Illustration by Abro
The regime of 13th century king of France, Louis IX, formulated and imposed what are considered to be the first formal laws that prescribed punishments for those found to have committed blasphemy. The punishments included the mutilation of the tongue and the lips.
The trials were largely presided over by priests. Historian Nora Berend writes in her book At the Gate of Christendom that Louis IX largely used his blasphemy laws against Jews and Muslims and against his Christian opponents. He also ordered the burning of dozens of copies of the Talmud — the central text of Rabbinic Judaism — after claiming its contents were ‘blasphemous’.
Louis IX’s law in this context was based on the following verse from the first half of the biblical cannon, and/or the Old Testament: “Anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord is to be put to death…” (Leviticus 24:16).
There was no concept of such a law in the Muslim world at the time. As Fareed Zakaria (quoting the renowned South Asian Islamic scholar Maulana Wahiddudin Khan) points out in an article in The Straits Times (January 13, 2015): “nowhere does the Quran prescribe the punishment of lashes, or death, or any other physical punishment.”
Yet, a detailed 2017 report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom placed Iran and Pakistan as the top two countries whose blasphemy laws severely deviated from recognised international human rights principles.
The report studied 71 countries where some form of blasphemy laws exist. It then investigated the severity of these laws and prepared a list. The top two names on the list were of Iran and Pakistan. According to the report, the blasphemy laws of these two countries were also more likely to be misused and/or encourage vigilante violence.
When the British introduced the blasphemy law in India in 1860, it did not carry the death sentence. How did the law mutate to claim more and more victims?
To understand how this happened, it is important to investigate how the idea of the blasphemy law evolved in Europe, where it had originated. After Louis IX’s 13th century law in France, blasphemy laws also appeared in England in the 15th century during the reign of King Henry IX. Between 1404 and 1504, dozens of alleged ‘heretics’ were burnt to death for blasphemy.
The 13th century blasphemy law in France was finally repealed almost 500 years after it was first enforced. It was cancelled in 1791 soon after a revolution toppled the French monarchy and established a secular nationalist republic in France. England’s 15th century blasphemy law was made part of the British Common Law in the 17th century, but without the death penalty. In 1949, a British judge ruled that the law was a ‘dead letter’ and ‘not required anymore’.
It is interesting to note that various forms of blasphemy laws were enacted in Christian Europe between the 13th and 19th centuries, but no such law was ever adopted by a Muslim-ruled region. The first Muslim-majority region to prescribe the death sentence for blasphemy was Saudi Arabia, when that country came into being in 1932.
In South Asia, the idea of the blasphemy law was introduced by British colonialists. It was first codified in India in 1860, and then, as tensions and violence between Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus increased, it was expanded in 1927. It did not carry the death sentence.
In 1947, when Pakistan came into being, it adopted the 1927 law. It carried a one-year prison sentence or a fine. Pakistan thus became the second Muslim country to have a blasphemy law. Libya adopted one in 1953, and Indonesia in 1965. None carried the death sentence.
However, the situation began to mutate rather drastically when Shia clerics came on top during the 1979 revolution in Iran. The new Islamic regime enacted stern blasphemy laws, making Iran only the second Muslim-majority country to prescribe the death penalty for blasphemy, after Saudi Arabia. Pakistan would become the third and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, the fourth.