An exchange between a Jihad Watch reader and an Islamic scholar

M Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Professor Of Etc., writes as follows:

"It is my position that the application of the death penalty for apostasy, meaning a conversion to another faith or a loss of faith, should under no circumstances be subject to criminal sanctions, let alone the death penalty."

This statement, if read as written, is a declaration by M. Cherif Bassiounhi, Distinguished Prof. Etc." that the "application of the death penalty for apostasy" should "under no circimstances be subject to criminal sanctions" -- meaning, if Muslims carry out a death sentence on apostates from Islam, they -- those Muslims, following what M. Cherif Bassioni, Dist. Etc. agrees is the unanimous view of the four schools of Sunni Jurisprudence -- should not be punished, least of all be subject "to the death penalty."

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking he did not really write that, that I have misunderstood. No, I don't think so.

And the main point remains: Islam, the Four Main Schools of Sunni Jurisprduence, prescribe the death penalty for apostates. The fact that M. Cherif Bassiouni, D. Etc. does not agree means nothing, changes nothing about the beliefs of more than a billion people, and Cherif Bassiouni knows this. He is substituting his wish, his veiled velleities, for the reality of Islamic doctrine. This he is not entitled to do. This cuts no ice in the Muslim world, and it should come as no relief whatsoever to worried non-Muslims.

As for M. Cherif Bassiouni's expression of deep dismay that his interlocutor, "David," would find the fact that Muslims -- whether, through no fault of their own, born into Islam, or whether, through assorted inveiglings and self-inveiglings, converts to Islam -- cannot leave Islam without running the risk of being killed, at least if those wishing to leave Islam live in countries where Muslims now rule, that is itself extraordinary. He alludes to similar terrible things in Judaism and Christianity, yet offers no examples. And he offers no examples because, as he knows perfectly well, in neither case can he find -- nor could be have found, for the past thousand years at least -- anything nearly as horrifying or as objectionable.

What is a cult and what is a religion? Hard to say. Is a religion merely a cult that has enough members to avoid being called a cult? Or is a cult something that requires constant reinforcing brainwashing, constant discouragement of free and skeptical inquiry, constant insistence that the individual Believer is a mere slave of the deity he is asked to worship, and that he owes his loyalty to the collective, and to the faith itself, and if he dares to begin to question it, that very act is one of disloyalty, and if he questions it enough so as to desire to leave that faith, having not received or discovered answers that he deems satisfactory, then he can be killed.

That is not a minor matter. That is perhaps the single most important thing to know about Islam. If you know nothing else, know this: you can get it, but you can't get out without putting yourself in mortal danger.

What else do you need to know?

No reply is necessary, as I think we have run full circle on this issue.

Circle-jerk is more like it...

M. Cherif Bassiouni is wise to be afraid of an open debate with Robert Spencer, he would have his positions completely taken apart. I'll bet he didn't expect reader David to do pretty much the same thing. Hah! Very well done, David.

I feel sorry for M. Cherif who may have now placed himself squarely on the hit list by stating “The mere fact that a person changes his or her religion is not, in my opinion and in the opinion of other contemporary scholars, a crime, let alone a crime punishable by death. Admittedly this was not an interpretation given to apostasy after the death of the Prophet. I and others believe it is incorrect.”

This is a professor of Islamic studies that is openly questioning the Koran and interpretations thereof! Maybe he will realize that he is on the verge of apostasy himself and either retract his statements or move forward into repudiation of the cult with which he is associated.

Hugh tugged on a very good thread above and hopefully this is another; maybe M. Cherif will begin to observe the fundamental inconsistencies in his statements and either openly debate Robert (either convincing us all that Robert is a hate-monger or achieving some state of self-realization) or quietly come to the only logical conclusions that his very words imply.

