MERGED: Theocracy Watch: Afghanistan+US Sees No Problem With Religion In Constitution

[A_Wanderer]

US Sees No Problem With Religion in Constitution

Well I guess when you have a leader who shares an invisible friend they cut some slack for insane ideas to leak into a liberated nations legal system

A MAN detained by police for converting from Islam to Christianity could face the death penalty if he refused to become a Muslim again, an Afghani judge said today.

Islamic sharia law proposes the death sentence for Muslims who abandon the religion. Afghanistan's new constitution says "no law can be contrary to the sacred religion of Islam".

Supreme Court judge Ansarullah Mawlavizada said the suspect, Abdur Rahman, was arrested after members of his family informed police of his conversion.

He would be charged with abandoning Islam, Mr Mawlavizada said.

"The prosecutor says he should be executed on the basis of the constitution," Mr Mawlavizada said, who added that Mr Rahman could come back to Islam.

"If he does not ... he will be punished," he said...

link

Limited Sharia? Yeah and my girlfriend is half pregnant

 

[nbcrusader]

Conversion out of Islam brings problems for individuals in many countries.

I wonder if this is just an extremist interpretation of Islam, or something that is far more accepted.

 

[verte76]

The Deobandi school of Islam, the spiritual precursor of the Taliban, is alive and well in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of India. It dates from the mid nineteenth century, and has much in common with Wahhabism. Many of the warlords who still control much of Afghanistan sympathise with this school of Islam. They can talk about democracy all they want to, but at the end of the day they've still got these people to deal with.

 

[kimby]

Ok, I have a question--your title says "US Sees No Problem With Religion in Constitution", but there is no mention of the US or of any US officials in the actual article...

 

[nbcrusader]

The implication is the US involvement in helping Afghanistan draft its constitution. Always the tension between intervension and self determination.

 

[verte76]

Oh, I see. In other words the U.S. might be complicent in this enforcement of this particularly repressive form of Islam. This doesn't make us look good. It's not what we went there for.

 

[nbcrusader]

Oh, I see. In other words the U.S. might be complicent in this enforcement of this particularly repressive form of Islam. This doesn't make us look good. It's not what we went there for.

"Complicent in enforcement" is probably too broad a description. I guess the suggestion is that the US should have prevented the Islamic law standard in the preparation of the Afghani Constitution. After all, we did help with other provisions on the structure of the governement.

 

[yolland]

Afghanistan does have small Hindu and Sikh minorities (totaling about 1%); these policies do not apply to them. A couple bits from Wikipedia reagrding sharia and conversion:

In most interpretations of an Islamic state, conversion by Muslims to other religions is forbidden and is termed apostasy. Muslim theology equates apostasy to the crime of treason, the betrayal of one's own country.

However, this view has been rejected by some Muslim scholars both medieval (e.g. Sufyan al-Thawri) and modern (e.g. Hasan at-Turabi), who argue that the Hadith in question should be taken to apply only to political betrayal of the Muslim community, rather than to apostasy in general. These scholars argue for the freedom to convert to and from Islam without legal penalty, and consider the aforementioned Hadith quote as insufficient confirmation of harsh punishment; they regard apostasy as a serious crime, but undeserving of the death penalty.

It's interesting how the concept of conversion here gets bound up with concepts like "treason"--a connection it would not occur to most of us to make, because we think of treason as being a purely secular, political crime. Of course you could explain this by saying "God=state in Islam," but I wonder if that fully captures precisely how the offense is understood.

In India, for example, mass conversions of Hindus (usually Dalits, i.e. "untouchables") to Islam, Christianity or Buddhism is a not uncommon feature of the *political* landscape. I am not suggesting that all such conversions are merely political in nature, but they are usually publicly performed in a manner that carries decidely demonstration-like overtones. They generally aim, among other things, to send a message to the state, and the state in turn generally understands them as such--seeing in them a kind of uppity, subversive rebellion against both the social status quo and the demographic supremacy of Hinduism (which cuts close to the heart of Indian nationalist narrative). Thus, while conversion is certainly not forbidden, both the converts and the people who convert them are often bullied or harrassed by the state in various ways.

Of course Islam is different, and historically speaking you could not really analogize it to "the Hindu state" in any consistent fashion; in some times and places the idea of "one united Islam" has been strong, in other times and places not. Still I think it is interesting how these ideas of national identity and religious identity intertwine.

 

[the iron horse]

A person might be executed because he converted to the Christian faith.

Does this not bother you?

I'm not really concerned about Islamic Law or George Bush.

To hell with any man-made law that kills a person for their religious beliefs.

 

[A_Wanderer]

But it is not really man made law to these people, it comes from the same imaginary friend.

 

[shrmn8rpoptart]

Theocracy Watch: Afghanistan

Toronto Globe and Mail

The judge deciding whether an Afghan man should be executed for converting to Christianity does not understand what all the fuss is about.

