some religious duties, lawsuits over property and business disputes, and family law all came before the kadis. Most of these cases would be considered civil law matters in Western courts today.

Family law always made up an important part of the Sharia. Below are some features of family law in the classic Sharia that would guide the kadi in making his decisions.

• Usually, an individual became an adult at puberty.

 
• A man could marry up to four wives at once.

 
• A wife could refuse to accompany her husband on journeys.

 
• The support of an abandoned infant was a public responsibility.

 
• A wife had the right to food, clothing, housing, and a marriage gift from her husband.

 
• When the owner of a female slave acknowledged her child as his own, the child became free. The child’s mother became free when the owner died.

 
• In an inheritance, a brother took twice the amount as his sister. (The brother also had financial responsibility for his sister.)

 
• A husband could dissolve a marriage by repudiating his wife three times.

 
• A wife could return her dowry to her husband for a divorce. She could also get a decree from a kadi ending the marriage if her husband mistreated, deserted, or failed to support her.

 
• After a divorce, the mother usually had the right of custody of her young children.

The classic Sharia identified the most serious crimes as those mentioned in the Koran. These were considered sins against Allah and carried mandatory punishments. Some of these crimes and punishments were:

• adultery: death by stoning.

 
• highway robbery: execution; crucifixion; exile; imprisonment; or right hand and left foot cut off.

• theft: right hand cut off (second offense: left foot cut off; imprisonment for further offenses).

 
• slander: 80 lashes.

• drinking wine or any other intoxicant: 80 lashes.

Crimes against the person included murder and bodily injury. In these cases, the victim or his male next of kin had the “right of retaliation” where this was possible. This meant, for example, that the male next of kin of a murder victim could execute the murderer after his trial (usually by cutting off his head with a sword). If someone lost the sight of an eye in an attack, he could retaliate by putting a red-hot needle into the eye of his attacker who had been found guilty by the law. But a rule of exactitude required that a retaliator must give the same amount of damage he received. If, even by accident, he injured the person too much, he had broken the law and was subject to punishment. The rule of exactitude discouraged retaliation. Usually, the injured person or his kinsman would agree to accept money or something of value (“blood money”) instead of retaliating.

In a third category of less serious offenses such as gambling and bribery, the judge used his discretion in deciding on a penalty. Punishments would often require the criminal to pay a reparation to the victim, receive a certain number of lashes, or be locked up.

Criminal Procedure

The victim of a criminal act or his kinsman (“the avenger of the blood”) was personally responsible for presenting a claim against the accused criminal before the court. The case then went on much like a private lawsuit. No government prosecutor participated although certain officials brought some cases to court.

The classic Sharia provided for due process of law. This included notice of the claim made by the injured person, the right to remain silent, and a presumption of innocence in a fair and public trial before an impartial judge. There were no juries. Both parties in the case had the right to have a lawyer present, but the individual bringing the claim and the defendant usually presented their own cases.

At trial, the judge questioned the defendant about the claim made against him. If the defendant denied the claim, the judge then asked the accuser, who had the burden of proof, to present his evidence. Evidence almost always took the form of the direct testimony of two male witnesses of good character (four in adultery cases). Circumstantial evidence and documents were usually inadmissible. Female witnesses were not allowed except in cases where they held special knowledge, such as childbirth. In such cases, two female witnesses were needed for every male witness. After the accuser finished with his witnesses, the defendant could present his own.

If the accuser could not produce witnesses, he could demand that the defendant take an oath before Allah that he was innocent. “Your evidence or his oath,” the Prophet Muhammad taught. If the defendant swore he was innocent, the judge dismissed the case. If he refused to take the oath, the accuser won. The defendant could also confess to a crime, but this could only be done orally in open court.

In all criminal cases, the evidence had to be “conclusive” before a judge could reach a guilty verdict. An appellate system allowed persons to appeal verdicts to higher government officials and to the ruler himself.