No surprises here. When confronted with the truth, muslims go on a tangent to obfuscate the issue. Just like the idiot Abdullah did when confronted with the genocide of Hindus in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan when he was challenged by me about his "islam is peaceful" crap. He wanted figures to prove muslim barbarism. So, here is a link for Abdullah moron:http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/irin/genocide.html

So much fog coming out of Bassiouni that I can't see my hand in front of my face. Soft, vague, wet fog erasing all landmarks of intellect and reason till one is adrift in a ghostly netherworld of vague verbiage.

Forgive my candor, but M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus and President Emeritus, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University's refusal to debate Robert Spencer on the issue of Islam makes him a (another name for female genitalia).

I commend JW for posting this interchange. Folk of Bassiouni's ilk who are so full of their academic self must realize that actions speak louder than words. And if words are all intellectuals have, they should be ready to branish them in any tournament they participate in. And if they should loose that tournament, they should do so with dignity and avail to the winner. But that is not what islamic appologists do. The simply call the challenge unworthy or irrelavent, avoiding the truth which would discredit their own house of cards.

Deflection 101 through-out by the prof. He'll relativistically equate radical beliefs of other religions as an excuse for current acts committed in the name of islam, while avoiding the truth that such violence is historically diagonal (whereby other faiths have modernized and no longer condone or promulgate such acts from culture or faith as it contradicts the tenants of civilization).

"As to the question of apostasy, from my perspective, there is not much to debate with anyone other than Muslim scholars who take a different position." Yep, the old "You can't know someone until you've walked a mile in their theocratic shoes" argument. I understand that argument more each day when I talk to people with no military experience of any kind, but does it keep me from interacting or debating in any way? Hell no, well except for the drunken liberals who call you baby killers and fail to realize the freedom they enjoy is protected by your sacrifice, but other than that...

God forbid the Prof would stand up for his beliefs and actually engage the difficult questions (surrounding, attacking, racistly motivating violent reactions, anti-social islamophobic comments, provocative enticements to civil disorder) in order to promote what he truly believes in.

David did a great job. His carefully written comments brought out the true intellectual limitations of the islamist reformist movement brought to you by M. Cherif Bassiouni. If this is the smartest obfuscater they can provide, we should have this whole ReligionOfPeaceTM problem solved with the first response to an islamic nuke in no time. Just don't mind the fallout.

(please forgive the spelling - using notepad with no spellcheck)

One more thing anent Cherif Bassiouni.

Note this remark that remains unelaborated but clearly means that there is a kind of Apostasy Plus which amounts to Treason and therefore, in M. Cherif Bassiouni's view, is punishable by death:

"I take the position that a sound interpretation of the Shar’ia leads to the conclusion that apostasy is not a crime punishable on earth and certainly not punishable by the death penalty, unless apostasy is defined as high treason (and has the legal elements of that crime), in which case it would be punishable by death. Almost every country in the world has a law or statute to that effect. We do in the U.S in Title 18 United States Code and in the Uniform Code of Military Justice."

He is attempting to smuggle in the notion, that other Muslms have also suggested, one that while they can accept the idea of not killing apostates, it all depends on how the apostates behave. In other words, if an apostate is noisy about his apostasy, if he (or she) writes articles, or a book, about why she (or he) left Islam, if he or she were to write as Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Wafa Sultan or Ibn Warraq or Ali Sina have all written, about Islam, then this -- I am quite sure that this is what Cherif Bassiouni is slyly hiding as he simultaneously slyly reveals -- can be considered "treason" to Islam.

