WHEELING, West Virginia (Reuters) - President Bush said on Wednesday he was deeply troubled that an Afghan man could face the death penalty in Afghanistan for converting to Christianity from Islam.
An Afghan judge said this week a man named Abdur Rahman had been jailed for converting from Islam to Christianity and could face the death penalty if he refused to become a Muslim again.
Sharia, or Islamic law, stipulates death for apostasy. The Afghan legal system is based on a mix of civil and sharia law.
The case has raised alarm overseas and the United States.
“We expect them to honor the universal principle of freedom,” Bush said during a visit to Wheeling to talk about the war on terrorism.
“I’m troubled when I hear — deeply troubled — when I hear the fact that a person who has converted away from Islam may be held to account. That’s not the universal application of the values that I talked about. I look forward to working with the government of that country to make sure that people are protected in their capacity to worship,” Bush said.
Bush visited Kabul earlier this month in a show of support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. [Source]
So let me get this straight. One man has converted from Islam to Christianity and BOOOOM!! he’s on the headlines, Bush is very concerned about his life and I get too many hits overnight because it happens that the man’s last name is similar to mine.
How about racial crimes in the US Mr. Bush? OK forget about that, why didn’t you speak about the 89 refugees who were expelled because the US troops obvoiously failed to protect the 34,000 Palestinians who live there.
President of the most powerfull country in the world is concerned about one single man who converted from one religion to another, how sensible!
I bet it’s all about a brave man converting from the most hated religion in the world, religion of terrorism I mean dignity and resistance no no sorry, terrorism and suicide bombing to a religion of…well…everything opposite to that. Congratulations Abdul Rahman but couldn’t you just convert silently? trust me no one would have minded.
In Islam it is not specified for how long an apostate is to be adviced and asked to return, so it might as well be years of discussions, debates and prayers for enlightment and Huda.
Anyways, Bush has a lot of catch up to do when it comes to Christianity in what is called the countries of the third world, especially in the holy city of Bethlehem.
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A Rant About Apostasy in Islam
Unfortunately, such men only get noticed when it becomes apparent that they can be used as political pawns. Nevertheless, I do hope that it saves his life.
Well i hope you dont hope he gets executed
Ya3ni is Bush trying to convince us that he hasn’t slept all night worrying about that Afaghani man? He’s aafraid he’ll get executed, what about the children who were inderictly executed in the war? Whether the execution was by a noose or a scud missle… still it’s an execution… who is Mr. president trying to fool here playing the role of the concerned and copmpassionate? Better be straight to the point and tell the objective behind these fake concerns…
michael, no I don’t hope he gets executed of course. Following his news, he might be mentally disturbed or accused falsely of converting. Even if he did really convert, I’m not with killing people for chaging their beliefs.
lol @ your name “coincidence”
this goes back to say whose life is worth more and why? skin colour, religion, beliefs, politics…all of this plays a role here.
It is not only the President of the most powerful country in the world but many nations that are demanding the release of Abdul Rahman and condemning this truly horrified way of murdering people. Including Germany, Italy, Canada, Australia and the list continues with more and more nations becoming aware of this situation and recently, the addition of the Pope. At least you could say that they are deciding to give him a fair trial and go through a democratic process before they decide to kill him. Here is a man, Abdul; he has a name, a face, and a fantastic strength of faith in what he believes to be true, salvation through Jesus Christ; from which, when he is even threatened with death, torture and probably a long list of other nasty things he stays steadfast in his beliefs. It is very scary when you read stuff like, “ ‘The Quran is very clear and the words of our prophet are very clear. There can only be one outcome: death,’ said cleric Khoja Ahmad Sediqi, who is also a member of the Supreme Court.†I say multi-nation forces should just free Abdul Rahman and take him to America, Germany, Italy, Canada or one of the many other nations that would love to have him.
SN, extreme clerics that you quote scare me as a Muslim as well
Okay aside from the political side of the story!
Shaden the man didn’t go in the public saying that he has converted! What happened is, that after he got separated from his wife and a custody battle over his two daughters started, one of his family members rated him out! The police searched his home and they found a bible so they put him in custody.
