Five Talk Islam blog posts that have enduring high interest and have continued to draw readers to this blog.
Latest Updates: apostasy RSS
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johnpi
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johnpi
Another Rifqa Bary eruption that I missed last month: Right-wing bloggers misconstrue Muslim blogger’s comment to be an ‘implicit threat’ to Rifqa Bary.
The blogger, Davi Barker, wrote:
I’ll tell you one thing reader… if she’s not safe in Ohio, she’s not safe in Florida. All it took was a little creative Googling and I was able to determine the likely address where she’s staying… But I digress.
Pamela Geller called this a “veiled threat.”
Another blogger at the same news service dropped a gratuitous link to a Hamas children’s show advocating violence and then wrote:
I digress too pal. What business does a grown man have telling other grown men that an underage girl’s residence is easy to find? Davi Barker has crossed the line. His judgment that Rifqa Bary is a liar has emboldened him to dangle a carrot before others that she may be easy to find. This is an underhanded and cowardly act of a man who’s growing contempt for an underage girl is evident with each successive article he writes about her.
The Muslim blogger subsequently posted a clarification that the comment was not a threat and said this:
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johnpi
Self-declared ex-Muslim joins Geert Wilders far-right anti-Muslim political party.
A Dutch self-declared ex-Muslim and critic of Islam has joined the rightist Freedom Party PVV which is also highly critical of Islam, its party leader confirmed Thursday. Iranian-born Ehsan Jami, 24, may run for a council seat in The Hague in the upcoming local elections in 2010. Or, he may try to enter parliament following the general elections in 2011, PVV leader Geert Wilders said.
….In the spring of 2007 he established a committee for former Muslims demanding Muslims’ right to renounce their faith.
Clearly, these groups consider ex-Muslims useful and are forming groups to find them and recruit them – and promote them when they cooperate.
Also in 2007, Jami joined Wilders in writing an op-ed that compared Mohammed to Hitler.
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johnpi
A former Muslim turned atheist says he is receiving death threats in Oklahoma.
Sabri Husibi, a former Muslim who is now an atheist, says he has been ostracized and threatened with death since publication of a Tulsa World article Saturday in which he was critical of Islam and all other religions.
The article was written to promote a talk he gave the next day to the Tulsa Atheists organization.
Husibi, who has an unlisted telephone number, said he received about 30 calls Saturday from people who were cursing him, calling him a traitor and threatening him.
Most were foreign-born, Tulsa-area Muslims whom he knows, he said. He also received angry calls from friends and relatives in Syria.
One caller, whom Husibi would not identify, said that if he spoke at the meeting and said anything against Shariah (Islamic law), he would be killed.
Another caller offered Husibi’s young Muslim wife $10,000 to leave him and return to her native Syria, he said.
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johnpi
Recently, I posted about John Guandolo, “the philandering, Muslim-threat-hyping FBI agent” who attached himself to the Rifqa Bary story with a claim of expertise.
Now Dr. Louay Safi of ISNA is rebuking Guandolo for misquoting and misrepresenting his writings, which Guandolo used to try to bolster his argument that Rifqa Bary faced the threat of harm for apostasy.
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johnpi
Another evolution of the anti-Muslim response to the Rifq Bary case. A bunch of the usual ‘ex-Muslims’ are fronting a new group called “Former Muslims United” that seems to be designed to exploit perceived weaknesses in the Islamic position on apostasy:
Prominent former Muslims– apostates from Islam– will hold a press conference Thursday, September 24 to announce the launch of a new civil liberties organization, Former Muslims United, and the start of a national campaign to educate the American public and policymakers about the threat from authoritative Shariah– Islamic law– to the religious freedom and safety of former Muslims.