In other words, you must observe the Code of Silence, the omerta of the Sicilian Mafia (and the Parthenopean Camorra, and the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta), If, however, you dare to give heart, or weqpons, to the Enemy -- the Enemy being, implicitly in Cherif Bessiouni's slippery formulation (he's a past master at this kind of thing, as all Muslims living, and speaking, and writing in the West must eventually come to be, for the job of defending and protecingm by hiding the essential contents of the texts, and the tenets, and the attitudes, and the atmospherics, of Islam is a tall order, and requires work) -- by telling too much, spilling too many beans, then this -- I feel Cherif Bassiouni would agree -- amounts to Treason, and is punishable by death. And so he says, in a kind of mick-mockery of Sura 5.32 (Giving) which is immediately followed by Sura 5.33 (Taking), he makes the following astonshing sly and false equivalence: slips in, in the usual cunning way, what if you think about is quite astonishing:

"[I don't agree that apostasy, tout court, should be punished by death] "unless apostasy is defined as high treason (and has the legal elements of that crime), in which case it would be punishable by death. Almost every country in the world has a law or statute to that effect. We do in the U.S in Title 18 United States Code and in the Uniform Code of Military Justice."

Got that? Islam is like a country, and Islam can define "apostasy plus" -- that is, apostasy plus saying bad (even if perfeclty true) things about Islam -- as "treason" and, in that case, according to M. Cherif Bassiouni, Dist. Pr. Etc., he apparently would find nothing wrong with application of the death penalty. And then he quite irrelevantly drags in the fact that countries, states, all define Treason, and punish treason But the whole point is that Islam is not a country, but a belief-system. No other religion, or ideology called, faute de mieux, a religion, threatens to kill apostates -- including apostates who say terrible things about Judaism or Christianity or any other religion they jettison. And I think that M. Cherif Bassiouni would be horrified if, say, Christians and Jews were to dare to punish by death those who ceased to be Christians and Jews, but became Muslims and, in doing so, said all kinds of bad things about Judaism and Christianity -- the very same thing that Muslims normally say.

In Islam the apostate who says bad things, and the apostate who does not say bad things, about Islam, are equally punished. And Cherif Bassiouni knows this. But he would like you to focus on the fact that he doesn't think the apostate who remains absolutely silent after his apostasy should be punished. On the other hand, it is clear that M. Cherif Bassiouni thinks that the apostate who does not remain silent, who is willing, and even perhaps eager, to warn non-Muslims about the contents of Islam, and what Islam inculcates, and what Muslims believe as opposed to what they pretend to non-Muslim audiences to believe, should indeed be killed, as a traitor, as one guilty of Treason, and M. Cherif Bassiouni notes that all the countries in the world -- why, see U.S.C. Title 18 for god's sake -- contain, in their legal codes, condign punishment for what is defined as treason.

Or have I misunderstood M. Cherif Bassiouni? I don't think so. I think I understand him perfectly.

And now, having read all of the various articles and postings about M. Cherif Bassiouni and his slippery attempts -- with that outrage that comes when one has been caught out, and not let go -- to persuade us that we should be more impressed by the fact that M. Cherif Bassiouni does not believe apostates from Islam, as long as they remain very quiet after their apostasy, need not be punished with deatrh, than by what the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence teach, and that we should read hastily, and not take in, the mention of the kind of "Apostasy Plus" - apostasy plus talking too much, revealing too much, about Islam -- that M. Cherif Bassiouni thinks it perfectly legitimate to punish by death.

Oh, he can bake cookies all he wants for visiting students, and he can exercise all his long--practiced wiles and guiles, that have gotten him this far. But the texts are there, the Qur'anic commentators are there, the historians of Islam are there, and the daily Jihad News, that comes in from all over the world, has forced people, nolens-volens, to learn about Islam, and they no longer have the stomach, or the patience, to pretend to fall for the mixture as before, the blague and the rodomontade and the sly nonsense aimed at confusing and distracting. No, those days are over.

We've all had quite a bit -- articles and postings -- about M. Cherif Bassiouni. And now, having reached this far, I feel that I understand M. Cherif Bassiouni perfectly. And, possibly with the help of some observations made at this site, includiung mine (it pleases me to think so) so -- at this point -- do you.

"You would be surprised as to how many similar anachronistic positions are held by believers of Judaism, Christianity, and other faith systems." -- in one of the replies of M. Cherif Bassiouni to David

M. Cherif Bassiouni is obviously unpersuaded by David, as he still insists on applying the old moral equivalence canard in his response above. And it goes without saying, and M. Cherif Bassiouni would not likely want to address this issue if it were said, that Islam is the only "faith system" of consequence in the modern world that justifies widespread violence on the basis of its "anachronistic positions."

