An interesting sidelight to this case is the fact that Islamic apologists in the West routinely try to downplay and dismiss Islam’s death penalty for apostasy by saying that in Muhammad’s time, when the Islamic community was one unit, and was a state as well as a religion, apostasy was tantamount to treason, but nowadays, apostates aren’t necessarily treasonous and so the death penalty doesn’t apply. But here is a 65-year-old woman who poses no threat to the Iranian Islamic state imprisoned for “acting against national security,” when her crime consists solely of leaving Islam and converting to Christianity.
Nonetheless, it could have been worse. Marokh Kanbari has not been sentenced to death, although the death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law. It’s based on the Qur’an: “They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved so you would be alike. So do not take from among them allies until they emigrate for the cause of Allah. But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper.” (Qur’an 4:89)
A hadith depicts Muhammad saying: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57). Iran is Shi’ite, but the same hadith appears in Shi’ite hadith collections. The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence.
This is still the position of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, both Sunni and Shi’ite. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the most renowned and prominent Muslim cleric in the world, has stated: “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.”
Qaradawi also once famously said: “If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment, Islam wouldn’t exist today.”
“Iran sentences Christian convert to 1 year in prison for ‘acting against national security,'” by Samuel Smith, Christian Post, August 1, 2019:
An Iranian Christian convert was sentenced to one year in prison on charges of “acting against national security” and engaging in “propaganda against the system” as crackdowns against Christians continue, the aid group International Christian Response reports.
The sentence was handed down to 65-year-old Mahrokh Kanbari on Monday, two days after she appeared before the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Karaj. Friends of Kanbari told the nonprofit group that the judge was rude to the defendant and tried to humiliate her when she disagreed with him.
Kanbari was arrested by three Iranian intelligence agents at her home last Christmas Eve. Authorities were said to have confiscated mobile phones, Bibles and other Christian-related materials.
After paying a bail equivalent to about $2,500, she was released. She was officially charged with acting against national security in January. According to International Christian Response, she was directed to go to a religious leader to be “instructed” to return to Islam….
Peter Buckley says
Any steps the mullahs take to limit the growth of Christianity in Iran are doomed. Ironically, the actions of the Iranian authorities will prove to these new converts that they have made the right decision, since Christianity tends to grow when repressed. The mullahs themselves have admitted to the “problem” of the growth of Christianity:
https://www.iranfocus.com/en/human-rights/33500-iran-admits-christianity-is-growing-despite-repression
As I keep saying, Iran is no longer a “muslim country”, but it is ruled under Islamic laws. In other words, it is unsustainable in the modern age. When they have gone in another five years, we will be able to thank the mullahs for transforming Iran into a non-muslim majority country.
J D S says
Islam is Islam….yesterday, today and tomorrow…..and the givernments if the west need to recognize this and pass new laws to address the muslim/islamic problem and BELIEVE IT IR NOT…THERE IS A PTOBLEM..
We don’t need appeasers and pleasers we need squeezers.
FYI says
al lah tells muslims to READ the Bible or consult those who know it k10:94
al lah tells muslims the Gospel{which he claims to have given Jesus}
has “a guidance and a light”
k5:46-47
So WHY bother to ban the Bible in islamic countries?
Because the “holy” men of islam don’t want muslims to read the Bible because then they would see how wrong the koran is
They would lose their power and influence..thus converts to christianity are persecuted.
The koran manages to violate BOTH of God’s Two Chief commandments:the first one is violated by the koranic teachings which brazenly encourage the breaking of God’s commandments and the 2nd one is violated when it says k5:51 muslims are NOT to be friends with muslims and Jews.
So al lah says muslims cannot get along with non-muslims:this is 100% at odds with the Actual Judeo-Christian God’s command to “Love thy neighbor”
What was the point of God’s 2 chief laws{obey His commandments and TRY to get along and “love one another”}given in the Bible only for al lah the Arab god to teach the OPPOSITE?
Al lah is “the BEST OF DECEIVERS” K3:54:there is a big clue in that..
Rueben_Singh says
I asked Iranian woman I know, in jest “are you fasting for Ramadan????”
She replied
“only pigs fast!!!”
When the mullahs are gone, there will be mass apostacy, many Iranians have told me this.
