Islamic Tolerance Alert. "Threats force Egyptian convert to hide," by Maggie Michael for the Associated Press:
CAIRO, Egypt - An Egyptian Muslim who converted to Christianity and then took the unprecedented step of seeking official recognition for the change said he has gone into hiding following death threats.
Mohammed Hegazy, who sparked controversy when pictures of him posing with a poster of the Virgin Mary were published in newspapers, was shunned by his family and threatened by an Islamist cleric vowing to seek his execution as an apostate.
"I know there are fatwas (religious edicts) to shed my blood, but I will not give up and I will not leave the country," the 25-year-old Hegazy told The Associated Press from his hideout Thursday.
Hegazy made a public splash when he took the unusual step of going to court to change his religion on his national ID card. His first lawyer filed the case, but then quit after the uproar; his second is still considering whether it's worth pursuing.
Hegazy said he received telephoned death threats before he went into hiding in an apartment with his wife, a Muslim who took the name Katarina when she converted to Christianity several years ago. She is four months pregnant.
He said he wants to change the religion on his ID for two reasons: to set a precedent for other converts and to ensure his child can openly be raised Christian. He wants his child to get a Christian name, birth certificate and eventually marry in a church. That would be impossible if Hegazy's official religion is Muslim, because a child is registered in the religion of the father.
There is no Egyptian law against converting from Islam to Christianity, but in this case tradition takes precedent. Under a widespread interpretation of Islamic law, converting from Islam is apostasy and punishable by death -- though killings are rare and the state has never ordered or carried out an execution on those grounds.
Of course, the death penalty for apostasy comes from the words of Muhammad himself: "Muhammad said, "Baddala deenahu, faqtuluhu" -- if anyone changes his religion, kill him ( Bukhari vol. 9, bk. 84, no. 57)."
Most Muslims who convert usually practice their new religion quietly or leave the country. Egypt is overwhelmingly Muslim. Only 10 percent of the 76 million population is Christian and converts are typically ostracized by their families. If the conversion becomes known, they may receive death threats from militants or harassment by police, who use laws against "insulting religion" or "disturbing public order" to target them.
Christians who become Muslim can get their new religion entered on their IDs and face little trouble from officials, though they too are usually thrown out by their families.
There have been a few similar cases in other parts of the Muslim world. In May, Malaysia's highest court refused to recognize the conversion of a Muslim woman to Christianity, saying the case should be handled by religious authorities.
Hegazy, who took the Christian name Beshoy after an Egyptian monk, converted to Christianity nine years ago and began attending church in his hometown of Port Said on the Suez Canal.
"I started readings and comparative studies in religions," he said. "I found that I am not consistent with Islam teachings. The major issue for me was love. Islam wasn't promoting love as Christianity did."
[...]
If the case makes it to court, it will open an unknown realm of Egyptian law. Earlier this year, a court rejected an attempt by a group of Christians who had converted to Islam but then returned to Christianity and sought to restore their original religion on their ID cards. The case has been appealed.
God bless these brave men and women!
Their stories are increasing in numbers and also in being reported. The more they are publicized, the more converts there will be. This is what the Ikhwan fear the most. The quiet change of heart. The invisibility versus their blovating bombast and show. The power of Christ to walk among the devil's advocates never ceases to amaze me.
If the headline read:
"American Muslim forced into Hiding: Threats issued to American Muslim to convert to Christianity or face death have sparked concerns among the Muslims of Dearborn Michigan"
...there would be international outrage.
I for one am absolutely SICK of the double standard. And that statement doesn't nearly convey the depth of my anger about this endlessly repeated scenario.
This post is just one more among hundreds that leaves me absolutely seething. When the day comes that Muslim journalists actually bother to ask infidels a question that so many western journalists have actually asked of Muslims - namely "Why do they hate us?" - well here's your answer. But they'll never ask the question because Muslims aren't like us. They don't care. They're taught to dehumanize infidels, the way that Nazis were taught to dehumanize Jews. We see the evidence of it everyday, even as they think we're stupid enough to buy the line that Muslims are the "new Jews". What a joke.
Absolutely 100% On Target Caroline!
This courage of this brave young man, and his wife, is awesome. I fear for them both, and their precious, innocent child.
"Of course, the death penalty for apostasy comes from the words of Muhammad himself: "Muhammad said, "Baddala deenahu, faqtuluhu" -- if anyone changes his religion, kill him ( Bukhari vol. 9, bk. 84, no. 57)."
But, of course, the brain-dead followers of that 7th C. desert brigand don't mind at all when someone of another faith changes his or her religion to become a slave of Allah.
