Apostacy, from another forum

[Assalaamu 'alaikum, Below is my response to a rather long discussion on another forum regarding the response to apostasy. As always, discussion is welcome.]

Salaam all,

Reluctantly, I would like to add the following to the discussion. I say "reluctantly" because these sort of issues always turn into heated debates wherein one party calls the other "Kaafir" and the like.

[A] Islam is a faith of utmost intellectual and spiritual conviction. We know this when we have only a cursory look at the Qur'an. Repeatedly, it points to Ayaat [signs] in the creation, even in ourselves, as evidence of Allah's power as well as his being the source of the Qur'an.

Yes, the Qur'an says "No compulsion in the Deen" [Laa Ikraha Fid deen]. The reason for that is "The right guidance is very clear, distinct from confusion or misguidance" [Qad TabayyanaR-Rushdoo min al Ghiyy]. Allah does not need our salaah, fasting, Shahaadah or any of that.[B] We require those things. For our guidance and spiritual salvation. If Allah does not need our 'Ibaadah, then why should we execute someone?

[C] The Prophet [Sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam] was, without doubt, the best Daa'ee. As such, there are very few reports in the hadeeth books dealing with the Prophet and "apostasy". Where such reports do exist [if we accept the reports as accurate & complete renderings of the events] we always see it in connection with something else. For example, there's a report that the Prophet executed "apostates" after sending them missionaries, at their request, but the report clearly states that the particular group laid a trap for the Muslim missionaries, killing them and plundering their goods. So, the punishment here was not for apostasy necessarily, but rather for murder.

[D] "Apostasy" was just another word for treason, or rebellion against the authorities. Such is clearly what occurred in the early days of Abu Bakr's rule.

[E] There has been debate for generations about some aspects of all this. For example, a Muslim who recognizes that Allah is One God, and Muhammad is his Prophet, yet prays only on fridays or the 'Eid [which is the case for many today], or, does not pray at all. Many would see such a person as an "apostate". My point being, if a government punishes people for "apostasy", it's going to be very subjective, and in the end accomplish nothing.

[F] Personal conviction and practice is, in the end,the business of the person and God. Unless he or she starts to attack Islam, with the purpose of destroying the UMMAH [as was clearly the case with Salman Rushdie types], we should leave them alone, both as a Muslim state and as individuals.

[G] Because of the logic inherent in Islam, there has historically been very few cases of apostasy. Moreover, in those days, all religious communities saw apostasy as punishable by execution, so it would have been logical for muslims to assume the same, even if never seen or done in their lifetime. It's one of those things people may never really think about because it never happens.

[H] Finally, back to the Qur'an. It tells us "And a party of Ahlil Kitaab asserted among themselves 'proclaim Imaan in that which has been sent to those who believe [meaning, pretend to believe just as Muslims do], in the beginning of the day, and [then proclaim] disbelief [wa akfurooo] in the night, so that hopefully, they [the Muslims] will return back [to Jaahiliyyah, i.e. reject Islam themselves] [La'allahum Yar ji'oon.] "[3:71].

Their plot was simple, this is a reference to Jews here, according to all Mufassireen. They would say the Shahaadah, etc.. and then "give it up", in order to demoralize the naive Muslims, convincing them that Islam was not a worth-while religion. The Qur'an clearly records their plot, something which scholars have acknowledged as well. Such a plot would be unthinkable had the punishment for apostasy [remember, this was in Madinah, where the Prophet was in charge] been the death penalty.

Any reports coming from the time of the Prophet, if we accept as accurate, are clearly with regards to treason, murder etc.. and not because someone was not intellectually convinced that he [Muhammad, 'Alayhis salaatu was salaam] was a Prophet.

Wallaahu A'laam,

wassalaam,
S.Waheed

Assalamalaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu

Unless he or she starts to attack Islam, with the purpose of destroying the UMMAH [as was clearly the case with Salman Rushdie types], we should leave them alone, both as a Muslim state and as individuals.

Mashallah very good to know that someone talks the truth according to authentic facts..

Jazakallah

Who did my beloved brother and favourite author Salman Rushdie attack?

Assalamalaikum warahmatullahi wa barakatuhu


Good Question ?