So I would say Congratulations Abdul Rahman for his conversions and for proudly holding the bible in the court that was courageous! And of course he did convert silently because he’s not doing it to be seen or to provoke turmoil. It’s a personal matter, he did for him self.
Now I’ve always stumbled upon this question but didn’t find a definite an answer: Is it punishable in Islam to convert to Christianity? Or is it another disputable issue in Islam?
Shaden said “In Islam it is not specified for how long an apostate is to be adviced and asked to return, so it might as well be years of discussions, debates and prayers for enlightment and Hudaâ€
Does this imply that apostasy is still punishable if the person didn’t repent after many years? And what is the punishment?
Now regarding Bush, I think his motive is to promote freedom of religion as constitued in the post Taliban Afghanistan, that what has draw all this attention! Hey Laura Bush visited the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and Dome of the rock mosque, but didn’t visit any Christian holy site in Jerusalem.
OKay sorry for all the grammatical and spelling mistakes!
Too tired no sleeping lots of work
I cannot help thinking whether GWB really think that people don’t think he is an idiot or
Not!!!… too many “think”… Sigh!
Chill everyone… the man was released, they say there was no sufficient evidence… I wonder what kind of evidence and to what? Seems like he has one hell of a lawyer
Firas
“Is it punishable in Islam to convert to Christianity? Or is it another disputable issue in Islam?”
to answer your question: It is not necessarily punishable, regardless of the religion or lack there of. The understanding is that every case is different. If the person converts and then pledges to fight Islam and Muslims then he may recieve the death sentence in the same way a traitor of the state would. Each case is individualised. In this case of this man he should not recieve any punishment as he has not caused any harm to Muslims or the Islamic community.
people are under the assumption that as long as you convert you face death automatically when this is a far cry from the truth. there’s nothing written in the quran about death for the apostate of Islam, and the ways of the Prophet pbuh or the actions he took in specific cases are an example of how it is dealt with.
Taken from The Calgary Sun newspaper:
“Certain questions arise here. Is it true that Islamic law makes the conversion of a Muslim to Christianity, or any other religion, a capital offence?
Is it true the Qur’an requires his execution?
Is it true, as has been frequently reported, that it is illegal to preach the Christian gospel in a country under Islamic law (i.e. Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, etc)?
Is this also punishable by death?
Is it true the goal of the Islamic faith is to bring all the countries of the world under Islamic law?
In short, is one objective of the Muslim faith purely political?
Is it the aim of Canadian Muslims to bring such a “perfect constitution” to Canada?
And if they succeeded, and Canada became an Islamic country, would the Christians be allowed to continue preaching the Gospel, including to Muslims?
If all these things are true, then would it not follow that Muslims are opposed to freedom of religion?
Obviously, if you cannot preach a religion, then this is a central prohibition against its practice.
How therefore can a Muslim contend that he supports the Charter of Rights and Freedom?
In the western world, Muslims are certainly free to preach and practice Islam. They are not arrested.
If a Christian converts to their faith, the Christian is not put in jail and brought to trial.
Christians would certainly pray for his soul, but I know of nothing in the Christian Bible that requires his execution.
Do Muslims perhaps regard this reaction as a weakness in Christianity?
How do Muslims reconcile these Qura’nic requirements with their portrayal of Islam as a religion devoted to peace, goodwill and mutual understanding?
Or, in the view of their faith, is such benevolence confined to relations among Muslims, not to their dealings with “infidels.”
And if this proscription exists, ought they not to include it in their portrayal of their faith.
The rule would be: “Love your neighbor as yourself, provided he is a Muslim.”
I know this column sounds nasty and aggressive, but I don’t mean it to be.
I know Muslims whose devotion to God is certainly as heartfelt as that of most Christians I know.
But if I talk to them about faith in Jesus Christ, about His death, and the Christian belief that He died to save all men, Muslims included, from the inevitable consequences of human behavior, are they secretly saying to themselves: “When Islam prevails in this country, he would not dare say this to me, because he could be put to death for doing it.”
