Conversion, Apostasy, and the "Religion of Peace"

The news last weekend about the Afghan Christian facing the death penalty for converting from Islam is illustrative of the dilemma and the threat we face in the West (and those of us who are Christians anywhere in the world) from the rapidly spreading institutionalization of Islam.

One Christian Science Monitor article I read earlier this week, Conversion a thorny issue in Muslim world, (which LGF rightly termed the “Comically Understated Headline of the Day”), discusses the difficultly of the “Just Give Them Democracy” foreign policy position of the Bush Administration:

The issue of religious freedoms in one in which, as in Afghanistan, modern laws are clashing with ancient traditions. Rahman’s case illustrates a glaring contradiction between Afghanistan’s constitution, which upholds the right to freedom of religion on one hand but enshrines the supremacy of sharia law on the other.

The ideological presupposition of Islam in the Muslim world effectively neuters any attempt to structure any liberal-style democracy. The historic example of the “secular” government of Turkey should have convinced us of the folly of that position. We see it repeated today in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and looming large in Iraq.

When it comes to discussing liberal democracy with Muslims, it is imperative to first define terms, because we regularly use similar language with profoundly different meanings. Presuppositions matter. I was reminded of this over the weekend while I was reading Youssef Choueiri’s book, Islamic Fundamentalism, where he qualifies what is meant by modern Muslims when they talk about “there is no compulsion in religion”:

Jihad is then the continuation of God’s politics by other means. It is an obligation that becomes incumbent on the believers whenever the tenets and legal rules are violated or neglected. In this sense, jihad is a form of political struggle designed, as Qutb argues, to disarm the enemy so that Islam is allowed to apply its shari’a unhindered by the oppressive power of idolatrous tyrannies. By the mere removal of the political obstacle, the central aim of revolutionary struggle is accomplished, a fact which refutes the charge of forcible conversion. This is, for example, the correct meaning of the Qur’anic statement: ‘there is no compulsion in religion’. Contrary to the opinion of liberal-minded Muslims, this Qur’anic verse, Qutb explains, presupposes the hegemony of Islam in society, thereby freeing individuals from the political domination of non-Muslim rulers. Once political power is in the hands of the new Islamic elite, and its divine laws are firmly established, the subjects of the state are given the choice either to embrace Islam or persist in practicing their inherited religions and beliefs. However, this tolerance is a conditional agreement concluded between a victorious party and vanquished subjects. (Youssef M. Choueiri, Islamic Fundamentalism, pp. 136-137)

As Choueiri shows, when Muslim ideologues like Sayyid Qutb, one of the most influential Islamist ideologues, talk about the absence of compulsion in religion in Islam, they assume the absolute cultural, political and religious domination of Islam in a society. This presumption of Islamic hegemony should be remembered not only when we talk about apostasy in Islam, but overall freedom of religion for non-Muslims.

But while there is a pretended “freedom” from religious compulsion for non-Muslims, there is no such provision for Muslims themselves. Much like the Mafia, once you are in you are considered in for life. As Abul A’la Mawdudi, perhaps the most widely published and read Islamic thinker of the 20th Century, states in his authoritative treatise, The Punishment of the Apostate According to Islamic Law:

"There is no compulsion in religion" (la ikraha fi'd din: Qur'an 2:256) means that we do not compel anyone to come into our religion. And this is truly our practice. But we initially warn whoever would come and go back that this door is not open to come and go. Therefore anyone who comes should decide before coming that there is no going back.

This issue of freedom of conscience for Muslims has been recently illustrated in Algeria, where the parliament in recent weeks approved a law banning all non-Islamic religions from offering calls to conversion. As this Arabic News report explains, the punishment for violating the law is two to five years imprisonment and 5,000-10,000 EURO fine.

But before non-Muslims breathe a sigh of relief at the exemption from Islamic laws of apostasy, we should remember the treatment – extending from the time of initial Muslim conquests and continuing until today – of countless Christians who have paid for their lives for refusing to convert to Islam. A notable historical example is the 9th Century A.D. Martyrs of Cordoba, Spain. Their history was recorded by one priest, Eulogius, who was also eventually martyred for his Christian faith after being convicted of proselytizing. In the span of nine years, more than 48 Christians were beheaded or impaled in this small Iberian town for refusing to convert to Islam. In one horrible case in 864, a nun was thrown into a cauldron of molten lead.

While punishments for apostasy, and the notion of apostasy itself, having long since disappeared from the West, recent events should tell us that the issue is still an issue that warrants attention. Most Muslim countries are signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which provides for (Article 18) for freedom to change one’s religious belief. But as noted “apostate” Ibn Warraq notes in his short survey of international law and Islamic practice, Apostasy and Human Rights, many attempts have been made to rewrite or gut the freedom of religious choice clause by the block of Islamic nations. He cites one expert, Elisabeth Mayer, who says:

“The lack of support for the principle of freedom of religion in the Islamic human rights schemes is one of the factors that most sharply distinguishes them from the International Bill of Human Rights, which treats freedom of religion as an unqualified right. The [Muslim] authors’ unwillingness to repudiate the rule that a person should be executed over a question of religious belief reveals the enormous gap that exists between their mentalities and the modern philosophy of human rights.”

I have to admit that it is sad to think that there are American soldiers still dying in Afghanistan to protect the very government that was pushing for the death penalty against this Christian man. We shouldn't fool ourselves that this incident is irrelevant to those of us in the West. Failing to understand the historic and religious context of religious freedom – or more precisely, the lack of it – in Islam, and the spreading institutionalization of Islam, could prove fatal to future generations in the Christian West.