Christian writer Nahid Hattar was shot to death Sunday outside a court building where he was on trial for blasphemy in majority-Muslim Jordan.
The individual that killed Hattar managed to hit the writer thrice before being taken into custody by the authorities, according to BBC News. Hattar had been dealing with legal troubles since his Aug. 15 arrest for blasphemy.
The professional scribbler landed behind bars after drawing a cartoon of a man with a beard lying in bed with two women while asking God to get him a drink. No sooner had the writer published his cartoon than social media had roundly condemned the Christian for allegedly being anti-Islamic.
Al-Jazeera reported that the bearded man in Hattar’s drawing was an Islamic State fighter. Hattar defended himself by saying that he was not in any way attempting to insult Islam, but to instead expose the hypocritical attitudes of Islamic extremists.
In Islam, depictions of the prophet Muhammad are forbidden by Islamic law, also known as Sharia law. Muhammad did not want praise of him and his actions to shift worshipers’ focus away from honoring God.
Violation of certain aspects of Sharia law can lead to the death penalty, which is how the brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi justified their murder of writers and editors at the satirical French publication Charlie Hebdo Jan. 7, 2015. The French publication had previously published cartoons of Muhammad.
The history behind Islam shunning images of Muhammad is rooted in the belief that Christians worshiped Jesus, far more than they did God, as a result of Jesus having human form in art.
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