Islam, Blasphemy, and the Murder of Salwan Momika

Sweden’s prime minister said “a foreign power” may have been involved in the murder, and police quickly arrested five suspects. But they released those suspects days later, with no further information disclosed about them or other potential suspects. So, at this point, we still don’t know who killed Salwan Momika.

But it is entirely plausible he was killed by someone seeking to punish him for insults against Islam. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) issued a four-page statement celebrating the execution of “the impure atheist… who assaulted the book of Allah many times.” Even among some random Muslims with no terrorism ties, I have seen messages online welcoming the incident, saying Momika got what he deserved and that “this is a moment to rejoice.” 

So his murder may be yet another incident of violently punishing “blasphemy” against Islam—joining previous terrorist attacks in Europe to avenge publications of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, or even their mere displays in classrooms. Once again it thrusts Islamic verdicts on blasphemy and the compatibility of Islam and freedom of speech into the spotlight.

First, it should go without saying that for most believers of any religion, insults against their most sacred values come across as ugly and appalling. I am one such believer, and, as a Muslim, I see acts like burning copies of the Quran as obnoxious offenses unworthy of respect—let alone praise.

Those who want to be critical of the Quran would be more respectable if they offered reasoned arguments in books, articles, lectures, or websites. Such polemics between religions, or between atheism and religion, happen all the time without violence, and are arguably better forms of challenging belief systems than burning their sacred books. They provoke less hostility, and have more potential to persuade.

But mockery and defamation, at least in the West, is also a way of “criticism.” And the question here for Muslims is not whether they will be happy to see mockery and defamation of their faith, but how they will respond to it.

When we look for guidance in the Quran, the only undisputed source text of Islam, we come across an interesting verse that addresses this very question: “You are sure to hear much that is hurtful from those who were given the Scripture before you and from those who are idolaters. If you are patient and mindful of God, that is the best course” (3:186).

The first Muslims led by Muhammad heard this verse in Medina, where they co-existed with some Jews (“those who were given the Scripture before you”) and idolaters, both of whom apparently said “hurtful” things—such as calling Muhammad “mad,” and calling the Quran a “sorcery,” as the Quran itself reports. (15:6 and 46:7) In return, the verse did not command Muslims to go and kill those blasphemers, or to even silence them by threats, but just be “patient and mindful of God.”

What did this “patience” mean? A notable answer was offered by the towering Islamic scholar Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (who died in 1210 CE), in his monumental commentary on the Quran. He wrote that the verse called for a mild response to verbal offenses, for “it would better help the rivals of religion accept it.” He also supported this case with other Quranic verses of the same spirit. One of them commanded the prophet, “Tell the believers to forgive those who do not fear God’s days” (45:14). The other defined the believers as those who “When they pass near ill speech, they pass by with dignity” (25:70).

Another verse of the Quran also addresses the public (verbal) mockery of the Quran itself: “If you hear people denying and ridiculing God’s revelation, do not sit with them unless they start to talk of other things, or else you yourselves will become like them” (4:140).

So, again, the verse does not command any violent or coercive reaction to blasphemy. It simply commanded walking away from it.

Meanwhile, the same Quran threatens blasphemers—along with unbelievers, polytheists, or apostates—with divine wrath. “Those who insult God and His Messenger,” verse 33:57 declares, “will be cursed by God in this world and the next; He has prepared for them a humiliating punishment.” Notably, the punishing agent is God, not humans. As typical of the Quran, theological misdeeds are left to God, to be punished in the afterlife. Conversely, worldly misdeeds against other people—such as aggression, persecution, theft, or murder—are to be punished by men, here and now.

That is why, if Islamic law were merely based on the Quran, today we would not be discussing Islamic punishments for blasphemy—or apostasy, the banning of which is also a serious threat to freedom. But Islamic law expanded in the post-Quranic period with inputs from other sources. The primary one was the Sunna, or “the example of the Prophet,” reported by later generations in a vast body of complex—and contested—literature. It is recorded in books of hadith or “sayings,” as well as books of sira, or “biography,” of Muhammad. Here, there were stories about Muhammad ordering the execution of some satirical poets during his bitter wars of survival with polytheists. As I examined in my book Reopening Muslim Minds,one could argue that these “poets” were executed for not merely their words, but also active aggressions such as inciting a war against Muslims and physically attacking them. Moreover, there were also stories of the prophet magnanimously forgiving those who insulted him. But those nuances were lost to some medieval Muslim scholars who wrote on this issue, as they used the execution stories to decree the death penalty for blasphemy.

