الشريعة الإسلامية والمتنطعون فى تأسيسية الدستور

الشريعة الإسلامية والمتنطعون فى تأسيسية الدستور

almasryalyoum.com | Sep 29th 2012

لا أجد مبرراً لحالة التنطع - أى الغلو والتطرف - التى دفعت فريقاً من المتنطعين المنتمين لبعض فصائل جماعات الإسلام السياسى إلى إثارة المعركة الخاصة بتعديل المادة الثانية من دستور 1971، التى كانت تنص على أن «مبادئ الشريعة الإسلامية المصدر الرئيسى للتشريع»، وهى معركة بدأت عقب الثورة مباشرة بمطالبة هؤلاء بإحلال كلمة «أحكام» محل كلمة مبادئ، وانتهت فى المداولات التى تجرى الآن فى تأسيسية الدستور - إلى المطالبة بحذف الكلمتين، وإضافة عبارة أخرى للمادة ليصبح نصها «الشريعة الإسلامية هى المصدر الرئيسى للتشريع، والأزهر الشريف هو المرجعية النهائية فى تفسيرها».

هذا هو النص الأساسى الذى يدور حوله الجدل الآن، وتتفرع عنه تنويعات تدور فى الإطار نفسه، يطالب بعض القائلين بها بأن تبقى كلمة مبادئ على أن يظل الأزهر - أو بالتحديد «جماعة كبار العلماء» فيه - هو «المرجعية النهائية للدولة فى جميع الشؤون المتعلقة بالشريعة الإسلامية ومبادئها طبقاً لمذاهب أهل السُنة والجماعة»، ويهدد الأكثر تنطعاً منهم بالويل والثبور وعظائم الأمور، إذا ظل نص المادة على ما كان عليه فى دستور 1971، ويحرض العوام علناً على النزول إلى الشوارع لحماية الشريعة الإسلامية باعتبار أن تعديل النص استناداً إلى ما يطالبون به هو آخر فرصة لتطبق الشريعة!

والمنطق الذى ينطلق منه هؤلاء هو أن كلمة «مبادئ» تفرغ المادة الخاصة بالشريعة الإسلامية من مضمونها، لأن أحكام المحكمة الدستورية العليا فسرت «مبادئ» الشريعة الإسلامية بأنها «الأحكام قطعية الثبوت.. قطعية الدلالة من الشريعة»، وهذه الأحكام قطعية الثبوت والدلالة، فى تقديرهم، محدودة جداً، مما يعنى أن معظم ما جاء بالشريعة لن يطبق، لأن بعض آيات القرآن الكريم ولو أنها قطعية الثبوت إلا أنها ليست قطعية الدلالة، بسبب اختلاف المفسرين حول معانيها، كما أن كثيراً من الأحاديث النبوية ليس قطعى الثبوت، حتى لو كان قطعى الدلالة.

وما يقوله هؤلاء قراءة ناقصة ومشوشة لأحكام المحكمة الدستورية العليا فى تفسير النص الوارد فى دستور 1971، وهى تقول صراحة إن هذا النص لا يجيز صدور نص تشريعى - أى قانون - يناقض الأحكام الشرعية القطعية فى ثبوتها ودلالتها باعتبار أن هذه الأحكام وحدها هى التى يكون الاجتهاد فيها ممتنعاً، لأنها تمثل من الشريعة الإسلامية مبادئها الكلية وأصولها الثابتة التى لا تحتمل تأويلاً أو تبديلاً ولا يجوز الخروج عليها أو الالتواء بها عن معناها، أو إقرار أى قاعدة قانونية على خلافها، ومهمة المحكمة الدستورية - كما تقول أحكامها - هى «أن تراقب التقيد بها، وأن تغلبها على كل قاعدة قانونية تعارضها».

