While there is nothing in the Catholic religion that supports killing people who want to leave the Church, and nothing in the protestant religions that supports killing people who no longer want to be Baptists, there is a very clear stricture in Islam (based on a combination of the Koran and the Hadiths) that enjoins the faithful to kill those who leave Islam … you just keep repeating the asinine claim that all religions are basically the same, as if that will make it true. They are not the same. Islamic law for centuries has said, and in some countries still says, that apostates should be executed Or they could just chop off one hand and one foot on opposite sides, if they are feeling merciful … I see nothing like that in any modern religion except Islam. And to complete the circle, many Sunnis and Shiites see the other side as apostates, who have forsaken the true religion.
Which explains how they can blithely continue with their watermelon bombs. The paradox is that in Islam, it is forbidden to kill another Muslim … but the folks doing the bombing consider themselves to be true, observant Muslims. How could they kill Muslims in that case?
Their only justification, the only thing that they could possibly believe, is the idea that their opponents are not true Muslims, they are apostates who deny the true religion. Because in that case there is no problem with killing them, which they do with abandon …
I totally fail to understand how Sunnis killing Shiites (as they have done off and on for fourteen hundred years) and Shiites killing Sunnis (as they have done off and on for fourteen hundred years) has nothing to do with religion … what, have “Sunni” and “Shiite” secretly been political parties for fourteen centuries and we didn’t know? I also never noticed the part of the Koran that says it’s OK to kill Muslims of other political parties … just the part that says it is a capital crime to kill another Muslim.
w.
PS - Claiming that religion is not a part of the Shiite-Sunni conflict but just “a marker for which side one is on” is nonsense. In the struggle between the KKK and the African Americans, would you say that it is not a racial struggle but that skin color is just “a marker for which side one is on”? Because that makes as much sense as your claim. There can be racial struggles without reference to the Emancipation Proclamation, just as there can be religious wars without reference to the Transubstantiation. You are confusing religious wars with disagreements about doctrine, which are often very different things. White supremacists somehow manage to hate all Jews without making any reference to the Torah … but since the only thing that makes someone Jewish is their religion, is that not a religious hatred?
You’re comparing two different things : on one hand the current practices of Christian religions and on the other hand the sacred texts of Islam.
Stick to comparing either current practices in both religions or sacred texts of both religions.
When he gets home, he’s not going to help with the cooking, dishes, or even take out the garbage. he’s going to assume the title “Head of the Household”
He’s not gong to be concerned publicly about abortion, contraception, pornography or evil books in the library because he has his family under control and doesn’t really care what the rest of society does because they are infidels anyway and he has no influence on them.
So the averagfe Muslim may appear non radical, but his life and attitudes more likely resembles a member of radical fundamentalist Christian sect.
mutantmoose, I cracked up at “Please Be Understanding Here” … you can see why I like to play with it.
Thanks again for your continuation of the discussion.
No, you think we should do both, let the law deal with them, and give in to their unreasonable demands that we self-censor our cartoons, in our own countries, so as to not “offend” the little snowflakes. That’s the part I don’t understand.
OK, strike “the Muslim response” and substitute “the response of hundreds of thousands of Muslims” instead … makes no difference.
And since there was, as far as I know, not a single prosecution of a single individual for the murders and the death threats, what are you smoking when you say “let the law deal with them”? They’re under Islamic Law, which will not “deal with them”, it will reward them.
My point is being ignored here. I do not agree that they are “a bunch of loons”, that sounds like college kids toilet papering a house. They are murderous criminal thugs, and whether I “offend” them or not is immaterial to how we should deal with them.
You keep saying “don’t offend them, don’t offend them”, then you say “let the law deal with them”. My objection is not to letting the law deal with them (in the few cases where the local law does not support them). That’s fine. My objection is to the “don’t offend, don’t offend” part of the message. Look, dogs offend Muslims … does that mean we should exterminate the race of dogs from the earth? At some point, bro’, you have to stand up and say “Enough! I don’t care if dogs offend you, I’m keeping my pet puppy” … and for me, that point was when some people were receiving death threats because of their cartoons. Sorry, but at that point I don’t really care who is offended. Political cartoons by their nature are designed to offend. If you don’t like them, don’t read them.