Hugh,

The answer has to be "a cult."

I'm a non-practicing Catholic who still hold dear the sacraments for what they moralistically represent but can count on one hand how many times I've been to Church in the last couple of years. My wife is an avowed atheist former Baptist and neither our levels of belief interfere with the love and respect we have for each other.

The constant reinforcement we non-islamic faithful or other-non-anything have replaced these cultish needs with selfish or communal requirements, all of which are verbotten in islam. We have created our own individualistic cults, but I prefer to call that civilization, because it encompasses all beliefs. But the problem remains - islam as a belief which demands all other beliefs convert to it or be destroyed, but plays the game by saying it is a belief is the political cunundrum Liberals cannot understand - the game Bassiouni has poorly played.

And again, you are correct, "...this cuts no ice in the Muslim world." (not that they have much to cut in the mostly warm parts of the planet muslims occupy - mountains excluded). In the war of "us againts them," what they think doesn't matter. It is the hearts and minds of "us" and our fellow "we" who we must convince and keep the disinformation and distortions of the abreviated islamic truth from falling into convenient relativistic mind-traps.

When they, the muslims, stop pussyfooting around the religious right to kill, repress and enslave question...what the hell am I talking about...there's no friggin way they'd do that! The truth would get out!

(please forgive the spelling [again]- using notepad with no spellcheck)

Hugh,

I agree with your excellent analysis demonstrating the inconsistencies in the position taken by the learned professor Bassiouni.

However, I do have a minor problem when you claim:

"He alludes to similar terrible things in Judaism and Christianity, yet offers no examples. And he offers no examples because, as he knows perfectly well, in neither case can he find -- nor could be have found, for the past thousand years at least -- anything nearly as horrifying or as objectionable.

I find the classical period of witchhunts in Europe (about 1480 to 1700) both horrifying and morally objectionable.

It lasted only for about two hundred years but resultet in an estimated 40,000 to 100,000 executions of (primarily) females deemed heretics - or apostates because they turned awazs from the Christian faith and gave their soul and body to the Devil.

The killing of heretics or apostates was not directly proscribed in the religious texts as in Islam but due to interpretation of the texts by authorities such as Pope Innocens VIII and Martin Luther.

So you may claim that the Christian witchhunts was the result of a temporary madness caused by irrational deep fear involving women, sex and the Devil, whereas in Islam the death penalty for apostacy is inseperately from the religious doctrines and valid forever.

If the witchhunts are seen as a temporary "deadly flu" attacking our moral compass then the killing of apostates in Islam is an incurable cronical disease destroying morality forever.

During the Early Middle Ages, the Church did not itself conduct witch trials. However, witch trials were the direct result of Church doctrine. Canon law, in Canon Episcopi, followed the views of the church father Augustine of Hippo (AD 400) that belief in the existence of witchcraft was heresy, since according to Augustine "a heretic is one who either devises or follows false and new opinions, for the sake of some temporal profit".

The Council of Paderborn in 785 explicitly outlawed the very belief in witches, and Charlemagne later confirmed the law. The first medieval trials against witches date to the 13th century with the institution of the Inquisition, but they were a side issue, as the Church was concentrating on the persecution of heresy, and witchcraft, alleged or real, was treated as any other sort of heresy.

