Afghan man faces death after leaving Islam for Christianity

But they are not still doing it. Big difference between a form of christianity from the dark ages and a frozen in the dark ages by the closing of the reinterpretation door religion in the 21st century.

I’m new to the issue but widely read on it outside of muslim apologetic sources as well as actually having read the Koran in an english translation. I clearly know more about the subject than a lot of participants in this thread who have just picked up a few phrases from the Koran and a bit of apologist historical revisionism. People have to be aware that Islamic scholars are not allowed to investigate the life of mohammed or the actual origin of the Koran. In fact one prominent Egyptian scholar was declared an apostate for that very reason.

Afghanistan is not ‘extreme’ - they are enforcing sharia law as all good muslims should. Note also that as I’ve shown in my varoius quotes and links - this version of Islam is making strong headway in asia - particularly Indonesia now that Suharto’s secular jackboot has been lifted from the people’s necks.

‘True’ Islam is closer to the Islam of the Taliban and OBL than it is to the handful of westernised ‘liberals’. Until the gates of reinterpretation are reopened it will remain so.

If we are to come to an understanding with Islam it has to be done with the Islam of today, not a post-reformation version that only exists as a possibility that could be conjured from a radical reinterpretation of the Law.

And the first step is to stop deluding ourselves about a true ‘moderate’ Islam being hijacked by ‘extremists’. Even those 2 terms are western categories that have no place in the debate.

What we in the west want is a version of Islam akin to the message of Jesus and no doubt such an Islam can be theoretically discerned. But in the real world this is a long way off and when you compare the life of Jesus to the life of Mohammed I contend that with Islam we are working against the grain.

I’m as uncomfortable as you are with the picture of Islam i’m painting but the bottom line is, the Islam of today, is not compatible with our core values. It may be but everywhere in the world, even places like Indonesia and Malaysia extremely harsh Sharia Laws are in force and as i know from personal experience even in the West such laws are often enforced within the community. Hence ‘honour killings’ and having to skulk through Birmingham with a former Muslim woman in fear of our lives.

That is a good point but at the risk of repeating myself - this requires reopening the gates to reinterpretation. This is the approach of ‘liberal’ Muslims - to re-imagine Islam for the modern world by the application of general principles. However - the gates remain closed and Islam is not a religion of personal conscience, just as Christianity once was not. And at the moment, unlike the Reformation, there is not a set of powerful secular forces that see a reinterpretation as being in their favour.

Instead we have in the best case - Indonesia - fighting a battle to keep a harsh Sharia out of the legal system. And they are starting from the base of a secular system imposed by genocidal force in the 60’s. elsewhere we have Saudi where whabbism is the official version, pakistan where a dictatorship is hanging on by the thread of a single life against unreconstructed Islam and an Egypt where at the first loosening of the dictatorial reins the Muslim Brotherhood score a significant popular vote. And instead of the Iraqi fantasy land of secular democracy there will be an Islamic state linked to a resurgent Iran where despite the democratic limitations people enthusiastically voted for an unreconstructed fundamentalist.

Apologies for the consecutive posts - last one I promise.

Koran 33:36

“No believing man and no believing woman has a choice in their own affairs when Allãh and His Messenger have decided on an issue.”

A commentary

On the ‘no force conversions’ front.

Islam is allowed to ‘remove obstacles’ to the inbuilt ability of a person to know his maker. Conversion cannot be forced. But as the history of Islam repeatedly shows it can levy onerous and arbitrary taxes and impose draconian restrictions on worship on non-muslims (the dhimma) which can be avoided by conversion.

Force by any other name. Islam historically has been ‘tolerant’ of other faiths only insofar as they submit to a heavily taxed second-class existence - as still practiced in modern Islamic states.

And all this is encoded in Sharia Law, which at the moment is not open to change.

Note also that in Afghanistan the same Chief Justice under the Taliban was not replaced. All that happened was a different flavour of fundamentalism was installed.

As Juan Cole says on his pages today - all Bush has done, with the neo-con ‘democracy cures all ills’ is spread fundamentalism, not the secular democracy they envisaged at all. And my only point is that this shows a failure to understand Islam as it is, in all its historical and doctrinal weight today.

We cannot afford to engage in games of ‘fantasy Islam’. We have to understand it as it is and we have to understand the limits to change.

In the UK the young are often more fundamentalist than their parents - McDonalds and MTV are not going to transform them. In fact as a friend of mine who worked with Muslim youth in the Youth Service remarked - the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan transformed his kids into fundamentalists practically before his eyes. When people feel oppressed they look to their roots for identity and strength. That’s where OBL has such appeal.

