Junaid Hafeez & blasphemy laws in Pakistan | Mufti Abu Layth

that you know this case of Junaid Hafiz who is a who is a Pakistani lecturer at I believe it was called Baha Zak Mahal DeAnza Korea University in Multan now this he has been sentenced to death just this in December 2019 on blasphemy on grounds of blasphemy in Pakistan he he was under imprisonment from 2013 and a

little backdrop to who this guy is just I mean you can watch more detail about him online is he somebody I suppose traditional born and raised in Pakistan if with some loose sense of tradition there it wasn't necessarily that religious he was very talented somebody who embarked on a medical kind of career sorry not career academic pursuit he starts turning medicine then he became infatuated with literature study poetry Keats and other poets and was very

fascinated by them travelled to America did his degree of there came back taught in Pakistan Punjab within the universities in Punjab within this small town University maybe some other places as well and here he started to face a lot of criticism by some religious groups who some of these mullah type of people who were very kind of saying that all these guys to secular is pushing for secular values is against the Quran he's against this is against that they attributed a Facebook page to him which he may have been responsible for I don't

know I think he denied it but even if he was responsible for you I think it was cool like mad Milazzo mullah munafiq sorry mullah Monica the hypocrite mullahs and then they attributed some other pages to him which were ridiculing let's say arguably they claim that they were really killing the Prophet or Islam but as far as I'm aware none of these were proven to be his like they couldn't prove that these were that this page or blog or whatever it was

actually belonged to him so one is you know you could go to his his desktop and you've got it there it wasn't like that they didn't have proof like that but they just said that you know the circumstantial evidence shows that look this guy post is this this page post this as well blah blah blah whatever is and they've kind of like circumstantially matched it up and said well you know this guy has blaspheme so he was arrested in 2013 I think he challenged it by trying to say things like look because the website that they accused continued to remain active even after he's detained so that was his

legal point that if it's me then how is it still going on while I'm inside prison so he was detained placed in isolated confinement and he was first represented you see finding representation was difficult he initially got hold of a barrister who then kind of left him because it was too much social pressure for trying to defend somebody who is of course stark you know blasphemes against the Prophet he then found another person who was the head of the Charity Commission Human Rights Commission sorry I believe in

Punjab who represented him and fought his case and was threatened within within the actual court like in front of the judge he was told that look by the other opposing prosecution that look if you carry on you're not even going to be alive for his trial and before you know it within the subsequent you know coming that coming year or so on he was gunned down in his office the solicitor the the Human Rights chair was gunned down right so I think that may have been around 2015

and then he he's obviously this person Geneva fees is left with no representation and I think they've tried this you know they weren't that wealthy I think they sold things the family tried to get representation it was difficult and then just this month in December 2019 the courts sentenced him to death right now I wanna share my thoughts on this okay now first of all I want to share my thoughts based on let's say he did say these things let's say he did question the profit and he did

question and even let's say he was sarcastic to the profit or things like this let's go with that argument even though I feel that you can't these are such heavy things to levy against someone without true objective irrefutable evidence and just you see because these things are based on intention a lot of these things and to say well now you know to prove that it's very difficult but anyway let's for the sake of argument go with the fact that he did say let's say he did and he I don't know exactly what those things were there they haven't disclosed them

now does questioning Islam or even ridiculing Islam mandate a an execution a death sentence we do we get this farm who told us was the Prophet not insulted in his own day and age by people how did the Prophet respond did the Prophet respond by saying execute him how do people today play God the Quran clearly mentioned like Rafi

Deen there is no compulsion in matters of the Deen if a person doesn't want to be Muslim let's say a person doesn't believe in Islam if he doesn't believe what she doesn't believe that's their choice you know who hell are you to impose it on them if God Himself God Almighty does not impose religion on people who the hell are you to impose it you know God gives people a free choice then you can take your ridiculous sense of divinity and shove it where the Sun don't shine because how

do you have the right to do that so this I feel is such a slap in the face of Islam in this day and age people we we feel not check this out we feel that we have the right to criticize other religions the irony so we can so let's say people let's say Hindus right next door to Pakistan India we can mock Oh ridicule Hanuman for being a monkey guard and Ganesh for being an elephant head God we can really kill these things

oh that's okay we can ridicule statues and we can ridicule the concept of let's say you know reincarnation or we can ridicule these things oh that's okay because we're just basing our reason oh you do it you have to be executed what kind of a ridiculous absurd insecure common sense is that this is utterly unacceptable and you know what they do they these people throw the Koran

