At FrontPageMagazine.com this morning I discuss the Rifqa Bary case and Islamic apostasy law.
A seventeen-year-old girl from Ohio, Rifqa Bary, fears for her life today. She is afraid that her own parents will murder her. Her father, she explains, “said he would kill me. Or he’d have me sent back to Sri Lanka where they’d put me in the asylum.” Her crime in their eyes? She has converted to Christianity from Islam – bringing to the fore once again the prevalence within Islamic communities in the West of attitudes and beliefs that foster honor killings and the murder of apostates from Islam.Rifqa has fled to Florida, where she has become the center of a bitter custody battle with her parents – and she herself is adamant that if she is forced to return to her parents, her life will be in danger: “if I had stayed in Ohio,” she says flatly, “I wouldn’t be alive.” If she is made to return, she says, “I will die within a week. My life is at stake. My dad threatened me.” Rifqa is under threat both because of Islam’s apostasy law and because, as she herself explains, by converting to Christianity she has besmirched the family’s honor: “in 150 generations of my family no one has known Jesus. I am the first one. Imagine the honor in killing me. There is great honor in that.”
Rifqa appeared to be aware that many Westerners would be surprised to hear that she considers herself under the threat of death because of Islam’s stance toward those who leave the faith: “Islam,” she explained, “is very different than you guys think. They have to kill me. My blood is now halal, which means that because I am now a Christian, I’m from a Muslim background, it’s an honor. If they love God more than me, they have to do this. And I’m fighting for my life.”
She might have had in mind the smooth deceptions that Imam Hatim Hamidullah of the Islamic Society of Central Florida spread Monday during his appearance at her custody hearing in Orange Circuit Court in Florida. “It is not Islam,” said Hamidullah, “for the father to bring harm upon his blood daughter or any other human being because of anger. Our position is to exhaust all measures that would bring peace and harmony back to the family. Being angry and threatening the life of someone is not one of those methods.” Hamidullah chose his words carefully: he didn’t actually say that Islam doesn’t prescribe the death penalty for apostasy. He just said that the father shouldn’t harm his daughter because he is angry with her. This leaves the door open for the father to murder his daughter for apostasy or honor, as long as he does it dispassionately....
For the benefit of posterity, or at least of future google searchers of this site and this subject (Rifqa Bary) I re-post here a selection of the comments that were made to this article during the IntenseDebate era.
Note particularly. about a third of the way through, the bizarre remarks by one Yom al Jumah, a poster who purports to be a Mohammedan. If this person is indeed who it says it is, it offers a window into the peculiar mental atmospherics of Islam-as-lived.
MACKIE said - This is a little out there, but if at 17 she gets no protection from the courts, if I was her I would ask for support to join the US Military,either the Air Force,Marines or what have you --you are automatically emancipated at 17 in the military in my understanding.
Do we have any former military here that can comment on this suggestion?
Though Imans and clerics will try to say it is non existent in the Quran many experts say there are several hadiths as well as surahs in the Qu'ran that speak to this --see surah 9:11 and surahs 4:86 thru 4:88.
This ugly and warped truth of this practice by Muslims continues to rear its head in America
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,391531,00.htm...
UNDAUNTED said - For the US military, someone 17 YOA must have parental permission to enlist.
YOM AL JUMAH said - As soon as your child is born, they are under attack from Satan. Muhammed PBUH said, "When any child is born, Satan pinches the body with his two fingers, except 'Isa, the son of Maryam, whom Satan tried to pinch but failed, for he touched the placenta instead".
Sahih Bukhari 4:506 This is why the child cries at birth; Satan never leaves his enemy without harming it .
Alla's SWT messenger PBUH taught us how to keep Satan away.The following ceremonies are held to celebrate the event and ward off Satan..
1) Say the Adhan in the ear of the new child.
2) Take the child to a virtuous, pious person, so that this person may supplicate for the child and perform the tahneek (apply the pulp of a date, chewed by him, to its palate).
3) The hair on the child's head is shaven and its weight in silver is given to charity.
4) An animal is sacrificed as a mark of celebration and distributed amongst friends, family, the poor and a portion is kept for ones own consumption.
-ZONIEKAFIR quoted YAJ - 'Muhammed PBUH said, "When any child is born, Satan pinches the body with his two fingers, except 'Isa, the son of Maryam, whom Satan tried to pinch but failed, for he touched the placenta instead'....
and observed - Well that's the stupidest thing I, nabi ZK (pbum), ever heard. This is moronic! I nabi ZK (pbum) swear it! Tell your true nabi that this is some kind of send up. Right?
nabi ZK (pbum)
...yeah seemzies...you really had tha nabi going there for a while...
