Some of the remarks by Ibn Warraq at the Former Muslims United press conference.
I was shocked when Salman Rushdie had the death fatwa put on his head, and intellectuals such as Germaine Greer attacked him. They were more concerned about the delicate sensibilities of Muslims. Then in 1995 I wrote Why I Am Not A Muslim, and then in 2003 a book called Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out.
Arthur Koestler: We ex-communists are the only ones on your side who know what it is all about. Groucho Marx (inspired): I refuse to belong to a religion that will not not have me as a member.
Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 guarantees freedom to change one's religion or belief. The clause about freedom of religion was added at the urging of the delegate from Lebanon, Charles Malik. Lebanon especially objected to the Islamic law regarding apostasy, but many Islamic countries objected to the freedom of religion clause. It warned about missionary efforts devoted to converting the populations of the East.
If you deny any of the tenets of Islam, you're an apostate. The Ahmadiyyas deny that Muhammad was the last prophet. Zia al-Haq declared they were not Muslims, and ever since then they have been persecuted in Pakistan.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt tried in the 1960s to suppress the clause of the Universal Declaration guaranteeing freedom of religion. They agreed to a compromise wording suggested by Brazil. In 1981 Muslim states reiterated the death penalty for apostasy. The Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights is understandably vague about the freedom of religion. Islamic human rights schemes are not universal, since they introduce a specific religious perspective into the human rights sphere. They restrict the rights of women, non-Muslims, and apostates.
Human rights organizations should protect the rights of those whose opinions are unorthodox and those who have left a religion.
You can learn more from one apostate, than a thousand imams.
Ibn Warriq's "Why I am Not a Muslim" is superb.
Always good to read whatever Ibn Warraq has to say. As for the Islamic apostasy matter, interesting how Muslims continue to dance around this one when no dancing whatsoever is necessary. Threatening to harm or kill or actually harming or killing someone for leaving one religion for another is simply wrong on its face, but then so much about Islam is wrong on its face.
Islam is so screwed up and was founded by such a wretched man that I concluded long ago there's no reforming it. It just has to be gotten rid of, though this is going to take some time and until then Islam will burden mankind inordinately.
Islam is NOT a religion. It is a totalitarian ideology. The proof that islam is a totalitarian ideology is to be found in the death penalty for apostacy prescribed by all schools of islam.
The death penalty for apostacy is the smoking gun that islam is not a religion, but rather a totalitarian ideology. That is the reason why the little arab-wannabee abdullah (slave of satan) Mikhail gets paid by CAIR to troll this site and obfuscate and confuse infidels regarding the muhammadan death sentence for apostates.
Why CAIR puts it's money on that loser is beyond me. It seems the daily head-bangings have severely impaired what limited cognitive and reading skills he might have once possessed.
His posts could be written by an eight-year-old.
Yankel,
I don't work for anyone....I mean how stupid can one yid be?
nebechdik,
Abdullah
There can be no other explanation for your vacuous and puerile posts.
and you're a liar!
AM, I welcome your posts on this site as a prime example of what a lying, weasel word using islamic scumbag would say.
Keep lowering our expectations, AM!
Yankel,
Steight up bro, Mikeys swastika is poking out from under his tail.
"I was shocked when Salman Rushdie had the death fatwa put on his head, and intellectuals such as Germaine Greer attacked him."
And here's the funniest thing... you idiots put all this faith and stock in what you think, and then there is substantive real world proof that you are full of it.
And you say it is the...
... que dramitic music....
...divine duty, the Jihad!!! of all to carry out the "death fawa!" (oooohhh, I got chills writing it even...) against poor balding Salman [ Who by the way is probably still profitting from the advertising value of the "death fatwa!" (oooohhhh, I got chills again!)]
And guess what? Salman Rushdie is still walking around, appearing in films, selling more copy...but wait? I thought you clowns swore up and down it was the religious duty of someone to "do him in" ( dun dun dun! More dramatic music...)
The evidence of what I say is clearly against you and for me in this position.
Were it a duty then it would have gotten done immediately, in a NY city second, it would have happened.
But wait? It didn't did it?
Oh, I forgot, for a moment, that no one but you clowns think it's real, valid, and actionable to do as such against an apostate.