"In this country, we have [a] perfect constitution. It is Islamic law and it is illegal to be a Christian and it should be punished," Judge Alhaj Ansarullah Mawawy Zada said in an interview yesterday. "In your country, two women can marry. I think that is very strange."

Judge Zada, head of Kabul's primary court, has already heard initial evidence in the case of Abdul Rahman, a 41-year-old who converted to Christianity from Islam more than 14 years ago. The judge is expected to deliver his verdict within two weeks.

Mr. Rahman converted while in Pakistan where he worked for a Christian aid agency. He was arrested after he returned to his birthplace and tried to regain custody of his daughters, who had been living with his parents. His family turned him in, and he was arrested with a Bible in his possession.

"It is a crime to convert to Christianity from Islam. He is teasing and insulting his family by converting," Judge Zada said. "The Attorney-General is emphasizing he should be hung."

If sentenced to death, Mr. Rahman has two avenues of appeal: to the Provincial Court and to the Supreme Court. The death sentence also would need President Hamid Karzai's approval to be carried out.

Prosecutor Abdul Wasi said the charge would be dropped if Mr. Rahman converted back to Islam, which he has so far refused to do.

I realize that the fact that this is happening in Afghanistan should not come as a huge surprise. However, is this not exactly the sort of thing we are in the middle east for in the first place? I thought we were trying to give them a free Democratic society where the citizens would no longer need to live in fear of their government.

I am dissapointed that this much lauded constitution of theirs allows for the execution of those whose religious beliefs don't line up with those of the state. And maybe that's just this judges opinion and the story was ran just to influence weak minded persons like myself.

However, if things like this are still alllowed to continue, what were we doing there ine first place? Just blowing stuff up for the sheer fun of it, grabbing some oil, and handing power back over to the same corrupt regimes?

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Re: Theocracy Watch: Afghanistan

However, if things like this are still alllowed to continue, what were we doing there ine first place? Just blowing stuff up for the sheer fun of it, grabbing some oil, and handing power back over to the same corrupt regimes?

Good question. Maybe some people would answer that we need to respect their religious beliefs I don't see Bush doing anything about homosexuals being executed in Iran either.

 

[verte76]

This is so complicated. This is exactly why it's impossible to make such an Islamic country a democracy as we know it. They've had to base their constitution on Islamic law, sharia, because of the power of the warlords. As long as they base their rule on this they're going to have laws forbidding apostasy because that's part of the Islamic heritage. The only predominately Islamic country that is not run with a sharia based constitution is secular Turkey, and even they are having a hell of time stopping "honor killings". A recent poll found that a quarter of the Turkish people support honor killings.

 

[yolland]

The only predominately Islamic country that is not run with a sharia based constitution is secular Turkey

Not true--Indonesia and Bangladesh, the first and third largest majority-Muslim countries in the world respectively, do not have sharia-based constitutions. Indonesia's is based on a homegrown legal philosophy called pancasila, while Bangladesh follows a modified English system. In both cases some elements of Muslim family law are incorporated into the constitution, and Aceh province in Indonesia does have its own quasi-autonomus sharia system, but neither country's constitution could be described as "sharia-based."

 

[verte76]

OK, you win, I lose. It is impossible to learn everything there is to know about the Islamic countries.

 

[yolland]

Well I'm sure overall you know a lot more than I do...those two just happen to be in my area of expertise.

 

[Justin24]

Well a recent article on the AP is saying that the Clerics demand the courts execute this man. If they do not they will have their followers tear him into pieces.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060323/ap_on_re_as/afghan_christian_convert

 

[yolland]

But Said Mirhossain Nasri, the top cleric at Hossainia Mosque, one of the largest Shiite places of worship in Kabul, said Rahman must not be allowed to leave the country.

"If he is allowed to live in the West, then others will claim to be Christian so they can too," he said. "We must set an example. ... He must be hanged."

Interesting connection for him to make, and a sad commentary on how the politicization of cultural autonomy works its way into these issues, making debate *within* Islam that much harder to achieve. Similar arguments have been made in Pakistan concerning the rights of Pakistani women to advocate abroad for making "honor killings" and the like an international human rights issue.

 

[melon]

To hell with any man-made law that kills a person for their religious beliefs.

This is what kills me. It's easy for Christians to support secularism when it comes to nations with other predominant religions, but these same people will want Biblical law to run their own countries.

I'll agree that no man should be deemed a criminal for changing religions, but I just think subjects like these bring hypocrites out in droves.

Melon

 

[nbcrusader]

How many religions requires (and practices today) a death penalty for converting to another religion?

 

[BVS]

How many religions requires (and practices today) a death penalty for converting to another religion?

Does the religion require death? Or is that how man has bent it?

Every religion is guilty of that.

 

[nbcrusader]

Does the religion require death? Or is that how man has bent it?

I guess we need to define what the religion is prior to any potential changing by man.

