New School Politics

Apostates Rising

Ryan | 18 09 2007

If you're a first time visitor, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed, which will keep you up to date with all the latest New School Politics posts. Thanks for visiting!

On the anniversary of 9/11, young muslim apostates are launching a campaign to make it easier for Muslims to leave Islam–which is considered an offense punishable by death according to Islamic literature. From The Times:

The Committee for Ex-Muslims promises to campaign for freedom of religion but has already upset the Islamic and political Establishments for stirring tensions among the million-strong Muslim community in the Netherlands.

Ehsan Jami, the committee’s founder, who rejected Islam after the attack on the twin towers in 2001, has become the most talked-about public figure in the Netherlands. He has been forced into hiding after a series of death threats and a recent attack…

“Sharia schools say that they will kill the ones who leave Islam. In the West people get threatened, thrown out of their family, beaten up,” Mr Jami said. “In Islam you are born Muslim. You do not even choose to be Muslim. We want that to change, so that people are free to choose who they want to be and what they want to believe in.”

The article’s afternote sites the Koran:

Sura 4: 88-89 reads: “Whosoever turns back from his belief, openly or secretly, take him and kill him wheresoever ye find him, like any other infidel. Separate yourself from him altogether. Do not accept intercession in his regard.”

The scary thing is that Europe faces intimidation from Islam even if they do not have the same Islamist governments as in the Middle East. We saw this from the murder of Dutch film maker Theo Van Gogh, from the massive riots and deaths from the Danish Cartoon controversy, from the (Muslim) youth riots in France, to many other instances. It demonstrates both the growing force of Islam across the world as well as Europe’s tolerance for it.

I do not really see how this amnesty movement for apostates however could work in the Muslim world. Where Sharia’a is present the teachings of the Koran are beyond question. I do however think that Mr. Jami’s campaign is valuable because it points out the danger of Islamic mysticism on a continent where criticizing the religion is politically incorrect (a crime punishable by social ostracizing). There is always a place for people to call out religion when it is used as a political tool; if nobody does so there is no stop to the havoc it can wreak.