….Darwish and Warraq will release the text of Former Muslim United’s groundbreaking “Muslim Pledge for Religious Freedom and Safety from Harm for Former Muslims,” copies of which will be received in the offices of dozens of Muslim leaders across America by September 25, the 220th anniversary of Congress passing the Bill of Rights. They will also distribute a list of the names of this first group of Muslim leaders to be asked to sign the Muslim Pledge. Additional Muslim leaders will be sent the pledge in the next month as the national campaign gets underway.
(From a press release posted here.)
Obviously, no identified ‘Muslim leader’ should sign this ‘pledge’ since doing so would legitimize it. “So and so signed the pledge. Why won’t you?”
The website for the group is here, and it includes sections on apostasy fatwas and books on apostasy. Most of the material on the front page is about Fathima Rifqa Bary, which is why I’m describing this as a development of that story.
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aziz
Charles Johnson trumpets the report that there is “no evidence” that Rifqa Bary’s parents want to kill her, and thumbs his nose at Spencer and Geller and other “anti-Islam” blogs:
People like Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have injected themselves into this case, judged her parents, and found them guilty of intended murder — because they’re incapable of imagining that Muslim parents might not be murderous monsters. In their twisted paranoid world, all Muslims are honor killers, and that’s all there is to it. Evidence be damned. If her parents say they love her and would never hurt her … well, that’s just what a lying Muslim would say, isn’t it?
I think our coverage of the case here at Talk Islam – primarily from johnpi – is superior to pretty much any other outlet.
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johnpi
Wikipedia’s ‘Rifqa Bary’ page was deleted yesterday by a volunteer administrator, which has Pamela Geller et al. in a tizzy. “The dhimmis over at Wikipedia have deleted the Rifqa Bary entry,” Geller wailed. “The landmark apostasy case in the USA has been erased.”
One of her readers reported this as a reason given: “just a case of a runway with religious overtones.”
Of note: Geller and company are no longer talking about ‘honor killing’ and seem to be focusing their anti-Islam agitprop on the apostasy issue.
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johnpi
Israeli government program asks Jews to inform on other Jews outside of Israel who might “be in danger of assimilating by dating or marrying non-Jews.”
About 100 of the callers reported unmarried Jews aged 18-30 living in France, the United States and New Zealand. Callers also left their acquaintances’ Facebook and Twitter names as well as email addresses so that MASA people could contact them.
What next, religious enforcers?
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johnpi
Hany Saqr, director of the Noor Center, said he did not know the Bary family personally. But he refuted all the allegations raised by the teenager’s attorney.
The center, which serves 10,000 Muslims in the community, has invited a variety of speakers, including atheists, Christians and Jews, during the three years it has been open, he said.
Saqr said he thought conversion was not uncommon in the United States. “Changing the religion is something pretty natural and normal in this country,” Saqr told The Associated Press Monday in an interview.
“At our center we know that people accept Islam, some people accept Christianity, some people accept Judaism,” Saqr said. “Based on our religion we think that there’s no compulsion to religion. Everybody has the right to choose whatever religion he wants to.”
Court documents filed Monday also claimed Saqr was a former leader at Omar Ibn El-Khattab Mosque in Columbus. Federal authorities charged three men who attended the Omar mosque with terrorist-related crimes between 2003 and 2007.
Saqr told AP that he led prayers at the Omar mosque years ago as a student but was never appointed full-time.
Bary’s attorney, John Stemberger, said Saqr’s connection to the Omar mosque and the Noor Center should raise questions about the teen’s safety in Ohio.
No habla hadith? Funny how we all turn into Quranists at moments like this…just as well considering what the wise hadith chronicler Imam Muslim concluded:
…its chain of transmission (isnad) goes through a source whose narrations were rejected by Imam Muslim because of the accusations of some scholars that the man concerned (‘Ikrimah) was a liar who also accepted gifts from various political authorities.
Nobody would deny Sahih Muslim was a Muslim with great hikma…
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johnpi
The Orlando Sun-Sentinel continues its excellent coverage of the Rifqa Bary case:
Muslims fear runaway girl’s case will fuel religious hatred.