Pope John XXII formalized the persecution of witchcraft in 1320 when he authorized the Inquisition to prosecute sorcery. In 1484 Pope Innocent VIII issued the bull Summis desiderantes authorising two inquisitors Kramer and Sprenger, to systemize the persecution of witches:

"It has indeed lately come to Our ears, not without afflicting Us with bitter sorrow, that in some parts of Northern Germany, as well as in the provinces….many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation, and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants yet in the mother’s womb, as also the offspring of cattle, have blasted the produce of the earth, the grapes of the vine, the fruits of trees, nay, men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, vineyards, orchards, meadows, pasture-land, corn, wheat, and all other cereals; these wretches furthermore afflict and torment men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, with terrible and piteous pains and sore diseases, both internal and external; they hinder men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving, whence husbands cannot know their wives nor wives receive their husbands; over and above this, they blasphemously renounce that Faith which is theirs by the Sacrament of Baptism, and at the instigation of the Enemy of Mankind they do not shrink from committing and perpetrating the foulest abominations and filthiest excesses to the deadly peril of their own souls, whereby they outrage the Divine Majesty and are a cause of scandal and danger to very many." (Malleus Maleficarum, ed.M.Summers, xliii)

Ipso,

Try to stay focused. Bassiouni offerred no current examples. Although prior Christian history has shaped the western democracies of today, those past actions are not relativistic to the medievil actions of islam today.

Sheesh.

Kaffir_Kanuck:

"Try to stay focused. Bassiouni offerred no current examples. Although prior Christian history has shaped the western democracies of today, those past actions are not relativistic to the medievil actions of islam today."

I am focused namely on the claim by Hugh that "for the past thousand years at least -- anything nearly as horrifying or as objectionable" did not happen outside Islam.

We only have to go back 300 years - not 1,000 years or more - to find something in Christianity as horrifying and objectionable.

This demonstrate how dangerous it is to leave the ethics to religious authorities who may be plagued by irrational magical thinking and idiosyncracies or obcessions as was clearly the case with Martin Luther in the case of whitches.

Kaffir_Kanuck:

"Try to stay focused. Bassiouni offerred no current examples. Although prior Christian history has shaped the western democracies of today, those past actions are not relativistic to the medievil actions of islam today."

I am focused namely on the claim by Hugh that "for the past thousand years at least -- anything nearly as horrifying or as objectionable" did not happen outside Islam.

We only have to go back 300 years - not 1,000 years or more - to find something in Christianity as horrifying and objectionable.

This demonstrate how dangerous it is to leave the ethics to religious authorities who may be plagued by irrational magical thinking and idiosyncracies or obcessions as was clearly the case with Martin Luther in the case of witches.

M Cherif Bassiouni:
"I do not agree that current Islamic law is immoral. My position, and that of many others, is that certain interpretations of it are erroneous, and that is a big difference."

Then why, if he deems himself an active reformist, does he take umbrage with Spencer plainly and factually laying out a a major point of disagreement between Bassiouni and the four major schools of figh?

David:
"However apostasy might have been defined in the 7th century no modern definition includes any element of treason as that word is ordinarily defined. Islam is not a nation state with geographical borders. We are talking about religious beliefs, not about betraying one's country. To the extent you attempt to ameliorate the immorality of current Islamic law by drawing historical parallels between apostasy and treason you come across as an apologist for the unethical state of Islamic law, not as a would be reformer."

Superb. This effectively refutes the historical treason rationalization, since Islam is not a nation, although Muslim societies worldwide perceive themselves, and are mandated to perceive themselves as one Islamic nation state against the non-islamic global society.

Bassiouni has no response to this, nor can he ever adequately provide one and still appear as a true reformer.

M. Cherif Bassiouni:
"You would be surprised as to how many similar anachronistic positions are held by believers of Judaism, Christianity, and other faith systems."

A solid tu quoque example, though one that falls miserably short of being morally equivalent. Currently, there are no judicious rulings of death for apostasy from any sect of Judaism or Christianity.

M. Cherif Bassiouni:
"What I object to in the position of Mr. Spencer and others, including what I read in your email, is an effort to attack Islam as a whole and to denigrate it because of some either extreme or unacceptable views."

