Hyderabad: France has closed down a Muslim-owned publishing house for allegedly promoting Islamic history.
France’s interior minister, Gerald Darmanin announced on Twitter that he is moving against the Nawa Editions publishing house for allegedly selling books that promote key Muslim figures from Islamic history that fought in the name of faith.
The French minister alleged that the publishing house has an editorial line that is anti-universalist and in direct contestation of Western values. He further added “it distributed several works legitimizing Jihad.”
One such work includes the biography of the seventh-century undefeated Muslim military commander Khalid ibn al-Walid.
In a statement, Nawa Editions condemned the “purely political” decision by the state. The publishing house expressed their alarm at the “drift of the French political model” towards an executive dissolution of Muslim organizations without due process.
Media reports stated that France’s latest actions against the Muslim organizations are part of a pattern that has seen the state closing charities that represent Muslims.
The country’s largest Muslim charity, Baraka City was closed last year, followed by anti-Islamophobia advocacy group CCIF, which was the only organization in the country collecting data on rising anti-Muslim violence.
Nawa publishing house describes itself on its website as an organization that aims to promote the human and political science born out of Islamic heritage and contribute to the revitalization of these disciplines by studying the Western world and science, modern political ideology, and doctrines.
The bank accounts of the publishing house and those of its main writers Aissam Ait Yahya and Abu Suleiman Al Kaabi were frozen after the decision.