أما أحكام الشريعة الإسلامية الظنية، أى غير المقطوع بثبوتها أو بدلالتها أو بهما معا، فقد ذهبت المحكمة الدستورية إلى أنه يجوز فيها الاجتهاد تنظيماً لشؤون العباد، بما يكفل مصالحهم المعتبرة شرعاً، واشترطت هذه الأحكام أن يكون الاجتهاد دوماً واقعاً فى إطار الأصول الكلية للشريعة، بما لا يجاوزها كافلا المقاصد العامة للشريعة بما تقوم عليه من حفاظ على الدين والنفس والعقل والعرض والمال، وفى هذا السياق أجازت أحكام المحكمة الدستورية للمشرع أن يختار من مذهب دون مذهب أو أرجح الأقوال فى مذهب من المذاهب، لكى يلزم القضاء بالتقيد به، وفقاً لما يراه ملائماً لظروف المجتمع، ولم تجد مانعاً شرعياً من الأخذ بأقوال الفقهاء من غير المذاهب الأربعة، إذا كان الأخذ بأقوالهم يؤدى إلى جلب صالح عام أو رفع ضرر عام.

ذلك هو تفسير المحكمة الدستورية لنص المادة الثانية الخاصة بمبادئ الشريعة الإسلامية، وهو التفسير الذى أخذ به المشرع حتى قبل استقرار هذه المادة بنصها الحالى فى التعديلات التى أدخلت على دستور 1971 عام1980، حين صاغ قوانين الأحوال الشخصية للمسلمين، ثم القانون المدنى إذ أخذ من مختلف المذاهب الإسلامية ما يتفق مع تطور المجتمعات، وما ييسر على المسلمين شؤون حياتهم، واجتهد فيما ليس فيه نص قطعى الثبوت قطعى الدلالة فى إطار مقاصد الشريعة.

وهو تفسير يؤكد أن الذين يزعمون أنه يهدر تطبيق الشريعة يفتعلون معركة لا أساس لها، لا يدفعهم إلى إثارتها إلا شهوة التنطع التى تتملكهم لكى يظهروا بصورة الغيورين دون غيرهم على دين الله، ولكى يفرضوا على المسلمين تفسيرهم الخاص للأحكام ظنية الثبوت ظنية الدلالة من الشريعة، وأن يسدوا أمامنا أبواب الرحمة التى بعث الله عز وجل الرسول، عليه الصلاة والسلام، ليفتحها أمامنا وإلا فليقولوا لنا: ما هى على وجه التحديد أحكام الشريعة التى يرون أن هذا التفسير قد أهدرها؟ هل يريدون مثلاً أن يلزموا مجلس الشعب القادم بإصدار قوانين تقضى بتحريم التماثيل وتحطيم القائم منها باعتبارها أوثاناً، وأن تلزم المسلمين بإطلاق اللحية وحف الشوارب وتحرم المعازف وتبيح رضاعة الكبير؟!

ويا سيدنا المستشار حسام الغريانى، أرجوك أن توزع على أعضاء الجمعية التأسيسية نص أحكام المحكمة الدستورية فى تفسير النص الخاص بأن «مبادئ الشريعة الإسلامية المصدر الرئيسى للتشريع»، قبل أى مناقشة خاصة بهذا النص لكى يتأكد الجميع أنه ليس فى حاجة إلى تعديل أو إضافة.

Original Page: http://www.almasryalyoum.com/node/1144696

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Islamic Art: Mirror of the Invisible World -- PBS Documentary



http://www.toronto.com/article/710707--islamic-art-mirror-of-the-invisible-world-promotes-peace-through-art-appreciation

If there is one thing that can build bridges between civilizations, religions and people, it is an appreciation of art.

With this premise in mind, the documentary Islamic Art: Mirror of the Invisible World sheds light on the history, context and preservation of artistic traditions within the Islamic world.

Directed by multiple Emmy winner Robert H. Gardner and narrated by Susan Sarandon, Islamic Art spans the globe analyzing the architectural marvels of the Taj Mahal in India, the palaces of Turkey and the simple yet perfectly symmetrical mosques in the villages of Mali. It explores the skill behind the most intricate calligraphy and explains the symmetry, design and planning behind the world’s most beautiful mosques.

