You may have seen in the news, I'm looking at the BBB website here, prophet Muhammed
cartoon sparks Batley Grammar School protest a teacher who showed pupils an inappropriate
cartoon of the prophet Muhammad sparking protests outside a school has been suspended
the image depicting the founder of Islam was used in a lesson at Batley Grammar School on Monday,
and now a lot a lot of people protesting against the school and the government has said it was
never acceptable to intimidate teachers the teachers been suspended but there have been nasty
threats made apparently against the school against the teacher and this raises a whole bunch of
issues which is kind of reason why i'm doing this video just to get it off my chest. Now there's
the the lots of issues here so first of all why are Muslims so sensitive about their religion?
This point has been made on social media what about this cartoon you know
now i've not seen this cartoon has anyone seen this cartoon outside of that classroom how can
i possibly judge if this cartoon is offensive if no one has seen it apart from five people who
are in that classroom so i don't know i don't know the context i mean what was the context what was
the teacher intending to do was he intending to instruct them help them was he being prejudiced
was he being a bigger what's what's going on there i don't know the inside stories so it's all
kind of media um hype at the moment um what's the reason why why don't muslims want the the picture
of Muhammad or any other prophet shown well let's talk about that too not wanting to depict human
figures because once you have that impression in your mind of of a human being the temptation
is to um venerate and worship them as opposed to god who is unseen who we don't depict so there
is a concern there about and a prohibition i i understand in islam of portraying prophets uh for
in case people fall into idolatry as indeed many allege that christians have him worshiping jesus
and mary but why are muslims so sensitive about their about their religion well because muslims
tend to be religious unlike most Christians and Jews say Christians say the Church of England
people tend they tend to be quite happy to roll over and let people mock their faith and uh just
to prove that they're jolly good sports and they don't mind having their faith rubbished
and satirized and ridiculed and i've had she heard christians say this over and over again
muslims however take their religion really seriously um now is that a bad thing well what is
religion well religion is about many people would argue the most important thing there is in life
it's to do with why we're here the meaning of life god our relationship with human beings uh the life
after death it is for muslims who have not been secularized like virtually all other people have
christians and jews and others the most important thing and so maybe it's a healthy attitude
to actually be sensitive about it because it's so important so maybe yeah that that
i think also as a general rule in the uk and in the west i think we have lost a sense of
the sacred um there are new sacred cows that we can't criticize now we can't mock we can't in
any way depict in a negative way there are plenty of things in our society you're not
you're not permitted to take the piss out of now lgbtq or whatever it is there's a growing list
of things that we cannot be critical of we cannot mock we cannot say anything negative about um
so when muslims get upset at cartoons can't they too have their red lines that we cannot cross why
can't they uh who have this idea of faith being supremely important in life also have a right
to say we don't want cartoons allegedly uh depict mohammed is it because he's depicted as such or is
depicted in a way that's offensive and i i'm not clear because i don't know what's really going on
so um i think there's an element in uh on social media that are talking about the free
speech aspects of this and how we should be free in our society to criticize uh religion well are
these same people happy to uh take the mickey out of all the other sacred cows that we can't
talk about in our society anymore because to do so you will lose your job you will be vilified you'll
be criticized and damned or even prosecuted for saying forbidden things but overcome the muslims
no no we should have open season and we should be able to mock their faith and criticize it to death
because hey we believe in freedom except for all the other things we don't allow to be criticized
i mean what earth's going on here um so i think if there have been threats issued by muslim parents
i don't know the bbc suggests there have been then that is clearly wrong uh i think the prophet
muhammed is alive himself when he was um walking around i forget where it was but people threw
stones or rubbish at him and he didn't respond by cursing people cursing his enemies he dealt with
it very differently and if muslims are following the sooner the prophet they should perhaps
be more patient and more forbearing i don't mean that they should be like christians and say
bring it on mock our faith but i think uh making threats if that has been done
death threats or threats of violence or intimidation is not uh the way it should be done
it should be done in a different way uh without compromising the uh the importance of faith
so um yeah this is really dangerous moment for muslims in in britain because it it it looks to
many people it looks bad it looks as if muslims are getting teachers fired because they they
criticize a religion and that kind of really rankles a lot of british people but i think it
exposes our hypocrisy um that we can't criticize a whole raft of things but people are saying no we
can criticize muslims and also we need to learn from muslims here they take faith so seriously
they get upset when people allegedly mock and criticize that's actually a good thing to be
upset about something that's really important and noble to life is a normal healthy thing i i argue
not to be upset when god is mocked or when jesus is is mocked and satirized and terrible things
in the name of art the things that have been depicted of jesus in art gallery is appalling
and same for mary mother of jesus and so on um you know we shouldn't tolerate that either because
faith is the the highest form of human expression
uh towards our creator and that's the one thing really uh that should be uh protected uh i mean
i am in favor of blasphemy laws myself um if we can have laws protecting same-sex marriage
and all sorts of other interesting lifestyles then we should have laws protecting the honour of
the prophets of god uh whether they be jewish or christian or muslim of course so
why are muslims so censored about their religion well it it's because they're serious about faith
and that's something that the british people have lost i think this sense of the importance of faith
and we need to learn from muslims about that but not we shouldn't react in a hostile and violent
way uh we should react with patience but a steely determination not to be overcome by secularism
which wants to push faith out of the public square and make it a private thing that no one sees in
public that's not faith that's western secularism which seeks to basically obliterate faith
from society and that's something muslims should rightly resist as to should christians as to
should jews because faith in my view is absolutely central to the human species we
are we are made as i showed in a previous video to be people who worship our creator we're not
meant to be consumers and people who indulge in alternative lifestyles our primary purpose on life
is to connect with our god and to live in a way that is pleasing to him
and we of course lost that completely in the west uh we're very much preoccupied with
the dunya, the transient. Anyway so that's my rant, that's my sermon and and
i i just finished by saying i don't know what's going on at that school i've not seen the uh i'm
not spoken to the teacher i've not seen him being interviewed i've not seen the cartoon
i've not seen anyone interviewed who actually saw it and describe their reaction it just
seems to be a media circus around rumor and and uh and gossip and speculation and it's
triggering all those people who uh hate islam or hate muslims and you know it's kind of
triggering all sorts of things but there are some really serious issues involved here um which these
kinds of incidents invite us to consider afresh the role of faith in society uh and and why some
people are so passionate about faith and why we are not as a country anymore taking faith
seriously and i think that is the supreme question here is our loss of faith and the way the sacred
has been uh we've lost a sense of the sacred in our lives anyway enough for now. Till next time!