Again, Spencer only criticizes those aspects of Islam that are supremacist, misogynostic and intolerant in nature. These "extreme or unacceptable views", as Bassiouni would have us believe, are the dominant, mainstream accepted views in Sunni Islamic jurisprudence. How could one accept the premise of Bassiouni as a true reformer for attacking Spencer for simply educating him and others about the factually true state of Islamic law?

It is weak attempt at taqqiya, mind-boggling to the non-islamic sentient mind, and a great call on an obvious bluff.

Well done, David, cleaning up Mr. Bassiouni's carcass like a vulture in the desert.

Ipso,

I see your point, but pushing the envelope to my argument, nothing nearly as horrifying or objectionable from Judaism and Christianity survives from the past thousand years to influence today's western democratic civilizations, which were created by those mores, unlike the objectionable horrors which pervade today in Dar al-Islam.

Ipso,

Try to stay focused. Bassiouni offerred no current examples. Although prior Christian history has shaped the western democracies of today, those past actions are not relativistic to the medievil actions of islam today.

Sheesh.

Posted by: Kaffir_Kanuck

Agreed, KaKanuck! ...I think that Ipso is a moral relativist on a Crusade against Christianity. His futile attempts to level the playing field between Islam & Christianity only serve to draw distinctions between what is truly evil, and what is not.

"What I object to in the position of Mr. Spencer and others, including what I read in your email, is an effort to attack Islam as a whole and to denigrate it because of some either extreme or unacceptable views."

Maybe I'm a little thick but the original arguement is over honor killings and somehow ended up like this.

Funny how the world turns....

Anyhow,from where I stand,It is an attack on Islam.Just as Islam has attacked,degraded and destroyed all things non-Islamic throughout
it's history.Thats what I see here(and elsewhere in media) every day,in real events,affecting real people.

It's called fighting back Mr.Bassiouni.

We know where you stand.

Champ:

"Agreed, KaKanuck! ...I think that Ipso is a moral relativist on a Crusade against Christianity. His futile attempts to level the playing field between Islam & Christianity only serve to draw distinctions between what is truly evil, and what is not."

I am pointing out the moral relativity of Christianity and are consequently accoused of being a moral relativist myself.

Try at least to be consistent!

Anon,

Thanks for reminding me how the prof got involved in the first place. Still waiting to see how our recent "probable" accused honour killers of Zainab Shafi, 19, her two sisters, 17-year-old Sahar and 13-year-old Geeti, and the first family wife, 50-year-old Rona Amir Mohammed in the Rideau River will turn out.

Here's a toast to the day we can follow Bassiouni's advice -- and punish with the death penalty under color of treason -- after all, every those who convert to Islam and make a big fuss about it and continue to defend their new ideology.

I am pointing out the moral relativity of Christianity and are consequently accoused of being a moral relativist myself.

Try at least to be consistent!

Posted by: Ipso Facto

No need to yell -- and are you asking yourself that question? You're the one who appears to be Inconsistent.

Here's a toast to the day we can follow Bassiouni's advice -- and punish with the death penalty under color of high treason -- after all, as he reminds us, "almost every country in the world has a law or statute to that effect" -- those who convert to Islam and make a big fuss about it and continue to defend their new ideology and thus aid and abet their fellow travelers. For what should stop us from considering this high treason if we determine that, as he helpfully reminds us, it "has the legal elements of that crime" (a needless yet sly redundancy)?

The Saif-ul-Islam is double-edged, and Bassiouni has done us the favor, unwittingly perhaps, of having provided us with the second edge: He bases his exculpation of apostasy-as-high-treason on implying an equivalence of Islam with nation-states: If so, and if we non-Muslim polities wake up and realize that as a polity too, Islam threatens our polities with a brand of supremacism no less globally dangerous than Imperial Japan (if not, indeed, more dangerous), then allegiance to Islam can constitute... high treason.

M Cherif Bassiouni:

"I do not agree that current Islamic law is immoral. My position, and that of many others, is that certain interpretations of it are erroneous, and that is a big difference."
-------
Umdat al-Salik, the "Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law", authorized by al-Azhar University (and incidentally, co-sponsor of Obama's speech to Muslims):

o.8.1: When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed.

