APOSTASY - DISPLACED IN TIME...

February 14, 2010

The Anachronism of Apostasy
By Amil Imani

Whereas the practice of slavery enslaves the body, the dogma of apostasy ensnares the mind. Whereas slavery is a shameful practice of the past, some shameless religionists still use the doctrine of apostasy to intimidate and severely punish people who elect to choose their own belief.

Islam is extremely possessive of its subjects. It is a religion that admits anyone into its fold by the person simply uttering a one-sentence statement of faith, shahada: "I bear witness that there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is Allah's messenger." By so saying, one becomes Muslim for life and surrenders the right to ever leave it. Anyone who leaves the Islamic fold is murtad (revert), or an apostate.

The notion of apostasy is best understood within the overall Islamic dogma. Islam forms a binding covenant with the believer. Once a person is Muslim, he and his issues are considered Muslim forever. In this covenant, Islam promises to bestow its beneficence on the faithful conditional on the person's total and unquestioned surrender to it in all matters. Some of the rewards offered by Islam to the truly obedient believer, particularly the privileged males, are of this world, as well as a great deal more promised to him in the next. If a Muslim faithful does not reap the rewards of his devotion in this world, Islam assures him of his inestimably cherished and limitless compounded rewards in the next world.

Islam demands subjugation of the individual's will to that of Allah and permeates the thinking, the actions, and the speech of Muslims by prefacing commitments they make contingent on the will of God (inshallah).

This total surrender and submission to the will and decree of Allah also absolves the individual from taking full responsibility for his conduct or honoring commitments he may make. For it is Allah who has the unquestioned authority to consummate or contravene any action or promise made by a faithful.

Within this overall framework of complete acceptance of Islam as the perfect living charter for the believer, the rules pertaining to apostasy can be better understood. Islam considers an apostate a person who unilaterally breaks the covenant he has made with the faith. An apostate is condemned as guilty of turning his back on Allah's immutable, eternal religion. Anyone who is born to Muslim parents and leaves Islam is stigmatized as murtad fitri (natural apostate) in the sense that he was born genetically Muslim and has rejected his gift of birth. And anyone who converts to Islam and later leaves it is condemned as murtad milli (a person who has turned his back to the Ummah).

The severe stricture against leaving Islam is consistent with other main principle beliefs of the religion. Islam is a faith of surrender, not one of a free will. A Muslim is to surrender his freedom of thoughts and actions to the will and dictates of Allah. The very principle of freedom is alien to the Islamic belief system.

With regard to apostasy, the two main branches of Islam, the Sunni and the Shiite, are in considerable agreement. The great majority of Muslim scholars of both major camps agree that the Quran stipulates death for the apostate.

Islam, by its very nature, is an all-encompassing belief system that proscribes and prescribes every detail of the person's and society's conduct. The Sharia law, a comprehensive code of Islamic jurisprudence, purportedly is based on the Quran and the Hadith (the reported enunciations and conduct of Muhammad).

Furthermore, Islamic societies rule by the Islamic laws of Sharia. Any new societal legislation must be harmonious with those of the Sharia, which are conclusively anti-democratic. Sharia law is in explicit contradiction with and violation of the foundation of democracy. Sharia law places the dictates and rules of Allah over the sovereignty of the people. It discriminates against non-Muslims to the extreme of disenfranchising them from their rights of citizenship, such as in the case of Baha'is being barred from jobs, higher education, worship, etc. -- not only in Iran, but also in Saudi Arabia and even Egypt. Sharia is blatantly discriminatory against women, Muslim or not. Men have greater claim to inheritance, their testimony in the court of law is worth twice that of women, and they may marry multiple women at the same time. It even stipulates different rules and privileges governing free Muslim men as opposed to slave Muslims, implicitly condoning slavery. Saudi Arabia, the flagship of Islam, was finally forced by the free world to abandon slavery, I believe, only in the late 1940s.

Apostasy is defined both in the Quran and the Sharia, and its punishment is clearly stipulated.
Those who blasphemed and back away from the ways of Allah and die as blasphemers, Allah shall not forgive them. [Qur'an 4:48]

Islamic law does not allow the freedom to choose one's religion.

Let there be no compulsion in the religion: Clearly the Right Path [i.e. Islam] is distinct from the crooked path. [Qur'an 2:256]

The Quran also specifically addresses the issue of murtad milli:

But those who reject faith after they accepted it, and then go on adding to their defiance of faith, never will their repentance be accepted; for they are those who have (of set purpose) gone astray. [Qur'an 3:90]

The Hadith further restates the provision of the Quran regarding punishment of the apostate.