Mohammadism is a death cult.
Allah, a Satanic (re)verse.
No Jizyah to Egypt.
The worst thing is that, despite so much evidence to the contrary, most media still will babble about Islam being a Great Religion.
How can one have nothing but contempt for Islam?
Verses like this give people the courage to leave the darkness of Islam for the true God:
"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor governments, nor things now here, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth nor any other creation will be able to separate us from God's love that is in Christ Jesus" Romans 5:38,39
"'I started readings and comparative studies in religions,' he said. 'I found that I am not consistent with Islam teachings. The major issue for me was love. Islam wasn't promoting love as Christianity did.'"
This is such a telling statement.
He wanted a God of love and Islam doesn't offer that, which is why he is sticking with Christianity despite the danger.
But the people who convert to, and stay with, Islam are "consistent" or compatible with Islam.
God bless this brave, brave man and his equally brave wife. This is where the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope, and the Patriarchs should be summoning their worldwide flock to prayer and fasting, and making strong representations to their various heads of government urging diplomatic pressure upon Egypt.
I followed the link and "read it all", as they like to say here.
"He said after his conversion was discovered, police detained him for three days and tortured him. He said he was harassed several more times."
"Then, in 2001, he was arrested again after publishing a book of poems critical of the security services. He said he was held for three months on suspicion of sedition, disturbing public order and insulting the president, though he was ultimately released without charge."
So they're probably after him for 'Blasphemy' as well as 'Apostasy' - in other words, this is a Freedom of Speech case as well as a Freedom of Religion case. Even Western atheists should be standing up for his right to say what he thinks and to believe as he chooses.
He is following in a long and glittering roll of martyrs - people of Muslim background who converted to the Christian faith and chose to suffer rather than abandon the truth of love. His wife's choice of baptismal name is interesting in this connection - I suspect she chose it in honour of St Catherine of Alexandria (look her up - I can see why a Muslimah choosing Christianity in Egypt would identify with the St Catherine of legend - Catherine was brilliant and beautiful, rather like Ms Hirsi Ali transposed into a Christian key, but was ultimately tortured and then beheaded).
I would hazard a guess that this man and his wife are, as Hugh has frequently pointed out, typical apostates - they are the gifted, poetic, intelligent, questioning people whom Islam by its own nature drives away from itself.
All those fools who think Islam is the same as Christianity, need to have their noses rubbed in this man's story, and in particular, the reason he gives for leaving Islam:
""I started readings and comparative studies in religions," he said. "I found that I am not consistent with Islam teachings. The major issue for me was love. Islam wasn't promoting love as Christianity did."" I like the way he phrases it - 'I am not consistent with Islam teachings'. In other words - a normal, loving human being who desires to love and be loved, doesn't fit into the straitjacket of Islam - but CAN find their deepest longings affirmed, within Christianity.
I have heard the same story in many testimonies of Muslims who have left Islam for Christianity.
Perhaps Mr Hegazy the poet fell in love with texts like this [1 John 7-21] -
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
"He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
"Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time.
"If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.
"And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.
"THERE IS NO FEAR IN LOVE, BUT PERFECT LOVE CASTETH OUT FEAR; because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
"We love him, because he first loved us.
"If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
"And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also." (And note that the overall drift of the Bible suggests that 'brother' has to be read in the broadest sense - not just one's co-religionist but one's fellow human being, one's 'neighbour' whoever they are, even one's enemy).
There's nothing like THIS in the Quran, folks. And Mr Hegazy and his wife were smart enough to see that St John's teaching is far more human-friendly than that of Mohammed. St John's are words WORTH dying for.
Apologies for the long posting! But for the benefit of any Muslim lurkers (hello! Naseem!) I thought it worthwhile to include in full one of the classic discourses on love that appear within Christian scripture, so as to make it quite clear what Mr Hegazy meant when he said Christianity promoted love.
Christianity was the dominant religion in Egypt until 632. Coptic signifies "first." Hmmm what happened around that time? Oh yes,the mohammedans converted people by the sword.
A religion you cannot leave, mutilating the genitals of your gaughter, sending your son out to blow himself up, killing innocent people because they worship differently, all these done in the name of allah. This is the tortuous, bloodthirsty faith of the devil. There is no redemption in islam.
"...I thought it worthwhile to include in full one of the classic discourses on love that appear within Christian scripture, so as to make it quite clear what Mr Hegazy meant when he said Christianity promoted love." Posted by: dumbledoresarmy
I agree.