Islamic Law Today

In the 19th century, many Muslim countries came under the control or influence of Western colonial powers. As a result, Western-style laws, courts, and punishments began to appear within the Sharia. Some countries like Turkey totally abandoned the Sharia and adopted new law codes based on European systems. Most Muslim countries put the government in charge of prosecuting and punishing criminal acts. In the area of family law, many countries prohibited polygamy and divorce by the husband’s repudiation of his wife.

Modern legislation along with Muslim legal scholars who are attempting to relate the will of Allah to the 20th century have reopened the door to interpreting the Sharia. This has happened even in highly traditional Saudi Arabia, where Islam began.

Since 1980, some countries with fundamentalist Islamic regimes like Iran have attempted to reverse the trend of westernization and return to the classic Sharia. But most Muslim legal scholars today believe that the Sharia can be adapted to modern conditions without abandoning the spirit of Islamic law or its religious foundations. Even in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, the Sharia is creatively adapted to new circumstances.

For Discussion and Writing

1. How did the Sharia develop differently than Western law systems like our own?
2. What differences do you see between the criminal law and court procedures of the classic Sharia and the criminal justice system in the United States today? What similarities are there?
3. Which features of the classic Sharia do you agree and disagree with the most? Why?

For Further Reading

'Awa, Muhammad Salim. Punishment in Islamic Law : A Comparative Study. Indianapolis: American Trust Publications, 1982.

Bassiouni, M. Cherif, ed. The Islamic Criminal Justice System. London: Oceana, 1982.

Hallaq, Wael B. Law and Legal Theory in Classical and Medieval Islam. Brookfield, Vt. : Variorum, 1995.

Khadduri, Majid, Law in the Middle East, edited by Majid Khadduri and Herbert J. Liebesny. Washington: Middle East Institute, 1955.

ACTIVITY: The Classic Sharia and Early Islamic Society

Laws can tell us much about a culture. They can inform us about the society’s government, economy, geography, family relations, religious beliefs, technology, and much more.

Listed below are seven statements from the classic Sharia of the 10th century. Form small groups. Assign each group one of the statements. Members of each group should:

1. Examine their assigned statement and any other material relating to it in the article.
2. Write down as many facts about early Islamic society as they can infer from the statement.
3. Report the facts they have discovered to the rest of the class in order to develop a picture of early Islamic society.

Statements From the Classic Sharia

1. A Muslim could be tried and punished for not performing his religious duties.
2. A woman counted as one-half a man if called as a witness in a trial.
3. When the owner of a female slave acknowledged her child as his own, the child became free. The mother became free when her owner died.
4. The most serious crimes in the Sharia included adultery, highway robbery, theft, and drinking alcohol.
5. Islamic criminal courts exercised due process of law.
6. If witnesses were not produced, the defendant could be asked to take an oath before Allah that he was innocent.
7. Punishments included death by sword and stoning, mutilation, lashes, retaliation, “blood money,” reparation, and imprisonment.
    
    

From about 1800 to the early 1900s, Great Britain and Russia controlled Iran. Russia, bordering Iran on the north, wanted access to the Persian Gulf. Britain saw Iran as a buffer protecting its colony India from the French and Russians. As new technology created a demand for petroleum, both Britain and Russia grew interested in Iran’s vast oil reserves. In 1907, they divided Iran into two “spheres of influence,” with each country dominating part of Iran. During World War I, Russian and British troops occupied Iran to protect their interests.

Following the war, Iran grew more independent. In 1921, Riza Khan Pahlavi, an Iranian army officer, overthrew the Iranian government. He established a military dictatorship and within four years took the throne as shah of Iran. He made efforts to modernize Iran and keep it free of foreign influence.

During World War II, the shah declared Iran neutral. Britain asked Iran’s permission to use its railway to transport supplies to the Soviet Union. When the shah refused, Russian and British troops again occupied Iran. They made the shah step down and his son, Mohammed Riza Pahlavi, assumed the throne. The new shah supported the allied cause in the war.