They will go back to their ancient faith of Zorastrianism.
Angemon says
A 65-year-old woman? What, is she a late bloomer or a repeat offender?… Look, this accusation is bogus, and everyone knows it. The Iranian regime hangs gays from construction cranes for simply being gay – you expect me to believe that a traitor gets away with one year in prison? The mullahs simply won’t have anyone converting from the “perfect religion” to anything else – because that might imply the religion is not so perfect after all and that there’s something better to choose from. And Persians, heirs to a rich pre-islamic culture, would do well in getting away from the vehicle for Arab supremacism imposed on their forefathers by Aran conquerors…
gravenimage says
Islamic Republic of Iran sentences convert from Islam to prison for “acting against national security”
………………
There is no freedom of conscience in Islam. Claiming that an elderly lady is threatening national security by embracing the love of Christ is grotesque.
mortimer says
Mahrokh Kanbari might be envied by other new Christians in other Muslim countries. Only one year, rather than death by vigilantes. The comparatively light punishment for leaving Islam may be a sign that, internally, Iran is ready to blow and the government is not pushing its luck.
Eventually, the Persians will really let the corrupt, greedy mullahs have it! The Persians will show no mercy to the merciless mullahs.
Krishna says
She did not get death sentance that’s miracle in iran
mortimer says
A Mohammedan is not a ‘comrade’ of a kafir. Kafirs do not have rights in an Islamic state. They are to be shunned and avoided by Muslims. A kafir may be abused and mistreated by Muslims and the state will do little or nothing about it.
Walter Sieruk says
This Islamic “republic” of Iran is so very fearful and intolerant of Christians and Christianity As this site reports “here is a 65-year-old woman who poses no threat to the Iranian Islamic state imprisoned for “acting against national security,” when her crime consists solely of leaving Islam and converting to Christianity. “ Any claim that this powerless woman might be “security threat” to the Islamic state of Iran is not only absurd and nonsensical but also proves that the saying is true .The saying is “Evil is always looking for an excuse.”
In addition, this is further proof that Islam is such a weak and fragile religion that the arrest of tis Christian woman as well as the persecution of other Iranian Christians was felt necessary by the ayatollah, mullah and imams of Iran. For those Muslim clerics are afraid that if the Iranian people even have a chance to examine and thus compare and contrast the Bible and the Quran the people of Iran might discover that the Bible of the super of those two books.
Since the foundation for the tyrannical regime of the Islamic “Republic” of Iran is based on the Quran, which is also the entire foundation for of Islam, the Muslim clerics fear that their power base might collapse. So the arrest of so many Christians reveals extreme fear those Muslim clerics have of the Bible, For this also show that those Muslim clerics in power in that “mullahs regime” of Iran will use .the Islamic state police and their tools to stop Christians and keep the Iranian people in in ignorance of the Bible and in the darkness of Islam
Furthermore,, those mullahs and ayatollahs and imams of Iran with their falsehoods and deceptions of the many false doctrines of Islam in which they brainwash the Iranian people in believing is something that is both sad and tragic. Those ayatollahs and mullahs are, no doubt, just as deluded as the people who they thoroughly indoctrinate with false teachings of Islam. Of such demonic deception by false teachers who are also deluded such men a have been predicted in the Bible. For in the Bible it’s written that “Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived.” Second Timothy 3:13. [K.J.V.]
All those mullahs and ayatollahs are, according to the doctrines of the Bible, Isaiah 8:20. false religious teachers .Meaning false teachers who teach and indoctrinate the false doctrines of the false religion of Islam into the hearts and minds of others . Such false teachers are described in the Bible, in Second Peter 2:1. “There were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privately shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.”
Moreover, it should be made clear that in the context and meaning of the above Bible verse Second Peter 2:1. The word “destruction” does not mean “loss of being but loss of well-being, as the destruction of well- being . That is “going to ruin” by ending up and a terrible place of awful suffering which the Bible call hell, Luke 16:19-31.
Battle says
Rueben_Singh: Thanks.
Instead of saying “Death To America,” the Republic of Iran with a Zorastrian majority could say “Welcome Oil Tankers.”
Don Ameche says
islam and muslims are just unbelievable !!
THIS is their evidence of cultural evolution ???
Have to say Ms Kanbari looks very good for 65 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!