Blasphemy

Abstract: On September 30, 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published twelve cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Five months later, thousands of Muslims inundated the newspaper with outpourings of anger and grief by phone, email, and fax; from Asia to Europe Muslims took to the streets in protest. This book is the first comprehensive investigation of the conflict that aroused impassioned debates around the world on freedom of expression, blasphemy, and the nature of modern Islam. Jytte Klausen interviewed politicians in the Middle East, Muslim leaders in Europe, the Danish editors and cartoonists, and the Danish imam who started the controversy. Following the winding trail of protests across the world, she deconstructs the arguments and motives that drove the escalation of the increasingly globalized conflict. She concludes that the Muslim reaction to the cartoons was not--as was commonly assumed--a spontaneous emotional reaction arising out of the clash of Western and Islamic civilizations. Rather it was orchestrated, first by those with vested interests in elections in Denmark and Egypt, and later by Islamic extremists seeking to destabilize governments in Pakistan, Lebanon, Libya, and Nigeria. Klausen shows how the cartoon crisis was, therefore, ultimately a political conflict rather than a colossal cultural misunderstanding.

Abstract: In this volume, four leading thinkers of our times confront the paradoxes and dilemmas attending the supposed stand-off between Islam and liberal democratic values. Taking the controversial Danish cartoons of Mohammad as a point of departure, Talal Asad, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, and Saba Mahmood inquire into the evaluative frameworks at stake in understanding the conflicts between blasphemy and free speech, between religious taboos and freedoms of thought and expression, and between secular and religious world views. Is the language of the law an adequate mechanism for the adjudication of such conflicts? What other modes of discourse are available for the navigation of such differences in multicultural and multi-religious societies? What is the role of critique in such an enterprise? These are among the pressing questions this volume addresses.

Abstract: I: The Nature of the Subject: The Political Philosophy of Civil Liberties. 1: Methods of Identifying and Protecting Rights and Freedoms. II: Life, Liberty, Physical Integrity: The Right to Life. 2: Physical Security and Integrity. 3: Freedom from Arbitrary Deprivation of Liberty. 4: Stop and Search, Arrest, Detention. 5: Rights Under Restraint. 6: Prison Conditions and Mental Health Act Patients. 7: Freedom of Movement: Immigration, Deprivation, Asylum, Exclusion Orders. III: Privacy: The Nature of Privacy. 8: Freedom from Arbitrary Search and Seizure. 9: Business and Professional Confidences. 10: Gender and Family Life. IV: Political Protest and Expression: Freedom of Expression. 11: Media Freedoms. 12: Restrictions on Freedom of Speech in the Interests of National Security. 13: Restrictions on Freedom of Speech in the Public Interest: Blasphemy, Obscenity, Indecency. 14: Restrictions on Freedom of Speech in the Public Interest: Contempt of Court. 15: Protest and Public Order. V: Equality: Freedom from Racial Discrimination. 16: An Overview of Social and Economic Rights. 17: Conclusions: The Courts and Freedom

Abstract: This book explores the relationship between religion and politics in England from the accession of George III to the First Reform Bill, considering the political and social ideas of Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, Dissenters, deists and atheists. It examines the effect of the French Revolution on Christian political and social theory as well as reactions to the American Revolution, riots and disorder, economic and social education, secularisation, 'Blasphemy and Sedition', the growth of atheism, and the Reform of the Constitution in 1826–32. Major figures such as Burke, Paine, Wollstonecraft, Coleridge, Bentham and Wesley are considered, but popular, everyday arguments are also analysed. The book examines Christian views on political obligation and the right of rebellion, and suggests that religion was used as a means of social control to maintain public order and stability in a rapidly changing society.