First, Islam has no stricture against portraying Mohammed, it was done many times in the past by people who considered themselves observant Muslims. And while they have strictures against idolatry, what does that have to do with me? Hindus have strictures against eating beef … should we outlaw McDonalds because it offends Hindus? (Actually, I wouldn’t mind that, but I digress …)
What you seem to be forgetting is that in polite society, a stricture against offending people comes coupled with a stricture not to be easily offended. The Muslims railing against the cartoons remind me of the story of the old lady who takes a hotel room, and then calls up the hotel security to her room:
“There are people on the roof of the next building that are fornicating! It’s disgusting, and I want another room!”, she says.
The detective looks out of all of the windows, and says “Lady, I don’t know what you are talking about. I don’t see anyone doing anything like that.”
The old lady says “Well, of course not … but just drag this dresser over to the middle of the room, and get a chair and climb up and stand on the dresser, and you’ll see what I mean.”
…
So yes, it is offensive to the Muslims … so what? If you are offended by Modern Art, stay out of the MOMA. If you don’t like pigs, don’t visit a hog farm. If you don’t like to see people getting it on, don’t stand on top of the dresser. If you don’t want to get shark-bit, stay out of the ocean.
And if political cartoons offend you … don’t read them. How tough is that?
Because advocating the self-censorship of the Western world, purely in order that we don’t offend some Muslim still living in the 7th century, as you are clearly advocating, is a guaranteed recipe for oblivion.
You do realize, don’t you, that the Cartoon Wars started when some radical Danish Muslim Imams took the Danish cartoons and mixed them with some really disgusting cartoons of their own making, and then took the cartoons to the Islamic world and spread them around purely to cause trouble? Why should anyone but the Imams take the blame for that? THE MUSLIM IMAMS HAD NO PROBLEM OFFENDING OTHER MUSLIMS; in fact, they went out of their way specifically to offend other Muslims … and yet you think we shouldn’t offend other Muslims?
I am comparing current practices in both cases. If you think that people are not currently harassed, oppressed, and in some cases killed for leaving or attempting to leave Islam, you haven’t been following the story. Try Google.
I can agree with that, certainly. Doing things for no other reason than to piss off other people makes you a jerk. However, I can’t believe that being a jerk should be a capital offense.
Although it has been almost as long since any Muslim country actively enforced such laws as it has been since Protestants and Catholics had and enforced similar laws in Europe.
Your understanding (or lack) might just possibly have something to do with your emotional investment in ancillary issues combined with a disregard for actual history. I find it interesting that while you insist that it has to be religion that prompts such killing, I note that such killing generally seems to occur principally when there is political strife. Killing people “off and on” is something that humans tend to do, regardless of religious beliefs. Are you suggesting that when the killing was “off” the people had all quit their religions for a while?
There is still a lot of tribalism in the Middle East and when the Sunni-associated tribes took power as the Ba’ath party, they suppressed the “other” tribes, who happened to be Shia. When Hussein fell, the Shia-related tribes began seeking vengeance and their own power. While Muqtada al-Sadr uses religion to whip up his followers, there really is no evidence (aside from your repeated but as yet unsupported claims) that the conflict is actually rooted in religion rather than in tribalism.
I would agree that religion certainly plays a part in the understanding of the conflicting cultures, but there have been too many years where no conflict occurred and too many cases of Sunni/Shia alliances to accept a claim that they all hate each other and want to kill each other because of how they read the Qur’an.
I do not deny that religion plays a role; I simply deny your insistence that the role is primary and that such conflict is inherent in the religion.
bolding mine
A bit of a straw man, there, as I have not claimed that religion plays “no part,” only that it is not the single driving force that you claim.