From the sidelines, the Muslim community watches the saga of Fathima Rifqa Bary with sadness and weariness.
What looks to many Muslims like a family squabble between Muslim parents in Columbus, Ohio, and their runaway daughter in Orlando has become something of a new crusade by evangelical Christians.
The frustration for many Muslims in Central Florida is that the accusations of one teenage girl who says she fears her father would kill her for becoming a Christian has become a wholesale distortion of their religion.
Again, the Sun-Sentinel seem to be channeling some of the points that have been made around here:
“There is not a single verse in the holy Quran that stops a person from exercising the freedom of choosing his or her religion. There is nothing about a punishment if you change your religion,” Rasheed said.
As we all know, this assertion elides the controversy raised by the other great source of religion, the Sunnah – specifically the Bukhari hadith that says all apostates must die. Sooner or later some enterprising reporter will be asking questions about this.
As has already been observed, there is a “consensus position among classical Islamic scholars” affirming this hadith, though extremists and imprecise speakers tend to oversimplify it to capital punishment and fail to note that the madhabs distinguish between major and minor apostasy. And of course, no less a distinguished scholar and hadith chronicler than Imam Muslim rejected this hadith for its weak isnad:
…its chain of transmission (isnad) goes through a source whose narrations were rejected by Imam Muslim because of the accusations of some scholars that the man concerned (‘Ikrimah) was a liar who also accepted gifts from various political authorities.
Also, more and more substantial contemporary scholars are issuing opinions that whatever the source of this hadith, it has no place in our religion today.
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johnpi
Moderate Malaysia’s image bruised over beer caning.
The case of Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, a former model and nurse, drew the attention of international media and rights groups and presented a harsh view of the kind of Islamic justice dispensed in one of the world’s most moderate and stable Muslim-majority countries.
“It is pretty embarrassing,” Marina Mahathir, a leading women’s activist and the daughter of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, told The Associated Press in an interview.
Kartika was charged with violating a law prohibiting Muslims from drinking alcohol. Marina said it raised a key question about how Islamic laws are applied in Malaysia. “Are they working to dispense justice or to provide moral lessons for the rest of us?” she said.
Malaysia follows a dual-track justice system. Shariah laws apply to Muslims, who make up about 60 percent of the 27 million population, in all personal matters. Non-Muslims — the Chinese, Indian, Sikh and other minorities — are covered by civil laws, and are free to drink.
Often the two sets of laws collide and the winner usually is the Islamic system. For example, a Muslim who converts from Islam is guilty of apostasy under Shariah laws — punishable by jail and fine — even though freedom of religion is guaranteed by the constitution.
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johnpi
Islamophobes jump on apostasy angle of Fathima Rifqa Bary story.
This is the first I’m hearing of it, but both stories are referencing a Washington Times article that was published back in April about Harvard’s Muslim chaplain Taha Abdul-Basser’s ‘great hikma in capital punishment for apostasy‘ comment. Talk Islam is the original source of the quote being used in these stories. Abdul-Basser has never denied the comments are his, and he has issued a response to the publication of the comments (see the Washington Times article) trying to distance himself from their implications.
I suspect it is only a matter of time before we are hearing about Mr. Abdul-Basser’s comments on TV and radio.
The larger question that both Abdul-Basser and Anwar al-Awlaki (former Muslim chaplain at George Washington University, now Al Qaeda supporting and al-Shabab recruiting renegade imam in Yemen) prompts is who or what organization is responsible for recommending candidates for Muslim chaplains at colleges and universities in the US? Whether it is the board of directors of an organization or a subcommittee of the board that makes recommendations to the full board – those individuals need to be dumped/fired/dismissed and we need to start over with new people who won’t choose chaplains who enable or outright advocate a dark vision of Islam…
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johnpi
Orlando Sun-Sentinel columnist channels Talk Islam:
The anti-Muslim groups that have embraced Rifqa say [her father's] faith requires that he kill her, as if he has no say in the matter. As proof, they point to a passage in the Quran mandating death to Muslims who reject Islam. They back this up citing “honor killings” in Muslim countries.