After the war, British troops left. But Russian troops remained in northern Iran and helped set up two communist republics. Iran negotiated a treaty with Russia, agreeing to give Russia oil rights in exchange for Russia withdrawing its troops. When the troops left, the two republics crumbled and Iran retook control of the north. Iran’s parliament then rejected the treaty granting Russia oil rights.

But a British oil company still controlled most of Iran’s oil fields. In 1951, Iran’s parliament, headed by Mohammed Musaddiq, voted for the government to take over ownership of Iran’s oil fields. The British reacted by boycotting Iranian oil, which crippled Iran’s oil industry.

The United States, which had paid little attention to Iran before World War II, attempted to mediate this dispute. Since entering a Cold War with the Soviet Union, the United States was trying to contain the Soviets. It took great interest in any country bordering the Soviet Union. Throughout the lengthy negotiations, the United States focused on making Iran politically strong enough to resist a communist takeover.

Eventually, the United States concluded that Shah Mohammed Riza Pahlavi was the only Iranian leader who could keep his country from falling into the grasp of the Soviets. The shah’s main political opponent was Mohammed Musaddiq, the popular reformer and Iran’s prime minister. Musaddiq argued that Iran should take a neutral position in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Fearing that Musaddiq’s policies would weaken Iran, President Eisenhower in 1953 authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to intervene. Along with Britain and the shah, the CIA plotted to remove the prime minister. It arranged for mobs to surround Musaddiq’s home, forcing him to flee and finally be arrested by the shah’s allies.

After Musaddiq was driven from office, the shah strengthened his control over Iran. He interfered with parliamentary elections, failed to follow through with a plan to distribute land to poor farmers, censored the press, and took complete command of the Iranian military. The shah’s secret police agency, SAVAK, imprisoned and tortured his political opponents.

The United States, however, viewed the shah as a strong ally in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Consequently, the United States sent him weapons, aircraft, naval vessels, and other forms of military aid.

As the shah’s rule became increasingly dictatorial, opposition grew against him and his ally, the United States. Islamic religious leaders such as the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini spoke out against the shah and were arrested and forced into exile. Public demonstrations broke out in 1978, with the shah’s army sometimes firing into the crowds, killing many.

Widespread opposition forced the shah to flee Iran in January 1979. He ended up in the United States where he underwent surgery for cancer. But many Iranians believed that the United States was protecting the shah and plotting to restore him to power.

Meanwhile, the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran from exile and formed an Islamic revolutionary government. But no one was really in control. Chaos reigned. Street fighting took place in all the major cities. Roaming bands of revolutionaries, often college students, hunted SAVAK agents and other supporters of the shah’s regime. Crowds marched and gathered around the U.S. embassy in Tehran shouting “Death to the shah!” and “Death to America!”

A power struggle was taking place between religious radicals and socialist radicals. On November 4, 1979, just days before a referendum of a new Iranian constitution, religious radical students broke into the embassy compound. They captured and took hostage 52 Americans. They paraded some, like embassy press officer Barry Rosen, blindfolded before TV cameras and accused them of being CIA agents. The students spat on and burned the American flag. They also captured many classified American documents.

Thus began the Iranian hostage crisis, which lasted 444 days. The students believed that their actions were justified. The United States had supported the shah and even helped overthrow Musaddiq in 1953. The students said that they would release the hostages if the United States returned the shah to Iran for trial. But even after the shah died of cancer, the Americans remained in captivity. Religious radicals were using the hostage crisis to gain popularity and keep socialist radicals from taking power.

President Carter applied economic pressure on the new regime in Iran. He canceled a military equipment shipment, placed an embargo on oil from Iran, and froze $12 billion in Iranian assets held in American banks. Carter also planned a mission to rescue the hostages. But this failed on April 24, 1980, when a dust storm caused U.S. military aircraft to collide in the Iranian desert. Prolonged negotiations between the two governments finally resulted in the release of all the hostages on January 20, 1981, the day of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration as president.