Peace
Abdullah
"Salman Rushdie had the death fatwa put on his head"
Mikey, you could have just left it at that, what? Because Muslems were not smart enough to kill him they did not want to? Pathetic.
Man, you are serously loseing your touch dude.
Palestine belongs to Israel.
Mobamad
As usual, AM, you miss the larger point and here it is that the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a sentence of death for Rushdie. That it was not carried out (in part because for many years Rushdie was protected by British security forces) is secondary, if not irrelevant. What other religion threatens people with death for criticizing it or questioning its tenets? Can you finally wake up? No, wait, I guess that's asking too much from a convinced Mohammedan.
Abdullah,
Are you in fact denying that Rushdie had a death fatwa placed on him?
Or are you excusing such barbarism because it wasn't actually carried out?
Apparently you forgot the violence and deaths that came after the publication of "The Satanic Verses". I believe the publisher was firebombed, there were riots and people died.
PEOPLE DIED BECAUSE MUSLIMS WERE INSULTED. And it happens over and over again.
It makes one who isn't blinded by being Muslim go hmm.... Maybe there's something rotten at the core of Islam. Maybe....
Poor Abdullah MIk - as rotten as his PEDOPHILE Warlord.
How 'bout you, Mik - you a Pedophile, too? Because as everyone knows, Mo is the "most excellent of examples."
So, you a Pedophile, too, Mik, following your rotten Warlord?
People- Ab Mik called Yankel a "yid."
You just know that Ab Mik would be mass-murdering Jews (on orders from "allah" (Mohamet) in the KKKoran, if he could get away with it. Racist, Bigot, Hater, Ab Mik. Potential Mass-Murdering Mohammedan.
Lebanon especially objected to the Islamic law regarding apostasy, but many Islamic countries objected to the freedom of religion clause. It warned about missionary efforts devoted to converting the populations of the East.
The reason they don't want freedom of/from religion is because they know damn well Islam cannot hold up under scrutiny. Islam's worst enemy is truth. They know that the truth will obliterate Islam.
No Islamic Scholar has yet to prove either Robert or Ali Sina wrong. It's kind of hard to do when all Robert and Ali are doing is holding up a light to what is actually in Islamic scriptures.
Abdullah writes:
1. Rushdie was protected by police and security for years. There was a possible attempt on Rushdie's life, but that individual accidentally blew himself up.
2. It is the zealous among the Muslims who claim it is a religious duty to kill blasphemers and apostates. As reported in the NY Times, even Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) was calling for Rushdie's death. Also, the fatwa ordered not only the death of Rushdie, but anyone who contributed to the production of the book (e.g., translators and publishers).
3.
Professor Igarashi Hitoshi, who translated Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses (TSV) in Japanaese
Stabbed to death July 11, 1991
Ettore Capriolo, Italian translator of TSV, beaten and stabbed (but survived), July 3, 1991.
William Nygaard, Norwegian publisher of TSV, shot three times and left for dead, but survived, October 11, 1993.
Let's not forget all the other violence and mayhem associated with this death threat fatwa--not that a fatwa is needed to provoke such violence.
4. The fact that most Muslims aren't running around killing apostates and blasphemers doesn't mean they don't approve of such policies. Polls indicate that 31% of British Muslims and 78% of Pakistani Muslims say apostates should be put to death; the majority of British Muslims want Islam critics to be criminally prosecuted and punished, and the majority of Muslims in World Public Opinion surveys say they want a strict application of sharia law.
And now, after the definitive post of Kinana of Khaybar above, we see Abdullah Mikail do his vanishing act, pretending not to notice he has been solidly refuted. AM has done this dozens of times here over the year or so.
Ibn Warraq made one mistake after the fatwa was placed on Rushdie's head, and that was that he thought Germaine Greer was an intellectual. That woman is an embarrassment to Australia. As an Aussie I totally disown that fruit cake.
"People- Ab Mik called Yankel a "yid."
Only a loathsome individual would make a comment like that. O, my bad, I see that a loathsome individual DID make that comment.
"The Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights."What a contradiction in terms!An oxymoron.
Who is this simpleton,ABDULLAH ?