Rifqa’s father is not judged as an individual. He is judged by the actions of others and quotes in a religious text. (Aziz)
I could go through the Old Testament and cherry-pick any number of quotes demanding death for nonbelievers, nonvirgin brides and blasphemers. No Christian I know endorses that, yet it seems every Muslim abides by the darker writings in the faith. (Aziz)
Imagine if Rifqa fled a Christian family and wound up in the home of an anti-Christian imam in Florida. And like Blake Lorenz, he delayed notifying authorities about her arrival. She would be on the next flight back to Ohio. (Mirele)
Fortunately, we have a rule of law to protect individuals from the political passions and religious doctrine of others. It is what separates us from Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The rule of law blocked Gov. Jeb Bush from imposing his personal beliefs in the Terri Schiavo case.
The rule of law sent Elián González back to his father.
And ultimately, the rule of law will send Rifqa back to Ohio.
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aziz
Given that the Fathima Rifqa Bary case is bringing up apostasy again, unfortunately right during a time when muslims would rather be focusing inwards, its probable that the community response to the case is more muted than it would be. I note that in her video she claims that her parents are bound by the Qur’an directly to kill her for apostasy, which is of course flat-out wrong – there isn’t a single verse anywhere in the Qur’an that calls for death for an apostate (and in fact, quite the reverse, ie 2:256). One could easily contrast this with the Old Testament and point out Deuteronomy chapter 13, verses 6-9:
6 “If your brother, the son of your mother, your son or your daughter, the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, secretly entices you, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers, 7 of the gods of the people which are all around you, near to you or far off from you, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth, 8 you shall not consent to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him; 9 but you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people.
the point here is that if Christians and Jews are not “religiously obligated” to kill apostates (like columnist Robert Novak) despite such a clear Biblical injunction to do so, then why are muslims bound by a mere hadith to do the same?
Yes, honor killings exist, but they are an aberration. Young impressionable Fathima reduces her parents to mere automatons who must follow their programming, and makes no allowance for human conscience or even simple paternal and maternal love. The injustice she does to them is grave and I hope she realizes this someday.
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johnpi
The bizarre hadith of Bukhari and Abu Dawud.
From Introduction to The Book of Hadith:
It cannot be denied that there has been an unwarranted elevation over time of the Hadith as a source of guidance in competition with the Qur’an itself, to the extent that verses of the Qur’an which appear to conflict with favourite Hadith may be declared to be abrogated by other verses which agree with the Hadith in question. This idolization of Hadith contradicts the incontrovertible truth that the Qur’an alone should always be referred to as infallible guidance even if the Hadith have been second only to the Qur’an as the basis of Islamic law.One striking example will suffice to show the many conflicts between the Qur’an and the Hadith: The Qur’an clearly allows freedom of religion, but both Bukhari and Abu Dawud include the bizarre Hadith, If anyone leaves his religion, then kill him. (Bukhari 52:260). Similarly, a very early source, the Al-Muwatta’ of Malik ibn Anas (d.179/795), states that anyone who leaves Islam for something else and divulges it is called upon to repent, but if he does not turn in repentance, he is killed. The penalty of death for apostasy is repeated elsewhere in Bukhari: Whoever changes his Islamic religion, then kill him (Bukhari 84:57). Another Hadith (Bukhari 83:37) holds that death is required in three cases: for a murderer, for a married person committing illegal sexual intercourse, and for one who deserts Islam. In this last case, historical evidence makes it clear that the apostates referred to here can be identified with those who are waging war against the Muslim community, and I will return to this critical point in due course.
