Islamic teachings and argument have sometimes been used for religious censorship throughout history, and there are many cases of censorship in Islamic societies. One example is the fatwa (religious judgment) against The Satanic Verses (a novel), ordering that the author be executed for blasphemy. Depictions of Muhammad have inspired considerable controversy and censorship. Leaders of the member states of the world's largest Islamic organization, known as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), called for a categorical ban on stuff that could be deemed as denigration of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in 2012.
Quran 2:256 prohibits "compulsion in religion". Some Islamic societies have religious police, who enforce the application of Islamic Sharia law.
In non-Islamic countries, Islam has often been cited as a reason for self-censorship. Sometimes this self-censorship is because of threats of violence.
Calls for global censorship
The (OIC), the world's second largest intergovernmental organization, comprising fifty-seven Islamic states, has actively lobbied for a global ban on what it perceives as anti-Islamic blasphemy, especially after the publication of Innocence of Muslims — a "low-quality film" depicting Muhammad as a madman, philanderer, and pedophile, — triggered protests and demonstrations in over a dozen Islamic countries; but these OIC actions constitute a major step to criminalize speech critical of religion.
Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, a Turkish citizen and the Secretary General of OIC, also called for a ban on insults against the Islamic prophet. He said, "If the Western world fails to understand the sensitivity of the Muslim world, then we are in trouble". He asserted provocative insults are "a threat to international peace and security and the sanctity of life".
However, the opposition from Western nations barred the resolution from being accepted. Ihsanoglu said, "We could not convince the European countries to vote with us, the United States doesn't vote with us." Western countries see the publication of such images and materials as a matter of free speech, whereas the OIC sees these, according to Ihsanoglu, as an abuse of this freedom that Western countries should sanction through their own blasphemy or hate crime laws.
In Asia
Afghanistan The Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan after the mid-1990s, had the most strict, deeply enforced Islamic censorship of any other government in the Muslim World. They enforced and imposed a blanket ban on all films and videos depicting living beings. The Taliban fully fell in 2002 and Afghan President Hamid Karzai's administration began, with expectations of a move towards more secular policies.
However, Karzai has worked with members of the Islamic Council of Scholars to censor television programs regarded as sinful, particularly those created by the Indian entertainment industry (many Afghan Islamists often euphemistically refer to Hindus in said industry as "worshipers of graven idols"). One of Afghanistan's most popular television soap operas, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi,Note that no exact English language translation exists of the title, but it has been described as: Because the Mother-in-law Was Once a Daughter-in-law Too. has faced threats of a total banning from the country unless the shows were heavily modified.
Azim Roboti, director of the Kabul company 'Caravan Film', has remarked about Islamic censorship,
With the reestablishment of Taliban rule in 2021, the interim government replaced the Ministry of Women's Affairs with the Ministry of Virtue and Vice, which is responsible for patrolling the city and enforcing the Sharia Law. Taliban has enforced the ban on music and women from speaking on TV and radio channels. It has also banned women from playing sports. Additionally, the Taliban under hardline leadership has reinstated the ban on living beings since 2024.
Bangladesh
Several books of the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin have been banned in Bangladesh, including her novel Lajja. Militant Islamist groups announced a bounty on Nasreen's head and in October 2002, a court sentenced Nasreen in absentia to a year in jail for her "derogatory remarks about Islam"."Taslima's Banned Books" . Retrieved 14 November 2013.Bangladesh Seeks Writer, Charging She Insults Islam The New York Times, June 8, 1994.Book Review The New York Times, August 28, 1994.
India Although India's constitution protects freedom of speech as a fundamental right, it allows for "reasonable restrictions" in the interests of "public order, decency or morality". In 1989, India became the second country, after Singapore, to ban Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses for its purported attacks on Islam."Rushdie 'hurt' by India ban ", BBC News, 10 October 1998. Retrieved 29 May 2006. Indian authorities clarified that their decision didn't have anything to do with the literary merit of the novel. In virtue of the emotional distress that book caused to the Muslims, Indian government was asked to cancel Rushdie's visa. 1990, Understanding Islam through Hadis by Ram Swarup was banned. In 1990 the Hindi translation of the book was banned, and in March 1991 the English original became banned as well. Islam — A Concept of Political World Invasion by Muslims By R. V. Bhasin was banned in Maharashtra during the tenure of Vilasrao Deshmukh (ex Chief Minister, Maharashtra) on grounds that it promotes communal disharmony between Hindus and Muslims.CRIMINAL APPLICATION NO.1421 OF 2007 . The High Court of Judicature at Bombay Later the author's house in Colaba was raided and the authorities confiscated 1000 copies of the Book."Book on Islam Banned, Author’s house raided in Mumbai". April 7, 2007. A Tamil film produced by Kamal Haasan titled Vishwaroopam was blocked by the Tamil Nadu state government following the protest by a group of Muslim organizations led by the Federation of Islamic Movements which alleged that it depicted Muslims inappropriately. In February 2013, a fatwa was issued by one of the prominent clergyman of Kashmir, Bashiruddin Ahmad, against an all-girl Kashmiri rock band Pragaash for being "un-Islamic". The band was dismantled following the online threats.
