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Iran to execute Christian pastor, a former Muslim, for apostasy

Nov 26, 2010 5:31 am By Robert Spencer

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 be 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.”…

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Filed Under: Apostasy, Iran


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