Somehow these six “Moroccan men” got the crazy idea that there was something wrong with a Muslim converting to Christianity, and that Pope Benedict XVI warranted punishment for his role in the conversion. You would almost get the idea that Islam has a death penalty for apostasy, if it weren’t for all the kindly and learned Muslim experts like Salam al-Marayati, M. Cherif Bassiouni, Ali Eteraz who assure us that it isn’t so.
Unfortunately, al-Marayati, Bassiouni, and Eteraz were unable to convince Muhammad, the prophet of Islam and supreme example of conduct for the Muslim (cf. Qur’an 33:21), who 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 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.
“Italy arrests Moroccans for inciting hatred of Pope,” from the BBC, February 25 (thanks to all who sent this in):
Six Moroccan men have been arrested in northern Italy on suspicion of seeking to incite hatred of Pope Benedict among Muslims….
A note was found calling for the Pope to be punished for converting a Muslim journalist to Roman Catholicism….
The note found by police urges Muslim immigrants not to integrate into Italian society, Italian media report.
Police said the six were accused of “setting up a group that aimed to incite discrimination, racial and religious hatred, violence and jihad against Christians and Jews”.
The Pope was condemned for converting Egyptian-born Magdi Allam, a former columnist for Italian daily Corriere della Sera….