Islamic apologists in the U.S. routinely deny that Islamic law mandates that apostates from Islam be murdered. Unfortunately for the apostates, the facts are otherwise.
Muhammad, the prophet of Islam and supreme example of conduct for the Muslim (cf. Qur'an 33:21), said: "Whoever changes his Islamic religion, then kill him." (Bukhari 9.84.57)
The Tafsir al-Qurtubi, a classic and thoroughly mainstream exegesis of the Qur'an, says this about Qur'an 2:217: "Scholars disagree about whether or not apostates are asked to repent. One group say that they are asked to repent and, if they do not, they are killed. Some say they are given an hour and others a month. Others say that they are asked to repent three times, and that is the view of Malik. Al-Hasan said they are asked a hundred times. It is also said that they are killed without being asked to repent."
All the schools of Islamic jurisprudence all teach that a sane adult male who leaves Islam must be killed. They have some disagreements about what must he done with other types of people who leave Islam, but they have no disagreement on that.
The internationally renowned Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has been praised as a "reformist" by pseudo-academic John Esposito, has said this about Islamic apostasy law: "That is why the Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished, yet they differ as to determining the kind of punishment to be inflicted upon them. The majority of them, including the four main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi`i, and Hanbali) as well as the other four schools of jurisprudence (the four Shiite schools of Az-Zaidiyyah, Al-Ithna-`ashriyyah, Al-Ja`fariyyah, and Az-Zaheriyyah) agree that apostates must be executed."
An update on this story. "Iran Court: 'Pastor To Be Executed By Hanging,'" by Stefan J. Bos for Worthy News, November 26 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
TEHRAN, IRAN (Worthy News)-- A detained pastor of a major network of Christian house churches in Iran will be executed by hanging for "apostasy", or abandoning Islam, according to translated court documents seen by Worthy News Wednesday, November 24.The 11th Chamber of The Assize Court of the province of Gilan said Iranian pastor Yousef Nadarkhani had proved his "apostasy" by "organizing evangelistic meetings and inviting others to Christianity, establishing a house church, baptizing people, expressing his faith to others and, denying Islamic values."
Nadarkhani is "an apostate [and] will be executed by being hung...Somehow his soul is taken from him," the court wrote. [...]
The 33-year old Nadarkhani, who was detained in October last year, is currently held in a security prison in Lakan, Iran, just south of his hometown of Rasht.
He was arrested after protesting against the enforced reading of the Koran, viewed as a holy book by Muslims, to Christian children including his own. His wife Fatemeh Passandideh was released October 11 by a court in Gilan province, after she was detained on similar apostasy charges, Christians said.
In comments accompanying the death sentence, the court claimed Nadarkhani confirmed he converted to Christianity from Islam, despite possible execution. "Even in his last defense...when he was asked [by the prosecutor] 'from the age of puberty until the age of 19, what religion have you had?', he replied... 'Since I was born in a Muslim family I was Muslim until I converted to Christianity at the age of 19'."
Nadarkhani said the persecutor "induced" him "to believe whoever is born from Muslim parents and does not choose any religion after passing the puberty age, is a Muslim," the court acknowledged. [...]
"It has been proven to the members of the jury that Mr. Yousef Nadarkhani, son of Biram, has been born from Muslim parents, choose Islam [but] abandoned it at the age 19. His actions according to the fatwas of all Shia theologians is considered as inherent apostasy from the sacred religion of Islam."...
A TRUE martyr is one whom is willing to die for his beliefs; NOT someone who is willing to MURDER innocent people to impose his own.
Ima
"Even in his last defense...when he was asked [by the prosecutor] 'from the age of puberty until the age of 19, what religion have you had?"
There it was right there - his get out clause - his get our of jail free card; instead this fool played the christianity death card.
You see, as your religious practices have declined in the west so has your need to understand that faith "matters". In Islam though faith matters very much, respect for Islam matters as does glorification and cleaniness of the Koran.
We belive these to be the literal words of Allah SWT, he sat down wrote them and conveyed them through Muhammed SWT for OUR benefit. Taken in this context, what greater slap can there be for this man to renounce what he was born into.
Whilst in his mother mother's womb, this man was making fists with his hands, punching & kicking his mother to let her know that he is promising to be a faithful son and an eternal slave to Allah SWT, so that he will be born as a healthy boy.
She would smile and blush, taking her husband's hand and touching it to his fisting & kicking; "see he is promising to remain within Islam, faithful and strong".
He in turn laughed "indeed O mother of his, he is promising because he is my son - and judging by his kicks he could be a good footballer too" - and they both had a good laugh and thanked Allah SWT for those wonderful positive signs.
- what of these promises then? How dare he renounce them.
He needs to get a life (literally), please ask him to do the right things - come back to Islam and live - in that there is time and hope for him.