The Sharia law stipulates that any Muslim who turns his back to Islam should be given a chance to revert to the religion. For an unrepentant male apostate, death is the punishment, whereas it is life imprisonment for a female apostate.

Kill whoever changes his religion. [Sahih al-Bukhari 9:84:57]

The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In Qisas for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims. [Sahih al-Bukhari 9:83:17]

At present, apostasy is illegal in most Islamic countries. Although execution of the apostate is not common, it does take place from time to time, usually by buttressing the "crime" with additional charges. The Islamic Republic of Iran, for instance, often adds the charge of mohareb (one who wars with God) to further legitimize its execution of apostates. A case in point pertains to the treatment of the religious minority Baha'is by the Islamic Republic. A number of Baha'is have been charged as apostates and mohareb and executed, with some of them being secretly buried in unmarked graves.

The late Ayatollah Khomeini in his Tahrir al-Wassilah adjudicates how a person's apostasy is established: "Apostasy is proven in two ways: First, the person himself confesses to his apostasy twice. Second, two just and truthful men bear witness to the person's apostasy. But women's testimonies do not prove apostasy in any case; either they bear witness individually, in a group or beside a man."

The misogynic nature of Islam is once again evident in Ayatollah Khomeini's blanket disqualification of women's testimony solely on the basis of gender.

"Apostasy -- or the formal renunciation of religion -- is already punishable in Iran with death. But now, Iran wants to make the death penalty for apostasy part of the penal code. The European Union is concerned and has asked Iran to reconsider." Who is an apostate according to the legislation? Anyone in the world, not just Iranians, born to a Muslim parent; also, any convert to Islam who leaves it. Only one parent needs to be a Muslim at the time of conception for Islam to own that child for life. Islam is Ummahist. Islam doesn't recognize nationalities or national boundaries. And these Islamist zealots are very serious. They have no sense of humor. Some say they have no sense at all, and that may be right. What they certainly have is a thirst for blood -- particularly the blood of infidels and apostates.

It is noteworthy that Islam considers the world as its Ummah, which supersedes national boundaries. Hence, Islamic clerics feel free to issue fatwa and other adjudications regarding any person, groups, or nations anywhere in the world. A celebrated case of this practice was the fatwa of Ayatollah Khomeini against the British author Salman Rushdie for his book The Satanic Verses. Hence, individual Muslims anywhere in the world take it upon themselves to carry out fatwa issued by Islamic high divines. In another high-profile case, the killing of Theo van Gough, a Dutch film director, and the recent attack on the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard clearly demonstrate this primitive practice that runs counter to the civilized world's due process and has serious intimidating impact on the freedom of expression.

Free people and nations should not sacrifice their God-given liberty to please the Islamists by muzzling dissenters and even endangering their safety and their lives.

The concept and practice of apostasy is a shameful stain on the conscience of humanity. It is despicable for any belief system to stubbornly cling to the dehumanizing anachronism of apostasy while its counterpart, slavery, is already buried in mankind's graveyard of past infamy.

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SHARIAH (ISLAMIC) LAW = PUNISHMENT - CRUEL and USUAL

Exclusive: Cruel and Usual Punishment:

The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law
The Editors

In her latest book, Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law, author Nonie Darwish paints a chilling description of what lies ahead for Western civilizations that continue down the road of political correctness and appeasement as Islamic (Shariah) law creeps its way into free societies across the globe. Darwish, who was born in Cairo, and moved as a child to Gaza with her family, was raised Muslim – her father founding Palestinian fedayeen units which launched terrorist raids across Israel’s southern border. When Nonie was only eight, her father was assassinated by the IDF, after which he was recognized as a shahid, or martyr for Islam. Darwish immigrated to the United States in 1978.
Islamic Law and the ensuing threats to Western civilization are subjects Darwish discusses with a passion and knowledge borne only of one who grew up within it can have. Having left Islam as an adult and having converted to Christianity
, she has shared her experiences in Islam with her first book, Now They Call Me Infidel. Now with her second book, Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law, she explains in layman’s terms the meaning of Shariah law and the implications that face those who embrace it. Nonie Darwish visited with FamilySecurityMatters.org to discuss the book:

Renee Taylor for FSM: What are some of the implications for Western civilizations of accepting Shariah law into their societies?

