Death Sentence for Apostasy Reveals "Nuances?"

Cause being sentenced to death for converting to Christianity is the sort of post-modern experience that really challenges one's dominant narrative, right?  We go from the whole "I'm alive" paradigm to "Ah, the lights just went out, and...oh, look, the Pearly Gates!"

Nuanced.  Feh--it's a bad piece.  Excerpts:

The possible hanging of Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani for converting from Islam to Christianity has exposed a division among Islamic jurists on whether Iran would be violating Islamic law by carrying out the execution...

According to some of these scholars, the Quran not only outlaws the death penalty for the charge of apostasy, but under Sharia law, conversion from Islam is not a punishable offense at all.

"Instead, it says on a number of occasions that God prefers and even demands that people believe in Him, but that He will handle rejection of such belief by punishing them in the afterworld," wrote Intisar Rabb, an assistant professor of law at Boston College and a faculty affiliate in research at Harvard Law School, in an e-mail to CNN.

But Rabb also acknowledges that there is a more nuanced view to Islamic law, too...

Note the academic jujitsu here--the blunt, simplistic interpretation is that Islamic law doesn't prescribe the death penalty for apostasy. It's only when you pull out the microscope to examine the nuances and subtleties that suddenly a death penalty appears. So someone has got to really dissect this thing in order for it to read "Delete, delete, delete..."

"The problem in the modern period is that contemporary states apply medieval rules in unreflective ways that do not often match the classical Islamic legal tradition to which they are trying to adhere," wrote Rabb.

So--hang on a minute. It's only those people who adhere to medieval law in unreflective ways who decipher an obligation to execute in sharia? But I thought only those highly nuanced thinkers who subtly dissect Islamic law in order to discern an obscure call for the death penalty ever demanded death for apostasy?

"One of them would be to say traditionally in Shiite Islam, people have interpreted the scripture for apostates to be put to death," Lombardi said.

Of course. Sunnis don't do that sort of thing. Ever.

"The reality is the 13 scholars on our sites could give you a variety of different responses," Bhatti said. Islamic law has a "rich legal tradition and it is important for us to not convey something definitive or to suggest there is one answer."

The overriding opinion of each scholar was simple - the complication of Islamic law makes it somewhat difficult to predict what Iran will do...

Ah.  The answer is simple--it's complicated.  Lovely.  If the law is that unpredictable, is it really capable of being just?

Lombardi recalled a story in Afghanistan, where a man's neighbors hauled him to court for leaving Islam.

"The judge takes a look and says this person is an apostate and therefore the crime should be putting them to death," Lombardi said. "But then the judge said, Islam is such great religion, you could have to be crazy to have to convert from Islam. And therefore, I think this person should get off on ground of insanity."

Moral of the story, according to Lombardi: "There are all sorts of grounds for pardoning someone..."

But you can only pardon someone if they are actually guilty of a crime, right? So even though this is a real part of the law, we can find all sorts of reasons for ignoring it, right?

Calling All Feminists!

Mark Steyn on the oddities of the culture of victimization and how it's taking us down the rabbit hole. Excerpts:

...As Monroe Reimers put it on the letters page of The Sydney Morning Herald:

As terrible as the crime was, we must not confuse justice with revenge. We need answers. Where has this hatred come from? How have we contributed to it? Perhaps it's time to take a good hard look at the racism by exclusion practised with such a vengeance by our community and cultural institutions...

Mr Reimers, though, will be happy to know his view is echoed across the hemispheres. Five days before 9/11, the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet reported that 65% of the country’s rapes were committed by “non-western” immigrants – a category which, in Norway, is almost wholly Muslim. A professor at the University of Oslo explained that one reason for the disproportionate Muslim share of the rape market was that in their native lands “rape is scarcely punished” because it is generally believed that “it is women who are responsible for rape”.

So Muslim immigrants to Norway should be made aware that things are a little different in Scandinavia, right?

Not at all! Rather, the professor insisted, “Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes” because their manner of dress would be regarded by Muslim men as inappropriate. “Norwegian women must realize that we live in a multicultural society and adapt themselves to it.” Or to modify Queen Victoria’s wedding-night advice to her daughter: lie back and think of Yemen...

After September 11th, a friend in London said to me she couldn’t stand all the America-needs-to-ask-itself stuff because she used to work at a rape crisis centre and she’d heard this blame-the-victim routine a thousand times before: America was asking for it. Like those Norwegian women, it was being “provocative”...

Christians Martyred Daily

hourly, almost minute by minute, in fact.  Excerpts:

A sociologist representing a European security organization says that the number of Christians killed each year for their faith is so high that it calculates to one martyr's life being taken every five minutes.