Blundering round the world with guns and bombs in the belief that there is an oppressed mass of Muslims yearning to embrace a liberal islam that accepts the western concept of secular/reliogious church/state is at best stupidity. And all the Koranic cherry-picking in the world is not going to change that.

Speaking of Juan Cole

Already dealt with above. Does not apply to apostates and cherry-picking Koranic quotes proves nothing. It is the body of Sharia Law that counts.

An article I found which on truthdig that encapsulates my view much more cogently than I can express it. People should take time to read it, if only to put a stop to my babblings.

The Reality of Islam

Best to read Sam’s book ‘End of Faith’.
Sam Harris ‘End of Faith’

Already amazoned. Haven’t come across him before but I enjoyed his Athiest Manifesto on the same site too.

Tagos, never before has anyone been so arrogant, so stupid, as to suggest that if I am to be true to the faith that I was born into, I should blow them to smithereens. I don’t know what to say. If you insist???

Koran 33:36

Yup, that is Islam. But no one can actually know when god (come on, it is the same god of Abraham) has decided upon anything. So, while yes, this does imply that god is all powerful, it says nothing about how do we judge Muslims today.
The rest of your quote refers to the words of one scholar. I’m sure there are others that disagree with him. First, your source says this gem

Horseshit. A Muslims does not surrender the right to making decisions. Else how would god judge him? A Muslim is expected to do his best, and leave the rest to god. If god wishes something other than the wish of the Muslim, then true, there’s nothing the Muslim can do. But still, a Muslim will be judged on his own decisions. Try smarter cites.

Hmm, how to reconcile this with ‘there is no coercion in religion/matters of religion’. Depends on how you read it, don’t it? You either read it as no coercion in religion, thus no one can choose your religion for you, but once you’re stuck, you’re stuck, otherwise you read it as in all religious matters, thus apostasy is also exempt from coercion. My initial explanation, which you ignored, that apostasy was a crime punishable by death in times of war, where it is the equivalent of treason, but in other times is not, would make sense to a lot of Muslims in this case.

You know, you really have read too many books for your own good. Muslims were taxed the zakat, non Muslims were also taxed, but a tax under a different name. I honestly am not educated enough to tell you who was taxed more when, but rest assured that under different caliphs and caliphates, as under different governments, there were different tax regimes, some more onerous than others, to Muslims and to non-Muslims. ALL were taxed, and I am pretty sure, just by looking at the recent history of the Ottoman empire, that it was not so bad for the Christians and the Jews living under Islam, as it was not so bad for the Zoroastrians living under the Abbasids.

Oh, and exactly which states nowadays tax non-Muslims more than Muslims? 'Cause I’ve been in Jordan and Lebanon, and have relatives in Emirates, Saudi and Kuwait, and non of them are taxed more than the rest of the foreigners. (They are Druze, a sect of Islam that is of undetermined status -with respect to apostasy- in mainstream Islam. Within that sect, I am an apostate)

Do you know how few are the Islamic countries that enforce Shari’a law? Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Indonesia, and Turkey, to name but a few, are major Muslim countries that do not enforce Shari’a. The civil law in many of those derives from Shari’a, and is open to change.

Someone told you before that Afghanistan was an extreme case, you rejected that claim, with no basis. Again, Afghanistan is an extreme case. Or, try living under war for thirty years and then talk to me about your mental sanity.

IIRC, Bush was warned that the war against Iraq is more likely to create terrorists, given the experience of Palestine under occupation. That had nothing to do with Islam, but Islam can be used as a handy excuse to justify all. You know, like all other ideologies and religions.

Pseudo intellectual rubbish.

And where I come from, the young are often more liberal than their parents. So?

Ah yes, the ‘as my friend told me’, the last recourse of the intellectually bankrupt. Not that I deny that there is an increasing feeling among Muslims that the world is set against them, and that they should fight back. I, personally, do feel that some would go after me just because I am Arab. But to transform that into violence is going to take a while. As it would with most other Muslims I know.

No, no, no. The blundering around the world with guns and bombs is the problem, not Islam.

Islam is a religion of personal conscience. Else how would god judge you? God is fair, mighty, just, and will judge you not only according to your actions, but also according to your intent. This is Islam. How would he judge you if you had no choice?

