Islam on Freedom of Religion 1

Islam on Free­dom of Religion

Apos­ta­sy, appar­ent­ly a human rights-relat­ed issue, is high­ly sen­si­tive to the mul­ti-racial and mul­ti-reli­gious char­ac­ter of Malaysia. It tends to be prob­lem­at­ic, unten­able to some, espe­cial­ly when it deals with con­ver­sion into and out of Islam. It is true, the whole ques­tion involves cer­tain legal and social impli­ca­tions. At times, its reper­cus­sions appear to rat­tle the social sol­i­dar­i­ty and reli­gious har­mo­ny of our peace­ful nation. All these threat­en­ing con­se­quences are actu­al­ly caused by igno­rance. This writ­ing is not to incite fur­ther dis­sen­sion. Nei­ther is it intend­ed to sound apolo­getic. On the con­trary it calls for all par­ties direct­ly or indi­rect­ly affect­ed by the sub­ject mat­ter, Mus­lims and non-Mus­lims alike, to view it with an open heart guid­ed by wisdom.

Schol­ars have admit­ted that Islam is the most mis­un­der­stood reli­gion of all world reli­gions. Mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions and mis­per­cep­tions about it are caus­ing many to hur­ried­ly devel­op an unjus­ti­fied Islam­o­pho­bia. This syn­drome is actu­al­ly a fear of the unknown” as these peo­ple do not real­ly under­stand what Islam is all about. Many sim­ply accept the many glob­al mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions inces­sant­ly put to them via the media.

Seen through the lens of dis­course on human rights, apos­ta­sy in Islam has been noto­ri­ous­ly brought into con­flict with the doc­trine of human rights in gen­er­al, and with the notion of free­dom of reli­gion in par­tic­u­lar. