The apostasy debate sparked in the Islamic world by the case of Abdul Rahman highlights the prevalent perplexity in the Islamic world, not only about the apostasy issue, but about other points too: suicide bombers, terrorism, family law and love. Rome (AsiaNews) – Abdul Rahman’s sin of apostasy, that nearly earned him the death penalty, was resolved diplomatically with his expatriation to Italy. But the episode of Rahman’s conversion to Christianity drew many reactions in the Muslim world. I had the opportunity to read hundreds of them in Arab-language forums, with comments coming from all over the world.
To put it more precisely, I read nearly 400 comments posted on the al-Arabiya website, based in Dubai, and the Arab site of the BBC, where hundreds of interventions were posted.
Glancing through the comments, one can see that around 50% uphold Rahman’s execution because this is what the Sharia says. For at least one out of four of these, the essential reason for the death penalty for apostates is: if conversion to another religion is allowed, this would be fitnah (sedition), it would prompt others to follow this path, and thus all would become Christians. To halt this trend, which is not considered “normal”, it is better to kill. The concept of “fitnah” is Koranic (mentioned more than 30 times in the Koran) and it often justifies violence.
But then there is a minority, around 15% that insists killing is not just, for reasons we are acquainted with (the Koran says nothing about this, there are only hadiths that mention the death penalty and so on); others say also it would not have been right to kill Rahman because this would go “against human rights”.
Only rarely was there mention of an obligation of reciprocity. Someone said: “We allow a Christian to convert to Islam, so it’s only logical that we should also accept the contrary”.
Many interventions however refuted this opinion, saying “Islam is the only true religion, the last revealed religion that cancelled everything said by other religions before it. Leaving Islam would be a step backwards into error.”
There was also a beautiful testimony by a woman who signed off as an “Egyptian Muslim believer”. In a well articulated article, this woman explained that there was freedom of choice in the Koran. In fact, there are passages which say “who wants to, believes, who does not want to, does not believe.” Or else: “Is it you [Muhammad] who forces people to people?” But the woman takes her argument further: “If we force people to believe in Islam, then we would have hypocrites in our community, who do not believe, and this would do more harm than good. Then no one would know anymore what Islam is, it would be reduced to a political expedient.” She adds: “We don’t need to increase the number of Muslims who are so only by name, but who are not Muslims in their heart and actions.”
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