Classical Islamic law mandates due process that the Rushdie fatwa bypassed

Evidence

In saying that insulting the Prophet, or for that matter apostasy, is an offense in Muslim law, I would stress the word law. Islamic jurisprudence is a system of law and justice, not of lynching and terror. It lays down a procedure according to which a person accused of an offense is to be brought to trial, confronted with his accuser and given the opportunity to defend himself. A judge will then give a verdict and, if the accused is found guilty, pronounce sentence. I am not aware that this procedure has been followed in the present case. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1688

Categorization

• XREF: This is the key mechanism-passage for the cluster: it shows how a Western-friendly reading of Islam (as law, not terror) competed with the media’s essentialist reading during the Rushdie affair.
• SEED: Angle: how the Rushdie affair became the West’s template for ‘Islam is theocracy’ despite classical jurisprudence being procedural — a concrete case of representation-production.