Nonie Darwish: Today, Muslims have moved to Europe, America, Australia and Canada. They argued for Shariah law and got it. In England now, they are practicing marriage and inheritance laws. It is important for the West to realize and understand that Islamic law does not give equal rights to all. It discriminates between men and women. There are laws for Muslims, laws for non-Muslims. Women and non-Muslims have much more oppressive laws, giving Muslim men authority over them. If we allow such laws, we will find ourselves approving discrimination in our society between people. That is totally against Western democracy and values, especially the U.S. Constitution. I wrote this book because it is very important for the West to understand what they allow. Shariah law itself was not part of Islam when Mohammed died. It was created by the Muslim heads of state because Islam was moving very fast to conquer many countries. They needed Islamic law to rule over all these lands. It is inspired by the Koran and by the Hadith sayings of Mohammed. All areas of Islamic society are rooted in Islamic law, which is tyrannical law.

Slavery, for example, has never been abolished by Islam. If you read Muslim Shariah law, it is full of regulation of slaves. Sexual slavery of women captured in war is allowed, which was practiced by Mohammed. Even today, sexual slaves are accepted and all over the Middle East. Honor killings are rooted in Islamic law. For example, the murders for which a Muslim will never have punishment: to kill an apostate, to kill an adulterer – which is usually a woman, and honor killings. If you allow the killings of an apostate or an adulteress woman in the form of vigilante justice under Islamic law, you are endorsing honor killing. There are so many laws you cannot imagine that are brutal and unfair. A woman, for example, cannot divorce her husband, only a man can divorce her. I have an entire chapter in my book about the Muslim marriage contract. All of this is to open the eyes of the West to something totally against their own value system and democracy.

RT: With the world at risk, why do you think other countries are not taking the situation seriously? There seems to be a lot of appeasement.

ND: Unfortunately, there is no united policy across the West with regard to radical Islam. I believe the reason is there are so many Muslim countries around the world and many of them are oil rich and use oil as a weapon blackmailing Western countries. Appease them and assimilate them. Under Shariah, one of the major threats of a Muslim head of state is jihad. There is a law in Shariah law that says the head is to move Muslims to establish their religion. He must organize jihad against non-Muslim countries. They must be conquered. Why the West is in denial, I do not know. That is why I wrote the book, to inform the average Westerner what Shariah is. The book deals with all aspects of Shariah, what jihad is, and the obligations of Muslims to kill Jews and Christians and any non-Muslims in the jihad to who do not accept Islam.

That is why, unfortunately, when a Muslim leader stands up for Israel, he is labeled an apostate because he is doing something against his own Islamic law. A Muslim head of state must continue the Jihad against non-Muslim countries, especially those who neighbor a Muslim country. When President Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel, he was assassinated. The reason was he violated Islamic law which demanded he be at permanent war with a non-Muslim adjacent state. This is happening everywhere. In India, Kosovo, Chechnya. If the West stays in denial, we will see the same in France.

RT: How can the average citizen get involved in understanding Islamic Law and how it is going to affect them and their way of life?

ND: It is very important that we separate the law of Islam from the religion of Islam. You see, a religion is private. When a minority comes to a country, they have a relationship with their god. The minute they begin to enforce a law on that country, that act goes into the realm of politics. It goes into the realm of the law of the land. That also violates our separation of church and state, the separation of mosque and state. The West doesn’t understand that under Shariah law, there is no separation of mosque and state. The mosque is the state and the state is the mosque. The West which prides itself on freedom and democracy, freedom of speech, equal rights for women and minorities, they have to understand that this is not a religious right. Muslims will say you are depriving them of their religious rights. No, you are not. This is political Islam. It has nothing to do with a personal relationship with God. It is about trying to control the country which they have immigrated to. America has fought so hard for women’s rights – are we going to start honor killings? There was an honor killing of two beautiful young girls in Texas by their father who was from Egypt, a taxi driver. He was not caught because he left the country. There are so many horrible laws. We must never think this is a religion because the duty of a religion is to protect you with rights. A religion doesn’t discriminate and torture and that is a violation of your rights, a violation of church and state.

A majority of Muslims are much like everyone else. What I am talking about is not the people – the problem is the law which discriminates and oppresses. There are so many oppressed people in the Muslim world. Look at the eyes of the people in the West Bank of Gaza or in Iraq or Egypt. The bottom line in every society is the law. Under Islamic Shariah law, the testimony of a woman is half that of a man. If a man and a woman go to court, guess who wins? This is what I am talking about – I’m not talking about the people, I’m talking about the law. If people don’t have justice under the law, they are living in a jungle. There are stocks and bonds sold from Islamic countries in American called Shariah finance. The profits from such financial deals go in the pockets of those Muslim countries. They use these profits to enforce Shariah law across Africa and other poor countries.