The most oft-quoted Hadith in Bukhari, If anyone leaves his religion, then kill him, can be questioned on the grounds that its chain of transmission (isnad) goes through a source whose narrations were rejected by Imam Muslim because of the accusations of some scholars that the man concerned (‘Ikrimah) was a liar who also accepted gifts from various political authorities.
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johnpi
A full nearly seven minute video of a frightened, tearful Fathima Rifqa Bary has been posted to youtube by Pamela Gellar. Bary is the 17-year-old Sri Lankan teenager who ran away from her Muslim family in Ohio to live with a Christian preacher in Florida, claiming her family might commit an “honor killing” because they found out she converted to Christianity. Such a killing would be required for her family “to show love for Allah,” she explains to reporters.
There is something really weird and distorted about this. She has apostasized, but there have been no assertions about issues arising from her apostate status. She and those around her have exclusively harped on the buzz word ‘honor killings,’ with her attorney declaring, “She could be killed in an honor killing. Unfortunately it happens every day in the U.S.”
As Richard Bartholomew has pointed out, she has an odd description of ‘honor killing:’
The girl gives a rather strange interpretation of what an “honour killing” is for; rather than being the remedy for a perceived dishonour suffered by a family, she tells the journalist that to kill her would be an especially ”great honour” because she is the first Christian in her family for “150 generations” and it would show her family’s love for Allah (Lorenz concurs with a “yes” at 5:03). This seems to me to be a garbled “Christianized” understanding of the phenomenon, making it into something like a human sacrifice. Her claim that Muslim converts to Christianity in Sri Lanka (where Muslims are a minority) are confined to a mental hospital is not one that I have seen reported anywhere else.
Here’s a local news report that includes interviews with her family members.
The parents attorney has issued a statement that included this:
If this case is perceived as a clash of religions, it is because Mr. Lorenz [the preacher] recklessly and without authorization put someone else’s child in front of television cameras to publicly renounce her previous faith.
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johnpi
Stupid things you hear about Islam in the US media – Quote of the day:
“She says her life is in danger and she could be killed in an honor killing. Unfortunately it happens every day in the U.S.”
– Rosa Gonzalez, attorney for an Ohio teenager who converted from Islam to Christianity and ran away to Florida to live with a family she met on the Internet.
It’s disappointing that in order for the lawyer to win the case, she feels she has to villify and misrepresent the entire US Muslim community.
Despite the preposterous comments of the attorney (Honor killings “every day”!), I would support emancipating the daughter under the “No compulsion in religion” Quranic injunction, and because she is a non-citizen of Sri Lankan origin who fears her father will send her back to Sri Lanka where her life could be at risk either from family members or ‘murtadd’-hating stateless vigilantes.
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johnpi
The best conversation we’ve had here at Talk Islam about apostasy was in the Taha Abdul-Basser thread, but of course it was emotional and incomplete.
Suhaib Webb has translated a work by Dr. Ahmad Ar-Raysouni on apostasy. Dr. Ar-Raysouni received his PhD in Shariah in 1992. He concludes:
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johnpi
‘Islamic Protestantism’ and the call to not blindly follow Islamic clerics, 2002.
Natasha Chart at Open Left recounts the story of another less well-known but widespread upheaval in Iran in 2002 when the regime sentenced a popular reformist professor to death for apostasy for a speech he gave on Islam urging Iranians to “not blindly follow” Islamic clerics and calling for “Islamic Protestantism.”
Once again, America screwed the popular unrising.
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johnpi
Muslim NGOs criticize Malaysian government’s decision to require both parents consent before allowing a child to change religion.
Pembela, (link to website and article explaining the organization’s goals) a coalition of Muslim NGOs, believes the cabinet ruling will deny the parent who converts to Islam his or her right and responsibility over the future of the children. They feel that the decision is not fair to those who want to convert to Islam.