“Rogue State”

Diplomatic relations between the United States and Iran remained severed following the hostages’ release. Over the next two decades, the United States considered Iran a “rogue state,” an outlaw among nations. On the other hand, Iran repeatedly called the United States the “Great Satan.”

Iran attempted to disrupt other countries in the Middle East by exporting its brand of radical Islamic government. It also supported terrorist organizations striking against Israel and sponsored assassinations of Iranian dissenters living in foreign countries. In 1989, the Ayatollah Khomeini issued an edict calling for the killing of Salman Rushdie. A writer born in India and a citizen of Great Britain, Rushdie had written a novel that the Iranian government said insulted Islam.

Using revenues from its oil sales, Iran built up its military forces and even began a nuclear weapons program. The United States viewed this with alarm and urged its allies to ban arms sales to Iran. Iran, however, argued that it needed a strong military to defend itself. Iraq, a neighboring country, had invaded Iran in 1980, touching off a devastating war that lasted eight years.

During the 1990s, the United States continued to follow a hard-line foreign policy toward Iran. In 1995, President Clinton issued an executive order prohibiting American companies from trading with or making investments in Iran. The United States declared that Iran continued to support terrorist organizations and that it had stepped up its development of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.

Some foreign policy experts applauded the American hard-line policy. But others argued that a “new Iran,” less fanatical and more eager for foreign investment, had emerged in recent years. Despite the absence of diplomatic relations, Iran began to welcome American exchange students, sports teams, and tourists. But many hotels in which they stayed still displayed old “Death to America” signs.

A New Beginning?

In May 1997, Iran elected a moderate president. Years of economic suffering caused voters to reject the conservative religious leaders running the government. President Mohammed Khatami, himself an Islamic clergyman, immediately called for more freedom at home and a less hostile relationship with the United States.

In response to positive signals from Khatami, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated in June 1998 that the United States was not “anti-Islamic.” She said she was prepared to join Iran in drawing “a road map leading to normal relations.” But the Clinton administration cautioned that Iran must first change its behavior: It must renounce terrorism, end its development of weapons of mass destruction, and lift the death threat against novelist Salman Rushdie.

Iran responded by calling for the United States to release billions of dollars worth of Iranian assets frozen in American banks since the hostage crisis. The Khatami government further demanded that Americans stop blocking loans from the World Bank and withdraw their opposition to plans for an international oil pipeline across Iran.

To show its good intentions, the Khatami government announced in September 1998 that it was ending its support for the death edict on Salman Rushdie. It is unclear how far President Khatami can take Iran in normalizing relations with the United States. He still faces strong opposition from the conservative Islamic clergy, who continue to view America as the “Great Satan.”

Barry Rosen, one of the 52 hostages captured in 1979, recently met with a former revolutionary student leader who helped plan the U.S. embassy takeover. “The past can’t be made to go away, and shouldn’t,” Rosen said, “but a new beginning can be made.”

For Discussion and Writing

1. Why did many Iranians have a bitter hatred of the United States at the time of the revolution in 1979?
2. Why has the United States accused Iran of being a “rogue state”?
3. What is your opinion of Barry Rosen’s statement quoted at the end of the article?

For Further Reading

MacLeod, Scott. “Old Iran. . . vs. New.” Time. 6 July 1998:72-74.

Wells, Tom. 444 Days, The Hostages Remember. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1985.
 
 

ACTIVITY: Task Force on Iran

Below are several U.S. foreign policy options regarding Iran. Form small groups that will assume the role of a task force to advise the president and Congress on the future of U.S.–Iran relations. Each task force should discuss the pros and cons of each option and then write a position paper recommending one of them or its own proposal. The position paper should also include reasons for the recommendation as well as why the other options were rejected. Each task force should then present its recommendation and reasoning to the rest of the class.