Thoughts such as this tend to inhibit free and open discussion. ”
Answers to questions I would love to know as well. Another one of my own I would like to add; why is it that so often that Muslims, at least the one’s I am familiar with, can get so upset and aggressive when they hear the Gospel, salvation through Jesus Christ, and yet Christians and the West as a whole welcome whatever beliefs Muslim’s wish to have AND publicly declare. I’ll quote the author of this story above, “Congratulations Abdul Rahman but couldn’t you just convert SILENTLY? Trust me no one would have minded.”
Hello
There is plenty of reasons not to be fond of Bush, but this is not one of them.
I really dont think that Bush cares if a man converts from a religion to another, to him its just another man going to heaven. However he and everyone else should care that a socalled justice system makes it at crime (and even worthy of capital punishment) to convert religion. There is no reason this should be illegal at all, since it does no harm to anyone. It is of course ok to call the converted man stupid, since his choice means he will go to hell when he dies.
Please note:
“Because I say so”, or “because sharia says so” are NOT reasons.
SN, as any religious person it upsets me to see someone going astray but that’s something I keep in my heart and maybe peacefully communicate to others. How is that “bad” or anti-Christiianity? are you trying to tell me you’ll feel happy for a Chrisitian who converted to Islam? Surely in Christianity he’s not someone who will see heavens anytime soon (ie never). As far as I’m concerned conversion is an “Unpardonable Sin”; correct me if I’m wrong.
I don’t think I need to answer any of your questions as they were asked with an obvious intention. I only can tell you that Msulims believe/love/respect all the previous Prophets and their religious books; however we are not to follow them but rather follow the last Prophet sent to the humankind, Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) and take Qura’an as the Holy Book we believe in and follow.
Why Abdul Rahman should’ve not talked about it? it’s there in the same story I blogged, he gave the opportunity to Bush and his alikes to attack Islam and further abuse Afghanis. Not that Abdul Rahman did that intentionally or was aware of what he’s doing, I’m not even sure he has converted in the first place. For all I care the whole story might’ve been fabricated by whoever can benefit from such an incident.
Thank you all for leaving comments on this entry.
Shaden, I quoted those questions from The Calgary Sun newspaper, as I had prefixed, although I had asked one question of my own at the bottom of my reply: Your reply, “I don’t think I need to answer any of your questions as they were asked with an obvious intention.” None the less they are questions often thought of but seldom asked. Also, neither myself nor the author of the story had (have) stated Christianity as their faith, nor has it been said that it is not, but are more so trying to ascertain answers to these posed questions.
Concerning President Bush, most of the western nations think (thought) that he acted too slowly and with too little authority; key people in this incident were people like Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, the Chancellor of Germany and leaders from the EU and Italy.
Thank you for permitting these discussions.
SN, there are several ways to answer your question. first having been born and raised in canada I can safely say Muslims as a whole and as a community take their faith much more seriously than other religious groups, even Christians. second, Islam embraces Jesus completely and that is the problem when people come and preach that salvation is through Jesus pbuh, because he is a very essential Prophet in Islam and for anyone to associate anything else with him, through the trinity, or any other Christian belief, it is like an insult to his teachings according to Islamic history through the Quran. To Muslims Jesus was saved from death on the cross and he was simply a Prophet, only becoming something more after death. So to Muslims what some people preach goes against our own beliefs.
Do not generalize however and say all Muslims get aggressive and all Christians are welcoming. Neither is true.
As for the questions posed in this article you posted, it shows a sinister intent on the part of the writer to point out “contradictions” when most of these questions are quite simple to answer and quite clear in quran that even my 10 year old cousin has enough understanding of the religion to handle it…say nothing of an author :-S
Nas, thanks for your comments but “second, Islam embraces Jesus completely and that is the problem when people come and preach that salvation is through Jesus pbuh, because he is a very essential Prophet in Islam and for anyone to associate anything else with him, through the trinity, or any other Christian belief, it is like an insult to his teachings according to Islamic history through the Quran.” Was not Jesus preached hundreds of years before the invention of Islam, founded in 610 A.D. by a man named Mohammed. In this case, should it not be the Christians who would say, “hey you’re corrupted Scripture and have it wrong”? Did not Mohammed pray towards Jerusalem until the Jews frowned on that practice and so he then changed the way he prayed and began praying towards Mecca? The Christian population generally, it seems, does not take that as an insult and permits you have and express that belief.
