Asia Bibi vs. Islam

My dander goes sky high when I read about how a lone individual is being threatened,  hunted, and harassed by particularly Muslim mobs – nay, promised a grueling death – for having “blasphemed” Islam, and receives no help from the West. This is the situation facing Asia Bibi and her family, a Pakistani woman who spent several years in prison for having “blasphemed’ Islam, but has received no offers of asylum from Western countries, only sympathy, which will not protect her from maniacal mobs bent on stringing her up.

Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch and Pamela Geller have a detailed story of Bibi’s plight.  Time magazine however, has a nuts and bolts description of her “crime.”

Asia Bibi, a mother of five believed to now be in her 50s, was accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad after a quarrel with fellow farm laborers in 2009. Muslim laborers who worked alongside her claimed she drank water from the same cup as them, in what they argued was an affront to Islam. She was sentenced to death by hanging in 2010 — becoming the first woman ever dealt capital punishment for blasphemy in the predominantly Muslim country.

What the story omits is that Bibi was known to her fellow workers to be a Christian. They took brain-stunting exception to having to share the cup with her, after she refused to convert to Islam.

Now, I am an atheist. I don’t sympathize with believers in any form of ethereal ghost, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, whatever. I was raised by a Catholic family, which saw fit to burn my books, when I was 15, after I told it I was an atheist, and then evicted me from the family.

Lahore Muslims chanting for Bibi's death

Harriet Sherwood, writing for the British newspaper, the Guardian, notes;

Bibi’s family have been in hiding since her acquittal by the country’s supreme court. She is in protective custody as part of a deal between the government and a hardline Islamic party, under which violent protests were called off while a review of the court ruling was undertaken.

Bibi’s lawyer, relatives and supporters have appealed for the family to be given asylum in a European or north American country. Several countries have indicated their willingness to offer a home, but nothing concrete has emerged.

But in a Muslim interpretation, Sharia law trumps secular law, because it is “superior” to man-made law (it comes from the assertions of a ghost) and is based on the textual narrative found in the Koran and the Hadith.

Wikipedia describes Sharia:

Sharia law, or Islamic law is a religious law forming part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam, particularly the Quran and the Hadith. In Arabic, the term sharīʿah refers to Allah's immutable divine law and is contrasted with fiqh, which refers to its human scholarly interpretations. It has been described as "one of the major intellectual achievements of Islam" and its importance in Islam has been compared to that of theology. The manner of its application in modern times has been a subject of dispute between Muslim traditionalists and reformists.

About Asia Bibi, the Guardian  reported:

Christian farm labourer Bibi, a 47-year-old mother of five, was sentenced to hang for blasphemy in 2010. She had angered fellow Muslim farm workers by taking a sip of water from a cup she had fetched for them on a hot day. When they demanded she convert to Islam, she refused, prompting a mob to later allege that she had insulted the prophet Mohammed.

Justice Asif Khosa, in a verdict widely praised for its courage and rigour, noted that the two sisters who accused Bibi “had no regard for the truth” and that the claim she smeared the prophet in public was “concoction incarnate”.

“It is ironical that in the Arabic language the appellant’s name Asia means ‘sinful’,” Khosa went on, “but in the circumstances of the present case she appears to be a person, in the words of Shakespeare’s King Lear, ‘more sinned against than sinning’.”

The Guardian further notes that:

Blasphemy carries an automatic death penalty in Pakistan’s legal system, and although the state has never executed anyone for the offence, vigilante mobs have killed at least 65 people since 1990, according to the centre for research and security studies. Ahead of the verdict, the third witness in the trial, a cleric, told the BBC that “reversing the two previous decisions in the case [is] encouraging people to take the law into their own hands”.

But what really riles me is that Western countries have remained hesitant and iffy about offering Bibi asylum from the mobs. Even Donald Trump has deferred because he has let a Saudi Sheik off the hook over the Jamal Khashoggi murder, supposedly committed with the knowledge of the Saudi crown prince and ruler, Mohammed bin Salman. He has placed the U.S.’s relationship with Saudi Arabia over the safety of Asia Bibi.

A friend commented:

Wish the media would pay this poor harmless woman who is being hunted down by Muslims like wolves after prey a fraction of the attention they've heaped on that Muslim Brotherhood skunk Kashoggi who got sliced and diced by his fellow slaves of Allah. Apparently no country will offer her safety and no, I don't expect Trump to do so either. Fear of "offending" our "ally" no doubt prevents that.

Britain has refused Bibi refuge for the expected and scurrilous reasons. The Telegraph reports:

Britain has not offered asylum to a Pakistani Christian woman freed after eight years on death row for blasphemy because of fear it would prompt “unrest” in the UK and attacks on embassies, her supporters claim….

Wilson Chowdhry of the British Pakistani Christian Association, said: “Britain was concerned about potential unrest in the country, attacks on embassies and civilians.”

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said it could not comment on individual cases, but Whitehall sources added that: “We welcome the assurances the government of Pakistan has given on keeping her and her family safe.

“It is important that all countries seek to uphold the rule of law and afford security and protection for the rights of all citizens irrespective or faith or belief.”

Except when the Prime Minister is beholden to countless Muslims and voters in Britain who want to uphold Sharia law as supreme, and who promise riot and mayhem if Britain offers Bibi asylum. Britain would rather punish its own “blasphemers” rather than bring another one in.

In the end, it is Asia Bibi vs. craven Islam-zombies..