From the Christian Science Monitor: Conversion a thorny issue in Muslim world.
How thorny? Well...
"Most mainstream schools of Islamic jurisprudence call for converts to be executed. Though the Koran promises only hellfire for apostates and also says “there should be no compunction in religion,” Islamic jurists have typically argued that execution is mandated, citing stories of comments made by the prophet Muhammad.
“The prophet Muhammad said that anyone who rejects Islam for another religion should be executed,” said Mr. Mawlavezada, the judge."
On Francisco Franco
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OK, Grandma ... put your hands in the air ... slowly ... step away from the bingo machine ... put down the knitting needles...
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Mark Steyn wonders when we’re going to start facing down a culture where they talk like crazies.
"The reality is our society pays enormous respect to minorities — President Bush holds a monthlong Ramadan-a-ding-dong at the White House every year; the immediate reaction to the slaughter of 9/11 by the president, the prince, the prime ministers of Britain, Canada and everywhere else was to visit a mosque to demonstrate their great respect for Islam. One party to this dispute is respectful to a fault: after all, to describe the violence perpetrated by Muslims over the Danish cartoons as the “recent ghastly strife” barely passes muster as effete Brit toff understatement.
Unfortunately, what’s “precious and sacred” to Islam is its institutional contempt for others. In his book Islam And The West, Bernard Lewis writes, “The primary duty of the Muslim as set forth not once but many times in the Koran is ‘to command good and forbid evil.’ It is not enough to do good and refrain from evil as a personal choice. It is incumbent upon Muslims also to command and forbid.”
Or as the shrewd Canadian columnist David Warren put it: “We take it for granted that it is wrong to kill someone for his religious beliefs. Whereas Islam holds it is wrong not to kill him.” In that sense, those blood-curdling imams are right, and Karzai’s attempts to finesse the issue are, sharia-wise, wrong.
I can understand why the president and the secretary of state would rather deal with this through back-channels, private assurances from their Afghan counterparts, etc. But the public rhetoric is critical, too. At some point we have to face down a culture in which not only the mob in the street but the highest judges and academics talk like crazies.
Rahman embodies the question at the heart of this struggle: If Islam is a religion one can only convert to not from, then in the long run it is a threat to every free person on the planet. What can we do?"
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