Massimo Introvigne of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) reported this data at a conference on Christian-Jewish-Muslim interfaith dialogue, which concluded today in Hungary. The conference was sponsored by the Hungarian presidency of the Council of the European Union, and included a variety of high-level representatives from the three monotheistic religions, as well as political and social leaders.

Introvigne reported that Christians killed every year for their faith number 105,000, and that number includes only those put to death simply because they are Christians. It does not count the victims of civil or international wars.

"If these numbers are not cried out to the world, if this slaughter is not stopped, if it is not acknowledged that the persecution of Christians is the first worldwide emergency in the matter of violence and religious discrimination, the dialogue between religions will only produce beautiful conferences but no concrete results," he stated...

Pray for them. Pray for our brethren, entering the fullness of the life of grace, entering into the perichoretic dance of life and love at the heart of the Trinity. Pray and to them, and remember if it ever comes to your faith or your life--you can get your life back one day, but faith must be clung to. And pray for me that I would love God more than life, more than pleasure, more than lesser goods.

Copts, Persecution, and the Egyptian Revolution

Hm.  Egypt begins to look like France in the late 1700s.  Excerpts:

Twelve Christian were murdered in Egypt. Two hundred and thirty-two people wounded. The death toll will surely rise as victims succumb to their injuries. And that's just in the past few days. In the same time period, more Christians were killed in Egypt at the hands of Muslims than people killed in Syria or in Libya as a result of protests, riots and resistance.

Two churches in Cairo were burned in recent days. Over the past few months church property has being gutted, vandalised and violated with graffiti. Churches have been blown up.

An entire community - the Christian community in the new Egypt - is under attack. And the world remains relatively silent. There has been no significant religious outcry, political redress or diplomatic pressure to stop the attacks. There has been almost no media coverage as Egypt's Muslims systematically, over the past few months, set about massacring Egypt's Christians...

Pakistani Catholic Cabinet Minister Killed

for speaking out against Pakistan's blasphemy laws.  Excerpts follow:

Shahbaz Bhatti, a lay Catholic who served as Pakistan’s federal minister for religious minorities, was assassinated on March 2 while traveling to work. He was 42.

The gunman who ambushed Bhatti's car and shot down the government leader left a note saying that Bhatti was killed "for speaking out against the blasphemy law." The assassin claimed credit for the killing in the name of Tehrik-e-Taliban, a coalition of Islamic extremist groups.

The cabinet minister had received multiple death threats when he questioned the death sentence for blasphemy handed down in the case of Asia Bibi, a Christian housewife whose friends insist that she was convicted on false charges...

Three weeks before his assassination, Bhatti had predicted that his reappointment as cabinet minister would “create some protests and resentment by many Islamic extremists. But my struggle will continue, despite the difficulties and threats that I have received. My only aim is to defend fundamental rights, religious freedom and the life of Christians and other religious minorities. I am prepared for any sacrifice for this mission, which I carry out with the spirit of a servant of God.”

Bhatti is the second prominent Pakistani leader who has been killed after urging changes in the country's blasphemy law. Salman Taseer, the governor of the Punjad province, was murdered in January. Sherry Rehman, a member of parliament who suggested amending the law, withdrew her proposal after receiving death threats...

For some sense of why the Pakistani blasphemy laws are such a big deal:

...According to the National Commission on Justice and Peace (NCJP) of the Catholic Church, between 1986 and August 2009, at least 974 people have been charged for defiling the Qur’an or insulting the Prophet Muhammad. They include 479 Muslims, 340 Ahmadis, 119 Christians, 14 Hindus and 10 from other religions.

The blasphemy law has often been used as a pretext for personal attacks or vendettas as well as extra-judicial murders. Overall, 33 people have died this way at the hands of individuals or crazed mobs...

Remember the persecuted Church in your prayers. Organizations like Aid to the Church in Need and (no joke) the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre attempt to assist the Middle Eastern Church whenever possible.  Read up on those suffering and why in books like The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude : Seventh-Twentieth Century or The Dhimmi: Jews & Christians Under Islam, or see First Comes Saturday, Then Comes Sunday.

Iraqi Christians Comparable to Soviet Jews Fleeing

Huh.  Fascinating interview with Msgr. Robert Stern, secretary general of CNEWA, an aid organization helping the Catholics (and other Christians) in Egypt. Excerpts:

...How old is the Catholic community in Egypt, and what is its current status?

A little under 2,000 years (chuckling). First of all, I should say that the Catholics are a miniscule minority of the Christians in Egypt: 10% of the Egyptian population is Christian, but it is overwhelmingly Coptic Orthodox. Our work is to look to the welfare of the Catholics, who number between 150,000 and 250,000, but the Holy Father has also given us the task of working for the union of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches in the Near and Middle East. So we care deeply about the welfare of Catholics and Orthodox and evangelical Christians in Egypt.

How are Christians treated in Egypt?