Unless we accept an element of inerrancy (God breathed Scripture, for example) every element of every religion is suspect to being bent by man.

 

[verte76]

Does the religion require death? Or is that how man has bent it?

Every religion is guilty of that.

Yes, but I don't know how many do it in this day and age.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Does the religion require death? Or is that how man has bent it?

Every religion is guilty of that.

Go to Ask an Imam

How come an apostate is killed in Islamic Shariah but there's no compulsion upon other non-Muslims in the State? Why isn't he/she allowed to follow whatever religion they want? Jazakum'Allahu khairun.

There are two categories of people mentioned: an apostate and an original non-Muslim. The injunctions of the Shari’ah as supported by the Qur’aan and Hadith that is applicable to both of them differs. In other words, both of them do not fall under the same category.

The first one is an apostate or renegade, i.e. a Muslim person who has turned away from Islam and the second are those who are non-Muslims originally. The law for the first group of people, i.e. renegade is that firstly Islam will be presented once again to him and if he has any doubts or queries then these should be cleared out and he will be given a respite of 3 days. If he accepts Islam again, then fine otherwise he will be killed. This is substantiated by the noble Hadith of Rasulullah (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) wherein he explicitly mentions, ‘Whosoever changes his Deen, then kill him’. This only apply to the males. A female renegade will not be killed, rather kept imprisoned until she accepts Islam.

As for the second group, when the Muslims conquer a non-Muslim land, they will first invite those people to Islam because of the narration of ibn Abbaas (Radhiallaahu Anhu), ‘No nation should be fought with until they are called to Islam.’ If the accept, then Muslims will not fight with them. And if they refuse, then they will be asked to pay Jizya (tax), if they refuse, this, then only will the Muslims fight them. This is also substantiated by Qur’aan, ‘Fight against those who believe not in Allah nor in the last day nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and his Messenger (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e. Islam) among the people of the scripture (Jews and Christians) until they pay the Jizya (tax) with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.’ (Surah Tawbah Aayat29).

and Allah Ta'ala Knows Best

Mufti Ebrahim Desai

and a whole bunch here

It looks like the religion has some strong and proscribed views about it. I think it may be disengenuous to say that this is an utter corruption.

 

[Justin24]

Go to Ask an Imam

How come an apostate is killed in Islamic Shariah but there's no compulsion upon other non-Muslims in the State? Why isn't he/she allowed to follow whatever religion they want? Jazakum'Allahu khairun.

There are two categories of people mentioned: an apostate and an original non-Muslim. The injunctions of the Shari’ah as supported by the Qur’aan and Hadith that is applicable to both of them differs. In other words, both of them do not fall under the same category.

The first one is an apostate or renegade, i.e. a Muslim person who has turned away from Islam and the second are those who are non-Muslims originally. The law for the first group of people, i.e. renegade is that firstly Islam will be presented once again to him and if he has any doubts or queries then these should be cleared out and he will be given a respite of 3 days. If he accepts Islam again, then fine otherwise he will be killed. This is substantiated by the noble Hadith of Rasulullah (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) wherein he explicitly mentions, ‘Whosoever changes his Deen, then kill him’. This only apply to the males. A female renegade will not be killed, rather kept imprisoned until she accepts Islam.

As for the second group, when the Muslims conquer a non-Muslim land, they will first invite those people to Islam because of the narration of ibn Abbaas (Radhiallaahu Anhu), ‘No nation should be fought with until they are called to Islam.’ If the accept, then Muslims will not fight with them. And if they refuse, then they will be asked to pay Jizya (tax), if they refuse, this, then only will the Muslims fight them. This is also substantiated by Qur’aan, ‘Fight against those who believe not in Allah nor in the last day nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and his Messenger (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e. Islam) among the people of the scripture (Jews and Christians) until they pay the Jizya (tax) with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.’ (Surah Tawbah Aayat29).

and Allah Ta'ala Knows Best

Mufti Ebrahim Desai

and a whole bunch here

To me that is disturbing. Why would god in the bible preach love and peace and in the Quran teach murder and corruption?

 

[BVS]

I guess we need to define what the religion is prior to any potential changing by man.

Unless we accept an element of inerrancy (God breathed Scripture, for example) every element of every religion is suspect to being bent by man.

Well I should have said does their scripture require death...

 

[A_Wanderer]

To me that is disturbing. Why would god in the bible preach love and peace and in the Quran teach murder and corruption?

It doesn't preach extortion and subjegation against believers though, that is what you have to understand - there is only peace among Muslims

 

[verte76]

OK, as my mother would say, that's from the horse's mouth.

 

[melon]

To me that is disturbing. Why would god in the bible preach love and peace and in the Quran teach murder and corruption?

Because they come from two completely different cultural backgrounds.

And again, that's why I laugh at the idea of scriptural inerrancy.

Melon

 

[nbcrusader]

I think God laughs at the idea of human inerrancy.