I grew up in Karachi with religious argument all around me.

Ahmed Deedat’s pamphlets questioning Christianity circulated widely. His titles were deliberately provocative. Muslim speakers debated the Trinity, the crucifixion and the reliability of the Bible. Christians answered back. These arguments could be sharp because religions make competing claims about truth.

That memory returned when I began looking at Britain’s debate over Islam, free speech and anti-Muslim hatred. I had assumed the legal boundary was becoming simple: criticise Christianity freely, but criticise Islam and risk being treated as hateful.

After checking the law and the current government definition, I think that formulation is too broad.

Britain does protect Muslims against religiously motivated crime and discrimination. But British law also contains an explicit safeguard for criticism, ridicule and even insult directed at religions. The government’s new definition of anti-Muslim hostility goes further and expressly says that criticism of Islam remains protected expression.

The real question is therefore more interesting: can Britain protect Muslims as people without turning Islam as a set of ideas into something that cannot be challenged?

British law already draws a line between people and beliefs

The distinction is written into British law.

Part 3A of the Public Order Act 1986, added by the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, created offences involving the stirring up of religious hatred. Parliament simultaneously inserted a freedom-of-expression safeguard.

Section 29J and its explanatory notes make the point unusually clearly. The law is not intended to prohibit discussion or criticism of religions. It also protects expressions of antipathy, ridicule, insult or abuse directed at religions or belief systems, as well as proselytising.

That does not mean every statement made in the name of religious criticism is lawful. Threats, harassment and other criminal conduct remain subject to law. Context matters.

But offence alone is not the legal test.

The new government definition makes the distinction even clearer

Britain spent years arguing about how to define Islamophobia. Critics worried that a poorly drafted definition could blur hostility toward Muslims with criticism of Islam.

The government has now adopted the term anti-Muslim hostility. Its non-statutory working definition deliberately focuses on Muslims as individuals rather than Islam as a religion.

The accompanying guidance is important. It explicitly protects criticism of a religion, including Islam, and critical analysis of its historical development. It also says that ridiculing or insulting a religion, or portraying it in ways adherents may regard as disrespectful or scandalous, can remain protected expression.

The definition therefore does not create a new blasphemy law. It says the opposite.

Its effectiveness will depend on how public institutions apply it. But anyone discussing the present British position should begin with what the adopted text actually says.

What about quoting controversial Islamic texts?

This is where my original argument needed its biggest correction.

I had written that accurately quoting a hadith about Aisha’s age could itself be logged by police as a hate incident. I cannot support that claim as a general description of current policing rules.

The College of Policing guidance on hate incidents tells officers to consider freedom of expression when deciding whether a non-crime hate incident should be recorded. Lawful debate on religious issues can fall within that protection. Disagreement and controversial opinions are not, by themselves, sufficient grounds for recording a non-crime hate incident.

The guidance even gives an example involving a complainant offended by someone else’s interpretation of religion. Police find no evidence of hostility, do not treat it as a non-crime hate incident and remove the subject’s personal data from the policing system.

So quoting a hadith is not automatically a hate crime. Nor is an uncomfortable discussion of Islamic history automatically an anti-Muslim incident.

Context can still change the analysis. A quotation used as part of sustained harassment of a Muslim individual is different from the same quotation used in historical, theological or academic discussion.

Islamic criticism of Christianity remains part of the same freedom

This brings me back to Deedat.

Islam and Christianity disagree about foundational questions. The Quran rejects central Christian theological claims. Christian theologians reject central Islamic claims about Jesus and revelation. Public debate between the traditions is therefore unsurprising.

A Muslim should be free to argue that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is wrong. A Christian should be free to argue that Islamic claims about revelation are wrong. An atheist should be free to reject both.

The protection should attach to the person’s freedom to argue, not to a religion’s entitlement to escape criticism.

There are limits when conduct moves into threats or unlawful discrimination. Those limits should apply regardless of which religion is being discussed.

Zakir Naik also complicates the simple double-standard story

My original draft used Zakir Naik as an example of a Muslim preacher who could criticise Christianity without institutional consequences in Britain. That was misleading.

Naik was excluded from the United Kingdom in 2010. A later Charity Commission inquiry records that the Home Secretary excluded him on grounds relating to statements considered to justify terrorist activity and foster hatred. His legal challenges failed. He was subsequently disqualified from charity trusteeship and senior management functions in England and Wales for a period set by the tribunal.

That does not tell us whether every action taken against him was wise. It does show why he cannot fairly be presented as evidence that British authorities simply allow Muslim preachers to say anything while policing criticism of Islam.

The evidence is more complicated than that.

Muslims need protection from hatred, not protection from questions

I think this distinction matters particularly for Muslims themselves.

Islam is not intellectually fragile. Muslim scholarship has contained disagreement for centuries over scripture, law and historical interpretation. Modern Muslims also debate how inherited texts should be understood today.

If every difficult question about Islamic history is treated as hostility toward Muslims, internal Muslim debate suffers too.

At the same time, pretending anti-Muslim hatred does not exist would be equally unserious. A Muslim being threatened because of his religion is not engaged in a theological debate. A woman being harassed because someone assumes she is Muslim from her clothing is not experiencing criticism of doctrine.

Those are actions directed at people.

The distinction may sometimes become difficult at the margins, but difficulty is not a reason to abandon it.

Pakistan should notice the principle too

Writing this from Karachi makes the British debate feel less abstract.

Pakistan shows what can happen when protecting religious feeling becomes entangled with state power. The UK’s own July 2026 country assessment on Christians in Pakistan notes continuing blasphemy accusations and risks faced by some people engaged in public religious activity. Its separate assessment of Ahmadis describes severe legal restrictions on how Ahmadis may publicly identify and practise their faith.

That experience should make Pakistanis especially sensitive to the difference between protecting believers and protecting beliefs from examination.

Once the state begins deciding which religious propositions may be questioned, the argument is no longer only about civility. It becomes an argument about power.

The rule should work in every direction

I began with a suspicion that Britain was operating a simple double standard.

The evidence does not justify stating it that way.

British law protects robust criticism of religion. Current policing guidance tells officers to account for lawful expression. The government’s anti-Muslim-hostility definition expressly protects criticism of Islam while focusing its protection on Muslims as people.

That framework deserves to be judged by how it works in practice. Individual cases can still reveal mistakes, overreach or inconsistent policing, and those cases should be examined on their evidence.

But the principle itself is sound.

Deedat should be allowed to question Christianity. Christians should be allowed to question Islam. Muslims should be protected from threats and unlawful discrimination without requiring the state to protect Islamic doctrine from criticism.

That is not a concession to one side.

It is the only free-speech rule that can work in every direction.