I've never read Rushdie's Satanic Verses but I recall the brouhaha was over what some Muslims felt was an attack against the person of prophet Muhammd (saw).

I've never read Rushdie's Satanic Verses but I recall the brouhaha was over what some Muslims felt was an attack against the person of prophet Muhammd (saw).

I have read The Satanic Verses, several times. Midnight's Children and that Free Radio story in East-West are much more blasphemous, by the way.

Since Prophet Muhammad has been dead for over a thousand years, it's pretty difficult to accuse Brother Rushdie (who was born in the 1940s) of attacking him.

Calling for terror and murder of an author who writes sarcastic stories suggests nothing more than the people who call for violence (including those who try to justify it) don't believe in God, or they believe in a pathetic and insecure God who gets his feelings hurt by human criticism and needs human help to get revenge. If there is a God, and if he wants Salman Rushdie dead, he could arrange for Rushdie to have an accident or something himself. He wouldn't need Ayatollahs to send assassins to murder someone.

Also interesting to read about Prophet Muhammad. People made fun of him and drove him out of places while he was alive. In the histories he doesn't seem petty or ridiculous. People threw rocks at him in one town, so he wandered away to someplace else where people were more pleasant, and that was the end of it. If Prophet Muhammad were alive today he'd probably write rebuttals and he'd end up having coffee together with Salman Rushdie, Irshad Manji and the gay imam after the drama was over. Just my take.

As salaamu 'alaikum,

Believe it or not, years ago I saw a copy of Satanic Verses in the private library of a Muslim activist. He wanted to see it for himself, so he obtained it.

I read quite a bit of it, in it the names of people from the Prophet's life are used to construct a story, a narrative, that is really bizarre!

It depicts the Prophet and the Angel Gabriel as Gay lovers, assigns rather undignified positions to his wives and so forth. [God protect us!]

Regardless of the legitimacy [or lack thereof] of the Death sentence by Iran's late Imam Khomeini, the issue that has to be brought to light is that we Muslims, even after 14 centuries, see the Prophet Muhammad [Sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam] as perhaps the most beloved figure in our lives. He is more loved to us than even our family members.

So, it's an emotional thing. Going around Muslim forums, you will notice how some of us even take exception when the traditional salute "Sall-Allahu 'Alayhi wa sallam" is absent when he is mentioned.


Salman Rushdie is not the first, nor will he be the last, to ridicule The Prophet, or Islam in general. In addition to this, there is no doubt that Khomeini acted in the interest of securing a position of leadership in the hearts of Muslims.

But nonetheless he [Rushdie] should know better than to yell "Fire!!" in a crowded theater.



As for the original post, it was part of a debate taking place on another Muslim forum as to whether punishment for apostasy was Islamically legitimate. It was my position that the punishment that is usually thought of [i.e. execution] stems from a misunderstanding of the texts, that any punishments that did take place in the time of the Prophet was not for ideological reasons [after all, we do know from Islamic history that there was an early Muslim who had accepted Christianity while in Ethiopia, we know this because when he died, the Prophet married his widow afterwards] but rather for treason, i.e. working with external enemies to destroy/undermine the state.

Satanic Verses itself is almost a plagiarism. I don't call it that because he is a master of the English language, but the structure of the narrative is pretty much identical to a book by Mikhail Bulgakov entitled Master and Margarita. Bulgakov told the story of Jesus and Pontius Pilate and interspersed it into a parallel group of stories about Satan visiting the USSR right before the GPW, in the 1930s. In a way, he'd done this before. Grimus is a re-writing of another frame narrative (the Congress of the Birds) from classical antiquity.

Right. (LOL! That Baal & Salman The Persian dialogue was so bad! Even I cringe when I read it.)

If you examine things Rushdie said and did in the years before this book was published, troubles he had with religious types and interviews he gave with the media, you get the sense that he was specifically looking for a fight.

In 1988, Islam was seen as a decent, peaceful, normative part of western culture. By the end of 1989, Islam was seen as a barbarous and cruel religion. Salman Rushdie picked a fight, and the Ayatollah gave him his victory.

The irony is that while he announces that he is an atheist he still identifies as a Muslim and will defend Islam (see his interview with Charlie Rose for a good example of this); but he defends the classical, holistic view of Islam as a civilizing factor, and not the current incarnation now on display in places like Iran.

