Death to Apostates (?)

This is getting old..

The news that, despite the Afghan parliament's last-minute attempts to prevent him from leaving, Abdul Rahman has been given asylum in Italy has drawn a global sigh of relief. But now is not the time to forget the issue. The case of Rahman--an Afghan Christian tried for the capital crime of apostasy--is not the only one, even in Afghanistan, and is unusual only in that, for once, the world paid attention and demanded his release. But there are untold numbers in similar situations that the world is ignoring.

Two other Afghan converts to Christianity were arrested in March, though, for security reasons, locals have asked that their names and locations be withheld. In February, yet other converts had their homes raided by police.

Some other Muslim countries have laws similar to Afghanistan's. Apart from its other depredations, in the last ten years Saudi Arabia has executed people for the crimes of apostasy, heresy, and blasphemy. The death penalty for apostates is also in the legal code in Iran, Sudan, Mauritania, and the Comoros Islands.

In the 1990s, the Islamic Republic of Iran used death squads against converts, including major Protestant leaders, and the situation is worsening under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The regime is currently engaged in a systematic campaign to track down and reconvert or kill those who have changed their religion from Islam.

Iran also regards Baha'is as heretics from Islam and denies them any legal rights, including the right to life: There is no penalty for killing a Baha'i. On March 20, Asma Jahangir, the United Nations special rapporteur on religious freedom, made public a confidential letter sent on October 29, 2005, by the chairman of the Command Headquarters of the Iranian Armed Forces. The letter stated that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei had instructed the Command Headquarters to identify Baha'is and monitor their activities, and asked the Ministry of Information, the Revolutionary Guard, and the Police Force to collect any and all information about them.

Other countries, like Egypt, that have no laws against apostasy, instead use laws against "insulting Islam" or "creating sectarian strife." In 2003, Egyptian security forces arrested 22 converts and people who had helped them. Some were tortured, and one, Isam Abdul Fathr, died in custody. Last year, Gaseer Mohamed Mahmoud was whipped and had his toenails pulled out by police, and was told he would be imprisoned until he gave up Christianity.

While there has been no systematic study of the matter, and many punishments are not publicized, it appears that actual state-ordered executions are rarer than killings by vigilantes, mobs, and family members, sometimes with state acquiescence. In the last two years in Afghanistan, Islamist militants have murdered at least five Christians who had converted from Islam.

Vigilantes have killed, beaten, and threatened converts in Pakistan, the Palestinian areas, Turkey, Nigeria, Indonesia, Somalia, and Kenya. In November, Iranian convert Ghorban Dordi Tourani was stabbed to death by a group of fanatical Muslims. In December, Nigerian pastor Zacheous Habu Bu Ngwenche was attacked for allegedly hiding a convert. In January, in Turkey, Kamil Kiroglu was beaten unconscious and threatened with death if he refused to deny his Christian faith and return to Islam.

Meanwhile, on March 21, the Algerian parliament approved a new law requiring imprisonment for two to five years and a fine between five and ten thousand euros for anyone "trying to call on a Muslim to embrace another religion." The same penalty applies to anyone who "stores or circulates publications or audio-visual or other means aiming at destabilizing attachment to Islam."

Converts and Baha'is are not the only ones subject to such violence. Ahmadis, whom many Muslims regard as heretics, suffer a similar fate throughout the Muslim world. The victims also include many Muslims who question restrictive interpretations of Islam. In traditionally moderate Indonesia, Yusman Roy is now serving two years in prison for leading prayers in Indonesian and Arabic instead of only in Arabic.

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The Iranian parliament is reviewing a new law that would impose a death penalty on citizens who leave Islam, a human rights group alerted recently.

In the past, the death penalty for apostasy was one of many possible punishments, including imprisonment and hard labor, for renouncing Islam, But the new law proposes to make death the sentence for all apostates, according to the Institute on Religion and Public Policy (IRPP).

“This is not something new, they just want to be more harsh towards those who are leaving Islam,” an Iranian pastor told the persecution watchdog Compass.

The death sentence was approved by the Iranian Cabinet a month ago, and appears to have the needed parliamentary support to pass, according to an Iranian Christian.

Many victims of the “apostasy” law are Muslims who convert to Christianity, but victims also include liberal thinkers and members of Iran’s Baha’i religious minority.

“The draft penal code is gross violation of fundamental and human rights by a regime that has repeatedly abused religious and other minorities,” said IRPP president Joseph K. Grieboski. “This is simply another legislative attempt on the part of the Iranian regime to persecute religious minorities in the country and around the globe.”

No converts to Christianity have been convicted of “apostasy” since 1994, after the case of a convert garnered international attention. But in the years that followed, converts and those working with converts have been brutally murdered. Local believers suspect the government to have played a role in the killings.

“They [Iran] began assassinating pastors and Christian workers,” said an Iranian pastor, who requested anonymity, to Compass. “Legally, they did not take them to court, but they just killed them and said that they hanged themselves and gave some other excuses.”

In 1994, Bishop Haik Hovsepian of Iran was brutally murdered and found secretly buried in a Muslim graveyard with 26 stab wounds after defending a Christian convert. The convert, Mehdi Dibaj, had already served 10 years in prison, but was still set to be executed simply for the crime of leaving Islam

Hovsepian had garnered support from the United Nations, the U.S. Congress, and other global bodies to pressure Iran to release the convert. After successfully helping to free the convert, Hovsepian soon disappeared and was later found dead. The convert was also secretly murdered after his release.

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The question was simple. Does Islam believe in or advocate the killing of apostates?

This thread is not about atheist mass murders. If you can't answer it, just say so.

Most Islamic scholars agree that the appropriate punishment for apostasy is beheading. However, according to hadith, apostates sometimes were tortured to death. The caliph Umar II had apostates tied to a post and a lance thrust into their hearts. Mamluk Sultan Baybars II also practiced torture of apostates. A case is recorded when a woman who had apostatised was led through the streets of Cairo on an ass, then strangled in a boat in the middle of the Nile and thrown into the river. In modern times, followers of the Ahmadiyya sect in Afghanistan were stoned to death. The execution for apostasy was abolished in most Muslim lands in the 19th century either through European pressure or through the direct European rule; however, cases of imprisonment and deportation of apostates still occurred. Nevertheless, even nowadays renegades are not sure of their lives, as their Muslim relatives frequently try to kill them.[15]

Ideally, the one performing the execution of an apostate must be an imam.[15] At the same time, all schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that any Muslim can kill an apostate without punishment.


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So, does it exist in Islam or not? Yes or no.

 

You're the expert on the religion. You tell me.

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I am a mere atheist who is curious and would like a question answered.

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Seriously, I am curious. The Quran remains silent on the course of punishment for apostasy, but hadiths support the death penalty...