A. The United States should immediately and unilaterally offer to restore full diplomatic relations with Iran.

B. The United States should not offer to restore diplomatic relations just yet, but should agree to one or more of Iran’s demands. (These include withdrawing opposition to the construction of an international oil pipeline across Iran, ending U.S. trade and investment restrictions, and unfreezing Iranian assets in American banks.)

C. The United States should continue to pressure Iran to renounce terrorism, end its development of weapons of mass destruction, and behave according to the standards of the world community before offering to restore diplomatic relations.

D. The United States should offer to restore diplomatic relations only if Iran apologizes for taking the American embassy personnel hostage in 1979.

The task force may create its own option to recommend, which might combine some of the ideas made above.
 

Blasphemy refers to the act of offending deeply held religious beliefs. Perhaps the earliest prohibition against blasphemy appeared in the Ten Commandments, which declared, “You shall not revile God.” In the Jewish tradition, this meant that no one could verbally abuse God or publicly reject belief in him. The Old Testament called for death by stoning for those guilty of blasphemy. After Christianity prevailed over most of Europe in the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church punished blasphemers by flogging, excommunication, and burning at the stake.

In 1534, King Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church and established his own Church of England. It became the official church in England and later in some American colonies, such as Virginia. Under English common law, blasphemy was a crime, but only with reference to Christianity. This common law prohibition against Christian blasphemy has continued to the present day in the United Kingdom.

In 1988, when Salman Rushdie first published The Satanic Verses in the United Kingdom, many Muslims living in that country accused the author of blasphemy against Islam. But English law did not recognize this as a crime. So religious leaders in Iran decided to take matters into their own hands.

The Rushdie Affair

Ahmed Salman Rushdie was born in Bombay, India, of Muslim parents. But he was educated mainly in England. After earning a degree in history from Cambridge University, Rushdie briefly worked as an actor and advertising copywriter in London. He published his first novel in 1975. A naturalized British citizen, Rushdie chose to write his novels in English rather than in his native Urdu, a language widely used by Muslims in India. At the time that he wrote The Satanic Verses, Rushdie was not a practicing Muslim.

The Satanic Verses is a fantasy about two actors from India traveling on an airplane. After a terrorist bomb blows up the airplane, they fall to Earth but survive. The controversial parts of the book center on two chapters.

One of the Indian actors apparently is losing his mind. He dreams about God revealing his will to the Prophet Muhammad, who passes on the sacred words to humanity through the Koran, the holy book of Islam. But the novel refers to Muhammad by an insulting name used by Christians in the Middle Ages. As part of the dream sequence, a scribe called “Salman” writes down God’s commands that are coming from the lips of Muhammad. The scribe, however, decides to play a trick by changing some of the divine words. Since Muslims hold the Koran as the revealed word of God, they deplored Rushdie for ridiculing it.

The title of the book refers to an old legend retold by Rushdie. According to the legend, some of the Koran’s original verses originated with Satan, and Muhammad later deleted them. By repeating this legend, Rushdie offended Muslims by associating the holy Koran with the work of Satan.

One part of the novel probably outraged Muslims the most. It describes people mocking and imitating Muhammad’s 12 wives. Muslims revere Muhammad’s wives as the “mothers of all believers.”

Most Muslims reacted with shock and anger at these passages from The Satanic Verses. They felt that they had been betrayed by one of their own. Rushdie had been born a Muslim. Muslims accused Rushdie of turning his back on his roots to embrace Western culture. In the minds of many, The Satanic Verses symbolized the hostility of the West against the Islamic world.

A month after its publication, India banned the book. Bannings soon followed in Pakistan, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and other countries with large Muslim populations. Anti-Rushdie demonstrations and book burnings took place in Britain.

