Shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks I befriended a twenty-year-old Egyptian woman. She had recently moved to Birmingham, Alabama to marry the owner of a Mediterranean restaurant I frequented, and I wanted her to know people in Alabama accepted and liked her regardless of some of the prejudices that surfaced after September 11. She wore a fedora over her conservative Islamic hijab (headscarf) to camouflage her religious identity.
Using halting English, we shared stories of each other’s lives. She was amazed to learn I had chosen the Catholic faith in adulthood, and she asked me many times for clarification. Her husband interpreted my words for her in Arabic: “My family does not belong to the same faith tradition as me,” I said. “I used to belong to another faith community, but I chose a different religion.”
She gasped, gripping the bottom of her headscarf with both hands and asked: “Nobody kill you? You not afraid someone kill you?” My young Egyptian friend asked repeatedly if I was in danger. “Of course not,” I told her. “I have never felt afraid to choose my own religious path.”
A Dangerous Conversion
Things weren’t so easy for Christian convert Abdul Rahman, the former Muslim recently imprisoned in Afghanistan for “apostasy,” that is, rejecting Islam, a crime punishable by death. Islamic clerics demanded Rahman’s execution and pledged that if Rahman were released they would incite people to “pull him into pieces.”
Reaction in the West was one of shock: How can this happen? Rahman should have freedom to choose his own religion, or even to choose no religion at all. Executing people for “apostasy” is unthinkable nowadays, though such deeds have a place in religious history. The Hebrew Scriptures tell stories of people who were killed for worshiping pagan gods, and Christian officials once put people to death for heresy during the Inquisition. Today’s understanding, however, is that people are free to leave the Christian faith, a position that is consistent with first century Church practices.
Rahman was released without punishment, amid pressures from Western nations that support Afghanistan’s fledgling democracy. Strategically, the court dismissed the case without challenging Islamic Sharia laws, and it questioned the Christian convert’s mental fitness for trial. Rahman swiftly left for Italy where he has been granted asylum. Last week, Rahman publicly thanked Pope Benedict XVI and the Italian government for their intervention and support. He said he never wants to return to Afghanistan.
Speaking out in Birmingham
This past Monday, at a Jewish synagogue here in Birmingham, Alabama, Islamic leader Mustafa Ceric, the grand mufti of Bosnia, spoke publicly about overcoming conflicts between Muslims, Christians and Jews. Ceric focused his remarks on poverty, saying that 70 percent of the world’s refugees are Muslims, which often leads to a desperate theology of persecution and mistrust.
Christianity’s presence in an Islamic country feels to the poor like a hostile invasion from the West, since Islam is not just their religion, but also their sense of ethnic identity. Some believe that preventing Muslims from choosing another religion, even with the threat of death, is the necessary price for preserving the community.
Writer Ibn Warraq, a former Muslim, wrote Why I am Not a Muslim, a book that has provoked death threats. In his paper “Apostasy, Human Rights, Religion and Belief” from the April 7, 2004 Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, Warraq writes:
“The very notion of apostasy has vanished from the West… In Islamic countries, on the other hand, the issue is far from dead….It is clear quite clear that under Islamic Law an apostate must be put to death. There is no dispute on this ruling among classical Muslim or modern scholars.”
The Quran and the Islamic traditions–the Hadith–tell stories of Mohammed and his immediate successors killing Muslims who left the faith, and many in the Muslim world believe that death is the only religiously valid response to apostasy.
Other Perspectives on Apostasy
Though Rahman’s case reflects prevailing Islamic religious belief, less extreme examples clearly exist. In Turkey, which has a Muslim majority but a more secularist government, over 35,000 Muslims converted to Christianity in 2003. Although some people experience harassment from individual persons, the government does not forbid conversions.
Muslims here in Birmingham, Alabama are peaceful and moderate, though many believe an Islamic government should have power to dole out punishments, including death, for religious violations. However, my Muslim friends who are the most prayerful and earnest in their faith do not wish for anyone to be hurt or killed. Since the Quran says “there is no compulsion in religion,” (Surah 2, Verse 256) they are disgusted when Islamic countries abandon basic freedoms of conscience.
A growing minority of progressive Muslims preach against a punitive faith. They argue that when Mohammed killed apostates, the cases involved additional crimes like high treason against a government, and since Allah (God) does not force anyone to believe in Islam, the worshipers of Allah cannot use force. The Quran says:
“Say: O unbelievers! I do not serve that which you serve, nor do you serve Him whom I serve: nor am I going to serve that which you serve, nor are you going to serve Him Whom I serve: You shall have your religion and I shall have my religion.”
(Surah 109, Verses 1-6).
Believers from many religious traditions know that faith can be so important that one is willing to give one’s life for it. In the Islamic world today, however, a person can be required to give up his or her life for a religion even when he or she does not believe in it anymore. We can only hope that continued dialogue among moderate Islamic clerics and other religious leaders along with outreach to the poor, will lead to greater freedoms.