“The message of this film is that human interaction across diverse lines can produce beauty,” said Kronemer. “I think in this time and place, we have may lost sight of that, thinking that diversity only produces conflict, division and violence.

“But history shows us, time and time again, that this interaction can also produce beauty.”


The History and Philosophy of Representational Art in Islam

The History and Philosophy of Representational Art in Islam

by Harvard University Press, harvardpress.typepad.com
October 2nd 2012

There exists a widespread belief that Islam can countenance no representational religious art, that any depiction of religious figures will trip the wire of Newsweek’s “Muslim Rage.” Such a belief is so firmly held in the west that it easily underwrote the government-propagated claim that the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi was a spontaneous reaction to the “Innocence of Muslims” film, rather than the premeditated assault it now appears to have been.

In fact, as those willing to grant the possibility of dissonance within a centuries-old religion understand, it is not actually the case that Islam so thoroughly outlaws representational art. What we’ve lacked, writes Jamal J. Elias, is a thorough understanding of the historical and philosophical origins of the contentious role of iconography in Islam. In the following excerpt from his forthcoming study, Aisha’s Cushion: Religious Art, Perception, and Practice in Islam, Elias explains his approach to filling this gap in our understanding.

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It is often claimed that Muslims do not have icons, idols, or pictures of God or religious heroes; indeed, in modern times, there undoubtedly appears to be a widespread Islamic cultural opposition to depicting human religious figures as well as God in visual form. One need only recall the publicity surrounding the making and release of The Message in 1976—a film about the birth of Islam in which none of the primary characters appears on screen out of concern for Muslim sensibilities. Similarly, one might look to the intermittent controversies over the American comedy cartoon South Park’s allusions to depicting Muhammad beginning in 2005 and culminating in threats against the makers of the series in 2010, causing them to self-censor airings of the relevant episodes. And although the Taliban do not represent a widespread Muslim ideal, their destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in March 2001 was religiously motivated to some degree, and religiously justified to every extent. More recently, the (at times violent) indignation following the publication of caricatures of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper in 2005, and the reaction to instances, threats, and rumors of the desecration of the Qur’an in the United States or in U.S. detention centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Cuba, underscore the obvious fact that Muslims hold complex attitudes toward religious images and objects, and that these attitudes do not reflect worldviews that are either naively unaware of or religiously oblivious to the power of images.

In fact, Muslim attitudes toward religious images and objects display apparent contradictions that not only are shared with Islam’s sister religions of Christianity and Judaism, but also are apparent in the history of image-rich religions like Buddhism and Hinduism. On the one hand, Muslims display a widespread (though not comprehensive) taboo on religious depictions, and a narrower—but still prevalent—distrust of treating material objects as supernatural or divine. On the other, they embrace a religious culture that is rich in images, reacts to the images of others in complex ways, and is spatially focused around an object—the Ka‘ba building in Mecca—and its associated primary ritual of pilgrimage, which incorporates somatic engagement with material objects such as stones and pillars.

It is my purpose in this book to explore Muslim attitudes toward visual images and to suggest strategies of conceptualizing the nature of perception and the ways in which visual objects and images have been and continue to be understood in various Muslim contexts. I am concerned with what people see and perceive when they are confronted with a visual religious object, and with how they respond to it. In the course of the book I offer explanations for the nature of perception within contexts where Muslims consciously believe that they have no representational religious art and, on the basis of that analysis, I theorize about larger issues concerning the relationships among religion, art, and perception. My starting thesis is relatively straightforward and not especially innovative: there is a common understanding that the only broadly acceptable forms of Islamic visual religious arts are architecture and calligraphy. With the notable exceptions of some illustrated books on the life of Muhammad, the tradition of pictorial representation of religious personages in the Persianate world, and the decoration of a few well-known mosques, such a view suggests that there is little pictorial religious art in the Islamic world. Nevertheless, even though Muslims would deny that the divine inheres in objects of human manufacture, visual religious arts (of which pictorial arts are a subset) remain widespread in Islamic society. Modern scholarship has recognized this phenomenon, but it has failed to explore adequately the historical and philosophical reasons underlying it. I would argue that, in fact, Muslim thinkers have developed systematic and advanced theories of representation and signification, and that many of these theories have been internalized by Islamic society at large and continue to inform cultural attitudes toward the visual arts. These discussions are not found in the same contexts as they are in Christendom—the history of which provides a basis not just for academic understandings of Islam but also of art—because of the different evolution of the two religious civilizations.

