Prominent Islamic scholar, Zakir Naik, has called for the boycott of French products following the disrespect of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, last week.
In a Facebook post, Naik quoted a verse from the Quran, referring to the recent incident of disrespect of the Holy Prophet in France. In his post, Naik had warned of serious consequences for those who disrespect ‘Messenger of Allah’.
“But those who abuse the Messenger of Allaah will have a painful punishment,” wrote Naik in the post.
In another FB post, the Islamic scholar had criticized the French President Macron for his Islamophobic remarks. “The endorsement of offensive speech does nothing to advance freedom of expression. A right to offend does not imply a duty to offend,” his post read.
His post followed the strong statements of former Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohammad.
Read more: Mahathir Mohamad in the eye of storm after explosive tweets
Just a few days ago, Naik, had released a statement against the increasing Islamophobic activities of non-Muslims. Zakir Naik said that non-Muslims who disrespect Muslims and the Holy Prophet (PBUH) must be imprisoned in Muslim countries. He said that most of these people are BJP followers.
Malaysia’s former premier Mahathir Mohamad said on Thursday that “Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past. But by and large, the Muslims have not applied the ‘eye for an eye’ law. Muslims don’t. The French shouldn’t. Instead, the French should teach their people to respect other people’s feelings,” prompting a swift response from Twitter, which quickly took down the tweet, and drawing wide condemnation from netizens.
Read more: Boycott Malaysia: Indians couldn’t digest Mahathir’s call for Kashmiri Rights
The comment was part of a larger blog post, which was also posted on Twitter.
Mahathir started off the post by saying that “as a Muslim”, he did not approve of the killing of French teacher Samuel Paty — who was beheaded after he displayed blasphemous cartoons of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) — but added that freedom of expression should not be used to insult others.
GVS News Desk