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The incident of the burning of the Qur’an in Stockholm sparked outrage and protests all over the world and posed many questions over the boundaries between freedom of speech and hate crimes.

Swedish authorities allowed an Iraqi immigrant “to express his opinion” by tearing up a copy of the Qur’an and setting it alight outside the largest mosque in the capital, which has been described as disrespectful and offensive.

On the one hand, Muslims across the globe consider the Qur’an the sacred word of God that conveys a divine message with a foundational emphasis on righteous conduct. Therefore, Muslims view any deliberate harm or display of disrespect toward the Qur’an as deeply offensive and consider such acts as hostile to Islam.

On the other hand, the burning took place on the first day of Eid Al-Adha, one of the two major festivals in the Muslim calendar. As a result, it has been interpreted as an intentional act of disregard and intimidation as 1.8 million Muslim worshippers gathered in Makkah for the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

What made the situation even worse was the cold and indifferent attitude of the Swedish authorities, with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson saying the burning of the holy book was “legal but not appropriate.”

While Western societies have drawn red lines to protect the defining values of their culture, such as democracy, liberty, equality and human rights, they remain highly inconsiderate of other nations’ feelings and beliefs.

Further requests to burn copies of the Qur’an have been approved “on freedom of expression grounds,” which reflects, in the eyes of millions of Muslims, a hateful and aggressive spirit that has nothing to do with freedom of expression. Many official responses from Muslim countries considered the burning shameful, provocative and unacceptable. It is clear that there are still huge cultural differences regarding many sensitive issues.

The deep attitudinal divide between the Western and Muslim public is manifested in the views that each side holds about the other.

There is a generalized view in the West that Muslims are fanatical, violent and intolerant, while many Muslims look at Westerners as immoral, selfish and greedy. The chasm is getting deeper, especially when it comes to judgments about how each group perceives and deals with hot topics like the status of women.

Many in the West think that women in Muslim societies are humiliated and degraded. They think it is unjustified that a man can marry four wives or that a woman’s share of the inherited wealth is only half that of a man. Muslims, in return, say that women in the West are victims of the high rate of sexual assault and repeated cases of domestic violence.

While Western societies have drawn red lines to protect the defining values of their culture, such as democracy, liberty, equality and human rights, they remain highly inconsiderate of other nations’ feelings and beliefs.

For example, Westerners react furiously to any call to burn the rainbow flag and view it as a hate crime. Also, any attempt to question the details of the holocaust atrocities is considered an antisemitic crime.

Burning the Holy Qur’an is not the first incident involving Western nations’ disrespect for Islam. The outrageous satirical cartoon depictions of Prophet Muhammad are another example of imbalanced perceptions of good morals.

If the West insists on viewing those two incidents as matters of freedom of expression, then the clash of civilizations will continue and ideological differences will expand.

• Fahad Alqurashi is a professor of linguistics at Umm Al-Qura University in Makkah.

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