Christians are definitely being discriminated against. Whether it is useful to say this publicly, whether it will hurt them more than help them, is a matter for prudential judgment. But in Islam there is no such thing as separation of church and state. And when you have a Muslim majority, you almost always have a state that is run in a way that favors Muslims. In Egypt there are very rarely Christian cabinet ministers, Christian senior officials, Christian generals, Christian village leaders.

Do Christian leaders see the current uprising as dangerous?

I think they do. The Orthodox Coptic Pope Shenouda III has expressed hopes for reform coming from the current situation, but all Christian leaders there are afraid that there will be a repetition of Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. At least Christians were protected under Saddam, but once he fell and Sunnis and Shiites began fighting, Christians were caught in the cross fire.

Some radical Muslims in Egypt may already be taking advantage of the uprising to attack Christians...

What can Catholics in America do?
Firstly, just to be aware there is a Church in Egypt would be a big step. The Christians in Egypt do feel themselves in solidarity with Christians around the world. We should feel the same with them.

Secondly, they really do need our support, lobbying, speaking, expressing indignation when someone tosses a bomb into a church. Ask our members of Congress what the United States is getting back for its billion dollars in aid each year.

Should Catholics be preparing to receive a flood of refugees from Egypt?

I don’t think there is going to be a major exodus. There is still a critical mass of Christians in Egypt that makes the community there self-sustaining. Whereas, the kindest thing Americans can do for the Iraqi Christians is to lobby for their easy admission to the U.S., as was once done for Jews leaving the Soviet Union.

Christianity, the Middle East, and Martyrdom

Archbishop Chaput points out the historic, systemic, and ongoing persecution of the Christian population of the Middle East.  Excerpts:

Five years ago I received a letter from a former Special Forces officer and graduate of West Point—a career Army veteran—serving in Baghdad as a security adviser to Iraqi authorities.

A Catholic himself, he wrote to me about the harassment and violence Iraqi Christians face as part of their daily routine. He knew, as many Americans still don’t, that large Christian Arab communities once thrived across the Middle East. Over the centuries, under pressure from Islam, Christian populations have slowly declined. But the past 100 years have been especially brutal for Christians of the region.

He wrote that:

“I have come to know many of the surviving (Iraqi) Christians, both Eastern-rite Catholic and Orthodox, who work here in (Baghdad’s) International Zone. I had known as an academic item about the massacre of the (Christian) Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915. What I had not known was that many of the areas currently occupied by Kurds—(southeast) Turkey, northern Iraq and northwest Iran—were originally… Christian. Not having enough manpower to kill all the Christians in their empire, the Ottomans ‘contracted out’ the destruction of the Christians to their subject peoples. More than 750,000 were directly killed, died of disease and exposure, or starved to death. What’s going on now (in Iraq) very much affects the remaining Christians here too.”

Discrimination, deprivation of rights and even bloodshed against Christians: All of these indignities have a long and troubling history in the Middle East that predates Western colonialism and American interventions by many years. The horrific attack and murders at Our Lady of Perpetual Help church (also translated as “Our Lady of Deliverance”), an Eastern-rite Catholic community in Baghdad last Oct. 31, were simply the most dramatic in a long line of brutal acts designed to obliterate—either by killing or driving out—the ancient Iraqi Christian community. Observers quite rightly describe the continuing anti-Christian violence in Iraq as a form of “religious cleansing...”

Go read the whole thing. Assistance can be sent through Aid to the Church in Need, among other fine organizations. For more on the subject, see The Dhimmi: Jews & Christians Under Islam, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude : Seventh-Twentieth Century, or The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims.

South Park and Mohammed

While I'm not a fan of all their stuff, this is important:

"...their primary point was that you can make fun of anyone in a free democracy—except Muhammad. The threats and violence that have dogged anyone who dares even represent the prophet—from Salman Rushdie to Danish and Swedish cartoonists—have created a kind of fear-fueled exception to free-speech laws even in Western democracies. The episode addressed this hypocrisy clearly, even as Parker and Stone took care to obscure the actual image of Muhammad with everything from a black “censored” bar to a U-Haul truck to a bear mascot suit because South Park’s animated townspeople wanted to avoid having a fatwa placed on them. This wasn’t just provocative satire—it was both smart and brave. Unfortunately, South Park’s network, Comedy Central, seemed to cave into the threats to a degree when the second episode of the two-part series was aired this week, bleeping out even the mention of Muhammad’s name. This was cowardly and provided evidence that coercion could be successful... The group’s homepage—which is now down—featured the “warning” over audio from radical clerics and also showed the picture of the author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was threatened alongside Van Gogh. I contacted Ayaan to get her take on the incident. “It is obviously a very clear threat and it echoes the same threats that were used against Theo van Gogh and me when he was alive,” Ayaan said. “It is an invitation to murder, a way of inspiring other people to kill. And how disgusting that they are using the image of an innocent man who was killed—he has a son and a mom and dad and friends. When you grieve, you get closure. For them, there's no closure this way. I don’t know if I can legally stop them from using my image, but I feel threatened by them and, according to the Netherland's Radio 4, the Dutch Secret Service say they are concerned for my safety. The images and audio on their website make it clear that they are in cahoots with [Al Qaeda cleric and propagandist] Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen and consider the Fort Hood shooter—Nidal Malik Hasan—a hero.”"