“Do not generalize however and say all Muslims get aggressive and all Christians are welcoming. Neither is true.” I 100% agree with you.
As for a sinister article, yes that perception could be assumed if the person thought they were only stating obvious things and not asking honest questions. What are a lot of people left to think when this is what the media shows all day: Muslims burning Danish flags in the Great Cartoon War and chanting anti western slogans, calling for the absolute annihilation of a nation, the Jews which are your brothers through Abraham, and according to the Torah, God’s chosen people.
Looking for honest and sincere answers to what I believe to be honest questions. Thank you.
P.S.
To the author of this site/blog, good job, I think it is really well done.
SN, see when you say “invention” it really begs the question of whether you do open your arms to accept Muslims
“should it not be the Christians who would say, “hey you’re corrupted Scripture and have it wrongâ€?”
yes it should, and many of them do!
“Did not Mohammed pray towards Jerusalem until the Jews frowned on that practice and so he then changed the way he prayed and began praying towards Mecca?”
lol no not really. The Prophet pbuh was told to pray in that direction by Allah and told to pray towards Mecca later on as history changed.
“What are a lot of people left to think when this is what the media shows all day:”
Are you to blame a religion for the faults of a few crazy people? Did the worlds 1.5 billion Muslims rampage through the streets chanting those things? Remember, things appear larger on TV.
“Looking for honest and sincere answers to what I believe to be honest questions.”
And in this spirit feel free to email me at [email protected] and I will answer what honest questions you might have
Found an excellent site concerning salvation through Jesus Christ. Take a look.
(Link was removed by the Blog’s owner)
Thanks for the invitation Nas, I appreciate that.
SN, the link you’ve provided was removed by me. Similar spammish comments will not be tolerated.
My apologies Shaden, I was not aware that links were not to be posted. And, if they are, next time I will post ones from both sides of the story.
Thank you, Shaden, SN, and especially Nas for the informative dialogue. As a Christian, I feel that Nas has been very straightforward, objective, and calm in stating & explaining Muslim beliefs. I feel a kinship to him.
I just want to say that I am reading the book “Ishmael, My Brother”.
We are from the same bloodline. God is our Father. Christians do not believe that Jesus was the “son” of God in the way that “sons” are understood by human beings. Not that kind of “son”.
The Son of God as contextualised in the bible is meaning, that God came down in human form. We believe that Jesus is God himself, but in a different form. We believe - as Moslems do - that there is only ONE God. just that God - being allpowerful - is able to take different forms. like water can take the states of gas (water vapour), liquid, and solid (ice cubes), but is still water. Christians believe in ONE GOD.
I really hope to see more of such dialogues, that we can be open with one another & extend the hand of brotherhood to one another, to build trust & better friendship among christians & muslims. May God’s love guide us all.
Hi, What do you mean by converting silently? Are muslims afraid of questioning any of their beliefs? Are they free to do so? Muslims keep complaining of how they are prosecuted and opressed around the world, but do not give a thought to the opression of religious minorities in islamic countries. Sad, I think islam is incompatible with freedom of thought. To understand this world, we must unfortunately think! freely! sometimes outside god and relgious restrictions-only then can we truly work as creative beings. Please learn to question your religion for what it is….
Susan, Muslims are not afraid of questioning anything, believing in something is a personal matter after all. I could careless if someone converted to Islam, if I care it would be solely to help out this person better understand what he’s just embraced. And I could careless if someone converted to Christianity. To view the man’s conversion as something heroic, something worth worrying about as if the millions of Muslims will be on his back trying to kill him is absurd. Let alone seeing Bush concerned! doesn’t he have better things to do with his time? knowing that he’s a president and all!