I have very, very, limited knowledge of Indonesia, but they are fighting, and Yudhoyono, the president, is considered quite popular and is far, far from being an Islamic fundamentalist. Saudi is out there, by anyone’s standards, Muslim or otherwise. Wahhabism is a group within the Hanbali school of Islam. The latter is the strictest school, and the Wahhabis are the strictest and most anal retentive of those. In Pakistan, Musharaf got rid of Bhutto and Sharif, both who had some legitimacy and support, and were corrupt, leaving only the Islamists. True, America’s best ally in the world of terror has failed to tackle his, and America’s, worst foe. Egypt, and Palestine, are interesting. For the first time, the people of these countries are getting to choose representatives. Both chose Islamists, aka, the ones untainted by corruption. The question is, can a force that proposes moderate, non-violent Islam and no corruption replace, in a democratic election, extremist Islam and no corruption. I don’t see why not, though you have already decreed such an outcome to be un-Islamic.

First, many English translations, regardless of the authority behind them, fail to convey the ambiguity of the Koran that lends it to so many interpretations. As a once-upon-a-time Muslim, I have the right to pick the interpretation that suits me, just as any other Muslim. Besides, you need to put the text in context, which is often more difficult if you don’t know enough about Islam.

Meh, all you’ve clearly shown is that you agree with Osama.

Of all the people that have done so, only one?

Funny, I remember this quote by Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah. He said that under ideal conditions, he would like to have Lebanon living under Shari’a, but he is aware that it is impossible today, and so accepts it.

No it is not. Osama thinks so, and he is wrong. Every Muslim is obliged to learn and exercise their mind, and decide on their own what is right and what is wrong. Within limits of the Koran, yes, but so much playing around can be done with the text, you wouldn’t believe it. Some idiots even think it justifies killing innocent people. It does not.

[QUOTE]
If we are to come to an understanding with Islam it has to be done with the Islam of today, not a post-reformation version that only exists as a possibility that could be conjured from a radical reinterpretation of the Law.

[QUOTE]

You know, with every sura beginning with ‘In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate’, I don’t see the revision to be so radical.

In our next debate, tagos, I’ll explain to you that the problem with the Islamic world -and anyone who denies that there is a problem is delusional, take it from a former Muslim- has more to do with underdevelopment and the trouble with organised religion in general than with Islam itself. I’ll explain to you how compatible a modern, intelligent reading of Islam is with today’s values.

Don’t confuse tribal traditions with Islamic ones. And don’t construe this to be any endorsement on my part of these barbaric practices.

I see you’ve moved here from identifying Islam itself as the problem to identifying the interpretation as the problem. Progress.

Look, again, you show the height of your arrogance. You’re telling me because of where I was born, I am compelled to think in a set way and agree with people who died a million years ago. Islamic law can be forced to be made flexible, as it was in Tunisia.

Read about Abu Nawas and Abu Ala Al Mu’ari (not sure of the English spelling of either). Both could be, and were at some point, considered apostates. At least the former was a favourite with the Abbasid Caliph of his time. If I have time, I’ll check them out in the Islamic Encyclopaedia in my school library and let you know the full details.

In the meantime, I’ll tell you this. In my school in Beirut, as part of the official curriculum, we were taught about the Abbasid Caliphs, and how they welcomed discussion of religious matters, and how several atheists were always welcome in their courts.

Well, I AM an apostate. Everyone who knows me knows that. And???

[QUOTE]
In 1980, Pakistan incorporated making any disparaging remark against any personality revered in Islam into the penal code as an offence. In 1986 the law was extended to specifically include “Penal Code 295-C: Use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet: whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representations, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet, shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine. In October 1990, the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) ruled that “the penalty for contempt of the Holy Prophet … is death and nothing else”.

[QUOTE]

That people are using the name of Islam to commit crimes is disgusting. What can I say?

Yes, Muhammad, had he lived today, could’ve been indicted for war crimes. So could have every American president since WWII.

A common tactic of war at the time, especially since military and financial power were both concentrated in the hands of the merchants. And caravans at the time were rather were well armed, as such events were anticipated. .

Depending on which source you believe, Aicha was between six and fourteen at the time of her marriage to Muhammad. You’ve obviously made up your mind.

If the Koranic quotes contradict the law, the law is revoked. Not the Koran.

They say the LSD stays in the fat cells for years…

Yikes, what the hell happened to the coding? And I thought I was being careful.

And could one of the mods be kind enough to get rid of the title of my previous post? I really didn’t want to leave that there. Sorry.

Well fuck you too for drawing such an inference.

And ‘oh no it’s not’ repeated many times isn’t worth a response.

I drew no inferences. This is what you wrote.

I maintain that no matter what you and OBL think, true Islam has nothing to do with random violence. The gates of reinterpretation being open or closed has nothing to do with this, and they are not closed to all sects and schools. Every time a Muslim reads the Koran, they interpret it and takes from it what they like. Very, very, very few people live by the Sharia, and the Shaira is the work man, as every Muslim knows.

Muslims are humans, like you and me. Your view of them reduces them to thugs with a bad cause. I disagree.