A quote for today (bold and italics mine):
KABUL, Afghanistan, March 23 – Senior Muslim clerics demanded Thursday that an Afghan man on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity be executed, warning that if the government caves in to Western pressure and frees him, they will incite people to “pull him into pieces.”
“Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die,” said cleric Abdul Raoulf, who is considered a moderate and was jailed three times for opposing the Taliban before the hard-line regime was ousted in 2001.
[…] Raoulf, who is a member of the country’s main Islamic organization, the Afghan Ulama Council, agreed. “The government is playing games. The people will not be fooled.”
“Cut off his head!” he exclaimed, sitting in a courtyard outside Herati Mosque. “We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there’s nothing left.”
Okay, so mad props to cleric Abdul Raoulf for standing up to the Taliban and getting jailed three times for it. But, dude, is Allah so weak that something a human can do can actually humiliate Him?
Of course, maybe he is a “moderate,” in comparison to some.
[Raoulf] said the only way for Rahman to survive would be for him to go into exile.
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.”
I guess moderation is in the eye of the beholder.
Muslims these days seem to be fundamentally unable to live with any non Muslim neighbors, anywhere in the world but here. The English bombers were homeboys. Why is it different here? Death penalty?
I’m reluctant to speculate. Some ideas:
I don’t know. All I know is that the “moderate” cleric above makes Pat “God will smite Florida with a hurricane for Gay Day at WDW” Robertson seem all warm and fuzzy and wishy-washy in his faith. Yikes.
I will say that US Muslims need to be speaking out about this episode. A lot of the conditions above depend upon a “benign neglect” on the part of the rest of the population to American Muslims. That mood got damaged post-9/11, and the continuing relative lack of engagement about these sorts of episodes doesn’t help.
I imagine that, even here, they’re afraid. Worldwide it’s pretty much a case of, “Speak out in opposition and die, maybe your family with you.”
Or quietly sympathetic to the crazies. I’ve known several fundies who would think that killing off every homosexual in America who wouldn’t convert (and they believe in sexual conversion) would be a good thing. Sad, but necessary and godly. But not worth going to prison for, themselves. These people seemed fairly normal otherwise.
Whatever we’ve got, I hope it doesn’t run out.
Hmmm. Good point. Especially if there’s family back home.
And I have the sense that there’s also division within the community about what such speaking out might carry in subtext. If you denounce the extremists in Afghanistan, are you tacitly supporting US foreign policy, etc.?
Well, it’d be nice if they’d come out and say that rioting and killing over cartoons published in foreign countries is nucking futz, but they didn’t.
But, again, it’s that all-or-nothing thinking. “Why, if we object to the protests, then obviously we’re condoning the insult to the Prophet!”
Which goes right along with, “You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists.”