Please don’t come and throw around baseless accusations of a religion and millions of follower unless you know what you’re talking about. The oppression of religious minorities in the Islamic world is being dealt with as much transparency as possible, but as far as I’m concerned, except for some painful personal accounts of a very small number of people who experienced discrimination or oppression, we live with non-Muslims in peace and love as true Islam teaches Muslims.
It would be interesting if you share with us why do you think Islam is incompatible with freedom of thought, because as a Muslim, I’ve been ordered to think of everything, it’s the only to believe in God actually. It’s all a matter of personal choices and personal differences amongst individuals of any religion.
I don’t appreciate your patronizing tone, but thanks for your input.
Hi Shaden, I missed replying to this post, as I wasn’t sure I wanted to get into this kind of dialogue with someone I like so much!!
But, maybe that is the very best kind of people to talk about hard things.
Maybe I’d like to say that oppression of minorities isn’t as transparent as you might think, because Christians are very afraid to even discuss it. Muslims think we live in peaceful co-existence, but if you really hear what Christians say, it is living in fear of rocking the boat and losing what rights we do have. I say ‘we’, meaning Jordanian Christians, even though I’m not Jordanian. It is very hard to live with a constant level of condescension and patronization, you can feel it from one post, for us we deal with it every day.
Christians don’t have complete freedom to practice their faith. For us, encouraging people to follow Christ isn’t just a nice thought, but the very last command Jesus Christ left to us. It is an obligation, as it is with Judaism. It would be like asking a Muslim not to practice one of the five pillars. But we submit.
We don’t have complete freedom to explain misconceptions about our faith. The trinity does not include Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and never has, but because it is in a Hadeeth somewhere, people insist I
worship 3 Gods including Jesus mother.Istagfirallah.
It is difficult for Christians to have the whole school curriculum that contradicts their faith and makes them memorize from a holy book that is not theirs. Even Christian schools have to use it, they cannot have a Christian curriculum. If a Muslim visits a church, and someone greets him, the person who ‘keeps and eye on things’ will have the greeter called in for ‘tea and interview’. We can’t have events in hotels anymore, no more Christmas parties of Mother’s Day brunches at the Hyatt, we were told.
Shaden, I know you are a thinker, a deep thinker. I think what Susan may have meant is that freedom to speak against basic tenants of Christianity (as Nas did) is OK in Islam, as it is Islamic doctrine. But, for a Christian to speak out against the basic tenants of Islam just can’t be. Higher criticism of the Bible, by unbelieving Protestant ‘theologians’, is usually what I hear quoted by Muslims to point out ‘errors’ in our Book. But the same manner of scholarship isn’t allowed to be applied to the Quran. This is what Susan may be meaning by freedom of ‘thought’. Christianity got through that period, and is still growing, I think people would take Islam more seriously if they allowed that kind of study and debate.
Hope you still like me! I know you do, and I really value your opinion and views.
Hello Kinzi, thanks for sharing your thoughts with us!
I’ve been lived in the Arab world my entire life, I’m sure I need to be Christian to fully understand what they go through as a minority, but as someone who has Christian friends and is aware of the rights they have, I know for a fact that we do live in peace. I do acknowledge that in the Islamic world, Islam is the dominant, it’s the religion of the country, something understandably sounds unfair to the Christian minority but I disagree that they are afraid to “even discuss it”. I personally, see how trying to convert people to what you think is the only true religion is dangerous and I can’t blame religion and politics to try and prevent it. On the other hand, I’m not happy with what is taught at schools, how we learn to accept the existence of others but not how to live, really live with them. In fact, in an ideal world, I’d want to see Muslims and Christians learning in the same schools but that’s only in an ideal world, because we all know that it’s never gonna work.
