Apostasy In Islam - Sharia Vs Islam

CounterCurrents.org
28 March 2006


Apostasy In Islam - Sharia Vs Islam

By Rehman Faiz

28 March, 2006
Countercurrents.org


The Abdul Rahman case is considered to be a test for Afghanistan's
path towards secularism and democracy, the system strongly promised
by president Hamid Karzai, apparently a secular and broad minded
leader. Abdul Rahman was detained two weeks ago when his relatives
reported to the police about his conversion to Christianity which is
forbidden under Islamic Sharia law. Supreme Court Judge Ansarullah
Mawlavizada has persisted that Abdul Rahman, is in police custody and
that he could face the death penalty if he refused to become a Muslim
again. It is important to note here that the strict Sharia law was
introduced and implemented by Taliban, who confronted strict
criticism by the secular states especially by the West governments
and if sentenced to death, the man will be the first to be punished
for conversion since the dismissal of the Taliban regime.

Over the last few years, the experts have continuously been
expressing their concerns over the superficial way of modernization
in Afghanistan even four years after the fall of the Taliban while
the corruption and cronyism remained one of the major part of the
country's administrative system with ever increasing production of
narcotics currently reaching to an extent of $2.8 billion.

The current case has verified various concerns and apprehensions by
the secular circles on the developments in Afghanistan, triggering
alarms in Germany, the US, Italy and all NATO countries with their
peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan. German politicians has started a
serious debate this week to define the role of Germany, a country
which is sincerely involved in Afghanistan's postwar reconstruction
and peacekeeping with 2,700 soldiers deployed there, with a reformist
agenda in Afghanistan but without any genuine breakthrough by the
religious conservatives in Afghanistan. The similar debates and
dialogues have been started within the parliaments and governments'
circles of the developed countries identifying that if Afghanistan
went ahead with the death sentence it would show that the country has
serious flaws in its way towards democracy and secularism.

Sharia Law has been an issue of major concerns by the secular circles
and the civil society organizations during the past many years.
According to these circles a strict and harsh religious law is
impractical since there is no boundary between civil and criminal
matters in this law. The Sharia law has been criticized due to its
clash with the known and recognized global standards of human rights
especially its clauses relating to blasphemy, Hudood, Qisas or Diyat
issues. These clauses have harshly been used in many of the Muslim
countries mostly to set personal scores against minorities, and to
badly violate the minorities' and women's rights.

The accretion of discriminatory religious legislation in many Muslim
countries has fostered an atmosphere of religious intolerance, which
contributes to acts of violence directed against Muslim and non
Muslim minorities groups like Hindus, Christians Ahmadis, Zikris, and
Shias. Even if the Government does not encourage sectarian violence,
there are instances in which the Governments failed to intervene in
cases of societal violence directed at minority religious groups. In
this regard it is considered that the separation of religion from the
state is crucial in order to grantee equal and just rights for all.

It is important here to have a look at the genesis of the Sharia Law
in the Islamic tradition and its position in the basic tenets of
Islam. Sharia is the Arabic word for Islamic law, also known as the
Law of Allah , and governs both public and private lives of those
living in an Islamic state. Sharia covers not only religious rituals,
but many aspects of day-to-day life, politics, economics, banking,
business or contract law, and social issues.

Although it is considered that the Sharia law has been inspired by
the Quran yet in fact it has been developed and evolved through
medieval Islamic periods with the will and efforts of the then
Islamic rulers. The Sharia as it developed in the first few centuries
of Islam incorporated many pre-Islamic Middle-Eastern indigenous and
tribal customs and traditions. Therefore Sharia law is a reflection
of human efforts made some 1000 years back to establish legislative
systems for the then regimes by taking help from the Quran as well as
the legal principles from other traditions. Thereby it refers the
social and economic conditions at the time of the Abbasids and became
out of touch with later social, economic, technological, cultural and
moral developments.

The efforts to apply the Sharia law in today's world, mainly
consisted of the religious tenets of a millennium's back society,
just reveals the failure of the Islamic clergy in getting benefit out
of the productive theme of 'Ijtehad' (the way of improvement
according to the contemporary social needs). The failure of Islamic
clergy in bridging up the Sharia law between the contemporary global
needs and the basic Islamic ideology is evident by the examples given
below.

The basic Islamic ideology in the Quran ensures freedom of religion:
"Surely, those who believe, those who are Jewish, the Christians, and
the converts; anyone who (1) believes in God, and (2) believes in the
Last Day, and (3) leads a righteous life, will receive their
recompense from their Lord. They have nothing to fear, nor will they
grieve". 2:62] "Let there be no compulsion in religion" [2:256]
similarly there is no death penalty for apostasy even: "Surely (as
for) those who believe then disbelieve, again believe and again
disbelieve, then increase in disbelief, Allah will not forgive them
nor guide them in the (right) path" [4:137].

It is important to note here that the Quran authorizes death penalty
for murder and other horrendous crimes, not for apostasy: "You shall
not kill any person - for GOD has made life sacred - except in the
course of justice. If one is killed unjustly, then we give his heir
authority to enforce justice" [17:33]. Another Quranic verse states:
"For this reason did We prescribe to the children of Israel that
whoever slays a soul, unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief
in the land, it is as though he slew all men; and whoever keeps it
alive, it is as though he kept alive all men" [5:32]. Similarly one
can find numerous inconsistencies between the basic Islamic
principles and the proposed Shariah law. For instance, Shariah
sanctions stoning to death for both the adulterer and adulteress,
while the Quran prescribes 100 lashes as punishment for adultery.

These few examples highlight the failure of the modern Islamic clergy
in re-modifying the Islamic scripture to address the newer challenges
in the fields of science, economy, sociology and politics as modified
by the clerics of many religions including Christianity. If we
compare Islamic and Christian theology during the medieval times we
can find numerous similarities between the two traditions on the
subjects of state, theology, sociology and economy. However, we find
both religious traditions expediting through the opposite directions
especially since the early 20th century. The clerics of Christianity
seem successful in incorporating the newer issues like global peace,
human rights, charity and human assistance, economy, polity and
sociology. However, there seems to be a be an overall lack of
initiative as far as the Islamic clergy is concerned.

The Muslim clerics seems tackling the only issue of the modern age:
the post-colonial and post-imperial fallout. The critical challenge
produced by the modern issues is the way to assess the contemporary
Muslim clerics in directing Muslims towards a profound, vivid and
practical way to lead peaceful, interactive and coordinated lives
with other inhabitants of the global village.

Rehman Faiz lives in Lahore - Pakistan
E-mail address: rehmanfaiz2003@yahoo.com