Your position on hatred of Jews is illustrative. The Nazis declared that anyone with one Jewish grandparent had to register as Jewish and they were quite happy murdering Catholics and Lutherans and non-believers who never were adherents of Judaism. A person whose only Jewish grandparent was male or whose Jewish grandmother was on the father’s side of the family would have to actively convert to Judaism before being recognized as Jewish by religion, yet the Nazis ignored that law to murder all sorts of people. The KKK and Aryan Nation people and the kooks at the (now defunct) melvig.org that I have encountered feel the same way. They never look at anyone’s beliefs when they rail against “Jewish control” of banking or the entertainment or news organizations. Any person that they identify as Jewish, regardless of belief, becomes an object of their fear and hatred.
Is late, and I haven’t read the entire thread, but no, its the majority. I guess if the ‘peaceful’ Muslims spoke out against the ‘radical’ ones, they wouldn’t be alive any longer.
Mr. Excellent, you impel me to issue a clarification when you say:
First, I agree completely.
I have cited my cartoons of the Prophet above. I wish to clarify that I did not draw them to upset anyone or to piss anybody off or to insult anybody. I drew them as a response to unwarranted violence by Muslim radicals (Legal Disclaimer: these are probably a minority if you draw the line at suicide bombing. If you draw the line at the legal oppression of women and minorities and other religions and cartoonists, of course, it’s probably a majority. End Legal Disclaimer).
I drew them because I was outraged that Muslim “religious leaders” or imams or whatever they call themselves offered a reward for the murder of cartoonists in another country, and that people rioted and murdered and burned,and that the Muslim nations looked the other way.
Here’s the final score in the Cartoon War:
One side published a dozen cartoons.
and
In response to this “offense”, the other side burned embassies, issued death threats, shot a Danish lawyer, murdered three people suspected of being Christians and/or Danes, shot at and stoned Danish soldiers helping children in Iraq, offered rewards for anyone who would kill the cartoonists, marched through London with banners threatening further bomb attacks on the city, and attacked and beat people whom they suspected of some vague connection with Europe or Christianity. Oh, and stabbed an elderly nun to death and burnt the Church. Can’t forget that.
You’ll be glad to know, however, that Kofi Annan, head of the UN, called on Muslims at the time to “to forgive the wrong they have suffered” … the wrong they have suffered? Wait a minute, who was suffering here? Who needs forgiveness?
Bill Clinton said at the time he found the cartoons “appalling” … appalling? The violence is appalling. The burnings and beatings and stabbings are appalling.
The cartoons are just cartoons.
Half of them weren’t even funny, a couple I found totally incomprehensible (perhaps because I’m not Danish). They are not appalling. An Islamic cartoon of a Jew stabbing a baby with a spear is appalling, but I still strongly support the Islamic cartoonists’ right to draw whatever they dang well please. I was appalled by Clinton’s craven pandering to the Islamic violence.
Under the current laws of Pakistan, I could be sentenced to death for drawing my cartoons of the Prophet (PBUH, as they say). And if you don’t think that there are people, lots of people, rotting in dank cells for the same crime I have committed, have a read here. It is a piece by an Islamic scholar which neatly showcases both the compassionate and the violent sides of Islam.
The problem, as I mentioned, is that there has been no Islamic reformation, so all true Muslims have to hold that every word of the Koran is divine instruction on how to conduct every part of ones life. You can’t pick and choose, believe one and disbelieve the other, and still be a true Muslim. If you are a true Muslim, regardless of sect, you have to believe it’s all literally true and divinely inspired.
So you have to turn a blind eye to one part or the other. Bin Laden turns a blind eye to the Koran verses that prescribe the death penalty for the murder of a Muslim (lots of Muslims died on 9/11), and to the many verses that counsel compassion. And the Islamic scholar I cited above who is appalled by the conditions in Pakistan ignores the many violent verses that drive and inspire the Bin Ladens of the world.
