Might As Well Just Shut Up

In a recent post on the murders of U.N. workers in Afghanistan by a mob of Muslims outraged that a Florida pastor had burned a Koran, I argued that we cannot follow those like Senator Lindsey Graham who wish to conform our freedom of speech to Muslim standards of blasphemy and to whatever violent, crazed mobs will tolerate.

Paul Marshall and Nina Shea have a related piece at National Review Online that shows the folly of suggestions such as Graham's by enumerating the sorts of things that have been deemed blasphemous in the Islamic world:

Muslim blasphemy has recently been defined to include: denouncing stoning as a human-rights violation (Sudan), opening girls’ schools (Bangladesh), criticizing the Guardianship of the Jurists (Iran), petitioning for a constitution (Saudi Arabia), use of the word “Allah” by Christians (Malaysia), rejecting an order for violent jihad (Sudan), praying at the graves of relatives (Saudi Arabia), translating the Koran into Dari (Afghanistan), accidentally tearing a calendar page containing a Koranic verse (Pakistan), naming a teddy bear after a boy named Mohamed (Sudan), urging that the Koran be understood in its historical and cultural context (Indonesia), teaching Shiism (Egypt), and calling for a ban on child brides (Yemen). Mob violence, intimidation, court trials, and penalties accompany these cases.

It appears there's little one can say or do with respect to Islam that some Muslim somewhere wouldn't take as an intolerable insult. If we're to refrain from saying anything that might give offense, as Graham and even General Petraeus have suggested, then we might as well take a vow of silence, which, I suppose, is precisely what a lot of Muslims, not to mention Senator Graham, would like us to do.

Thanks to Byron for the tip on the Marshall/Shea article.