Jonah Goldberg writes for National Review Online that the argument about extremists trying to hijack the peaceful religion of Islam might be backwards:
Salman Taseer, a popular Pakistani governor, was assassinated this week because he was critical of Pakistan?s blasphemy law.
Specifically, Taseer was supportive of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who has been sentenced to death for ?insulting Muhammad.?
Bibi had offered some fellow farm laborers some water. They refused to
drink it because Christian hands purportedly make water unclean. An
argument followed. She defended her faith, which they took as synonymous
with attacking theirs. Later, she says, a mob of her accusers raped
her.Naturally, a Pakistani judge sentenced her to hang for blasphemy.
And Governor Taseer, who bravely visited her and sympathized with her
plight, had 40 bullets pumped into him by one of his own bodyguards. …Many columnists and commentators denounced the murder, but the public?s
reaction was often celebratory. A Facebook fan page for Qadri had to be
taken down as it was drawing thousands of followers.And what of the country?s official guardians of the faith?
A group of more than 500 leading Muslim scholars, representing what the
Associated Press describes as a ?moderate school of Islam? and the
British Guardian calls the ?mainstream religious organizations?
in Pakistan not only celebrated the murder, but warned that no Muslim
should mourn Taseer?s murder or pray for him.They even went so far as to warn government officials and journalists
that the ?supporter is as equally guilty as one who committed
blasphemy,? and so therefore they should all take ?a lesson from the
exemplary death? of Salman Taseer.If that?s what counts for religious moderation in Pakistan, I think
it?s a little late to be talking about extremists hijacking the
religion. The religion has long since been hijacked, and it?s now moving
on to even bigger things.