Unfortunately, as my citation shows, some of those who might spearhead a more modern interpretation of the Koran are rotting in cold stone cells, charged with the crime of striving to come up with that very interpretation …
I’m sure you’ll be happy to explain that to my friend, whose father and mother were executed in Iran in 1980 for the crime of being Bahai’s … along with about 20 other Bahai’s …
The usual font of misiniformation says:
You want to peanut butter all over this by saying that the laws haven’t been enforced, we know because nobody’s been killed …
True, but as my cite above shows, even the accusation of apostasy or blasphemy is enough for a long, long stretch in jail. You go tell those folks rotting in foresaken jails that their imprisonment on charges of apostasy is just fine because nobody has been executed for it … since at least the ancient days of 1980 …
Look, tomndebb, Islam is different from other religions. It is much better to acknowledge those differences than to keep claiming that it’s just Christianity in funny clothes …
w.
PS - I also find the following:
OK, so now the most recent execution for apostasy that I’ve found is 1992 … you still want to claim that it’s been a long, long time since the apostasy laws were enforced in Muslim countries?
The reality is that they are enforced in a number of countries right now, today … they just don’t execute people for the crime much. Especially since under pressure from western countries (not from liberal muslim countries) there have been several death sentences for apostasy which were commuted to life sentences. As a result, often they “just” imprison people for long periods.
What kind of bullsh*t religion is it that throws people in jail for decades just for leaving the religion? In my book, that’s not a religion. That’s a cult.
The Bahai have been hit by the apostasy charges harder than anyone, because they actually believe that Mohammed was a prophet … just not the most recent prophet, that would be Baha’ullah. This, of course makes them apostates in the eyes of the Muslims. Regarding the question of tomndebbs claim that:
I have already shown executions for apostasy in the 1980s in Iran, and in 1992 in Saudi Arabia. Now I find this:
So poor Zabihullah Mahrami was sentenced to death for apostasy, but it was commuted to life imprisonment and he died in prison … tomndebb, you listening? Because your claim is looking pretty sketchy. Yes, this guy wasn’t executed for apostasy, he just died in prison for it … perhaps you mistakenly think the lack of executions in some countries for apostasy means the apostasy laws are not being enforced? If so, don’t tell Zabihullah, I don’t think that logic will impress him much.
I note also that the most recent execution for apostasy in Iran was in 1998. It was condemned at the time by Amnesty International, who said:
Now tomndebb, you’ve claimed that the Muslim record regarding punishing people for apostasy is not much different than the Protestant and Catholic record. And since you are a moderator and all, and you are well aware of the Board practice of asking for citations, I’m sure that you wouldn’t make such an outrageous claim without having some record of Protestants or Catholics being executed (or dying in prison) within the last ten years or so for the crime of having left the church … so you have a choice.
A) Produce the citation that backs up your claims, or
B) Admit that you fabricated the claim out of thin air and thus you have no citation to back it up.
Up to you …
w.
PS - The most recent death sentence for apostasy that I can find was passed in Iran in 2002 … … tomndebb, your job is getting harder. But like I say, I’m sure you wouldn’t post such an apparently incorrect claim without some citations …
Oh, yeah. To complete the story, Hashem Aghajari’s death sentence was overturned by the Iranian Supreme Court in 2003 … unfortunately, the court reversed itself in 2004, and re-instituted the death sentence.
Then the ruling was reversed again, and they gave the poor shlub eight years in prison.
“In prison I was not physically tortured. They stopped that after Khatami took office in 1997. But I spent 10 months in solitary,” Aghajari recounted.
“They sometimes let me out into an empty prison courtyard that was so freezing cold that I was banging on the door to get back inside, and then they locked me out. The hygiene was deplorable. I had gangrene where my leg was amputated.”
Finally, after pressure both from Iranian students and the international community, they let Aghajari out on parole.
