Muhammad said: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57). The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Yet Muslim spokesmen such as Harris Zafar, Mustafa Akyol, Salam al-Marayati, M. Cherif Bassiouni, and Ali Eteraz (among many others) have assured us that Islam doesn’t punish apostasy. I am confident that Zafar, Akyol, al-Marayati, Bassiouni, and Eteraz are making their way to Jamaame district in southern Somalia as we speak, so as to explain to Al Shabaab that they are getting Islam all wrong, wrong, wrong.
“Islamic Extremists in Somalia Kill Christian,” from Morning Star News, June 20:
NAIROBI, Kenya (Morning Star News) — Islamic extremists from the rebel Al Shabaab in Somalia earlier this month publicly shot a young man to death after identifying him as a Christian, sources said.
The insurgents in Jamaame district in southern Somalia had been monitoring 28-year-old Hassan Hurshe since his arrival from a Kenya in 2010 and determined that he had become a Christian while in Kenya, said area Muslim sources whose names are withheld for security reasons.
Al Shabaab members on June 7 brought Hurshe to a public place in the town of Jilib and shot him in the head, they said.
“Many people watched this horrible action, including women and children,” said a witness.
Another area resident independently confirmed this account of the execution. A leader of the Somali underground church in Kenya who had also heard of the murder said Hurshe converted to Christianity in 2006, married in 2008 and fathered a baby boy in 2009.
The family left for Jilib, a town of about 45,000 in the Middle Juba Region, in the latter part of 2010 to visit family and start a small food shop, the source said.
Somalis are considered Muslim by birth, and apostasy, or leaving Islam, is punishable by death. After the execution, Hurshe’s parents, widow and son fled the area, a local resident said.
Many Somali members of Christian fellowships in Kenya have returned to Somalia after formation of a Somali government on Aug. 20, 2012, which replaced the Transitional Federal Government. Somali government troops backed by African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) forces have retaken large swathes of territory from the rebels.
Al Shabaab, said to have ties with Al Qaeda terrorists, has vowed to rid Somalia of Christians, who meet secretly due to persecution.
The insurgents have lost control of several areas of Somalia since Kenyan military forces helped to dislodge them in the past year, but they are suspected in the shooting death of a Christian pharmacist on the outskirts of Kismayo in February. Two masked men killed Ahmed Ali Jimale, a 42-year-old father of four, on Feb. 18 as he stood outside his house in Alanley village (see Morning Star News, Feb. 28).
On Dec. 8, 2012 in Beledweyne, 206 miles (332 kilometers) north of Mogadishu, gunmen killed a Christian who had been receiving death threats for leaving Islam. Two unidentified, masked men shot Mursal Isse Siad, 55, outside his home, Muslim and Christian sources said (see Morning Star News. Dec. 14, 2012).