Freethinking allowed

I AM a frequent visitor to Muslim websites. In this job one needs to keep abreast of what’s happening in the collective orthodox Muslim mind - especially nowadays when so many of our freedoms are under assault from Islamic fundamentalists.

Trawling through page after page of mindless ranting, paranoia, and gripes about ‘Islamophobia’ is bad enough, but even more hard to swallow are the ‘peace be upon hims’ which follow each and every reference to the Prophet Mohammed, or Jesus, or any other damn character Islam deems ‘holy’.

So great was my irritation that, in casual conversation in the pub last month, I told a friend that if I ever saw the words ‘peace be upon him’ one more time, I would ask my GP to put me on Prozac. The next day I discovered that the pbuh virus had spread - and had now affected the BBC.

Out of the corner of my ear, I caught the tail end of a Radio 4 broadcast - it might have been on the Feedback programme - in which a listener had demanded an explanation for pbuh appearing on the BBC website.

The answer, as I recall, was ‘to show deference for Islam’.

Not quite believing what I had heard, I immediately accessed the site - and to my fury found that the BBC does, in fact, use pbuh, although in a limited manner - for now.

This is how it justifies the practice: ‘Throughout the BBC’s section on Islam you will see Peace be upon Him (or pbuh) after the name Mohammed.

‘Muslims say Peace be upon Him after every mention of Mohammed’s name, as a mark of respect. Muslims do the same when they write the Prophet’s name, adding pbuh.
‘The Arabic transliteration of Peace be upon Him is sallallahu alayhi wa sallam which is usually abbreviated as saw.

‘The BBC uses the pbuh in the Islam section out of courtesy, and we would do the same for any other religion if they had a similar phrase that was universally used as a sign of respect.

‘When the site refers to the Prophet on pages that are not in the Islam section, we do not use the phrase.’

This appalled me. It also got up the nose of Roger Kimball, a contributor to the American magazine, New Centurion, who last month posted his thoughts on the NC website:
‘In their continuing effort to raise consciousness, spread enlightenment, and deprecate the traditions that made Britain Britain, the BBC has posted extensive information on major world religions on their internet site. A friend directed us to the section on Islam. It makes instructive reading for anyone wishing to chart the progress of the virus of multi-culturalism - that odd compact of self-righteousness, nihilism, and pusillanimity - in elite British society.

‘The site offers some standard historical exposition about the origin and doctrines of Islam as well as some inadvertently comical items such as the entry ‘Muslim internet matchmaking’, in which we learn that ‘The internet has sparked a revolution in the way some Muslims are meeting potential partners.’ (Similar, equally comic, pages exist for other religions.)

‘But what is most striking about the section on Islam is its tone of careful piety. Compare, for example, the introductory caption describing Islam with the one that describes Christianity.

‘Islam began in Arabia and was revealed to humanity by the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him). Those who follow Islam are called Muslims. Muslims believe that there is only one God. The Arabic word for God is Allah.’

‘Got it? Now here’s the bit introducing Christianity. ‘Christianity is the world’s biggest religion, with about 2.1 billion followers worldwide. It is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ who lived in the Holy Land 2,000 years ago.’

‘Notice anything different in the tone, in the approach?

‘For starters, Islam ‘was revealed to humanity’, etc, etc, but Christianity is a statistic. And what’s this ‘peace be upon him stuff - confessional language in the very secular setting of a BBC internet history lesson?

In a religious setting, Catholics will often say ‘Glory to you, Lord’ or ‘Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.’ But in the context of an historical document? What’s going on here?’