I’m sure that in tomndebbland, all of this simply proves they’re not enforcing the apostasy law in Iran …
PPS - from Der Spiegel, 2008, we find that rather than moving away from enforcing apostasy laws calling for the death penalty, some countries are moving toward them …
PPS - How about in Malaysia, which is often held up along with Indonesia as a “liberal” Muslim state? Well, they’re enforcing their apostasy laws as well … from the AP:
You do realize this fallacy has it’s own name, right? Muslim is as Muslim does. It seems like the Muslims we are discussing are part of a rather narrow geographic region and a rather specific culture, rather than Islam as a whole.
Remember how widely religions can vary, no matter what their holy texts say. Christianity brings us the Amish, snake-handlers, monks in ancient monasteries, and my gay uncle. All are working off the same book, all are doing something really different with it.
There have been prosecutions - in the uk four people are currently in jail for making threats associated with the cartoons. And others have been prosecuted in Denmark. Meanwhile, in various muslim countries much worse has happened. According to wikipedia:
So these people didn’t even get a trial - they were simply executed, for protesting.
You have no evidence that others who have made threats have not been prosecuted. I can’t find much on a quick google but it’s not valid for you to blithely say - oh they were muslim countries, they probably got let off. One case - that of Andrea Santoro occurred in Turkey. A priest was murdered by a 16 year old who is now doing 18 years in jail.
So, far as I can see, crimes have occurred and justice has been meted out. That’s just the normal legal merry-go-round. You don’t need to set yourself up as some kind of vigilante, dispensing your own justice.
even sven, thanks for your comments. Perhaps others are discussing a narrow geographical region as you say. Me, I’m talking about Islam.
You are right that there is a wide spectrum of Christian beliefs. The difference I was pointing to is that in Christianity there is no religion-wide agreement that every word of the Bible is literally true. This agreement only lasted up until the Reformation, at which point the idea of the inerrancy of the Bible gradually started losing force. Today, many parts of the bible (e.g. the Garden of Eden, parting of the Red Sea, Jonah being swallowed by a whale) are seen as allegorical by a wide variety of Christians.
In Islam, on the other hand, there has never been a reformation. Nor are there two parts to the Koran, as there are for the Bible (Old and New Testaments, which are viewed very differently by most Christians). The Koran is one monolithic block, and if you want to be a Muslim, you have to believe that every word of it is divinely inspired, inerrant truth. None of it is to be ignored, it all has the same truth quotient of 100%, none of it is allegorical.
That was the distinction I was attempting to make, and it applies to all of Islam, and not just one geographical area.
intention, let’s compare what I said with all your counter claims:
It is my contention that apostasy is not being actively pursued as a crime by any Muslim state.
First you note the execution of a number of Baha’i in Iran during the period of the Islamic Revolution. I deplore the terrorism of Khomeini, Khameini, and their theocratic thugs, particularly the persecution of Iran’s 350,000 Baha’i, but being Baha’i is not apostasy–it is a separate religion–and you had at that point provided no reason to justify your inclusion of those two dozen murders in a catalog of state sponsored apostasy trials.
Then you quote something you call the “usual font of misinformation” without bothering to either identify it or provide a link to it. I would guess that I should simply ignore the quote, since you identify it as misinformation, but I do note that your citation explicitly says that Bangladesh has no law prohibiting apostasy and states explicitly that the persecution of apostates appears to be the work of individuals and small groups, not the government.
Then you link to a site written by Akbar S. Ahmed deploring the blashemy (not apostasy) law in Pakistan. (He also notes in his article that the balsphemy (not apostasy) law is regularly used in personal vendettas rather than being a standard practice by the state.)
Next you quote (again, without citation) the tragic story of Sadiq 'Abdul-Karim Malallah who actually had a charge of apostasy lodged against him. Of course, when we read the entire quotation, we note that he was never a Sunni Muslim, so apostasy was not a legitimate charge and that he was most likely actually picked up tortured and murdered on trumped up charges because he was perceived to be a political agitator. Nothing in your quote indicates that Saudi Arabia is going out and hunting down apostates to try them and execute them.