My contention is that Islamic theories regarding representation and perception should not be sought in theological writings or in those directly concerned with aesthetics or art production. On the contrary, preliminary answers to these questions are found in scientific works on alchemy (how one thing can be made to appear as another), optics (addressing questions of vision and how the perception of an object affects the perceiver), dreaming (addressing issues of imagination and psychology), and in philosophical writings, particularly of the kind belonging to the Sufi metaphysical tradition. Since I am interested in understanding the nature of popular perception, I focus my analysis on readings of important religious, philosophical, and scientific thinkers with a mass appeal rather than works by very interesting but esoteric writers who failed to have a substantial impact on mainstream Islamic society.

Original Page: http://harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2012/10/the-history-and-philosophy-of-representational-art-in-islam.html

"There are more than enough Muslims already...What the world needs is more lovers of God"!!!!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Sufis-Under-Attack-by-Richard-Schiffman-1210... Sufis Under Attack

By Richard Schiffman

Remember the bombing of the Buddha statues carved into the cliffs at Bamiyan in north central Afghanistan in 2001? The Taliban destruction of these massive archeological monuments dating back to the 6th century has become emblematic of the cultural and religious intolerance of radical Islam.

What is less well known is that fanatical elements have done equal damage to Islam's own religious heritage. Not only have Shia and Sunni partisans bombed each other's mosques in countries like Iraq, Syria and Pakistan, but Sufi places of worship are under attack throughout the Islamic world.

Last month the world was shocked to learn that the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans had been killed in an attack on a U.S. Consulate in Libya. Few heard of the other violent events in that country in September, which included the destruction of Sufi shrines in three Libyan cities.

In Tripoli security forces watched passively as militants with bulldozers leveled the shrine of al-Shaab al-Dahmani, a venerated Sufi Saint, during broad daylight. In Benghazi, on the other hand, locals fought back killing three of the militants who were assaulting a holy place.

Perhaps we don't hear much about these incidents because attacks on Sufis and Sufi sites have become routine, not just in Libya, but throughout the Islamic world. This past summer, Islamic militants in Mali demolished historical mausoleums, universities and libraries, several of which were on UNESCO's list of world heritage sites, in the ancient Saharan trading town of Timbuktu. Sufi worship halls have also been turned to rubble in Iran, where the Islamic government has reportedly jailed and tortured thousands of Sufi practitioners for their unorthodox views. And in Egypt since the fall of Mubarak Sufi shrines have been torched and the Sufi chanting ritual called zhikr has been banned in some locations.

The deadliest attacks to date have occurred in Pakistan, including last year's bombing of the Sakhi Sarkar shrine during the annual festival of the Sufi saint in which 41 worshippers were killed. Meanwhile, in the former Soviet Republic of Daghestan the Sufi leader Effendi Chirkeisky, along with six of his followers, was assassinated at the end of August by a female suicide bomber. Ironically Chirkeisky, a critic of Muslim extremism, had been working to broker peace between warring Islamic factions.

For many in the U.S. Sufism is associated with the ecstatic verse of the 13th century mystic, Jalaluddin Rumi, whose poetry in translation sells more copies than any living American poet. Rumi's popularity derives in part from the fact that he taught that religion is less a matter of external observance than an intimate personal relationship with God. This undoubtedly appeals to our American ideals of individualism and free-form seeking.

What many contemporary fans of Rumi may not realize is that Sufism in practice is more of a communal affair than a lonely quest. Moreover, the philosophy of Rumi and his fellow Sufis is very much alive today. It has spread to the distant corners of the Islamic world and beyond, and comprises many different orders, each with its own teachings and modes of practice.

