Quran School Incident

[Everanewbie]

The reaction to this non-incident is shameful. We're effectively charging this poor autistic boy with blasphemy and his mother is begging for his life.

Why not though? In Arabic, it is the literal words of Allah. In English it is a human's interpretation of what they think Allah said.

You only have to look at the reaction of some (many) people when a bunch of nutters start burning poppies to tell you all you need to know about Western attitudes to desecration of what is considered sacred

What picture is that? There are no portraits of Prophet Mohammed and his face is never shown anywhere.

You must mean the teacher was sharing a vile, disrespectful cartoon with his students for some reason. I struggle to imagine what reason that could be other than deliberately aiming to offend and hurt.

But sure...minimise it.

A Quran in English isn’t of lesser value, let’s put it that way, so it’s not less offensive to destroy and English quran

That is such a bad faith comparison, I am not going to go into why and will repost a link but this is your mindset.

twitter.com/jessgill03/status/1630312286190542851?s=20

This is simply untrue. There are images and portraits of the prophet Muhammed that are not cartoons.

For example there is a painting from 19th century in the Met collection:

www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/841475

There are examples of Muhammed being depicted by islamic artists for private use by wealthy individuals in the Ottoman empire, for example.

I was going to cite those as well, the teacher from bately is essentially now under government protection.

It's a schrödinger situation, where it doesn't happen but if it does it is somehow acceptable because even though no one really wants blasphemy laws implanted, the edge cases are perfectly justifiable.

So only poppy burning is vile? Hypocrisy, no?

Religious fervour of any kind never ends well.

Anti-Muslim fervour never ends well either.

Not sure what you're getting at, my comment definitely had no racist intent.

I wonder what truly happened here. Including the death threats.

Not true that the only images are “vile cartoons”. He also gave Muslim students the option to leave the room before he showed it to the class.

but even if it were the case that he forced Muslim students to view a “vile cartoon”, you think that justifies death threats and him living in fear for his life? Absolutely bonkers.

I can’t comment on what picture it was, I don’t know. But quite frankly at the end of the day it’s a picture of a bloke. Not even a photo, just some drawing out of someone’s imagination, now I’m assuming Islam doesn’t actually call for death threats for a teacher who shows that picture to a bunch of kids (if it does it’s fucked up and have no idea why anyone would follow that). But why don’t Muslims call it out. Why isn’t every Iman in the news condemning it. Why isn’t every Nudkim condemning it in here as taking their religion in vain?

What other reason? Maybe to show how ludicrous being offended by a picture is- if a picture leads to death threats the meaning of that picture needs minimising. It’s ridiculous. Are you happy with death threats? Maybe you need to stop minimising the effects on the teacher. Even if he set out to offend, that’s a disciplinary matter not something to make him in fear of his life. Anyone who thinks otherwise is seriously fucked in the head, and only a couple of flying lessons away from flying a packed passenger plane into a building..

Islam seems to be operating as Christianity did 500 -1000 years ago (which prob makes sense given the differing ages of religion so different stages of evolution)

YANBU. It’s completely unacceptable, and as usual the cowardly MPs on the left and right have absolutely nothing to say about this.

It’s a weird situation on mumsnet where a lot of posters are ok with death threats to teachers and children for disrespecting Islam, but at the same time get upset about anyone not accepting trans women in women’s spaces and think the snp leader who has traditional Christian views on marriage is a bigot. The same ‘be kind’ brigade. Do you think if we start pandering to the religious beliefs of a group who’s e views on women/faith/homosexuality are so at odds with the culture of tolerance is a good idea. It is a slippery slope once you start involving the police for a book being accidentally damaged.

It's funny how bigots always turn to "free speech" to defend the indefensible. There is no such thing in the UK as free speech. There is no law that defends it. We have laws that curtail speech and actions in all sorts of ways. Hate speech, for example, is specifically outlawed.

Section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986 makes it an offence for a person to use “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviours that causes, or is likely to cause, another person harassment, alarm or distress”. Deliberate disrespect of someone's holy book is behaviour likely to cause another person distress, and in the right circumstances may also constitute racial harassment. These children obviously knew that making a Quran the subject of a dare would be very likley to cause distress to Muslims. They did not bring it in to read or to show their peers how respectful they could be. Yes, they are idiots, but being an idiots doesn't mean that actions are defensible. The school dealt with this in a measured and sensible way. Suspend and educate.

I am a Christian, but I have no similar attachment to the Bible, and would not personally get upset if it was subject to similar treatment. But I would expect a school to respond to the same actions with a Bible in a similar way because it is not the book, but the deliberately disrepectful behaviour that underlies the actions that is the issue.

I do wonder what the reaction here would be if a bunch of Muslims publically and deliberately set out to disrespect the Bible. Outrage I would imagine, and just as much from non-Christians I will bet. Because they would be attacking our "culture". "heritage" or "British values". Those lines are trotted out often enough, but only when it refers to doubling down on someone else - it's funny how many of those "British values" don't apply to the British.

It may be just a book to you, whether the Quran or the Bible - but it isn't to others, and basic human decency would argue that deliberate provocation designed to distress others in not the kind of behaviour we want in society.

But it was a vile cartoon depiction he used, wasn't it?! It was not some work of art.

He was asking Muslim students to leave because he knew very well it would upset them. This teacher knowingly used highly inflamatory material which was later deemed unnecessary to be used as a teaching aid by the school itself.

Only a teacher looking to alienate some of his students would do this or someone who simply cannot resist showing off his Islamophobia.

I would hate if my child had a teacher whose way of teaching included mocking and humiliating ANY religion, not just our own.

And no, I would never be involved in issuing a death threat to this individual, but I would openly say that what he did to some of his students was insenitive, alienating, humiliating and hurtful.

Don't rise to it. The typical view around here is that if you don't agree with one action, you must therefore agree with another. So if you say that racist and deliberate Islamophic actions are wrong, then you must be in favour of death threats. Some people are too stupid to recognise that it is entirely possible to be against both. Or to recognise that no matter how wrong the latter may be, that many people say things in anger when sufficiently provoked, and if the former happens that is deliberate provocation.

What are the media's motives for reporting on this though, more coverage, more hate and anger. Kids were being disrespectful, should be dealt with and left there.
All these adults on both sides need to calm the fuck down.
If I had my way there would be no religious schools, I'd chuck every religious book away and start again. Just another thing for grown men to fight about.

Their copy of the book , they can do what they like with it.will that cause offence to Muslims? Maybe, but that does not give them any special rights.
I don't think it comes under the public order act cited earlier, because the Quran is an inanimate object without feelings

Why does person A's right to respect a holy book trump person B's right to disrespect it?

its Moral cowardice from the school and the police here. They don’t care about offence any more than I do, they just know that a few Muslim kids have told their ‘elders’ and that these ‘elders’ who would have no authority or relevance other than be a big fat bully in their own house, with faith, see an opportunity to be loud, opinionated, respected and feared in their community and if they choose to, can make life very scary and difficult for their chosen target.

It’s not about Islam or offending Muslims, it’s about a small section of nasty men who see an opportunity to be relevant. To hell with them.