"Rev. Lorenz is then quoted in a local television station report saying that if a Muslim leaves his religion and does not return to Islam in a couple of days, then he must be killed. He claims that someone showed him the verse. There is no such verse, Rev. Lorenz. In every faith, apostasy is shunned but ultimate judgment is left to God, not people." -- Salam al-Marayati
"A Muslim’s conversion to Christianity is not a crime punishable by death under Islamic law." -- M. Cherif Bassiouni
"It becomes really difficult, in light of this information, to persuasively argue that Islamic Law should permit a death penalty for apostasy." -- Ali Eteraz
Uh huh.
Some will say There he goes again, criticizing genuine reformers instead of supporting them.
In reality, I would wholeheartedly support any genuine Muslim reformer. It seems to me that there are two ways to tell a reformer from a deceiver:
1. A reformer will acknowledge the existence of the doctrine that he believes needs reforming, rather than deny its existence. So a reformer will admit that the schools of Islamic jurisprudence unanimously teach the death penalty for apostasy, and will say that that needs to be changed, rather than claiming that Islamic law doesn't mandate death for apostates.
2. A reformer will address those who hold the doctrine he rejects, and try to convince them of its falsity, rather than address those who simply point out that the disputed doctrine is held. So a reformer on Islamic apostasy law will devote his efforts to convincing his fellow Muslims that the law should be changed, rather than spending all his time convincing gullible non-Muslims that there is no death penalty for apostasy in the first place.
Al-Marayati fails on both counts.
Bassiouni has been good on #2, as he did write to the government of Afghanistan in defense of Abdul Rahman, the convert from Islam to Christianity who was arrested and was in fear for his life a few years ago. But he has equivocated and contradicted himself regarding #1, and refused to address or correct the contradiction.
Eteraz, who like al-Marayati and Bassiouni is yet another charming and gracious fellow, comes close on #1, but I've never seen him do anything about #2.
"Somalia: Christian Shot Dead Near Kenya Border: Muslim extremists kill convert from Islam they were monitoring," from Compass Direct, August 22 (thanks to Report on Arrakis):
NAIROBI, Kenya, August 22 (Compass Direct News) – Muslim extremists seeking evidence that a Somali man had converted from Islam to Christianity shot him dead Tuesday morning (Aug. 18) near the Somali border with Kenya, according to underground Christians in the war-torn nation.Al Shabaab rebels killed 41-year-old Ahmed Matan in Bulahawa, Somalia, according to Abdikadir Abdi Ismael, a former leader of a secret Christian fellowship in Somalia to which Matan belonged. Matan had been a member of the underground church since 2001.
The early morning shooting comes at a time when Islamist groups led by al Shabaab are hunting down converts to Christianity as they seek to establish sharia (Islamic law) throughout Somalia.
Ismael, who fled the area in 2005, said he received a telephone call from Matan two weeks ago in which the convert told him that monitoring by the Islamic extremists kept him from leaving his home and carrying out his small-trade business across the border in Mandera, in eastern Kenya.
“I am afraid for my life – the al Shabaab want to get a proof that I follow the Christian faith,” Matan told Ismael. “They have not been seeing me in the mosque and seem to have realized that I am not part of them.”
Ismael subsequently learned from a member of the underground church who requested anonymity that on Aug. 18 Matan was shot dead as he was about to enter Mandera with a donkey carrying goods for sale such as sugar, batteries and shampoo. He was a father of three, his last child just 3 months old....
Ismael was visibly shaken by the death of his close friend.
“We have been going through difficult times because of choosing to follow Christianity,” Ismael told Compass. “We have lost everything. We even lack words to share our feelings. I have been always on the run from one refugee camp to another. The Muslims have issued a fatwa on me.”...
Let me guess salam al-marayati will say that these muslims are misunderstanders of islam.
It's amazing that in a country which has been islamic for several centuries and of which it's population consists overwhelmingly of muslims there are so many misunderstanders of islam.
"Muslim extremists seeking evidence that a Somali man had converted from Islam to Christianity shot him dead.."
They don't even wait to confirm whether he had converted. Shoot first and ask questions later.
You may not realize it..this is what is going to happen in the United States, in a few short years...
Not all over, mind you..but beginning ever so slowly but unstoppably in the areas that will be inhabited by Muslims...sort of like Dearnborn
First..no go zones, like in Europe..they're coming...
Then more..then some local Muslims will convert to Christianity..in America...
And they will be killed...
Soon after... with blood lust.. the Muslim immigrants will be emboldened to start demanding more 'right's like in Dearborn...far out of their proportion to their meager contribution to America...
