Watch what you say

Nicholas! you still call this guy thoughtful who would endorse the sentence of Dr. Shaikh by saying why the fuss over one man? Shaikh had a question in mind which he put forward and Islam does not reject questions by the inquisitive mind. Mr. Ghazi should have known that. Only thing Dr. Shaikh deserved was the answer. He needed the right answer. Alas! Rather than giving him the right answer he has been sentenced.

Watch what you say: Dr. Younus Shaikh, a teacher at a medical college, sits in a brick prison here, after being sentenced to death for blasphemy last year. I couldn't interview him because the warden caught me trying to slip into the prison as a visitor (I didn't look like a family member). But the issues are clear.

During a lecture, Dr. Shaikh digressed and allegedly speculated that Muhammad's parents may not have been Muslims

"Abdul Rashid Ghazi, a thoughtful, well-educated imam in Islamabad, asked me why the fuss over Dr. Shaikh, one man, when America has killed thousands in Afghanistan. I replied that blasphemy raises a larger concern for Islam itself: like Christianity in the Middle Ages, the Islamic world today suffers from a stultifying closed-mindedness and intellectual rigidity that impoverishes Muslim countries and in some cases endangers their neighbors."

At least one of the family members who raised him and was alive and received the message of Islam from Prophet has been considered idol worshiper his uncle Abdulmatlib. Only thing that is told to many Muslims in the textbooks is that his grandfather used to take care of 'Kaba.' At that time 'Kaba' was filled with idols. As a kid growing up and analyzing things around me, I asked similar questions.....So if every one worshiped idols in those days and they digressed from the true path what religion people were worshipping in Mecca, off course it was not Islam otherwise Allah did not need to reveal Quran. What faith Prophet's (PBUH) forefathers had. My mother told me only one thing that his family was pious and did not indulge in evil. That was the only answer she could get from the books she read. That answer was acceptable to me at that tender age. Now only thing Dr. Shaikh deserved was a right answer to his question. Is there any Muslim scholar who would like to answer that is posed by Dr. Shaikh. When they don't want to answer---or put it this way---they don't have an answer they say its Blasphemy....Ridiculous!

Where is so called enlightened moderation of Musharraf. The president has a right to pardon.
Muslim fanaticism makes me nervous whenever I think about going to my country "Pakistan: The land of so called Pure" and teach moderation and tolerance.