metaphorically they slam it against the wall based on what one hadith from Bihari the hadith Bingman but the ladina who [ __ ] arou ya this hadith that they are basing on I've got a whole clip dedicated to this please watch it called apostasy in Islam this hadith is being transmitted by a karma a kromagg namaha a krama was who are it an extremist these people

hate it's an ally they hated mafia they used to call a Lima area these people care fierce how can you take your Deen from ager hill like a trauma you basing the words of the Prophet on a trauma a fanatic Abner Amaro de la and wouldn't even go into the like he would be disgusted at the sight of a trauma

these are Imam Malik rejected this person's had he said this is a coma for God's sake and you guys want to take life which is sacred based on the words of some idiot eka rama who was a fanatic he was in just a regular cottage he was the from amongst the Messiah of the who are aged and the Huaraz according to the hadith and body are the dogs of Hell fire this is what the hadith describes the mass and yet you take this person's word over the Word of God in the Quran

bloody blind following a trauma who there what the hell is wrong with people you know so this is what they based their hope the whole argument is based on a coma his word a fanatic so but then they will say oh but our scholars accepted it oh you mean people from 1000 years ago ah so obviously they were gonna accept it in day day and age that's because they didn't care the world was a very

different place in the medieval world they don't really know they don't see a sense of loyalty to because they thought well in Christian countries Muslims get executed so here they can get executed who cares that's not that doesn't make it fear that's just the view of looking at the world they thought slavery was okay they thought rape was okay most of the books they say stealing from non-muslim lands is okay this is what they say Ignat a mere rights there's a Jamaa that if you snuck into you sneak into non-muslim territory whatever you steal is yours he writes this Iijima of

this on my on this oh that's nonsense just because in his day and age he probably thought it's okay doesn't make it okay these people are not God so you have a verse of the Quran saying like gravity even if a person I'm going with the augment I'm first of all I don't believe that we can prove these things are meant to be the heavy claims blasphemy you know the heavier the claim the heavier the burden of proof but even if for argument's sake the person did say it and he wasn't happy with Islam that's his choice is this now how you

convince people about Islam that oh if you question it will kill you yeah what kind of insecurity is this like I said let them question bring the best questions you've got we will answer them I don't think I call I use that afraid of your own religion do you say are you that scared that it's false have some security have some assurity of your faith I've said bring the best questions you can against Islam bring them to me I will try to answer them I mean I'm you know I'm just one person

I'm sure there's you know countless geniuses out there who can do a much better job than me but I have that assurity that I would welcome criticisms from people towards Islam it doesn't damage my faith if anything it reinforces it because you see you're only as good as your adversary in your opponent because if you just used to oh nobody can question me your faith is just blind dogma so I was really hurt and disappointed to

hear this kind of nonsense going on in a country like Pakistan we in what is almost now 2020 seriously we need to move away from this kind of fanaticism we need to move away from dogmatism people mark my word unless you move to the voice of reason this faith will slip away from your very from the grasp and clasp of your fingers I tell you if you reach old age you will not have reached it without this faith having slipped away from you and you can kiss it goodbye from the younger

generations that is my word and I can swear on it by Allah now especially those living in the West that you can forget this faith if you're not prepared to meet the voice of reason if you're too scared too shallow too shy and called in by anybody questioning your faith then this won't last it may just stubbornly be with you but it is not something that you'll be able to convey to the generations after you write because they won't accept this so

I so I mean I I do hope and pray that you know me people like him Ron Hahn intervene I don't know if he will because if he does it may trigger bloody civil on you know like a bloody civil war or something I don't know but it's it's really disappointing to hear this you know we need freedom of thought people if somebody wants to criticise the Quran criticise the Quran is not insecure it's not full of mistakes I I would say to somebody you know if you want to

question this question I want to believe in it so if you've got a really good question put it to me let me let me see what our question is if we cannot answer then you can say you know but I guarantee we will meet strength with strength in opinion I'm not sure of the faith so I don't so when people use force and brutality to kind of cement this faith it hurts me because I think that do you see this it's because of these actions

that Islam as a whole is further kind of humiliated so yes I wanted to share that is it's some unfortunate news but you know I hope may you know inshaallah last there be a positive turn to the story cool let's take some other questions people