You end that first post with the odd statement
Which is most fascinating in that not one of your examples has anything to do with any person “leaving” Islam.
In your next post, you claim
which may or may not be true, but which you have failed to support with any evidence and which appears to be contradicted by the Wikipedia article that accuses them of being “other,” not “apostate.”
First, you have not yet demonstrated what you claim to have shown.
Next, looking over your quotation, we find that while Zabihullah Mahrami was apparently detained for apotasy, the government did not pursue that charge at his trial, instead switching to a claim that he spied for Israel. So even when an actual charge of apostasy is lodged, the state does not actively pursue it, preferring to use other strategems to murder people it does not like.
Similarly, the article gives a fuller account of the persecution of Ruhollah Rohani, noting that he was convicted, not of apostasy, but of encouraging apostasy in another (with no evidence presented that the woman in question was also tried for apostasy).
Your next quotation, apparently from Amnesty International makes no mention of apostasy, at all. It refers to the persecution of Ruhullah Rouhani for being Baha’i, but that seems consistent with Iranian persecution of Baha’i, generally, and has nothing to do with anyone abandoning Islam. In the wikipedia article where I found the quotation from Amnesty International, the word apostasy appears only once in the entire article that deals with the general persecution of Baha’i–an article that quotes several Iranian sources as identifying the Baha’i as “other” or “foreign,” not as fallen away Muslims.
Finally you find an actual citation to an individual accused, tried, and convicted of apostasy in the case of Hashem Aghajari. And what do we find in both the linked article and your quotations? The charges were obviously trumped up for political reasons and had nothing to do with Hashem Aghajari actually abandoning his Muslim faith or even the Shia tradition in which he was raised. In fact, his trial and conviction were roundly condemned by a number of notable Iranians for being a travesty of justice.
And ultimately, you find a case in Malaysia in which a woman is convicted of apostasy. Good for you. Note, however, that she was not charged with simply abandoning Islam, but for actively joining a state-banned sect. Note also that her sentence, instead of being the mandatory one of death, was actually two years in prison.
= = =
The extremists of Iran and Saudi Arabia are the worst sort of theocrats and hate-spewing monsters. However, you have not provided any evidence that my statement was false. I do not see the evidence for any Muslim state actively pursuing executions for the crime of apostasy. (Iran may move from using it on a few occasions as an excuse for other persecutions in the near future and Saudi Arabia (or post-U.S. Iraq) may do likewise. However, those two (or three) nations do not make up anything resembling a majority of Muslim nations or Muslim people and we still have no evidence that any of them have done what I said they had not done.
Whoa, whoa, I did not say nobody would be arrested in the West, you’re badly misrepresenting what I said. My entire quote was (emphasis mine):
You do see that I’m talking about the law in the Islamic countries, don’t you? What does someone jailed for making bomb threats in the UK have to do with what I said?
So, how many went to jail in Islamic countries for threatening the lives of the original cartoonists? How many went to jail for offering a reward for the murder of the cartoonists?
Me set up as a vigilante? Me? Puh-leese. All I did was draw a dozen cartoons, how does that make me a “vigilante”? Now the people who rioted and burned, they were vigilantes … and I, on the other hand, am a cartoonist. You have the stick by the wrong end, you’re as mistaken as Kofi Annan was in thinking that it was the Muslims who had been wronged.
By your citations to date, in the Muslim world we had exactly one person brought to the bar of justice … ooooh, my bad, out of the hundreds who rioted and burnt and stabbed and extorted and killed and threatened and suborned murder, I said none had been brought to justice in Islamic countries, but I was oh so wrong … one person was. Perhaps two, or even three or six if you find another citation or two … out of hundreds. Spare me the platitudes. If out of hundreds of offenders only a half dozen were prosecuted, I would still say that the offenders “probably got let off”, and the numbers bear me out.
