One
of the most well-known scholars of Islamic jurisprudence is professor Abdullahi
Saeed. I have read a few scholarly writings of Saeed and admire his research. I’m
always keen to understand Saeed’s emphasis on contextualist approaches in
interpretation of Islamic scriptures. He says “scriptures emerge in specific
times and contexts and often they address the problems that exist in those
contexts and societies; but when societies and their values change, the
interpretation of those texts changes, too” (Saeed, 2013). However, in the
social media we often see various interpretations of religious scriptures and
is how various schools of thought in Islam arose. None the less academics and
intellectuals continuously question and debate on these interpretations to
better understand Islam. Often the academic English language gets translated in
Dhivehi, adding to ambiguity to statements leading to various versions of same
statement being used without rational thinking. While acknowledging
Islamophobia as a real threat to Islam, many Maldivians fail to recognize that
Islamophobia is not synonymous to modernist thoughts. Whereas modernists and
humanists assume violence is fundamental to Islamic scriptures and Sharia they
too have a narrow interpretation of sharia.
While
scholarly academic debates are based on issues, the social media platform moves
it to an entirely different social dimension based on the identity of social
media users. New York times columnist David Brooks says about social media:
“It’s
about finding and spreading the viral soap operas that are supposed to reveal
the dark hearts of those who are in the opposite social type from your own. It’s about finding images that confirm
your negative stereotypes about people you don’t know. It’s about reducing a
complex human life into one viral moment and then banishing him to oblivion”.
This
is very much the case of Ibra’s statement taken out of context. According to
some scholars his statement was not blasphemous to Prophet Mohamed, but the
language he used was inappropriate. But other scholars were quick to label and
judge him as “laadheenee”. The ambiguity of the word laadheenee itself is a
classic example of how Islamists label modernists and free thinkers to hush
them from criticizing their views. For some its synonymous to being an apostate.
When
social media gets hyped on to target someone the mainstream media uses it.
Sadly, journalists lacking professionalism and academic abilities rely heavily
on social media statements to entice their audiences. As David Brooks says they
incite social media to take advantage of the prejudices of their readers. In
this case an audience of naïve people who believe questioning religious
authority as a crime, but which is not.
As the statement went
viral from the mainstream media Vaguthu, falsely accused Ibra of blasphemy. Consequently,
many Islamic scholars used an irrational emotional and moral context to demonize
and criminalize Ibra. They rushed to judge and dehumanize a fellow Muslim. The irony
is how the opposition politicians utilized this opportunity as a way of
attacking the government and the President’s party. They vindicated this and generalized
this as an MDP view, let alone trying to rationally judge the whole situation.
For them this issue became the best story to sensationalize people and to bring
them on to streets. This is now used to hype the political agenda and to
pressure the government. What I find most disturbing in this is how much we
have derailed from the teachings of our prophet. Violence, cruelty and
dehumanizing a fellow Muslims based on our false consensus, over generalization
and selective observation is such a big sin. We have made this single statement
from Ibra more important than his whole life story. For me he is a champion of
humanity and a man who have sacrificed his entire life selflessly for the
betterment of this nation. It’s so sad that the social media operating in cyber
space has become a monster devouring us. It revolves in a dark dimension
exposing us and turning us in to targets for opportunists seeking to take
political advantage for their gains.