What's to "interpret"? The only thing is "sane" or not, which was the escape clause in that Pakistani apostasy case, in which the fellow was let go, only after intense international pressure, because he was deemed "not sane" (for wanting to leave Islam, of course!)....

And is that article not "immoral", M Cherif Bassiouni? If not, what is?

I can't believe they posted it. Me, playing it low calling them to task using the language they do not want published: get it while it survives editing in the comment stream:

"What a load of PC minded tripe this site prevails. Any honest discussion of Islam and the true violations of freedom and rights hard fought by democracies, whose existance are due to the rise of civilization outside of Dar al-Islam, are off-handedly dismissed as “hate-speech” rather than any true debate, such as Bassiouni has avoided. Actions speak louder than words, and the violence perpetrated in the name of Islam every day, rather than in the name of politics, is what troubles the western people of today; because at least, when it comes to politics, democracies have proven the ability to dialogue and accomodate, which is more than what is occuring in Dar al-islam today.

It is ammusing that a scholar like Bassiouni lacks the fortitude and strength of mental character to meet Spencer in a dialogue smack-down, but rather cowers like a Swat Valley schoolgirl scared to attend her studies due to threats from Islamofacist Taliban, rather than prove his convictions."

http://www.loonwatch.com/2009/08/m-cherif-bassiouni-rips-fake-scholar-robert-spencer/comment-page-1/#comment-887

Meeker,

"The only thing is "sane" or not, which was the escape clause in that Pakistani apostasy case, in which the fellow was let go, only after intense international pressure, because he was deemed "not sane"

I think you meant Afghanistan.

Though most of us kaffir do not consider Islam a nation state, I submit most Muslims do -- a transnational "nation" or califate, the ummah. Some places Muslims reside they are powerful enough to enforce sharia; in other places they are not that powerful, but it remains their goal, what they consider the rightful and legitimate governance of the "nation" of Islam.

When viewed in that Islamic light, by Bassouni's formulation, any departure from the provisions of sharia (certainly leaving the faith) may be interpreted as treason.

Taking Bassiouni as quoted...

Bassiouni: "As to the question of apostasy, from my perspective, there is not much to debate with anyone other than Muslim scholars who take a different position."

I guess he is not interested in debating, much less befriending, ex-Muslim scholars of Islam?

Bassiouni: "I take the position that a sound interpretation of the Shar’ia leads to the conclusion that apostasy is not a crime punishable on earth and certainly not punishable by the death penalty,"

The Quran says that disbelievers generally, and including apostates and hypocrites in particular, will be punished on earth, that they will have no protectors on earth, and that they will have no escape on the earth.

Bassiouni: "The mere fact that a person changes his or her religion is not, in my opinion and in the opinion of other contemporary scholars, a crime, let alone a crime punishable by death."

Perhaps Bassiouni's extensive studies of Islam did not include a reading of the Quran itself? The Quran repeatedly and emphatically states that disbelieving in Allah (and stating this disbelief), or encouraging others to disbelieve in Allah, is the worst thing anyone can do, literally worse than killing.

Bassiouni: "It is my position that the application of the death penalty for apostasy, meaning a conversion to another faith or a loss of faith, should under no circumstances be subject to criminal sanctions, let alone the death penalty."

This contradicts Bassiouni's claim that the death penalty was somehow acceptable if in the circumstance of "treason"--which he does not define. It is also interesting to note that only in Islam is a person guilty of this curious form of "treason" instantly and totally absolved and forgiven if he converts (or converts back) to Islam.

What would need to happen for DePaul University and Georgetown, with John Esposito, as well, both supposedly Catholic schools, to send these apologists for islam where they belong (someplace far away, preferably in an islamic paradise)?

M. Bassiouni in a nutshell:

I find it unhelpful that you criticize an ongoing deathcult by calling it such.