And as far as I can determine, those who offered rewards for the murder of others have not even been arrested, much less convicted. That’s what I meant when I said that in Muslim countries the law was on their side.
Finally, since you seem to think that “justice has been meted out” by police firing into crowds of rioters, are you sure you understand this curious Western concept we call “justice”? … you see, the Western idea of justice involves lawyers and courts and laws, that kind of boring, slow moving thing. It does not involve police shooting into a crowd of rioters, even though I must admit, your idea of justice is much more telegenic and would likely attract better ratings than CourtTV.
w.
PS - Further research into your claim that “at least 139 people were killed in protests, most due to police” shows that it’s totally untrue. It appears that the author conflated casualties and deaths.
A look at the underlying reference the author cited shows a death toll of 51, of which 27 were killed by Muslim rioters, 11 were killed by Libyan riot police, 1 died when an ambulance carrying a wounded rioter crashed on the way to the hospital, 2 were killed by bank guards when they decided that cartoon protests included robbing a Pakistani bank, 4 died from police firing into a crowd in Afghanistan, 3 died in Afghanistan when they attacked a police post, 2 more died in a shootout with Afghani police , and one died jumping from the third floor of a blazing Danish Embassy after it was torched … not quite the picture of “justice by cop” that you painted. In particular, it was not “most due to police”, it was “most not due to police” (out of the 51 deaths, 20 died at the hands of the police.)
You still want to claim that justice has been served by random rioters killed by police bullets? OK, how about this one? In one of the Pakistani cartoon riots, both the rioters and the police were firing in the air … a bullet fell out of the sky and killed an eight-year-old boy, who ironically (but not unusually for that country) was named “Mohammed”. Is justice being served by that random bullet as well as by the random police bullets? Or was this an unjust random bullet?
Finally, you say of the rioters shot by police:
Ummm … no. They were not executed for protesting. Those folks were shot during the commission of a violent crime. Execution requires things called “courts” and “judges” and “sentences”, you know, that strange “justice” stuff.
tomndebb, you have made the claim that the Baha’i are not considered apostates by the Muslims, viz:
My apologies, I figured that most people commenting on the thread would be familiar with the Baha’i religion and how the Muslims view them.
The Baha’i faith was founded by Muslims (the Bab and Baha’ullah), was initially considered an offshoot of Islam, and eventually separated from Islam, in part because they were considered heretics by mainstream Islam.
Because they left Islam, the Baha’i are most assuredly considered as apostates by many, if not most Muslims. Yes, it is now a separate religion. But the Bahai consider Mohammed as a Prophet … they just believe in a later Prophet as well.
It is this claim, that Mohammed is a Prophet but not the last Prophet, that brings them to a state of apostasy. From the Muslim perspective, they are a group that have accepted the Prophet, only to turn their backs on him … apostates, in other words. For example, the US State Department says of Afghanistan:
Here’s a selection of fatwas on the subject from an Islamic web site:
You did note the numerous instances of the word “apostate” in there, I hope.
You see, the Muslims consider Baha’i to be, not a separate religion, but a breakaway sect of Islam … which indeed they are, since their founders were Islamic and they consider Mohammed to be a Prophet.
I could bring you dozens more cites, but Google is your friend, tomndebb. You should use it more often, it will keep you from making such foolish claims. Here’s an example of how you do it.
You’ll get a list of some 16,700 pages discussing all of the Islamic fatwas declaring Baha’is as apostates …
If you need more clues, let me know. We’re here to fight ignorance, and there’s mountains of evidence that Muslims view Baha’is as apostates.