Another nuance we need to remember is that these medieval scholars lived in a world where hardly anyone raised concerns about free speech: The Byzantine and Sassanid empires that early Muslims came face to face with also had no tolerance for blasphemy. The Justinian Code punished it with the death penalty, as well as the Sassanid laws which criminalized yazdān dušmenīh, or “enmity toward the gods.”

Yet many centuries and historical lessons have passed since then. Today, the Sassanid Empire is long gone, and Christianity has largely abandoned its pre-modern marriage with coercive state power, and many Christians came to embrace freedom of expression and conscience. In Islam, however, the same shift toward freedom has not yet matured. That is why many conservative clerics in the Muslim world still consider blasphemy a grave crime that must be punished severely. That is also why there are seven countries in the world that decree the death penalty for blasphemy—and all of them call themselves “Islamic.”

Yet still there is an important distinction: While most Sunni or Shiite authorities in the world today would rule that blasphemy should be punished, they would also tell you that this can only be applied with a decent trial in a proper court. A “death sentence for blasphemy is allowed only in Islamic lands following due process,” as American imam Yasir Qadhi puts it. This mainstream view does not condone angry Muslims killing blasphemers with terrorist attacks, as has happened in France, or public lynchings, which frequently happen in Pakistan. Authorities within mainstream Islam, in other words, may be in favor of blasphemy laws, but that does not mean they support blasphemy terrorism or vigilantism. Hence those who resort to these terrible tactics are called “extremists,” and that is a fitting term: They represent the dark end of a wide spectrum of religious thought.

However, the bright end of that spectrum is also present, and it offers promises for the future. This is the view of Muslims who, despite being offended by insults against their values, believe that the right response involves no violence or coercion.

This view is rooted in the Quran and is religiously articulated by some pioneering figures, such as the Pakistani scholar Javed Ahmad Ghamidi. It is also increasingly accepted and exemplified by many liberal-minded Muslims, including those who are well integrated in Western societies, who realize that bans or threats against blasphemy only defame Islam, instead of gaining respect for it. Especially among American Muslims, as shown in an academic research by Angela Ewing, there are religious leaders who believe “education and dialogue are the best solutions to blasphemy,” as they are “happy with life in America and [have] little interest in influencing free speech policies.”

In Sweden, too, where both Salwan Momika and another individual, the far-right Danish politician Rasmus Paludan, repeatedly burned copies of the Quran, there have been mature responses from Muslims. For example, a group of Turks in Stockholm that included diplomats and imams recited passages from the Quran on the exact spot where Momika burned it. They then preached a message of “respect,” and even laid flowers. Another group of Swedish Muslims, led by an entrepreneur from Libya, reached out to anti-Quran demonstrators by distributing chocolates. Back in 2020, when another Quran incident provoked violent riots by Muslims in Sweden, a prominent imam stood up against the rioters and accused them “of shaming their own religion.”

In other words, there is no irreconcilable conflict between Islam and free speech—though both the militant Islamists and the anti-Islamists would have you believe so. True, there is a tension, which leads to blasphemy laws and, at the extreme, blasphemy-related violence. But both Islam’s scriptural roots and the transforming attitudes of modern-day Muslims suggest that the tension can be overcome.

Meanwhile, non-Muslims, especially those in the West, can help more Muslims realize that freedom of speech is a genuine value that we all need by simply not making exceptions to this freedom to protect our own sacred cows. Double standards such as France’s own limitations on freedom of speech and religion or the “Antisemitism Awareness Act” in the U.S. that will stifle free speech on college campuses give Islamists exactly what they need: examples to argue that freedom is glorified when it comes to insulting Islam but is easily dismissed when Muslims raise their own voices.

What we need, everywhere, is a more principled defense and application of freedom, in all aspects, so everyone can realize its worth. Otherwise, those who cheer for freedom all too selectively, and those who don’t accept it in the first place, can drag us together to a less free world.