Iran
The Shah's government eschewed Islamic censorship, with popular commercial films featuring frank sexual themes and even nudity. The regime largely concerned itself with fostering feelings of legitimacy and making sure that films always portrayed it in a positive light. The Shah personally intervened in a 1934 film biopic to make sure that the protagonist, the poet Firdawsi, viewed the ruler character as a patron of the arts.
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, members of the 1979 Revolution sought to use film and other measures to shift public opinion's against the Shah's regime and, upon taking power, utilized filmmakers for ideological support. In some circumstances, this meant more rights than under the Shah such as use of minority dialects by characters. However, the Islamic government has strictly regulated films in order to suppress messages perceived as un-Islamic, using religious bureaucracies such as the Council of Screenplay Inspection and the Council of Film Reviewing to alter and delete specific lines and scenes against filmmaker's wishes.
In particular, the government forbids the depiction of women either singing, dancing, or both. Actresses also must conceal their hair at all times, even in moments when the characters are shown alone in their own homes. Censors suppress the showing of direct physical contact between members of the opposite sex. Despite this tradition of censorship, some officials have relaxed implementation of Islamic standards, particularly since the death of Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 (which resulted in the film Two Women by Tahmineh Milani being un-banned before receiving widespread public acclaim).
Iran's government, through the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, reviews written works before allowing authors to be published. This process tends to involve having three separate officials inspect works for offending words and phrases, which can take several months to years before approval is granted. Authors with banned works include Plato, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, James Joyce, Kurt Vonnegut, and Paulo Coelho. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has publicly attacked the impact of "harmful books" on his nation, analogizing them with "poisonous" drugs.
Iranian censorship of books grew stricter after then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration began in 2005. His government authorized booksellers to distribute Memoria de mis putas tristesNote that the Spanish-language title has translations such as Memories of My Melancholy Sweethearts and Memories of My Melancholy Whores (the latter being widely used). by Nobel-prize winning author Gabriel García Márquez, which had the five-thousand first edition sell out in short notice, but it reversed course and banned further reprinting. Muslim religious conservatives objected to the story's plot, which describes an isolated ninety-year-old man seeking a night of "wild love" with an adolescent prostitute.
Iraq
Censorship for both socio-political and religious justifications, intertwined, was widespread in Iraq's government in the 20th century. In particular, the Iraqi Law on the Censorship of Foreign Films of 1973 banned the showing of anything with "the propagation of reactionary, chauvinistic, populistic, racialist or rationalistic ideas, of favoring the spirit of defeatism, serving imperialism and Zionism", prohibiting as well anything "defaming the Arab nation and its goals". Iraq's government effectively had the ability to ban any film for any reason whatsoever at any notice.
Malaysia
In 2006 alone, 56 publications were banned by the Internal Security Ministry, including the Indonesian translation of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species.2006 List of banned publications . Malaysian Ministry of Internal Security. In January 2014, an image of pigs was censored in the Malaysian edition of the International New York Times, with the pig's faces blacked out.
Maldives
In November 2011, the blog of journalist Ismail Khilath Rasheed was shut down by Communications Authority of the Maldives (CAM) on the order of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, on the grounds that the site contained "anti-Islamic material". Rasheed, a self-professed Sufi Muslim, had argued for greater religious tolerance.
Pakistan
The government of Pakistan maintains strict censorship of its citizens' access to the internet, with the Ministry of Information Technology's sub-agency the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority monitoring and filtering a variety of websites accused of playing host to perceived anti-Islamic content. Examples of cautioned websites include Google, Yahoo, Bing, YouTube, Hotmail, MSN, and Amazon. The government banned access to Facebook outright for two months in mid-2010 after the controversial page titled "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" received public attention.
These measures have partially contributed to underlying tensions between the Pakistani government and the U.S. government, with many of the aforementioned websites being American-owned.
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has, in the words of the International Business Times, "resorted to drastic measures to limit free communication within its own borders." The administration blocks hundreds of thousands of websites for having content perceived as immoral. Censorship has grown more strict since the 'Arab Spring' revolutions began in early 2011.