RT: Do most Muslims outside the political hierarchy understand and support Shariah law? Or would they like to see an end to it?

ND: There are some movements against Shariah, but they are calling them apostates and killing them. Unfortunately, under Islamic law, in all the books of Shariah, to deny Shariah is equal to denying Islam. The penalty is death. That is why there is no feminist movement in the Muslim world. I know two feminists in the Middle East, one in Egypt and one in Baharain. The one in Baharain was advocating divorce. She is now prevented from speaking or writing. The one in Egypt has a fatwah against her and had to leave the country because she could not protect herself.

RT: What do you think it would take to stop the encroachment of Islamic law into the West?

ND: The West must understand what Islamic law is without political correctness. The dictatorships in the Middle East are the creation of Shariah law. The only thing the West wants from the Middle East is an honest transaction of here is our dollars, give us your oil, but the Muslim world wants to blackmail the West to convert it to Islam. It is a very high price for oil.

RT: Why do you think non-Muslims, with all the information out there regarding Shariah law, are ignoring the warning signs?

ND: My book is the first book ever to explain Shariah. hariah books themselves are rarely translated into English and very few people want to go into the legal terminologies. I studied for one year to be able to explain Shariah in a way that it is understandable. I did a lot of quotations from Shariah and explained them. It is all documented. The West must wake up and start understanding because Shariah law says that for Muslims it is obligatory to lie if the purpose of the lie is the furtherance of Islam. Many Muslims don’t even know what Shariah law is exactly. They have lived under it for so many years.

RT: Do you believe that, under any circumstance, Shariah law and Western law can co-exist?

ND: No It is totally opposite and if we allow it among Muslims it is not going to end there.

RT: We have had several instances in the United States where Muslims sued their employers for prayer times during work hours, cab drivers refusing to carry passengers with alcohol….

ND: That is how they operate. You have women who want to cover their faces to get a driver’s license. You cannot bend the rules. The police must be able to look at your face and your license to identify you. So what do they want? They want to completely abolish our laws and put in their own laws. It doesn’t work this way.

RT: How does the “peaceful Muslim”, who says they don’t advocate the violent teaching of the Koran, reconcile their beliefs?

ND: I don’t understand. I personally cannot reconcile my beliefs, which is why I left Islam. It is very clear that Jews and Christians are infidels. The Koran has very derogatory words for them. Muslims are ordered not to talk to them, that they are filth. Some Muslims just do the five pillars of Islam – to pray and to fast… To them, that is their religion, which is very minimal and they are happy with those five pillars. They ignore 99% of their religion and only concentrate on the prayer. When something like 9/11 happens, they are silent because they know if they speak out against Jihad, they become apostates. That is why so many Americans are left wondering why are they silent. As much as they might be good people and citizens, they don’t commit crimes, by being silent against the tyranny of radical Islam, they are really feeding the monster. They are not standing up against it.

RT: What are your thoughts on the situation in Israel and what do you think Israel must do to stop Hamas?

ND: It is rooted in Shariah. Why is it an eternal problem for Muslims? Why do they want to destroy Israel? Many Muslims don’t want to tell you the truth. They don’t want to tell you it is their intention to destroy Israel completely. Jews have rooted themselves under Islam. Islamic law does not want them to govern themselves in the Middle East. Muslims these days don’t want to say it is their holy laws to totally eradicate Israel. They complain of occupation. Israel left Gaza. In response, Gaza took all their missiles to the border and started bombing Israel again. This is something the West doesn’t understand. At the end of every Friday prayer, I used to always hear that the Jews and the Christians must be destroyed. This is something we grew up hearing every day. It is such a radical system.

RT: Is there anything we haven’t touched on that you would add for our readers?

ND: The dynamic of the Muslim family, because of polygamy, is very different. Giving one man/one woman marriage has given them [women] respect and honor. If you start giving away the one man/one woman marriage in the West, we give away our future. The reason the Muslim world is so angry is because the Muslim marriage has no dignity and it humiliateswomen. A Muslim woman is so insecure in her marriage and there is no trust between the family members. That is why the Christian marriage and family unit is the most blessed thing America has.

RT: Thank you so much, Nonie, for your valuable insights into Shariah Law and how it threatens us right here in America, too. We are most grateful to you for your candor and courage.

ND: Thank you.

The book is titled Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law, Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Lawavailable from Amazon.com and other booksellers. For more, visit www.arabsforisrael.com.