-IMNODHIMMI replied to YAJ - How primitive are you?
Leave, and take your mumbo jumbo, chewed up dates, adhan, and bloody sacrificial animals with you.
-YOM AL JUMAH said - These are time immorial ceremonies Dhimmi
-BONESHACK told YAJ - Bull! These ceremonies have been around only since the 7th century C.E., when your witch doctor MoHammed concocted these crazy beliefs. That is not 'time immorial', whatever that word is.
-ZONIEKAFIR said - Actually the blood sacrifice is pretty much universal to the primitive mind and prevailed in many places from time immemorial. However it is primitive and disgusting.
nabi ZK (pbum)
...whose awesome nabific powers caused seemzies to unmask...
-DSINC told YAJ - Yom, we know it's satan's cult. There is no need to list the devilish details.
-BASEBALLMAVEN told YAJ - You ward off Satan through Jesus...
-CORNSYRUP observed, re YAJ's remarks - Okay maybe I missing something but what the hell does this have
to do with Rifqa Bary ?
YAJ told CSYRUP - I certainly did theseceremonies for my son and daughter, it is possible that Rifqa's parents didn't do this and she has had sustained attacks from Satan, resulting in her wanting to leave Islam to join some wishy/washy religion instead.
-HEARTOFA LIONESS told YAJ - Seems more likely, Yom, that instead of being "pinched by Satan," this child was showered with the grace of God, who saw fit to allow her to successfully escape from the very real and genuine danger of becoming yet another honor killing statistic. May God continue to protect her.
-WINOCEROS observed, re YAJ's original post on Muslim post-birth ceremonies for babies - oonga boonga. Thank you for teaching us what to look out for. Nicks and scrapes on a newborn scalp...check.
-BASEBALLMAVEN told YAJ - By becoming a Christian she {Rifqa} has done the exact opposite, thrown off the chains of Satan in the guise of Islam.
-CORNSYRUP told YAJ - Oh I get your post now. No you speak so because you know not light and have
not heard the good news. Jesus cast the Satan away himself . Therefore
even Satan has acknowledged Jesus as untouchable and supreme.
Jesus also said I am the good shepherd . Rifqa has herd her sheperd
call and she wants to come and be one with our lord. She has left
an old out dated religion for which comes from the living word.
-ICESTAR told YAJ - This young lady is exercising her right to freedom of religion, and freedom of speech.
Inalienable rights, not granted by humans, but by the creator of the universe,and all that is in it.
Her choice must be honored and respected by all including her parents, regardless of their opinions of her new found faith.
MAXPUBLIUS said - Under normal circumstances, if someone says another person threatened to kill him or her, the threat is considered a crime. With Islam, the first reaction of pseudo-tolerant dhimmis is to suspect the threatened person of being an Islamophobe.
So, Keystone Cops: Is this girl an Islamophobe?
-IMNODHIMMI said - This girl will be a dead girl if she isn't given protection.
-WINOCEROS said - Really, is there some reason (not that it would protect her, but it allows for the threat "trail" to be laid down) she couldn't file for an order of protection?
DDA said - Would anyone offer her refuge, like in "Sister Act"??
Looks like we need a new religious order to help girls like this...we need Nuns With Guns.
ICESTAR said - This girl can be emancipated by the court. There is no need for her to ever have to see her parents ever again. She can be declared an adult.
She can also get an order of protection, and refugee status due to religions persecution.
MRSJ said - Commenting on: "Spencer: A Slow-Motion Honor Killing"
Could some explain the law in the US to me please?
In the UK, at age 17, you can leave your parents without their permission and apply for asylum in your own right. Here, no court would be involved.
What is the law in the US?-
-EBONYSTONE told MRSJ - In most States, the age of adulthood is 18. At that age, she could leave home and her parents would have no right to get her back. As for asylum, I thought she was already a citizen, although maybe I misunderstood that.
-MRSJ told EBONYSTONE - Thanks, ebonystone, it was puzzling me a bit, and I thought the law must be different. In the UK, at 16 you can leave home, get married or join the army with your parents' permission, at 17 you don't need permission, at 18 you are considered an adult and can vote and drink alcohol in public.
-DDA told MrsJ - That's the same as in Australia.
-WINOCEROS told MRSJ - One can apply for emancipation, which is typically a tax issue (often done for young college entrants who live on their own in order to qualify for financial aid irrespective of a parent's income). But it can certainly be done for other reasons, except she'll have to go through a court hearing rather than the simple paperwork when done with a complicit parent.'