Sufism historically was one of the great wellsprings of Islamic philosophy, and deeply influenced luminaries like the great Muslim theologian Abu Hamid al-Ghazali and the thirteenth century mystic thinker, Ibn Arabi. Some have credited Sufism's open-minded approach to knowledge with the development of Islamic medicine and other science in the middle ages.

Sufism's influence on the literature, music, art and architecture of Islam is also immense, and it was a potent force in many of the political and social reform movements in the 19th century. While nobody can say with certainty how many Sufis there are, they undoubtedly number in the millions in countries like Iran, Indonesia and Pakistan, and untold hundreds of millions of Muslims take part in Sufi ceremonies and festivals every year.

"In the Islamic world," according to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University, "Sufism is the most powerful antidote to the religious radicalism called fundamentalism as well as the most important source for responding to the challenges posed by modernism."

This pervasive influence may be why Sufis have been targets of the fundamentalists, who see their kindler, gentler form of Islam as a standing challenge to their own rigid orthodoxy. Sufi practices, like the famous whirling of the Mevlevi dervishes in Turkey, first practiced by Rumi himself, employ music, dance and spiritual recitation to awaken the God whom Sufis say is asleep in the human heart. Nothing could be further from the grim-faced puritanism of the Islamic fundamentalists who accuse the Sufis of being "idolaters" and "pagans." Sufis reply that they are hearkening back to the roots of Islam, which means "peace."

I can attest to the power of Sufi practices to provide a glimpse of the "peace which passeth understanding" that is at the core of all religious experience. For several years I attended the weekly zickr of a Turkish Sufi order in New York City. The chanting in Turkish and Arabic was coordinated with our movements and the flow of the breath to create a trance-like state, which I found to be both subtler and more powerful and enduring than the drug experiences I had pursued during college. Equally remarkable was the feeling of deep affection and fellowship that was served up along with the tea and Turkish sweets after the ceremony.

The Sufism that I know, while deeply Islamic in form, is universal in spirit. I think often of what our Sheikh, Muzzafer Effendi, told his Turkish followers when they asked him why he didn't convert more American dervishes to Islam. "There are more than enough Muslims already," he replied. "What the world needs is more lovers of God!"

I would love to say this to the extremists who are bombing holy places and attacking Sufi practitioners.

9 things to tolerate if your boyfriend is an entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship is no bed of roses.Initially I thought of using the title '9 reasons you shouldn't date an entrepreneur' but then I changed it to this.
Everyone needs to be strong.
Here are a few things a lady needs to be prepared for if she takes up this Herculean task (and very few do).
1) Every morning they will bore you with Paul Graham's essay that they read last night.
You should at least be prepared to listen to the 'notes' from the essay.
2)They will disturb you at 5 am to tell you the new idea they just got to beat the new competitor in the market.
3)Start-ups are like a sine curve and so will be your partner's mood.
A roller-coaster ride is an understatement. One day, they'll be high on cloud 9 and the next day they'll slump down into the dark depths of gloominess.
4)They will tell you about the latest investment of sequoia capital in some groundbreaking technology.
You should be prepared to hear how that technology will change the world.
5)They will be online on Instant Messenger for 24 hours, but will mostly never reply to your chat.
They are always in the middle of something important on another tab.
6)You will never understand a single word of what they will tell you about new investors approaching them with cash.
But they will always be too cashless to take you on a date/movie to a good place.
7)They will always be looking for rock-stars to join their team and on every date, they will ask if any of your talented friends are sick of corporate culture and want to join a start-up at a lower salary.
8)They won't be able to talk to you about any latest movies/TV shows that have released recently.
They prefer to spend time reading Techcrunch, Mashable or Yourstory instead of watching the idiot box.
9) Every time you fight with them, instead of convincing you at that moment, they will ask you to analyse the situation step by step so that 'we can solve this fight completely'.