And then it won't just be apostates..it will be non Muslims...
By that time... there will be all out civil war..or.. vigilantes..or a lot of dead non-Mslims...and a government, which, while wringing its hands..will be aiding and abetting the Muslims under the guise of fairness, multi-culturalism, and perhaps money...
America, Muslims..and Oil Money.. a toxic mix..resulting in more dead Americans..starting with apostates, but ending with Joe & Helen across the streeet
Remember Lockerbie..remember..even the British Government is blatantly corrupt..and will sell its own nation down the river... WE ARE NOT SO FAR BEHIND
These are the people we ought to bring to the West as genuine asylum seekers, not the murdering, raping, hateful and demanding Mohammadans.
Howard
"...even the British Government is blatantly corrupt..and will sell its own nation down the river.."
Make that "has sold its own nation down the river", because it has already happened!
This comment was posted earlier re Robert's article entiled 'Is The Death Penalty For Apostasy In The Quran,' etc., but it seemed apropos for this story, too...
***
Hello All,
Did anyone happen to notice the amazingly ironic article that was posted immediately below Salam Al Marayati's Huffington Post story on Rifqa, dated August 18, 2009?
The title of the article is 'Somali Islamist Insurgents Behead 7 People,'…who were accused of...abandoning the Muslim faith!
If Marayati is correct (i.e., 'It's not in the Quran. Whoever told you that is either ignorant or a liar. You should look it up yourself before claiming it's in the Quran'), then where do you suppose these Somali 'insurgents' got the idea to kill 7 men for apostasy?
And now, the Christian convert
ps - screen prints available...
Spencer's #1 way to tell false reformers -- "So a reformer will admit that the schools of Islamic jurisprudence unanimously teach the death penalty for apostasy, and will say that that needs to be changed, rather than claiming that Islamic law doesn't mandate death for apostates."
I'd add that a reformer also does not try to claim that the capital crime of apostasy was really about politico-military treason rather than about religious belief. Bassiouni and Marayati also both fail on that account. In fact, this is part of the Islam apologist template on deflecting criticism about the apostasy law.
Howard,
"nd a government, which, while wringing its hands..will be aiding and abetting the Muslims under the guise of fairness, multi-culturalism, and perhaps money..."
If a situation begins to devolve as you describe, the US government will not merely wring its hands and vaguely aid and abet the Muslims: they will massively deploy National Guard troops to stop any non-Muslim Americans from "lynching" and "rioting" and committing other supposed "hate crimes" against Muslims. This would likely be so under any President, including a Bush -- but certainly all the more vehemently under an Obama.
Does anyone know if there are existing "reformed" Islamic texts now that exclude all references to jihad, inequality of the sexes, and acts of violence towards infidels? Is this even possible???
Yet Ahmed Rehab and his friends at CAIR want us to think that Rifqa Bary is in no danger and that all this talk of apostasy executions is the paranoid delusions of Christian fundamentalists. I'd like Mr. Rehab to convince the executioners of Mr. Ahmed Matan that there is no death penalty for leaving Islam.
"“We have been going through difficult times because of choosing to follow Christianity,” Ismael told Compass.?
Fine, Stay a Muslim and destine yourself and all your future generations to continual violence and misery just as the lives of Muslims have been for 1400 years....
One day you just have to make a move to improve your life...you start by leaving Islam....
One way to provide some practical help and moral support for these people is to support groups such as 'Barnabas Fund'.
The other long-term way is to prevent free-world non-Islamic societies from being taken over by Islam; this means that there is an Islam-free zone to which the defectors from the Ummah can flee.
We have to keep on pushing our governments till we get to the point where they will openly, publicly and if necessary forcefully defend the right of people like Rifqa Bary, within the as-yet free world, to leave Islam and remain alive and safe.
No apostate from Islam, within Europe or Australia or Canada or India or the USA or anywhere else that is currently governed by a non-Muslim regime and has a clear majority of non-Muslims, should *have* to live in hiding.
And there should be unremitting pressure from non-Muslim governments, upon all Islamic entities, re. their atrocious treatment of apostates and non-Muslims generally.
Final point: stories like this need to be presented to our representatives, as evidence for why we must not, and should not, take into our countries any *Muslims* - since if Muslims regularly attack and kill non-Muslims and apostates within those countries where they [Muslims] are a majority, why should we imagine that they won't also do it once they are numerous enough, within our own?
Once World War II had started, what nation in the West would have even considered admitting card-carrying signed-up Swastika-wearing members of the Nazi party, as immigrants?