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Islamic Republic of Iran executes man for interpreting Qur’anic story as symbolic tale

Oct 1, 2014 2:59 pm By Robert Spencer

AmirAslaniYet another indication of why we don’t see more genuine Islamic reformers. For the jihad imperative to make war against and subjugate unbelievers worldwide to be blunted, there would have to be a large-scale rejection of Qur’anic literalism, which is not remotely on the horizon. And virtually every time anyone appears who does advocate a rejection of literalism, this is the kind of thing that happens.

“Iran executes man for heresy,” by Saeed Kamali Dehghan, The Guardian, September 29, 2014 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

A 37-year-old man has been executed in Iran after being found guilty of heresy and insulting prophet Jonah, according to human rights activists.

Mohsen Amir-Aslani was arrested nine years ago for his activities which the authorities deemed were heretical. He was engaged in psychotherapy but also led sessions reading and reciting the Qur’an and providing his own interpretations of the Islamic holy book, his family said.

Amir-Aslani was hanged last week for making “innovations in the religion” and “spreading corruption on earth”, but human rights activists said he was a prisoner of conscience who was put to death because of his religious beliefs. He had interpreted Jonah’s story in the Qur’an as a symbolic tale.

The punishment for “spreading corruption on earth” is Qur’anic: “Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth to cause corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment.” (Qur’an 5:33)

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Filed Under: blasphemy, free speech, Iran, Sharia Tagged With: featured


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Comments

  1. Peter Buckley says

    Oct 1, 2014 at 3:08 pm

    The mullahs are so desperate they have started to turn on their own clergy:

    http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4749/ayatollah-boroujerdi-execution

    Also:

    http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4743/reyhaneh-jabbari-execution

    The Iranian economy has been teetering on the brink for many years.

    http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/iran-battles-to-bring-economy-back-from-brink-1.1841532

    With the advance of IS on the Shia government in Baghdad inevitably putting even greater pressure on the Iranian Rial, now would be the perfect time for the West to apply one final round of BIG sanctions to send the country over that brink and into the revolution it so obviously needs.

    Can someone with influence in the US have a “quiet word” with Obama?

    • islamisdeath says

      Oct 1, 2014 at 3:17 pm

      Iran is imam obama’s peace partner.

    • mariam rove says

      Oct 1, 2014 at 4:02 pm

      Hi Peter! Great post! I know about both of those cases. As you know I am Iranian. There are dozens and dozens of Ayotollahs in jail and being tortured in Iran. While I am not sure how those jailed Ayatollahs interpret Islam and the Koran, but they are staunch supporters of the separation of church and state. As for Rial and Tooman, it is not confusing at all. It is like $$ and cents. for example one $ is 100 cents and one tooman is one hundred rials. Hope you are well. M

    • TH says

      Oct 1, 2014 at 4:39 pm

      And the Ayotollahs condem IS.

  2. mortimer says

    Oct 1, 2014 at 4:26 pm

    The Iranian mullahocracy interprets the Koran the same way as ISIS!

    I don’t see a difference. Do you see a difference?

    • No Fear says

      Oct 1, 2014 at 4:49 pm

      They look the same to me.

    • Fr. Basil says

      Oct 1, 2014 at 7:19 pm

      Not quite so.

      The jihadistas of ISIS interpreted the Coran to allow them to destroy the prophet Jonah’s tomb.

    • Angemon says

      Oct 2, 2014 at 8:14 am

      ISIS, Iran… All the same Sunni Shi’ite to me…

  3. BlueRaven says

    Oct 1, 2014 at 4:37 pm

    Iran – A beautiful country with an excellent pre-Islamic history and great people is completely wasted because their adheren to Islam.

    • mariam rove says

      Oct 1, 2014 at 5:24 pm

      And most of this f..s is shoved down our people’s throat. Only 1 1/2% of all Iranians go to the mosque. That is out of a population 75 million or so. M

      • pumbar says

        Oct 1, 2014 at 11:51 pm

        I can’t wait for that revolution Mariam.

        • ringgo1 says

          Oct 2, 2014 at 7:27 am

          If you “can’t wait”, what WILL you do?

        • pumbar says

          Oct 2, 2014 at 8:15 am

          Well I suppose I’ll monitor the situation and see what happens. What do you want me to do? Fly off to Persia in a vest and bandana armed with two GPMGs?