You also talk about patronization and condescension, I’m really interested in knowing more about this. Give me examples of daily situations you go through as a Christian in Jordan. I find it interesting, because I think it’s not about being Christian or Muslim, people have the tendency to think they have the absolute truth to everything, that they are right and everyone else is wrong. But in the case of this post, with all due respect to the commenter, I can not tolerate ignorance, but what I can not tolerate even more is a self-righteous ignorant. Again, with all due respect, but no one should tell others that they’re wrong while he/she does not know what he/she is talking about, what is it that is wrong.
I think asking for the freedom to approach people with the intention to convert them is really unreasonable, what would you think if Muslim scholars or even just Muslim people started to knock your door everyday or approach you, your kids, relatives, friends, people you know with the intention to convert them from Christianity? I doubt you’d like that. While you know why do you want to be a Christian, I’m sure many have a weaker faith, and you have also children and young people who are easily manipulated. It’s funny how you want to ask people to follow Jesus but will call that extremism and manipulation if a Muslim does it. It’s what everybody says when a Muslim tries to tell another how to be a good Muslim actually, Muslims will call that person an extremist and a brainwasher, and non-Muslims will think the same too. It doesn’t matter what method you choose to change the way someone thinks or acts, in the end of the day, it’s all manipulation. But I bet our minds will tell us that there’s good manipulation, and that can be called marketing, and bad manipulation. It all depends on what we want to believe in and so we’d like to consider is “right”.
What do you mean by you’re not allowed to explain the misconceptions about your faith?
What we were told in the Qura’an is that Christians worship Jesus, that they believe he’s the son of God. That’s two Gods, and we Muslims believe in one God only, has no sons, no wife and no father.
I thought that Christians can go to Christian schools if they want to? I don’t know how things are done here but in the UAE, Christians were allowed to skip all the Islamic classes! which I think is the right thing to do, it doesn’t make sense to make them memorize and force them to study for the exam too.
I know nothing about this. But I’ll ask my Christian friends and get back to you! I know however, that Muslims and Christians do show up in each other’s wedding parties, it’s a common scene to see Muslims attending a Christian wedding in a church.
Islam encourages dialogue between religions, believe me Islam is not that different from Christianity, it has more in common with it than non-Muslims would think. If that is not exactly welcomed now, it’s because of extremism on both sides as well as for what I think is political bullshit, but mainly extremism. I might not be the most religious person in the world, but don’t accuse Islam of things only stupid and/or extreme people do. How would react if I told you Christianity encourages violence and discriminate against women and people of color because some of the most powerful -supposedly Christian- groups in history were murderers and humiliated women in the name of religion? Not to mention that you have an old book and a new one, something I don’t know much about but I keep reading about how Christianity, a religion, changed or improved. You’d hate it if I quoted something from the old book! Yet, I don’t see Muslims attacking random Christian people because they think they have the wrong religion, we don’t have this obsessive need to change the world and make it embrace our own belief system, a need the majority of literate Americans tend to have especially towards Muslims. A need I’m sure is driven by delusions and fear of what they think is Islamic terror. The fact is, Americans are dealing with people not with a religion, so they should stop wasting their time insulting Muslims’ intelligence, we’re doing just fine. You know, it’s as if humanity didn’t go shitty periods before, weren’t those who killed black people and refused to be equalized to them in rights, even refused to consider them human Christian? how come it didn’t mean Christianity is wrong? maybe because they were both the oppressors and the oppressed.
All I can say is that we have only one book, and despites of the slightly different interpretations of Qur’an still, what you’ve just complained about is the exact opposite of what it preaches. As long as you criticize respectfully, Islam urges us to listen and answer all your doubts.
Ofcourse I still like you! a blonde Arabish speaker, what’s not to like
Hi Shaden, thanks for taking the time to answer! I am having a problem reading your comment as there is some double shading, though. But what I can read, there is some good stuff! Can it be fixed?
Hi Kinzi, I hope it’s fixed now? can you please reload the page?
I can read it now, Shaden. Thanks for the time you took! I am now asking Christian friends for their perspective as you are, as I don’t want to be misrepresenting a whole based on what I have heard before, and on Wednesday I’ll be back. I have to ‘assayif’ those khazaanis