Children believe in an idea of God that is as pure as they are. For children, God is someone who loves unconditionally, who helps you win your football match and score well in that science test. To children, God represents love and peace. Sadly, however, everything changes as man grows up. Growing up robs us of many things, one of them being this beautiful concept of god. As man grows older, God becomes stricter and scarier. The God that once represented love now represents anger. Throughout this time, we believe that God has changed, while remaining ignorant of the fact that God never changes, it is the image that we associate with God that changes. We have stripped God of the divine status that God deserves and have reduced it to the status of a mere mortal.
Let’s go back to the 1970s when some individuals believed that they were not doing enough to please God. Something had to be done; a sacrifice had to be made to ensure that God continued loving us and a sacrifice was made. It was during this time that the Ahmaddiya community was excommunicated, in 1974 to be precise. In the name of God, this group was forbidden to believe in the God that it had believed in for so long. The book that this community sought guidance from was now out of bounds for them. According to Article 298-C of the Pakistani Penal Code states that any Ahmadi found to be ‘posing as a Muslim’ could be imprisoned for up to 3 years. Of course, the consequences of the unforgivable act of ‘posing as a Muslim’ could go as far as death at the hands of a mob. The self proclaimed guardians of religion were satisfied since they had played their part in purifying religion, ensuring that the masses were blinded by their hate for this community, and pleasing God.
To control religious violence, Article 295 was introduced by the British according to which any individual who offended a religious group would be imprisoned and would have to pay a fine. In 1982, however, it was realized that this law could be amended to further please God and so the law was amended via Article 295-B which added that anyone accused of defiling the Quran would be imprisoned for life. However, in 1986, General Zia decided he wanted to please God more than anyone else, and so Article 295-C was added making the entire law completely Islam specific and stating that anyone accused of blasphemy would be punishable by death. Without consulting God, in the name of God, the minorities were offered as a sacrifice.
Over the years, everyone has been trying their best to please God more than others. While the blasphemy law continues putting members of minorities behind bars, every now and then a mob takes matters into its own hands and delivers ‘justice’ to the blasphemers. While the law deals with Asia Bibi, a mob dealt with Shahzad and Shama Masih. At the same time, individuals such as Mumtaz Qadri have become national heroes for ‘protecting’ religion from a threat that never even existed.
Then, of course, come the extremist groups who believe they are the ones that please God the most. Their sacrifices don’t come in the form of a couple of people; they destroy entire generations of the kuffar. While ISIS continues to ‘please’ God by establishing a caliphate and killing everyone who stands in the way, the Taliban attack schoolchildren; each group thinks they’re pleasing God more than the other.
And in the race to be the best in God’s eyes, it seems as if everyone has forgotten about what God really wants. While promoting hate, anger and intolerance, we have drifted far away from what God truly wants. In our attempts to safeguard religion, we’ve created an image of God that is far from what God really is. We’ve instilled petty human characteristics into the image of God, thus taking away all the divinity associated with God. God is an entity much larger than what we portray it to be; an entity that does not feel threatened by different versions of its religion. It is an entity that does not need any blasphemy laws to protect it, neither does it need campaigns to be launched that promote killing in its mane. As long as we continue committing these atrocities in the name of God, we’ll keep bringing God a bad name. By associating these characteristics with God, we are merely belittling God, which, according to our rules is also punishable.
Wishal Raheel is a finance student who enjoys travelling and spends a lot of her time writing about social issues. Follow her on Twitter