A Muslim's Conversion to Christianity

In today's somewhat liberal St. Pete Times is an editorial questioning the tolerance of Islam. The author writes "The case (Abdul Rahman vs. Afghanistan) has outraged Christians worldwide. It has also dramatized how far Afghanistan remains from the tolerant, democratic nation President Bush envisioned when he committed thousands of troops and billions of dollars to ousting the extremist Taliban in 2001."

You know, I am amazed to see that most politicians and writers have done nothing to educate themselves on Islam, post 9/11. You would think it would be a pressing need to discuss any world events knowlegably, and when Islam is so central to a great deal of unrest, only a fool would ignore it or take someone else's word for what it is all about. The fact that Bush allowed Afghanistan to adopt sharia law (Islamic law) means that he is not at all educated about it, and neither are his advisors.

A couple fellow bloggers have touched upon the story of Abdul Rahman, but not many people are asking why the story has happened. And quickly the Islamic apologeticists are saying that the Koran does not sanction persecution of someone who converts from Islam to another religion. Apparently these apologists disagree with the majority of the Muslim leaders in the world. And there is a good reason for this: The Koran does sanction it.

You see, the Koran is a tricky document. It is nothing like the Bible, and the rules are different. The most important rule that any westerner needs to remember is that the Koran doesn't always agree with itself. And when it doesn't agree, the more recent proclamations trump the old ones. Because most of the more peaceful decrees and precedents were in the earlier writings, they are ignored by any Islamic scholars. Don't worry: there weren't many to begin with, anyway. (NOTE: It's important to know that the Koran isn't the sole document for Islamic law. They consider other writings to be of equal or near-equal importance. Many of these writings solidify the Islamic belief in violence and subjugation. Some are written by friends and followers of Mohammed and were eyewitnesses to the atrocities he committed).

But what about the peaceful Muslims? Surveys show that most Muslims don't read or know their Koran (many of them are illiterate). This includes even educated Muslims in America. They don't know what their faith teaches! Sadly, the clerics (such as Osama Bin Laden) have it right: Islam is a religion of war and oppression, as Mohammed taught clearly. Anyone claiming otherwise is either ignorant or deliberately trying to deceive by using verses from the Koran that were invalidated before they were born!

Here are some recent atrocities:

1) Egyptians arrested 22 people, many of them former Muslims who had secretly converted to Christianity, in October 2003. They were questioned and tortured.

2) In November 2003, Pakistani police arrested Anwar Masih, a Christian, on a charge of blasphemy simply due to a claim made by a hostile Muslim neighbor. Other Muslims attacked Masih's home, yet it was Masih who was arrested. The next month a Muslim mob entered a Christian church there and started attacking and beating the Christians. They desecrated the Bible and destroyed almost everything in the church, yet the police refused to make any arrests. In addition, the injured Christians were ignored at the hospital due to an influential local Muslim who forbid doctors from attending the wounded.

3) In November 2003, Boulos Farid Rezek-Allah Awad, a Coptic Christian married to a Christian convert from Islam, was arrested while attempting to leave the country and held for 12 hours. When an Egyptian security police officer asked him about his wife, Rezek-Allah told him that she had already left Egypt. Perhaps mindful of the death penalty for apostates, the officer responded, "I'll bring her back and cut her into pieces in front of you." Several months later, however, Rezek-Allah was allowed to leave Egypt and settle in Canada.

4) In May 2004 in Pakistan, another Christian was charged with blasphemy (Samuel Masih) and was beaten to death with a hammer by a Muslim policeman as he lay in a hospital bed suffering from tuberculosis.

And, of course, there are many more atrocities such as these that take place in countries where the law is based on Islamic teachings (you can read about some of them in the editorial I mentioned above). As anyone who has read the Koran, studied Islam, or even followed the news overseas would know. And any leader who doesn't bother to know such things needs to take a refresher course on how to be a leader.

P.S. Here is an excellent summary of Mohammed's personal path of violence. If it was good enough for Mohammed, it is certainly good enough for his followers.