A heapin' steamin' helpin' of Mohammedan manure.

Irrationalistic, apologistic, euphemistic and sycophantic.

Excerpt from a 2005 interview with Bassiouni:

AMY GOODMAN: "What will happen with the report that you have just put out, again, that is very forceful in criticizing the U.S. for committing human rights abuses in Afghanistan?"

CHERIF BASSIOUNI:
" [...] This [Afghanistan] is a country in which violence against women is practiced daily in almost every family. You know, the idea of slapping down your wife or hitting her or whatnot is part of social discourse. Women are routinely judged by tribal judges as opposed to going through the justice process. They are frequently assigned for their prisons to serve in the house of tribal chiefs where they become literal slaves there including sex slaves. Frequently, their families kick out their children and these women have to take their small children with them, so it becomes a second generation of enslavement. Young girls, ages nine to fifteen, are given in marriage, but really in payment for blood money. So that if you have a dispute or a settlement of a claim between two families or two tribes the settlement is not, you know, necessarily two cows or two horses, it’s two little girls. You know, these are very serious matters, and it’s so important to have somebody with the U.N. backing there reminding the government that these things should be changed.[...]"

http://www.democracynow.org/2005/4/28/un_human_rights_investigator_in_afghanistan

It would be difficult to believe that Bassiouni does not know that several of the above abuses that he mentions, including wife-beating, unfair treatment of women in the legal system, slavery, sex slavery, marriage to underage girls, and blood money, are all approved in the Quran and "sahih" Hadiths? If he isn't aware of it, he is inexcusably naive, given his titles, experience, and position. If he is aware of it, then he seems to be hiding, downplaying, or avoiding the Islamic (Quran and Hadith) contribution to these injustices.

Kinana, he obviously knows, he's conflicted, and he has chosen to protect and defend the Brotherhood rather than escape the mental Gulag of Islam. I.e., he's guilty of high treason to the West.

This is a very telling exchange. It certainly speaks for itself.

Islam as we know it and see it applied is its own ultimate end, an idol in itself; displacing Almighty God as if it were God Himself. And who can criticise God--even if He should demand submission to other men like unto us in sinfulness?

"In fact, there was never a case in the practice of the Prophet (the Sunnah) in which the concept of had for apostasy was applied to someone who simply changed his mind on being a Muslim, preferring instead another one of the two other Abrahamic faiths."

Rifqa Bary, 17 year old high school student and cheerleader, knows better.

"We only have to go back 300 years - not 1,000 years or more - to find something in Christianity as horrifying and objectionable."

Ispo;
I must add that the actions taken by ,what you call "Christians", are not following any teachings of Christ. This church, or sect, went off and were just not in line with Bible, or N.T. teachings. That is also why it was stopped.

Not so with Islam, and the death to all who convert or leave. On that the founder, and teachings of islam are clear, and easy to research.

No surprises here. When confronted with the truth, muslims go on a tangent to obfuscate the issue. Just like the idiot Abdullah did when confronted with the genocide of Hindus in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan when he was challenged by me about his "islam is peaceful" crap. (...)
Posted by: IndianTiger

Indian Tiger, poor Abdullah Mikhail has even stated on occasion that mahoundianism had done a lot to end slavery, despite the fact that mahoundian slavery, unlike the three-century-long despicable employment of slave labor by Western nations, lasted over three times longer, and is still practiced (though not in large scale) to this day. Such a refusal to acknowledge the hard facts of how slavery is an inherent part of mahoundianism and jihad could make him likely to be charged with apostasy, since he is basically denying the "divine perfection" of this bit of his cult.

Lucky for him that he lives in the "dirty kufr" US and not Saudi Arabia, making him a hell of a lot less likely, if not 100% likely, to face the consequences of rejecting the teachings of Mein Qurampf and that all-insane, all-camel inbred bedouin savage prophet with his head on the chopping block after Friday zebibah-making sessions.