Conversion a thorny issue in Muslim world

The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, USA
27 March 2006


Conversion a thorny issue in Muslim world

By Rachel Morarjee and Dan Murphy
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN; AND CAIRO - Under pressure from the US, the
Vatican, and other Western leaders, Afghanistan's fledgling democracy
Sunday sidestepped a politically charged case in which prosecutors
had sought the death penalty for a Muslim man who converted to
Christianity.

Rather than pass judgment on Abdul Rahman, an Afghan who converted
while living abroad 16 years ago, the court declared him mentally
unfit for trial Sunday. "He is a sick person," said Mohammed Eshaq
Aloko, Afghanistan's deputy attorney general. Afghan officials said
Mr. Rahman would be transferred to a hospital for psychiatric
evaluation.

The case has not only thrown a spotlight on the laws and practices of
an Afghan government that the United States helped to install but is
a reminder of the limits - sometimes severely enforced - placed on
religious freedoms by many countries in the Muslim world.

While state executions for apostasy are rarely carried out, laws
allowing them remain on the books in not only Afghanistan but in
Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Sudan.

More generally, while countries like Egypt and Pakistan guarantee
religious freedoms in their constitutions, they limit religious
speech and local police frequently lean on people to recant if they
seek to convert.

In recent years, religious tension between Muslims and Christians has
soared in many countries, and states like Egypt and Pakistan
frequently find themselves caught between extremists on both sides.

Last year for instance, Egyptian Christians and Muslims clashed over
a girl the Christians claimed had been forced to convert to Islam.
The Muslim side said the girl was a willing convert, and had married
a Muslim.

In Pakistan, while apostasy cases are rare, vigilante attacks against
alleged apostates and others thought to offend Islam are common.
"There's not been a single case of apostasy in Pakistan in the last
10 to 15 years, at least not one that has attracted a lot of
attention," says Najam Sethi, editor of the liberal Lahore-based
newspaper, Daily Times.

But as much of the Muslim world, including Pakistan, takes a more
negative view of America and its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there
has been greater popular pressure on religious freedoms, with courts
and governments usually reluctant to intervene.

In Pakistani villages, Muslims who convert to Christianity are
occasionally killed by their own family members, to protect the
family's honor. In major cities, Islamic militant groups have
launched attacks against Christian churches for their supposed
sympathy for America. In Alexandria, Egypt, last October, three
rioters died as they sought to attack a church for distributing DVDs
of a play deemed offensive to Islam.

This context is what has made Rahman's case so difficult for the
secular- leaning and pro-US Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

"Afghanistan is in the eye of the storm, in terms of anti-Western
feeling," say Mr. Sethi. "If the Supreme Court [had] upheld its
decision, and then passed the buck on to Mr. Karzai to say, 'OK, it's
up to you, you have the power of clemency,' then that puts Karzai in
a bad spot as far as Islamists are concerned."

Sunday's pronouncement of Rahman by prosecutors and the judge as
unfit would now seem to spare President Karzai this embarrassing
quandary.

Ansarullah Mawlavezada, the judge who had been set to try Rahman's
case, as well as other court officials, say that the case came to
court after the family reported him for being a Christian. A lawsuit
had been filed in a child-custody dispute, and his ex-wife alleged
that he beat one of his two daughters while she was reading the Koran.

Rahman has said that he converted to Christianity when he was working
for an aid agency in Pakistan 16 years ago.

Afghanistan is a deeply conservative country where 99 percent of the
population is Muslim and an estimated 10,000 Christians can practice
only in secret. Out on the street, many ordinary Afghans chimed in
with the mullahs calling out at Friday prayers for Abdul Rahman to be
put to death.

"The order of God is execution for this person and no one can change
it. This person has denied God and the Koran and he should be
punished in a way that will stop other Muslims from converting," said
Sayed Saber, a 32-year-old in Kabul.

President George Bush, who called the case "deeply troubling," phoned
Karzai last week to press for Rahman's release. Simultaneously,
mujahideen who had been funded by the US in their fight against the
Soviet Union, mobilized supporters across the country to press for
execution. Karzai was caught in the middle. "It is a question of a
tightrope for Karzai," said Paul Fishstein, the director of the
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit in Kabul.

The issue of religious freedoms is one in which, as in Afghanistan,
modern laws are clashing with ancient traditions. Rahman's case
illustrates a glaring contradiction between Afghanistan's
constitution, which upholds the right to freedom of religion on one
hand but enshrines the supremacy of sharia law on the other.

Most mainstream schools of Islamic jurisprudence call for converts to
be executed. Though the Koran promises only hellfire for apostates
and also says "there should be no compunction in religion,'' Islamic
jurists have typically argued that execution is mandated, citing
stories of comments made by the prophet Muhammad.

"The prophet Muhammad said that anyone who rejects Islam for another
religion should be executed," said Mr. Mawlavezada, the judge.

Though some liberal Islamic scholars disagree, pointing out that no
such rule exists in the Koran, they have been largely silenced in
Afghanistan. Last year, Afghan writer Ali Mohaqeq Nasab spent almost
three months in jail last autumn for an article questioning the
traditional call for execution.

What happens next for Rahman is uncertain, though it appears likely
that the government will find a way to sweep the case under the rug.

Officials said they're likely to allow him to go abroad for medical
treatment.

"If his family can afford to send him overseas for medical treatment
then of course we would give him a passport," says Mr. Aloko, the
deputy attorney general. In that case, he would be free to seek
asylum elsewhere and avoid a return to his homeland and its legal
system.

• David Montero in Karachi, Pakistan, and Scott Baldauf in Delhi
contributed to this report.