There are good jokes, bad jokes, and PJs. Now there's a new kid in the block, the DJ — a deadly joke, a joke that could lead you to years of imprisonment and perhaps cost your life.
You'd think I'm joking. I wish I were, but sadly, I'm not.
That's what happened to Hadi Al-Mutaif, a young Saudi whose joke about the Prophet Muhammad didn't go down well with the Saudi authorities. As a result he's already spent thirteen years in prison, and still languishes in a solitary cell without proper medical attention.
It all started 13 years ago, in 1993, when Hadi, an 18-year-old teenager from the desert of Najran joined the Najran police training camp to become a policeman. While he was getting ready to join his fellow recruits for the afternoon prayers following the usual call from the Imam to pray upon the Prophet, Hadi allegedly joked, "Let's pray upon the penis of the Prophet."
His quip was reported by two or three colleagues, leading to a series of unfortunate and equally bizarre events. He was first handed over to the local police station, then to the Saudi domestic intelligence where he was tortured, held for months, and finally put on trial in December 1994. He was found guilty and was sentenced to death.
Two subsequent appeals, one in a court of Mecca and the other one in the Supreme Judicial Council, were both rejected. Apparently in all his trials, Hadi's religious background - he's an Ismaili Shia - became a major factor that swayed the judges. In Saudi Arabia, the Ismaili Shias are hated by the ruling Wahhabi Muslims.
The Wahhabi Chief Justice had even argued that Hadi must get the death penalty, not because it's just for his derogatory comment on the Prophet but because he's an Ismaili Shia. The death sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment by King Abdullah.
Article comments
1 - Aaman
Cross-posting to DC for greater attention
2 - Q Bit
Thanks Aaman.
3 - dc~ac
what would you do if someone made a joke like that on you father or mother or someone very dear to you??
4 - Christopher Rose
I doubt very much that I'd sentence them to death or do much more than point out their insensitivity.
5 - STM
DC - AC wrote "what would you do if someone made a joke like that on you father or mother or someone very dear to you??"
What would I do? Tell them not to be silly.
Instead, he gets to spend the rest of his life in a stinking Saudi jail.
This is the kind society in which islamic fundamentalists want us to live. The frightening thing is, they can't work out why we're not interested.
Tragic, all round.
6 - Donnie Marler
What a sad story. Thank God I wasn't judged on the remarks I made as an 18 year old.
7 - Rodney Welch
And thank God Q Bit never pursued a career as a comedian.
8 - dc~ac
then excuse me for saying that you have no respect for either god nor his messengers.
how do you expect to go to heaven if you don't even fear GOD himself??
9 - Christopher Rose
Who can respect a creature that doesn't actually exist? It would be like respecting wookie...
10 - khalid
I do not know how this outher is silly. If you know real Islam you would say, " Hadi should got killed because of his joke", but since he 18 years old, he was judged just to put him in the jail. Q Bit, Do you know how Prophet Mohammed is important to Musim. Neverthless, I am sure you do not know and you will not know until you know the real Islam.
Thanks
11 - Sunny D
It appears on face value a harsh decision, but who am i to judge. Perhaps he could be given an opportunity to atone for his immature mistake. We all do things
when young taht we think back on and regret. Perhaps its true that a society can be judged in the balance it achieves in such things and its ability to show mercy and clemancy.
12 - Cannonshop
#10 So... you're saying you worship your prophet, rather than your god? Interesting. I couldn't find the bit in the Q'uran about Mohammed being Allah, and therefore worthy of the same deference. Perhaps you can enlighten me as to how Muhammed (a man)=Allah (god).
It's something that strikes me as equivalent to putting someone in prison for mocking the Christian Pope or making Pervy Priest jokes, but then, my copy of the Q'uran maybe isn't the annotated "Teacher's Edition" with the answers in the back and the extra-secret chapter explaining how suicide (a Mortal Sin) is blessed as long as you take out a bus full of tourists or a playground full of kids.
Once, Khalid, the Islamic world was a shining beacon of enlightenment, with architecture, science, art, and philosophy-an example to the world of what TRUE faith could build when it honoured its God rather than the men who claimed to speak for Him.
This was while my ancestors were shivering in the darkness and hunted by both man and beast in diseased ignorance.
Seems the roles have reversed. This story's just another example of how FAR islam has fallen from its heights.
When your faith needs guns or bombs or knives to protect itself from ideas and words, it is truly weak, and in decline.