By Sahil Baghla

My name is Oranous Ghasemi. I am an Iranian painter living in Tehran. I hope you like my paintings.

http://www.caroun.com/painting/iranpainting/oranousghasemi/oranousghasemi.html

Iranian Painter: Oranous Ghasemi

My name is Oranous. I am 38, Iranian woman. (2004)

I was born in Kermanshah, one of the western provinces of Iran, and now I am living in Tehran, the Capital city of Iran.

As I was very interested in art and nature, a few years ago, I started my work as a beginner on painting some natural views and portraits. At that time, I was painting just to do something and to learn something.  But after a while I became more interested and began to work more seriously; very soon, painting became a part of my life, and now I do it all the time, not only because of all the above reasons, but also because by this way, I found a better way to enjoy my life and to cope with all stressful life events.

Here I want to thank my husband and my children that without their cooperation I couldn’t do so well and wish them all the best.

Now Art and painting is my job, as well as my life. I do portraits for which they want me to do that for them and also I do some other paintings like natural views or what ever they order. As I believe that every kind of Art is priceless, I never put price on my paintings and their prices will offer by the people who want to purchase them.

Most of my paintings are Oil painting, but some of them are by pencil. They are in different sizes and styles.

Yale surrenders and censors all pictorial depictions of the prophet from its upcoming book "The cartoons that shook the world"

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2009/08/yale_surrenders.html

Yale Surrenders

The capitulation of Yale University Press to threats that hadn't even been made yet is the latest and perhaps the worst episode in the steady surrender to religious extremism—particularly Muslim religious extremism—that is spreading across our culture. A book called The Cartoons That Shook the World, by Danish-born Jytte Klausen, who is a professor of politics at Brandeis University, tells the story of the lurid and preplanned campaign of "protest" and boycott that was orchestrated in late 2005 after the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten  ran a competition for cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. (The competition was itself a response to the sudden refusal of a Danish publisher to release a book for children about the life of Mohammed, lest it, too, give offense.) By the time the hysteria had been called off by those who incited it, perhaps as many as 200 people around the world had been pointlessly killed.

Yale University Press announced last week that it would go ahead with the publication of the book, but it would remove from it the 12 caricatures that originated the controversy. Not content with this, it is also removing other historic illustrations of the likeness of the Prophet, including one by Gustave Doré of the passage in Dante's Inferno that shows Mohammed being disemboweled in hell. (These same Dantean stanzas have also been depicted by William Blake, Sandro Botticelli, Salvador Dalí,  and Auguste Rodin,  so there's a lot of artistic censorship in our future if this sort of thing is allowed to set a precedent.)

Now, the original intention of limiting the representation of Mohammed by Muslims (and Islamic fatwas, before we forget, have no force whatever when applied to people outside the faith) was the rather admirable one of preventing idolatry. It was feared that people might start to worship the man and not the god of whom he was believed to be the messenger. This is why it is crass to refer to Muslims as Mohammedans. Nonetheless, Islamic art contains many examples—especially in Iran—of paintings of the Prophet, and even though the Dante example is really quite an upsetting one, exemplifying a sort of Christian sadism and sectarianism, there has never been any Muslim protest about its pictorial representation in Western art.

If that ever changes, which one can easily imagine it doing, then Yale has already made the argument that gallery directors may use to justify taking down the pictures and locking them away. According to Yale logic, violence could result from the showing of the images—and not only that, but it would be those who displayed the images who were directly responsible for that violence.

Let me illustrate: The Aug. 13 New York Times carried a report of the university press' surrender, which quoted its director, John Donatich, as saying that in general he has "never blinked" in the face of controversy, but "when it came between that and blood on my hands, there was no question."

Donatich is a friend of mine and was once my publisher, so I wrote to him and asked how, if someone blew up a bookshop for carrying professor Klausen's book, the blood would be on the publisher's hands rather than those of the bomber. His reply took the form of the official statement from the press's public affairs department. This informed me that Yale had consulted a range of experts before making its decision and that "[a]ll confirmed that the republication of the cartoons by the Yale University Press ran a serious risk of instigating violence."