Right. (LOL! That Baal & Salman The Persian dialogue was so bad! Even I cringe when I read it.)

Salam,

You missed the central theme of the fatwa.

The fatwa had nothing to do with God or the verses he claimed in the Holy Quran.

The fatwa had to do with the following reasons:

1. It depicts the Prophet and the Angel Gabriel as Gay lovers.

2. It depicts the prophet as the owner of brothel.

3. It depicts the angel Gabriel as the pimp for the brothel.

4. It depicts the wives of rasool Allah as the whores of brothel.

And, then he calls himself a Muslim and a Shia Muslim. The Prophet's wife Khadijah was already dead when the prophet had wives. Read this sentence again very carefully.

So the fatwa had to with Salman claiming the Golden Child (as per description), the child bridge a whore (astafgurAllah) but not Khadijah.

Go figure!

However, you are right that he was given a lot of money as advance to write this filth and create fitna within the Ummah. And, to create Islam as a barbarous and cruel religion.

Go figure!

Aladdin: I can tell that you have never read the book. None of those things you've just stated are even remotely accurate. I could go into detail about what the book *actually* contains, but I'm sure it'll be seen as fractious and divisive. Even Brother Waheed was wrong.

In short: There is a brothel, and there are prostitutes who name themselves after the wives of Mahound, but these are not Mahound's actual wives. There's a poet named Baal who is a sort of anti-prophet, and a scribe named Salman who makes up the recitation for the prophet.

You don't even know the real reason why the fatwa was issued. I'll tell you, not that you'll even listen but someone else might be interested. Long after the dream sequence about Mahound, there's an entirely different vision that features someone who seemed similar to Imam Khomeini himself. THIS is why Khomeini sentenced him to death.

Like sheep, Muslims went along with the death sentence without having the first clue as to the real reason, even though it was a bestseller, they were too apathetic to do what the ten million others did and buy it off the shelf or check it out of the library. Imam Khomeini was not a good man nor was he someone Rushdie respected, and Rushdie won in the scuffle they had. Rushdie proved him to be petty, and he proved that he was someone who took advantage of the regular working-class Muslims.

More generally: The book is about the immigrant experience. It is, in the words of Muhammd Mashuq ibn Ally "about identity, alienation, rootlessness, brutality, compromise, and conformity. These concepts confront all migrants, disillusioned with both cultures: the one they are in and the one they join. Yet knowing they cannot live a life of anonymity, they mediate between them both. The Satanic Verses is a reflection of the author’s dilemmas." The work is an "albeit surreal, record of its own author's continuing identity crisis."Ally said that the book reveals the author ultimately as a victim, "the victim of nineteenth-century British colonialism." Rushdie himself spoke confirming this interpretation of his book saying that it was not about the Islamic faith "but about migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death, London and Bombay." He has also said "It’s a novel which happened to contain a castigation of Western materialism. The tone is comic." [Text and Trauma: An East-West Primer.]

Most of the Muslims I have talked to, when the subject comes up, express a desire to read it. The few who do read the whole thing come away impressed with the content. It's something of a bizarre irony that the people Rushdie wrote the book for (working class Muslim immigrants) demonize him without having a clue as to what the book is actually about. They side with the people who exploit them daily (like Imam Khomeini) as Rushdie pointed out, both in the book and in life.

This post has been edited by yishmael on Dec 7 2009, 05:13 AM

Salam,

Salman calls himself a Shia Muslim. He understand the tensions between the Shia and Sunni. He knows the history.

Today the Sunni themselves are questioning the age of Aisha, when she married the prophet. In past whenever the Shia have remotely questioned this, they were massacred in masses.

You saw when I questioned that historically the adultery charge against her never took place. It was all made up in the Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim and attributed to her. Go to WI and see what people are saying about the adultery charge against prophet Yousuf, that he took care of himself. But the charge against her, it was God who personally came to her rescue.

If Khomeini hadn't came out with the fatwa, the Shia had been massacred in masses!

If I remember right, it was you who called her "Golden Child"!

Salman Rushdie calls himself a Secular Muslim. He's just like me - an atheist who respects some of the traditions but doesn't believe in the supernatural. He gave an interview to Bill Moyers (Faith & Reason, about 10 years ago) in which he did a great job explaining it.