Rushdie attempted to defend himself. He pointed out that his book was, after all, a work of fiction and that the part of the book that offended Muslims consisted of one character’s deranged dreams. But this did not silence his critics. They demanded that the British government ban the book as blasphemous. The government refused on the grounds that English law protected only the Christian religion from acts of blasphemy.

On February 14, 1989, the day before Rushdie’s book was to be published in the United States, the spiritual and political leader of Iran, the Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa against Rushdie. In Islamic law, a fatwa is a declaration issued by a legal authority. Khomeini’s fatwa shocked the world:
 

I would like to inform all the intrepid Muslims in the world. . . that the author of the book titled The Satanic Verses, which has been compiled, printed, and published in opposition to Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran, as well as those publishers who were aware of its contents, have been declared madhur el dam [“those whose blood must be shed”]. I call on all zealous Muslims to execute them quickly, wherever they find them, so that no one will dare to insult Islam again. . . .

In addition to the fatwa, Iran also offered a bounty of several million dollars for the assassination of Rushdie.

Khomeini’s fatwa offended many Islamic religious leaders. They condemned it as violating Islamic teachings of mercy. Sheik Muhammad Hossam el Din of Cairo’s Al Azhar Mosque said that it made “Islam seem brutal and bloodthirsty.” He argued that the book should simply be banned and the author given a chance to repent.

Rushdie went into hiding, protected by the British police. He issued a statement expressing his regret for the distress that his book may have caused Muslims. A little over a year later, Rushdie announced that he had returned to Islam. He went on to renounce anything in his novel that insulted Islam, the Prophet Muhammad, or the Koran. But Iranian leaders refused to cancel the fatwa.

In 1991, the Japanese translator of The Satanic Verses was stabbed to death. Shortly afterward, the Italian translator was also stabbed, but survived. In 1993, the Norwegian publisher of the book was injured in a gun attack. Investigators suspect that all these incidents were tied to the Iranian fatwa.

In a 1997 interview, Rushdie expressed his feelings about the whole affair:
 

In my view, the best one can do is to show, by writing books, by continuing, that it didn’t work. That even this colossal threat did not work. The Satanic Verses was not suppressed, the author of The Satanic Verses went on writing. Life goes on.

Finally, in September 1998, Iran’s recently elected moderate government announced that it no longer had any intention of threatening the life of Salman Rushdie or of encouraging others to do so. But the government lacked the authority to repeal the religious fatwa of the Ayatollah Khomeini, who died in 1989.

Blasphemy in America

The idea of punishing someone for blasphemy disturbs most Americans today. It runs counter to freedom of religion and freedom of expression, both guaranteed in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Most Americans believe people should have the right to believe or disbelieve in any religion and should have the right to express their beliefs or disbeliefs.

But prosecutions for blasphemy are not unknown in America history. Both the Virginia and Massachusetts Bay colonies passed laws providing the death penalty for blasphemy. But the few cases prosecuted rarely resulted in more than whipping or banishment. Even these cases had more to do with religious and political dissent than with blasphemy.

Probably the most noteworthy case during the colonial period occurred in 1643 at Plymouth, then part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It involved Samuel Gorton, an eccentric “Professor of the Mysteries of Christ.” When Gorton denounced “hireling ministers” as doing the work of the devil, he was accused of making blasphemous speeches. Banished, he ended up in Rhode Island where he wrote a long insulting letter to the governor of Massachusetts Bay, John Winthrop. Winthrop sent soldiers to arrest and bring Gorton to Boston where the colonial legislature tried and convicted him of “capital blasphemy.” Sentenced to hard labor, he caused so much trouble for his jailers that the authorities again banished him from the colony.

The only individuals actually executed for blasphemy in the American colonies were four Quakers. The government of Massachusetts had banished them for attacking the Puritan church. When they violated their banishment and returned to the colony, they were all hanged in 1659–60.

Following the ratification of the Constitution in 1788, the First Amendment and most state constitutions prohibited the establishment of an official religion. Nevertheless, states still occasionally prosecuted persons for blasphemy against Christianity.

