Thread by @desmukh

In this video, the perpetrators of the Sialkot "blasphemy" lynching proudly justify their act by citing a relatively obscure (until recently) hadith:

"مَنْ سَبَّ نَبِیًّا فَاقْتُلُوْہٗ"
"Kill the one who insults the Prophet"

How did this hadith become popularised? A thread 🧵

2/ As far as I can gather Khadim Hussain Rizvi and TLP pretty much single-handedly gave this obscure hadith mass currency.

Listen to this speech by Khadim Rizvi

3/ Then, over the last year or so, pro-TLP social media accounts began sharing content from these speeches about the hadith.

Here is an entire song and music video about it:

4/ Here's another song about the hadith with a music video made up of some of the most violent scenes from the Turkish historical drama "Diriliş: Ertuğrul" edited together with clips from Khadim Rizvi

5/ Then these music videos and speeches are distilled to even shorter clips made for people to use as Whatsapp status videos or ringtones for mass distribution, such as this one:

6/ The result? You can guess, but it's depressing.

Here's one example. Note that the indirect connection to the Ertugrul TV drama in the previous music videos is not benign:
facebook.com/bilawal.quresh…

7/ In this clip, a TLP devotee cites the hadith while explaining why he is gifting a sword (made to be a replica of Ali's Zulfiqar) to Khadim Rizvi's son and current TLP leader Saad Rizvi

8/ Here you can see the hadith being used as slogan of faith by a TLP protester while being detained

9/ Of course, I don't mean to suggest that a line from religious text is the primary motivation for people to commit a lynching -- but certainly people who do commit them for any reason know they can defend their actions by citing texts that have been given mass popular currency

10/ Was looking for this clip but it had been deleted from my saved link

Remember, the issue isnt that the hadith chain is weak, but that kids are being taught to murder people for their words. The problem is the state's patronage of this movement