The decision was described earlier as an attempt to ease interfaith conflicts that have strained race relations after an estranged father got a ruling from a Malaysian Shariah court that his children must be converted to Islam over the objection of the non-Muslim mother. This has led to much criticism from non-Muslims that their rights cannot be adequately and fairly protected in Islamic Shariah courts.
Prominent Muslims are on the defensive that non-Muslims can obtain fair arbitration in Shariah courts. Former Mufti Mohamad Asri Zainul Abidin, who is described as popular with young Muslims, “defended the role of Syariah courts in arbitrating these matters,” according to the Malaysian Insider, “stating that the problem in Malaysia was not the fairness of Islamic jurisprudence but the inefficiency of the Syariah courts locally.”
“The problem is not Islam but Syariah courts not reflecting true Islam,” he said, and then goes on to discuss the lack of timeliness of the Shariah courts, which I’m not sure what has to do with this case.
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johnpi
Race and faith and children in Malaysian divorces.
In an attempt to ease interfaith conflicts that have strained race relations, Malaysia on Thursday banned the conversion of children without both parents’ consent.
The predominantly Muslim nation’s decision follows the highly publicized case of Indira Gandhi, a 34-year-old ethnic Indian Hindu woman whose estranged husband embraced Islam and then converted their children to the religion as well.
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razib, murtad fitri
the taha abdul-basser story in forward:
Abdul-Basser’s e-mail was circulated through an e-mail list and subsequently posted April 3 on the blog Talk Islam, from which it was picked up by several other blogs. On April 14, The Harvard Crimson, a student-run daily, published an article about the controversy. One week later, on April 21, it remained the paper’s most viewed, most commented-upon article online.
they quote aziz….
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Kawthar
Hamoud Saleh Al-Amri, a Saudi blogger who was arrested in January for converting to Christianity, has been released. He attributed the release to pressure from the Arab Network for Human Rights Information
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razib, murtad fitri
Chaplain’s E-mail Sparks Controversy. talk islam brings results….
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muse
I received the following question from a law professor. What’s your guys’ opinion? Is it credible to claim that she’s at risk of death for apostasy? Considering the circumstances from which she fled, my instincts say yes.
A client from Burkina Faso in an asylum claim who was sold into a forced marriage as a 3d wife to a guy old enough to be her grandfather. She was also forced to convert from Christianity to Islam. After lots of beatings, rapes and threats, she managed to escape (pregnant) and, incredibly, get to the US. She has now returned to Christianity and had her baby daughter baptized a Christian. Can we credibly assert that she is at risk of death as an apostate from Islam? Suggestions for expert to say so?
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johnpi
On the listservs, there is an uproar developing over comments made by Harvard Muslim Chaplain Taha Abdul-Basser (his blogger profile here) in response to an email query about apostasy stating that apostates should be killed – though they can only be killed by a legitimate “Muslim governmental authority and can not be performed by non-state, private actors.”
Concerned Muslims who are Harvard alums (or not) are being encouraged to write to Harvard and complain. Some are calling for his removal. Below the fold, the message fragment that is being forwarded around:
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aziz
blogger Sameer Parker has left Islam, deleted all his old posts, and posted an apology to Robert Spencer. I wish him well, but I do wish he’d left a more detailed discussion for his decision.
On a somewhat related note, blogger Rasheed Gonzales has a very detailed post about how he came to embrace Islam.
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johnpi
Muslim population multiplied 10 times faster in UK.
Earlier, I excerpted Imam Rios stating that apostasy is one of five major concerns of Muslims in the West. But is that true? According to this article, “Immigration, higher birthrates and conversions to Islam are considered as major factors behind rise of the Muslim population in the UK by more than 500,000 to 2.4 million in just four years.”
I infer from this that UK Muslims have more growing pains than apostasy issues. Is apostasy a greater issue in the US than in the UK, and if so, why?
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johnpi
Imam Rios says that Western Muslims are suffering from a “disorientation crisis” and presents these five points as major concerns (and I’ve added my further questions and responses):