I didn't call Ayesha anything. I compared her to an archetype. The *golden child* is a recurrent theme in many myths. The fable about Jesus teaching scholars in the temple is another good example.

As for trying to excuse Ayatollah Khomeini, give me a break. The IRI is an illegitimate government and just this morning the fascist basiji militia was caught on camera beating an old woman to death in the street in Tehran. They just hung a bunch of teenagers after a sham show-trial a few weeks ago.

For thousands of years Iran was one of the greatest civilizations on earth. Even after Islam spread it produced people like Farad'n Attar (who wrote a book Rushdie re-wrote called Congress of the Birds) and ibn-Sina (one of the greatest of all philosophers). Now look at it. It's a 4th world toilet and the laughingstock of the world, with a puppet president that is reviled everywhere and an oppressed people who want nothing more than to be rid of their government. Ayatollah Khomeini did much more damage to Islam than Salman Rushdie ever dreamed of doing. There are ceremonies one can find on youtube of people defiling Qur'an there now. Why? Because the inefficient and horrible government has conflated Islam with their own injustices. Iran will probably be the first society to leave Islam behind in the next generation, and it will be thanks to Khomeini, not some author who wrote a sarcastic novel.

Salam,

You failed to understand!

The Shia believe in freedom of will where as the Sunni believe in predestination.

Yes, the Shia will be out in street if their freedom is curtailed and for this reason Iran will become a secular country.

Where as, no one in Egypt will be out in streets, even though the supposedly democracy is becoming the kingdom of Hosni Mubarak. So the country will move to back waters, and it is becoming very strict Salafi (Wahhabi) country.

The dream of the cave man Bin Laden is being realized in Egypt.

I think there are people everywhere, of all faiths and no faith, who want a more peaceful world. I don't know that Egypt will be a cave-man country any time soon. When I was there (admittedly it was a long time ago) people were extremely secular. Back in the old days there was much less inequality in Egypt and they were making great strides toward developing. Some of this (such as the big dam that flooded the valley of the kings) was questionable but they were trying.

Again we go back to the sectarian stuff. If you want to play up the Shii superiority angle we can talk about Iraq.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/07/27/...outh/index.html

Last year there was a man who worked as a policeman, trying to rebuild his country. He was a Sunni man in Baghdad. First Ali Al-Sistani's fascist Shiá militia put a car bomb in front of his house that killed one of his children. Not satisfied that they had not murdered the whole family, they went to this man's house later and doused his family with petrol and burned them up in front of him. Then they took him out front of his house and sawed off his head in front of his neighbors, to put the Sunnis down and show who is boss.

Think of it, a regular guy who has had cruise missiles slamming into his neighbourhood by the U.S. Air Force, then watches his kids go hungry for years, without a job or even regular education for his kids, and finally he takes the only job he can get. He loves God too. By all accounts he was a good man and also religious. Why kill him? Especially why blow his children up and burn them? They didn't collaborate or bother anyone.

Again, this is the proof that Qur'an is not divine, but is man made. It provokes people to barbarous acts and excuses their bad behavior in the name of their idea of God. It provides people like Al-Sistani the means to live well on the backs of others and exploit the working Muslims in the name of the supernatural. With respect, this is why I am not religious. Islam is no better than Christianity or Judaism, which also excuses this sort of behavior. Shii and Sunni are behaving now like "Catholic" and "Protestant" did in the 30 years war. Neither is a good example and both are guilty of terrible things.

Lest you think I'm holier than thou, my own family behaves this way too.

http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/fugitives/cei/lebaron_jt.htm

This is my cousin. I saw her during the summers as a little boy. I didn't know her well because she was a lot older than I. She behaved like Al-Sistani's men. Thankfully, most of my other murderous relatives are now in Mexican and American prisons, but this one is still running loose. So you see, I don't fail to understand anything. I understand it perfectly. We shouldn't excuse this sort of nonsense, we should condemn it strongly even when our family, friends and fellow religionists do it. I am thankful that I'm not so deluded that I would kill little children for some ridiculous religious delusion.

Assalamalaikum wa rahamtullahi wa barakatuhu

Religion is also a type of addiction the more you get addicted the more you loose control

May Allah forgive usour sins and guide us to the stragiht path