Dear Editor,
The trial, conviction and sentencing of an English-born Christian school teacher in a Muslim Court in Sudan has brought dishonour to Islam. Here is a teacher, Gillian Gibbons, who has volunteered her time to teach Muslim students to read and write in a poverty-stricken backward country. She gave up a life of comfort in England to educate the poor. All she did in her classroom was to allow children to experience the concept of democracy – to vote on naming a teddy bear toy and she goes to jail.
The children chose the name of Muhammad for the toy and she accepted it as their choice. She meant no insult to Islam or the prophet or any offence against anyone. And in the name of Islam, she goes to jail. This is a bad advertisement for Islam that has found its way in the front pages of virtually all major newspapers worldwide including in New York City where my Muslim friends are embarrassed about it. The jail sentence for an innocent woman is taking religion to the extreme and I hope our Muslim brethren in Guyana do not subscribe to this fanatical extremist view of Islam. Fortunately, Muslims in Guyana are moderates and they get along with other religious groups.
In Sudan, sword-wielding protesters demanded the execution of Ms. Gibbons. Thanks to an international outcry, she was spared a longer sentence than 15 days and flogging for this petty offence. Many Muslims have condemned the conviction. An Islamic Centre in London has described the prosecution and punishment as a grotesque travesty of Islamic law. The Centre said that “the Sudanese judges seem to have been ignorant of the basic principles of Islamic jurisprudence besides betraying a lack of knowledge of the Prophet’s biography. Anyone claiming to be familiar with the details of the Prophet’s life should know that he was an animal-lover and would not have objected to having a teddy bear named after him”.
It should be noted that this Sudanese extremism comes in the wake of another Islamic outrage of a young Saudi woman who was gang-raped but ended up being sentenced to 200 lashes for adultery. The rapists were spared any punishment but the victim was punished. The judges asked “What was she doing alone in the streets to be raped?” That is no way to treat women in any religion. Women are entitled to the same value and worth as men regardless of faith.
As one newspaper editorialized, the judgments in Sudan and Saudi Arabia reinforce the bigoted stereotype of Islam as a religion stuck in the seventh century. Their interpretation of Islam has done irreparable damage to Islam.
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram
