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The Iconoclast

‹‹ Saudi ban drives women to rebel

Entry from backside only ››

Sunday, 16 September 2007

Muslims speaking out against apostasy

I am pleased to see Channel 4 doing what the BBC should be doing: exposing the threat of Islam, and I will be watching the programme "Unholy War" on the dangers facing apostates. Like Esmerelda, I am not hopeful of any reform in this area.

The Bishop of Rochester says he is looking to Muslim leaders in Britain to "uphold basic civil liberties, including the right for people to believe what they wish to believe and to even change their beliefs if they wish to do." However, if Muslim leaders do uphold freedom of conscience for Muslims, they will be violating the laws of Islam. Indeed they are in danger of being declared apostates themselves. Other apostates will be in just as much danger from ordinary Muslims as before. Muslims are not required to respect a leader who does not preach or practise Islam. As with apostasy law, so with other unsavoury aspects of Islam; while I believe some Muslim reformers are well-intentioned, they face insuperable difficulties in going against immutable texts, and in the violent opposition of the vast majority of Muslims who want to adhere to those texts.

'They told me categorically had I been in an Islamic country - Pakistan, Middle East - that they would actually be the first to chop off my head,'

And the last - you can't really take turns. When Jesus said "the first shall be last", I don't suppose he had head-chopping in mind.

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Posted on 09/16/2007 5:59 AM by Mary Jackson

Comments

16 Sep 2007

Pali

It's not just Muslims who convert to Christianity who face trouble and persecution, it's Muslims who reject Islam and don't convert to any other faith in particular and just want to be agnostic, practise no religion, and reject Islam for a normal secular life, who face ostracisim and derision and intimidation. I have a couple of close ex Muslim friends who don't like any organised religion and their lives are degraded by other Muslims just when they choose to follow a life of their own in complete rejection of Islam.

The whole thing is so hypocritical because Muslims want the right to carry out 'dawah' and evangelism without hinderance, they want the converts to their religion to be lauded by the BBC in documentaries, they want pure uncritical freedom, but when the shoe is on the other foot, oh boy....

Personally I find evangelical Christians a little weird, because they denigrate my religious background a little, but then I come from a mixed Sikh and Hindu background and we don't go around trying to convert anyone. But I feel so sorry for those Muslims trapped like a character in a Kafka novel in the hellish system that is Islam.

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