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An essential part of the war of civilisations There is an interesting article in The Times about Ehsan Jami, a former Muslim who rejected his religion in the aftermath of 9/11. He is organising a movement to fight for the rights of people who leave the Muslim faith and as a consequence face the threat of death, as mandated by the Koran.
This is not an issue on which there can be any compromise whatsoever. However it is also an issue which needs to be highlighted not just for the sake of former Muslims but as a means to rubbish the advocates of multicultural relativism. This is an issue that must be forced down the throat of anyone who wishes to practice Islam in any civilised country.
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I might be considered “intolerant of Islam” but I still never killed or harmed any Muslims. They still want me to die anyway. 🙁
My right to reject your argument as invalid is just as important as your right place it in the pubic sphere.
It’s a shame some can’t get their heads around it.
A small correction: The Koran does not mandate death for apostasy. It prescribes no penalty for apostasy but does state many times that apostasy is a grave sin and will be punished severely by Allah in the afterlife. The death penalty mandate comes from hadith considered reliable. For most Muslims this makes no difference, but the small group of “Koran Alone Muslims”, who do not acknowledge the legitimacy of any hadith, therefore do not believe in the death penalty for apostasy (and are considered heretics by most Muslims). There also exists at least one Shia Ayatollah who does not believe in the death penalty for apostasy.
ChrisV, as you say, it makes little difference to most Muslims but it is indeed an interesting point. Do you have a link to any sources on this as I would like to learn more on that distinction and the people who actually do make it?
I was about to make a comment about how I had heard (where I can not remember) that one of schools of Islamic Law did not demand death for leaving Islam.
However, Chris V may be making the same point. Although “Islam without hadith” is not likely to go anywhere.
Even if it did we would be faced with the difference between the Bible and Koran.
The Bible was written by many people. They may have been inspired by God, but apart from in a few places (such as the Ten Commandments) what is the Bible is NOT the words of God.
That enables (for example) a Jew to say (if he wishes to) “Joshua was wrong to invade places and murder lots of civilians” (without even talking about how the New Testament trumps the Old Testament – a Jew not holding with the New Testament of course). One can simply say “the people who wrote the Book of Joshua got the wishes of God wrong, as did Joshua himself”.
To a Muslim the Koran is the words of God – the being from Heaven told Mohammed these things and he dictated them to scribes. So all the bad bits of the Koran are the word of God also – the option of saying “the writers got the wishes of God wrong here” is not open to them.
Of course there is a school of Christian thought that holds that “right and wrong”, “good and evil” are whatever God does and does not do.
In short that one can not make an moral judgement of things in the Bible – one must simply obey God’s orders, as whatever God wills IS good (by definition – “good” having no definition separate to the will of God).
However, I am not a fan of Calvinists and other such. Although I fully accept that there are Christians out there who hold that that the thoughts of Aristotle (and other moral reasoning) are of no relevance to moral matters. It is all a matter of the whims of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe (God as legal and moral positivist).
Yes I also read that article in The Times. Media exposure of movements such as this is just so important, not so much in order to help people leave Islam (although that is a worthy end in its’ own right), but as an obvious thorn in the side of politicians who would pander to the Islamic vote – both now and in years to come.
Perry,
Check Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not always totally reliable, of course, but in this case it seems to agree with (and expand upon) my understanding of Islamic law.
IIRC, Pim Fortuyn was murdered by an animal rights activist, no? The linked article in the times doesn’t claim that he was murdered by a mad bad Islamist nut but the wording of the paragraph could be interpreted as such.
The problem with worldwide Islam as I see it is the lack of a recognised authoritative top tier (The Turkish model where the Government appoint Imams seems to work somewhat well for them). Without that top tier anyone can claim to be an Imam so long as he gets enough people to listen to him. And that Imam can contradict the “love & peace” preached by another Imam with “hate & violence” without fear of loosing his flock or at the very least without fear of casting sufficient doubt into the minds of his flock with regards to his interpretations and thus cause them to turn their collective backs to him.
That said I would be a tad suspicious of some ex-Muslims who hope up and down about how they are under threat of death because they have chosen to leave the flock. I am sure that in certain cases in western countries there are some who are genuinely in fear of their lives from family members and irate members of the Muslim public. Call me cynical but there is a large market out there for ex-Muslims to cater to with stories of such religious oppression.
Walter,
The problem with the idea of an authoritative top tier to Islam is that such would be a new Caliphate, and the lack of a Caliph is all that is stopping some Muslims from re-launching offensive Jihad. One the the Caliph’s duties under Islamic law, you see, is to lead the struggle, and there are some controversial edicts saying that only the Caliph is so authorised that are getting in the way of the Islamists. (Another of the Caliph’s duties is to authorise the execution of apostates – although it is generally accepted that national governments stand in place of the Caliph in such matters, in those places where implementing Shariah is attempted.) Their first step is therefore to restore the Caliphate and Shariah. That’s what Hizb ut Tahrir are working towards.
For more information, see Reliance of the Traveller sections o9.6 particularly, also o9.8-9 and o25. Reliance has a bunch of endorsements in the front from as near as you’re going to get to an Islamic top tier of authorities – for example: Al Azhar university in Egypt, widely viewed as the premier centre for Islamic theology, describes it “conforms to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community” which they wrote in 1991.
Before you call for a unified Islamic authority, first find out what such an authority is likely to do.
Pa Annoyed,
Christianity in it’s many flavours too has top down control, and although Christianity also preaches triumphantism of a sort it’s more interfering aspects are kept in check in whichever land it reside within through various means.
Now I’m not making a direct comparison between the two religions, and I have no wish to get into a pissing contest about which religion (the others included) is the safest for humanities global health but the current state of affairs with Islam is a case of too many chiefs not enough Indians.
Of all the things I hear about Islam, the lack of one top-down authority is the only thing that I actually like. It sounds very…libertarian:-)
Walter,
Christianity is different – despite what certain people here have asserted, the Christian theology is generally non-violent, and control from the top to unify and enforce that theology is at present nearly pacifist. There have been many counter-examples, like the Borgias, but that was a long time ago and it is hard to lay the blame on the theology. I have a whole variety of problems with Christianity, but violence is not one of them. Most of the surviving religions are similar, and this has given us a perception that religion in general is so. That’s why it is so vital to understand the specifics of Islam and what it preaches.
Alisa,
Islam does very much have one top-down authority: Allah. The entire point of their expansionism is to end the authority of man over other men, of human law, and replace it with Allah’s law. This is what Muslims mean by shirk, putting others alongside Allah – not just worshipping others, but obeying their rules. Allah, and his law as defined in the Koran, rules everything. And they are commanded to fight the people until they acknowledge there is no God worthy of worship but Allah, and obey the rules and pay the appropriate taxes (jizya or zakat). You don’t have to believe, but you do have to obey.
Of course, it’s not quite like that in practice (and certainly not in the modern world), but that’s the theory, anyway. The Islamic empire is not an empire in the normal sense – it is not ruled by a leader, but by a book. Inflexible, anachronistic, subject to interpretational abuse. I can’t easily think of anything worse.
Allah I can deal with, it’s humans that really worry me:-)
Seriously though, I see your point very well. Besides, come to think of it, what really counts for the sake of this argument, is not the organizational structure of any particular religion, but how that religion practically treats heresy/apostasy.