So here's another depressing thing: Neither the "experts in the intelligence, national security, law enforcement, and diplomatic fields, as well as leading scholars in Islamic studies and Middle East studies" who were allegedly consulted, nor the spokespeople for the press of one of our leading universities, understand the meaning of the plain and common and useful word instigate. If you instigate something, it means that you wish and intend it to happen. If it's a riot, then by instigating it, you have yourself fomented it. If it's a murder, then by instigating it, you have yourself colluded in it. There is no other usage given for the word in any dictionary, with the possible exception of the word provoke, which does have a passive connotation. After all, there are people who argue that women who won't wear the veil have "provoked" those who rape or disfigure them … and now Yale has adopted that "logic" as its own.

It was bad enough during the original controversy, when most of the news media—and in the age of "the image" at that—refused to show the cartoons out of simple fear. But now the rot has gone a serious degree further into the fabric. Now we have to say that the mayhem we fear is also our fault, if not indeed our direct responsibility. This is the worst sort of masochism, and it involves inverting the honest meaning of our language as well as what might hitherto have been thought of as our concept of moral responsibility.

Last time this happened, I linked to the Danish cartoons so that you could make up your own minds about them, and I do the same today. Nothing happened last time, but who's to say what homicidal theocrat might decide to take offense now. I deny absolutely that I will have instigated him to do so, and I state in advance that he is directly and solely responsible for any blood that is on any hands. He becomes the responsibility of our police and security agencies, who operate in defense of a Constitution that we would not possess if we had not been willing to spill blood—our own and that of others—to attain it. The First Amendment to that Constitution prohibits any prior restraint on the freedom of the press. What a cause of shame that the campus of Nathan Hale should have pre-emptively run up the white flag and then cringingly taken the blood guilt of potential assassins and tyrants upon itself.

Dante's Divine Comedy 'offensive and should be banned'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/9140869/Dantes-Divine-Comedy-offensive-and-should-be-banned.html

Dante's Divine Comedy 'offensive and should be banned'

It is a world-renowned work of literature and one of the foundation stones of the Italian language, but Dante's Divine Comedy has been condemned as racist, homophobic, anti-Islamist and anti-Semitic.

The classic work should be removed from school curricula, according to Gherush 92, a human rights organisation which acts as a consultant to UN bodies on racism and discrimination.

Dante's epic is "offensive and discriminatory" and has no place in a modern classroom, said Valentina Sereni, the group's president.

Divided into three parts – Hell, Purgatory and Heaven – the poem consists of 100 cantos, of which half a dozen were marked out for particular criticism by the group.

It represents Islam as a heresy and Mohammed as a schismatic and refers to Jews as greedy, scheming moneylenders and traitors, Miss Sereni told the Adnkronos news agency.

"The Prophet Mohammed was subjected to a horrific punishment – his body was split from end to end so that his entrails dangled out, an image that offends Islamic culture," she said.

Homosexuals are damned by the work as being "against nature" and condemned to an eternal rain of fire in Hell.

"We do not advocate censorship or the burning of books, but we would like it acknowledged, clearly and unambiguously, that in the Divine Comedy there is racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic content. Art cannot be above criticism," Miss Sereni said.

Schoolchildren and university students who studied the work lacked "the filters" to appreciate its historical context and were being fed a poisonous diet of anti-Semitism and racism, the group said.

It called for the Divine Comedy to be removed from schools and universities or at least have its more offensive sections fully explained.

The remarks prompted Italian cultural associations, actors who have performed the epic and even gay groups to rush to the defence of the poet.

It was wrong to judge Dante by the standards of today, said Giorgio Rembado, the president of an Italian head teachers' association.

"Works of literature need to be placed in the historical context," he said.

Banning the Divine Comedy would be "senseless".

Franco Grillini, the head of Gaynet, a gay rights' organisation, said the suggestion that Dante's writings should be prohibited marked "an excess of political correctness".