Next, you say:
Here’s more on the case:
In other words, the Iranian state did not use “other strategems [than apostasy] to murder people it does not like” as you claim. In fact, it was exactly the opposite. The Iranian State was blocked by the Supreme Court from executing a Baha’i man for apostasy, so it used other stratagems [a spying charge] to execute him for being an apostate. Sounds like enforcing the apostasy laws to me …
Note also that, despite your fatuous claim that the apostasy laws haven’t been enforced in centuries, and your unresearched claim that Muslims don’t view Baha’is as apostates, he was charged with apostasy for being a Baha’i … coincidence? You be the judge.
Finally, you say:
Look, tomndebb, pick one side or the other. First you say apostasy laws are not being enforced. I give you a variety of citations and quotes that you dismiss without reason. Then you say well yes, this guy was convicted of apostasy … but it doesn’t count because there were also political motives.
Funny, correct me if I’m wrong, but your original claim didn’t say apostasy laws were enforced, but for the wrong reasons … you simply said they were not enforced.
In fact, they are enforced, as I have cited numerous times and as you have just admitted … but nooooooo, it doesn’t count because tomndebb doesn’t think they are being enforced for the right reasons.
So what? Does the fact that tomndebb thinks they are being enforced for the wrong reasons mean they are not being enforced?
I suppose if I were to cite for you Abdul Rahman, who was tried, and convicted, and sentenced to death for apostasy in Afghanistan in 2006, that still wouldn’t convince you that the Afganis enforce their apostasy laws … because after pleas by everyone up to President Bush, at the end of the day, he wasn’t executed. Which I suppose under the famous tomndebb rules of discussion means that the Afghanis are not enforcing the apostasy laws …
Riiiiight … you ever going to tell us when the last Catholic was tried for apostasy? Do you reckon it was in 2006? I found one from 1606 …
w.
PS - Why is it so hard for you to admit you are wrong? When I’m wrong, I admit it, I’ve done it in this thread. We’re all fighting ignorance here, mine and everyone’s. You will never win at claiming that Muslims haven’t enforced their apostasy laws since the time the Protestants and Catholics did, that’s palpable and easily disproven nonsense.
But I’m more than happy to keep finding citations of people being tried for apostasy. Hang on … OK, here’s the case of one Robert Hussein Qambar Ali, who was tried and convicted of apostasy in Kuwait in 1990 … from Amnesty International …
Would you care to explain to us, tomndebb, and to Robert 'Ali, how Kuwait is not enforcing laws against apostasy?
I’d advise you to concede, I can pull up cases of people being charged with apostasy all day … tell you what, I’ll throw a couple for free so you’ll know I’m not bluffing, hang on …
OK. Here’s another poor shlub who has been arrested and is to be tried under a law you say hasn’t been enforced since the Middle Ages or so … from the Human Rights Watch:
And from Egypt, the apostasy trial of Nawaal El Saadawi, a 76 year old woman …
She has been “repeatedly tried for apostasy” … but tomndebb, after you explain to her that the laws against apostasy haven’t been enforced for hundreds of years, I’m sure she’ll feel much better.
You want more, just let me know. Or, you could just google “convicted of apostasy” if you really want to find out just how foolish your claim is that the apostasy laws are not enforced.
Fascinating, Tamerlane. However, I disagree with their interpretation of the verse. They give Sura 3:7 as:
I’ve never found a single Koran translation that did well all the time, so I usually look at a variety of translations. Here’s what I find:
Hmmm. Maybe it’s clearer in the original Arabic, but I’d put this Sura 3:7 in the “ambiguous” category.
But indeed, you are correct, I was wrong to say that none of the Koran is allegorical. However, the true believer still is required to believe it all, that every word is from Allah. As one of the quotes said, And those who are firmly grounded in knowledge say: “We believe in the Book; the whole of it is from our Lord:”
The meaning of “allegorical” in this context is by no means clear. And even less clear is which verses are the bedrock of the text, and which are not.
In any case, an interesting digression, I almost got swamped reading about how certain verses (which contradict earlier verses) are said to “abrogate” other verses … of course, who decides which one is abrogated? But I managed to escape.