  4. john spielman says

    Oct 1, 2014 at 4:41 pm

    islam is SO EVIL THAT IS BEYOND WORDS, is only the Nancy Pelosi s of thIs world and other talking heads would wake up and learn about true islam. This Iranian regime IS basic “shia”ism while ISIS is basic sunni, both are the results of muhammed’s (pbuh)* vile gutter religion he vomitted out of his cave

    * pbuh- perpetual banishment unto hell

  5. No Fear says

    Oct 1, 2014 at 4:48 pm

    “The world is full, also, of great traditional books tracing the history of man (but focused narrowly on the local group) from the age of mythological beginnings, through periods of increasing plausibility, to a time almost within memory, when the chronicles begin to carry the record, with a show of rational factuality, to the present. Furthermore, just as all primitive mythologies serve to validate the customs, systems of sentiments, and political aims of their respective local groups, so do these great traditional books. On the surface they may appear to have been composed as conscientious history. In depth they reveal themselves to have been conceived as myths: poetic readings of the mysteries of life from a certain interested point of view. But to read a poem as a chronicle of fact is to say the least to miss the point. To say a little more, it is to prove oneself a dolt.”

    Joseph Campbell, in Occidental Mythology: The Masks of God (1964).

  6. Anon says

    Oct 1, 2014 at 5:13 pm

    Every Islamic-majority country on the face of the earth is a disaster, which no-one wants to live in and people flee by the millions. Oh but according to buy-a-rock just-air-bomb-ya it has nothing to do with Islam.

  7. R Cole says

    Oct 1, 2014 at 5:15 pm

    This brings us to the word of the moment – which is ‘innocent’ – so popular that even Obama has sought to use the word – in his UN speech — to stress how Isis actions might be viewed as un-Islamic.

    Iran’s president is denouncing ISIS in strong terms, … “They want to kill humanity and, from the viewpoint of the Islamic tenets and culture, killing an innocent person equals the killing of (all) humanity.”

    What determines innocence in Islam?

    Innocence and guilt is determined under law – our own laws would render this person innocent – but in Iran under sharia law – he has been found guilty. He would have been found similarly guilty in Isis controlled territory.

    To Isis the Shi’a are guilty – to the Iranian President they are innocent. But this is splitting Shari’ah’s hairs – and has nothing to do with western law or law that is in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

    Under these laws an innocent man has been put to death.

    And if we are to give any credibility at all to this Islamic verse – then it is like Iran has killed the whole of humanity.

    Simply more of the same veiled Islamic speak.

    • Twostellas says

      Oct 2, 2014 at 11:58 am

      Islam is designed to kill all of humanity, so maybe killing innocents is a plus in Islam, not a minus. It sure is a plus in the greater jihad, by killing any innocence and humanity in ones self before undertaking the lesser jihad of holy wars of rape, beheadings, slavery, sex slavery, treachery, oppression, bigotry etc. which, lets face it, your own humanity must be washed away first in order to commit such acts in the modern day world and think you are doing a good or pious act.

  8. southeuropean says

    Oct 1, 2014 at 5:16 pm

    R.I.P. He will not be forgotten.

  9. jewdog says

    Oct 1, 2014 at 8:24 pm

    Free thinkers and skeptics threaten Iran’s autocrats because they call into question the religious underpinnings of their Islam-based rule. While it’s fatal to question those underpinning inside Iran, the intellectual rebellion can be carried out abroad in the dwindling numbers of countries that tolerate free speech.

  10. Zimriel says

    Oct 1, 2014 at 9:03 pm

    This is an attack upon Biblical scholarship as well.

  11. paddy says

    Oct 2, 2014 at 10:27 am

    I am stunned by this story. I know not to believe all we read but this story of Mohed…..I need to research the veracity and validity of muslims outside of the free world.

  12. Walter Sieruk says

    Oct 2, 2014 at 1:56 pm

    It just might be that the Quran is nothing but a lot of symbolic tale’s. That is a lot of stories that have little to no value and are not worth reading. After all, the Bible does warn against giving “heed to fables…” First Timothy 1:4. [K.J.V.]

  13. Ralph says

    Oct 3, 2014 at 9:55 am

    After about 30 times you will have Allah’s Appreciation…

    http://xmissy.nl/item/107211/micaela-schafer—naked-ice-bucket-challe

  14. eib says

    Oct 3, 2014 at 4:43 pm

    We are all wronged by this man’s death. I would have liked a different interpretation of the quran.

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