When confronted in 2013, the man who claimed scholars told of the death penalty for blasphemy, to his interrogators that he could not actually read Arabic.
This man, lawyer Ismail Qureshi, is at the center of a new documentary of the alliance against blasphemy policy Pakistan (AABP). It was hosting an early screening of The inevitable abuse of blasphemous policy (2024) and a new episode titled Blasphemy as bite date: intra-Muslim difference in the age of the empire Sunday, August 17 at Kitab Ghar. A small group of students, teachers and journalists were gathered to see the documentaries and have a question and questions with the team at the modest public library in Karachi.
Read: Minister highlights answers to abuse of blasphemy law
The documentaries are on section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code or the country’s blasphemy law, which happened in 1986 and was reinforced by the federal Shariat court in 1991. Section 295-C says death is the only punishment for blasphemy against the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be with him), and the law makes the question of its authority a blasphema itself. What the authorities describe as “abuse” of the law is actually the only possible correct use. Legislative’s unlimited definitions transform any action into potential blasphemy.
Estimated 767 people are currently in custody at blasphemics costs (from mid -2024) according to the National Commission for Human Rights.
People who are charged with blasphemy have an extremely high risk of extracurricular violence. The Center for Social Justice recorded that at least 104 people were killed by mob and custody between 1994 and 2024. Rights groups say these figures not only reflect legal enforcement, but a wider climate in which accusations are made to settle personal scores, seize property or provosers MOB action.
On April 13, 2017, Mashal Khan, a 23-year-old student at Abdul Wali Khan University, was attacked and killed by a mob after online allegations of blasphemy. An investigative team concluded that the claims were made. An anti-terrorism court tried 57 suspects in the lynching: One was sentenced to death, five to life prison, 25 received shorter prison conditions and 26 were acquitted with additional beliefs issued afterwards.
The laws claim legitimacy over centuries ancient Islamic tradition and scientific consensus (IJMA). Yet, this supposed continuity of the divine command has produced a striking statistical anomaly: While blasphemous accusations have increased 20,000% since 1986, not a single conviction has been maintained by the Supreme Court. The best known case is perhaps one of Asia Noreen, a Christian farm worker who was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to death. After eight years in custody, she was acquitted by the Supreme Court on October 31, 2018 and left Pakistan to Canada.
The 13-minute animated Blasphemy as bite date Challenges the idea that these laws are rooted in timeless Islamic tradition. The film’s dissertation is that Pakistan’s most defended piece of legislation is actually performed on colonial legal foundations and fabricated Islamic scholarship. The “sacred” language was copied from ancient British legal documents, Australian defamation cases and US litigation.
One of the most surprising revelations was the linguistic origin of the law. Through careful text analysis, the team is tracked expressions such as “Innuendo”, “insinuation” and “imputation” not to Islamic case law, but to Australian defamation law, US libel legislation and Indian hateful statutes.
And the man who claimed religious authority over these sanctions has admitted that he could not even read Arabic and did not understand the texts he claimed to mention. “When we started Express Pakinomist At the screening. “We met Qureshi almost a decade ago, and this is where he recognized his lack of training for us.”
Ismail Qureshi’s fabricated scholarship had transformed Abu Hanifa’s position from the eighth century-to a non-Muslim blasphemes cannot be punished at death-to the very opposite and form the basis of Pakistan’s 1991 decision of 1991. hadd (firm) punishment without understanding the sources he quoted. “
Lawyers, Islamic law scientists, historians and legal experts claim that Pakistan’s blasphemy legislation differs from the “fiqhi” line of Islamic case law and is innovations (Biddat) born of colonial and postcolonial StateCraft. This shift was not organic, but shaped by colonial interventions aimed at controlling “passions” of professional populations.
Classic Islamic case law, on the other hand, demanded strict categorization of crimes, attention to intention and context. This framework enabled more flexibility than today’s rigid interpretations that impose severe penalties without regard to intentions or circumstances. Thus, these laws come into conflict with basic Islamic legal principles of evidence, intention and proportionality.
Read more: IHC orders probe in online blasphemy spike
Given the full character of the subject, AABP decided to use 2D flat symbolic animation rather than conventional documentary recordings. This aesthetic choice created intellectual distance from what is extremely emotionally charged material, giving way to rational analysis rather than just reactions. “Animation offers abstraction and security,” a member of the team explained. “It lets us unparalleled tropes and charged images that often provoke defense ability around the politics of blasphemy.”
So instead of real faces or locations, the animation of quivering forms and merging of boxes that is set to a quiet voice over, the viewer concentrates on the ideas behind blasphemy policy. “In a context where blasphemous politics thrive on viewing and naming,” added another member, “animation becomes a powerful medium for recent discourse about drama.” Complex legal concepts are divided with changing lines, clumps that swell and shrink and shape that bleed into each other. Using the real TV or amateur video on social media would have risked turning the documentary into trauma voyeurism.
Also: blasphemy -probe
Documentaries aim through careful scholarship to distinguish authentic tradition from its colonial and modern distortions. “The first step is to demystify the law to show that 295-C is not holy, not divine and not rooted in Islamic legal consensus,” the team member said. “It’s a very modern law based on cultural war in the 80s.”
For this member of the team who got the film elaborated on his respect for Islamic legal tradition. “I saw how careful, nuanced and ethically attentive classic lawyers were, especially in contrast to the hypermodern laws of one size that suits everyone adopted in the name of Islam.”
