Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Deborah Samuel: Soyinka calls for prosecution of Abuja cleric

​Menahem Hamelberg,

Let it be known to you that if anyone should slap my wife in my presence, as you hypothetically presumed, I will do everything possible to get the person arrested by the Police for assaulting my wife. Sentimental and emotional actions are not recognised in law. If, in defence of my wife, I should slap the slapper of my wife the police on arrival at the scene of the incident will arrest me and the person that slapped my wife for assaults and disturbing public order. Although the law permits self-defence, my wife is not absolutely permitted under the law to retaliate by slapping back at your hypothetical slapper of her face. The law requires her to report the violator of her face to the police for arrest and trial in the court of law. Religious fanatics believe in vengeance of eye for eye and tooth for tooth but secularized societies are against that doctrine because simple gumption dictates that the doctrine of eye for eye and tooth for tooth may lead to the entire society becoming blind and toothless. So, Cornelius, if Mohammad or Jesus is insulted, it is only them that should feel insulted and take action if they can and have the will to do so and not any dumb-ass-headed person who is neither genetically nor racially related to Jesus or Mohammad.

How can one define Blasphemy in a secular and multi religious country like Nigeria? Blasphemy after all must mean different things to different people, depending on the choice of deity one has chosen religiously. And paper heads who think with the intestines and not the brain are asking Nigerian Government to pass law to criminalise blasphemy. Yet, religious pretenders have already smuggled section 204 into the Nigerian criminal code that stipulates a two-year imprisonment for public insult on religion. At the same time, Sections 38 and 39 of the Nigerian Constitution guarantee freedom of thought, conscience, religion and expression. Since the Constitution is superior to other laws in Nigeria Sections 38 and 39 of the 1999 Constitution supersede Section 204 of the Nigerian Criminal Code in application.

Sheik Ibrahim Maqari had drawn his Islamic redlines which no one should cross and which trespassers have to pay with their own lives in Nigeria. His Islamic redline in Nigeria is an expression of his cultural inferiority garbed in truculent and tortured inability to discover his self-worth. A Sheik, according to the dictionary is a head of an Arab tribe, therefore, Ibrahim Maqari should move to an Arab land to become a Sheik where he can draw his Arab-Islamic red lines not in Nigeria. If he thinks he is an Arab, he should look into the mirror for his true image and real self. The wannabe Black Arab in Nigeria, Sheik Ibrahim Maqari twitted, "If our grievances are not properly addressed, then you (sic) should not be criticized for addressing them ourselves." The twit justified the murder of Deborah Samuel Yakubu by Islamic predators who accused her of Blaspheming their prophet and what the Sheik was saying in reality is that if the Nigeria could not stop the alleged blasphemy against the Islamic prophet by Deborah Samuel Yakubu, then Muslim predators should not be blamed for taking laws into their hands to murder her. Wole Soyinka is a true Black Nigerian and he was actually correct, being the true son of the soil of Nigeria to demand the arrest and the trial of that counterfeit Nigerian Arab Sheik for his complicity in the murder of Deborah Samuel Yakubu.

S. Kadiri     

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com>
Sent: 23 May 2022 20:03
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Deborah Samuel: Soyinka calls for prosecution of Abuja cleric

 

May the Lord have mercy on us all. 

"Nothing sits on nothing in a nothing of many nothings a nothing king"

Here's Baba Kadiri sounding off:

"Whatever Deborah Samuel Yakubu might have uttered which was interpreted to imply disrespect to the Islamic prophet, it is only the prophet himself who should feel the disrespect and react accordingly and not any stupid house-niggers on his behalf. In law, one is allowed to avenge the slap on one's own face by a slapper but it is criminal for one to avenge the slap on the face of another person than self. Can you extrapolate a slap on another person's face to your own face?"

If, (God forbid) someone were to slap Baba Kadiri's beloved wife would he simply stand idly by and ask the same dumb-ass question?

I fully endorse the statement STOP BLASPHEMY issued by Muslim Solidarity Forum Sokoto and fully resonate with Muslim Groups Ask Nigerian Government To Pass Laws Criminalising Blasphemy,

The sane one should also take it for granted that I strongly disagree with Mr Soyinka's titanic reaction. It is well-intended, no doubt, he is speaking up in good conscience, supposedly as the good conscience of the Naija Nation, and as usual, what the iconic human rights veteran says resonates through the media waves, but I think that it's wrong, overblown, it misses the target and in the circumstances, considering all the hysteria and sense of moral outrage fanning the air and fuelling the flames from all directions, calling for the head of the Chief Imam at the Abuja Mosque to roll, is probably nothing less than just one more strong-headed, knee-jerk reaction from Nigeria's Shakespeare.

Someone (he?) may be surprised that I disagree, but I do disagree - strongly - and confidently -  and you are my witness, for the very simple reasons that I'll explain and everyone should understand my simple explanation in contrast with Mr Soyinka's trademark tirade,  the dense & deep Soyinka-esque style of polemic which one had to trudge through before finally coming to the crux of the matter: He is confident that "Both the Sultan and Professor Maqafi cannot be right."