And a good thing to support (different incident, but the same cause):

Recently, I asked you to put your names on a petition to support the 12 signatories of the Manifesto Against a New Totalitarianism. The manifesto signatories included me, Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Taslima Nasrin. We and eight others received a serious death threat from the British-based Islamic website ummah.com. (See a screen grab of the forum entry where the death threat was issued.)

Your signatures of solidarity with us would show that we are not afraid to defy Islamist radicals. More than 4,800 of you have already signed - and most of you have opted to name your city or town. I love your guts.

Only one person emailed a disconcerting message. Norman Finkelstein wrote to say, "Is there a petition supporting the death threats?"

Below are the opponents of the death threats. Thank you for going public. Remember that there's strength in numbers, so please forward this link to like-minded friends and family.

Pray for the Christians of the Middle East

Their suffering goes on:

A policy of “ethnic and religious cleansing” is underway in Mosul; in fact, it has worsened as Christmas approaches, Mgr Louis Sako told AsiaNews. The archbishop of Kirkuk says security measures will be strengthened during Christmas for fear of new attacks. Two attacks are carried out in Mosul yesterday; two churches are hit, one baby girl is dead and 40 people are wounded. Source tells AsiaNews that the Christian community is “destined to die” in the city...

Yesterday’s attacks are the latest episodes in a series of violence against Christian places of worship. On 26 November, terrorists razed to the ground the Church of Saint Ephrem and the Mother House of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine. A source told AsiaNews that most nuns left; only a few have remained but “are afraid of going out”.

Such attacks are a “warning” for Christians to leave en masse. Many “families have fled north, into Kurdistan, but are jobless and have no hope for the future. The Christian community is destined to die,” the source said.

Mgr Louis Sako shares this concern. For the archbishop of Kirkuk, “ethnic and religious cleansing” is underway in Mosul. The central government and parties are concerned only about the elections, scheduled for 7 March 2010, especially about “sharing the oil”.

To understand the current situation, the interested reader must inform themselves about a little thing called "dhimmitude."

Hamas and the Nature of Jihad

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict constitutes a small but important part of a broader struggle (jihad) that has been waged for centuries. Indeed, Israel’s war for survival could never merely be viewed as an isolated regional struggle—the history of Israel and the Jews usually exists as a microcosm, fractally resembling macrocosmic realities—but must be understood in the wider context of the history of dhimmitude, the nature of the jihad instituted by Mohammed in the latter years of his life and expanded by the Righteous Caliphs coming after him, and the world scenario today. 

The Mumbai attacks made abundantly clear the international scope of the current conflict when Pakistani jihadists singled out Chabad House, perhaps the only institutional presence of Judaism in all of India, as a special target. Pakistani "militants", according to much of the news coverage, could have no special grievance against Jews--so what could possibly have caused such odd profiling? Islamic sources for centuries have viewed the Jews with special contempt for failing to live up to the revelation given them by God. Further, the Jews have had the temerity to take back from Islamic hands lands once gained by jihad. They refuse to accept the status of the dhimmi (protected) class, preferring instead to maintain control of their ancestral homeland and refusing to give way to sharia and Islamic rule. 

The purpose of jihad is the imposition of sharia. American history makes that clear. The American struggle against the Barbary pirates remains little remembered, but it helped give rise to the Constitutional Congress and our modern day system of government. These pirates were not merely out for plunder, though. In March of 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met with the Tripolitan ambassador in Britain and asked him why the Barbary pirates attacked the U.S. His answer, as recorded by Jefferson and Adams in a letter to John Jay, deserves to be sent to every federal official, every leader and media representative as the best summary of jihadi warfare extant. The Ambassador replied:

…that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman [Muslim] who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.

This, of course, makes sense of the current warfare exploding around the globe. His answer rings true when compared to the Hamas Charter, to the Madrid train bombings, to 9/11, to the London Tube bombings, to any one or all of Islamist terror attacks in recent years. The non-Muslim world faces, once again, a determined effort to place us under Islamic rule in obedience to doctrines enshrined in the Islamic sources of orthodoxy by a certain set within Islam. It has been ever thus since the time of Mohammed.

For more on all this, see  The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide, and The Dhimmi: Jews & Christians Under Islam, for starters.