Roly
Roly? Well "WALLY" would be a better title - unless your post is a bad joke.
Roly...Allah (SWT) sucks...deal with it...
Roly, please tell me you are joking. If not, then you sir could be considered delusional.
There is hatred in Islamic Iran's action against Christianity.
'Jihadwatch', two months ago:
"Iranian security forces burn hundreds of Bibles, Christians riot -- no, wait..."
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/09/iranian-security-forces-burn-hundreds-of-bibles-christians-riot----no-wait.html
The 11th Star Chamber of The Bloody Assize Court can speedily GO TO HELL, as far as True God and True Prophet weigh it and find it lacking. Grossly deficient in decency, love, mercy, justice, impartiality, righteousness, and sincerity, that is.
"Roly" you are seriously mistaken. In the Judeo-Christian Bible, God says he knew you before you were born. This is not the same as your allah. Yahweh has given free will to man, something that allah denies to man. What you have written, if you believe it or not, has shown islam to be nothing more than evil imposing itself on mankind. Satan wants man to be a slave and can only get there by force or deceit. Yahweh wants us to love him.
The deathcult of Islam marches on.
Leaving bloody footprints.
Or, should I say, bloody cloven-hoof prints?
So, where're all the"peace-loving" Judeo-Christian preachers who forever busy having "peaceful dialogue" with mostly male clerics or macho-loving Islamic female spokespersons?! Do they think that Islam, right from its evil foundation on the rape of children/women and mass murder of the Jews by the Arabic Mohmmed, has nothing to do with such persistent evilness as what's happening with pastor Yousef Nadarkhani above. or the increasing persecution and torture of 'infidels' especialy in Islamic-rule world?! Why are these Jews and Christian leaders willing to be blind, and not speakup against such evilness? My Lord Christ call us to love human beings who repent as God forgives, but never to love their evilness!
Yours is an interesting post sir. You wrote:
You see, as your religious practices have declined in the west so has your need to understand that faith "matters". In Islam though faith matters very much, respect for Islam matters as does glorification and cleaniness of the Koran.
I don't see how faith matters any more because you would put to death anyone who would disagree with your faith or because someone would become an apostate. It would seem that Allah is very small then. Are you mad? What gives clerics the right to condemn anyone to death if it is Allah who gives life? The clerics are as unbalanced as any madman.
From the article:
Nadarkhani is "an apostate [and] will be executed by being hung...Somehow his soul is taken from him," the court wrote. [...]
Allowing for translation, leave aside the amusing, hung as it used in the story. If the pastor's soul has been taken away, why does he deserve death? How is he responsible for this loss if Allah can lead someone astray? Was anyone truly harmed by this man's conversion?
You wrote:
We belive these to be the literal words of Allah SWT, he sat down wrote them and conveyed them through Muhammed SWT for OUR benefit. Taken in this context, what greater slap can there be for this man to renounce what he was born into.
Do you really believe such a thing? If Allah is incorporeal, why does he need to sit down to write anything? In fact, how does Allah sit down if he has no body? Even compared to some of the stranger fundamentalist Christian beliefs, your assertions are illogical prima facie.
It sounds like Roland is mixing in some of his own local, familiar folklore gotten from his own clan, with some orthodox Islamic beliefs. It's hard to tell what's orthodox and what's folklore or superstition -- since orthodoxy in Islam has the appearance of a mish mosh jumble of garbage (to me, not being a Muslim, thank God).
Bhobby, I don't think that there is any God in Islam. What the Muslims have is a kind of ontological thing, with, as you wrote, a mash of folklore. They have, in a sense, kept this idea free from idolatry only to make the Qur'an and all other Islamic texts the idols. The whole thing is too subtle for me. I suppose a clever wag might say that simplicity is always too subtle. I'm glad that I'm at least smart enough to be dumb enough not to get the subtlety.
Roly, Pastor Yousef is no fool. Jesus Christ--God incarnate, crucified for our sins, risen from the dead, and seated in heaven; not the impostor in the Qur'an--promises the crown of life to those who are faithful unto death (Rev. 2:10). He dies after abandoning a cult that glorifies children who blow themselves up to kill other children (something for which God decreed death for whole nations in the days of Moses) to preach the Gospel of peace. He is a real martyr.
In contrast, your Muslim and revolutionary so-called "martyrs" appear before Almighty God drenched in not only their own, sinful blood, but in the blood of those who did them no harm. Hence, your Muslim and revolutionary "martyrs" are now the most miserable of the damned souls burning in Hell.
God will see Pastor Yousef through the blood of Jesus Christ, the final sacrifice whose blood paid the debt of sin that all of us owe. You, Roly, may also join in this salvation. It's not too late for you.