Well, of course, they can both be right, and in this case, in my judgement, they are both truly, absolutely right, and the one does not contradict the other. 

Mr Soyinka himself is not infallible, he does not claim to be the new Pope, nor does he enjoy a monopoly on interpretation, even if there is a Southern consensus on what he says, he could be humble enough to take a step back and reconsider that he may have misread and thereby misunderstood what the Imam of the Abuja Mosque Sheikh Ibrahim Maqari said because, of course, given his background, the less than omniscient  Professor Soyinka has obviously read into Profesor Ibrahim Maqari's statement much more than Professor Maqari actually said - at least on the surface. Professor Soyinka with all his own personal, foreordained prejudices, whims and caprices, his backlog of irritations with land encroachments by Fulani herdsmen, the Boko Haram menace, his disappointment and disillusion with the Nigerian Presidency etc,  he has imputed to Sheikh Professor Dr Ibrahim Maqari 's terse communique, much more than the Sheikh actually said or intended on paper and only Sheikh Ibrahim himself is in a position to elaborate on what he intended, which does not mean that every individual reader does not have the freedom to arrive at his/ her own subjective understanding or interpretation of the message.

This is what the Sheikh said on Twitter that is causing all the brouhaha :

"It should be known to everyone that we the Muslims have some red lines beyond which MUST NOT be crossed. The dignity of the Prophet (PBUH) is at the forefront of the red lines.

"If our grievances are not properly addressed, then you should not be criticized for addressing them ourselves."

Catholics have their Popes some of whom have been proven to be less than infallible human beings throughout the ages. Others have other authorities such as Babalawos, big, pompous bishops officiating in and out of their cassocks, Pentecostal pastors carrying their crosses on their chests, husbands, wives, mistresses, gang leaders, high court judges "taking bribes on the side", ransom kidnappers, bank governors, teachers of big and little grammar etc all have their flocks,

Another way of looking at the mess: A few others "could be living in another country, under another name" , i.e under a name other than God's Ineffable name , because the way I understand it  - some people, such as e.g Wole Soyinka believe themselves to be living either in the kingdom of Satan's anarchy or under or side by side with First Citizen Muhammadu Buhari and the Nigerian Constitution, a Muhammadu Buhari that was democratically elected as Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala 's highest political representative in secular Nigeria which is largely governed by the aforementioned still amendable 1999 Nigerian Constitution and not by Sharia Law, the Ten Commandments, or the Sermon on the Mount.

As the late Rabbi Jacob Neusner puts it, on page 19 of "A Rabbi talks with Jesus"

"When I accept the yoke of the commandments of the Torah and do them,I accept God's rule. I live in the kingdom of God, which is to say, in the dominion of Heaven, here on earth.  That is what it means to live a holy life: to live by the will of God in the here and now."

This thread is hinged on Human rights activist and Nobel Laureate in Literature Wole Soyinka's sermon from the heights of the moral high ground that he believes that he occupies, and in his own judgement self-righteous Soyinka with feet on the ground is delivering the sermon from somewhere up in the clouds, but certainly below heaven, which is certainly OK with me, that at least he is not claiming that he delivered this message sitting on the throne on God as that would have been another good example of blasphemy in thought and word but not in actual deed, enough reason for the all the Pharisees to unite in stoning him and by all the Pharisees I mean the Muslim Pharisees, if indeed such holy people exist, and of course, the other Bible thumping Pharseees, the Pentecostal pastors and the evangelical bigots among them.

All that Soyinka and other critics could say is that what is missing from the Abuja Imam's terse message, is the message that even when a congregation of Muslims are tried by suffering extreme provocation,  mob rule/the mob mentality should not be allowed to take over - so in addition to expressing an understanding of the extreme provocation that led to " If our grievances are not properly addressed, then you should not be criticized for addressing them ourselves",  what's called for is an explicit exhortation that our Muslim  Brethren control their nafs al ammarah and try to not take the law into their own hands.

 That the Imama did not give such advice in that short message, does not mean that the highly cultivated Imam has not given more goodly Islamic advice elsewhere. 

It is not OK to curse a Prophet in the presence of his followers; it is not OK to burn the Holy Quran outside the mosques, and it is not OK to piss on the grave of dearly  departed when you go on pilgrimage or on Ziyarat 

Once again, for those who care and have the time I recommend ISLAM: Past, Present, and Future by Hans Küng 

On Saturday, 21 May 2022 at 22:07:58 UTC+2 toyinfalola wrote:

Ben Ezeamalu posted: "Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, has urged the Nigerian government to remove from office Ibrahim Maqari, the Imam of Abuja Mosque, over his comments following the mob killing of Deborah Samuel, a student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto. Mr S" Premium Times Nigeria Deborah Samuel: Soyinka calls for prosecution of Abuja cleric Ben Ezeamalu May 21 Mr Soyinka said the cleric should be tried under any existing laws that approximate hate rhetoric, incitement to murder and abuse of office. Read more of this post   Comment   Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from Premium Times Nigeria. Change your email settings at manage subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/531481-deborah-samuel-soyinka-calls-for-prosecution-of-abuja-cleric.html   Powered by Jetpack

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