In a typical 19th-century blasphemy case, a man called Ruggles made highly insulting remarks about Jesus Christ and his mother, Mary. The state of New York tried and convicted Ruggles and sentenced him to jail for three months plus a $500 fine. Appealing his case, Ruggles’ attorney argued that his client could not be prosecuted for blasphemy since there was no state law against it.

In 1811, New York’s highest appeals court unanimously rejected Ruggles’ arguments. The court said that New York did not need a blasphemy statute. Ruggles’ words violated the common law inherited from England, which made blasphemy against Christianity the law of the land. Based on this interpretation of the law, the New York court stated that reviling Jesus was a crime since it “tends to corrupt the morals of the people, and to destroy good order.”

The court seemingly ignored that New York’s state constitution prohibited the establishment of any government-sponsored religion. Nevertheless, most other states adopted this legal opinion. Although very few persons were prosecuted, blasphemy remained a crime in several states well into the 20th century.

The U.S. Supreme Court has never decided a blasphemy case, but in 1952 it ruled on a similar matter. In this case, the New York State Film Censorship Board banned the film The Miracle, which told of a girl who believed she was the Virgin Mary about to give birth to Jesus. The state court ruled that the film was “sacrilegious” since it treated Christianity with “contempt, mockery, scorn, and ridicule.” The Supreme Court, however, unanimously decided that sacrilege could not be used as a basis for film censorship. “It is not the business of government in our nation,” wrote Justice Tom Clark, “to suppress real or imagined attacks upon particular religious doctrine.” [Burstyn v. Wilson, 342 U.S. 495 (1952)]

Gradually, state courts found blasphemy laws and prosecutions unconstitutional or unenforceable. No prosecutions for blasphemy have taken place in the United States since 1971.

For Discussion and Writing

1. What is blasphemy?
2. Why do you think the Islamic world reacted so strongly against Salman Rushdie and his book?
3. Do you agree or disagree with the opinion of Justice Tom Clark in Burstyn v. Wilson? Why?

For Further Reading

Levy, Leonard. Blasphemy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.

Smith, William. “Hunted by an Angry Faith.” Time. 27 Feb. 1989:28+.

 ACTIVITY: Blasphemy vs. Freedom of Expression

Imagine that you are advisors to a U.S. senator. The following constitutional amendment has been proposed:

The First Amendment shall not be interpreted to protect blasphemous speech. States shall be free to enact anti-blasphemy laws as long as they prohibit offensive speech against all religions.

The senator has asked you to evaluate this proposed amendment.

1. Form small groups. Each group will role play advisors to a U.S. senator.

2. Each group should analyze the proposed amendment by answering these questions:

a. What is the goal of the amendment?

b. What are the amendment’s advantages? (What are its benefits? Will it achieve its goal? Will it achieve the goal efficiently? Is it inexpensive? Does it protect people from harm? Does it ensure their liberties?)

c. What are the amendment’s disadvantages? (What are its costs? Is it inefficient? Does it cause harm? Does it intrude on people’s liberties? Does it have any potential negative consequences?)

d. Weighing the amendment’s advantages and disadvantages, do you recommend that the senator support or oppose it? Why?
 

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Officers: Haley J. Fromholz, President; Susan J. Troy, Immediate Past President; Publications Committee: Jerome C. Byrne, Chairperson; Gerald Chaleff, Lee S. Edmon, Patrick J. McDonough, Michael W. Monk, Margaret Morrow, Peggy Saferstein, Deborah S. Saxe, Marvin Sears, Lois Thompson, Carlton Varner; Staff: Todd Clark, Executive Director; Marshall L. Croddy, Director of Program and Materials Development; Carlton Martz, Writer; Bill Hayes, Editor; Cristy Lytal, Web Editor; Andrew Costly, Production Manager; Lee S. Edmon, CRF Board Reviewer; Khalid Abu Fadl, Academic Reviewer.

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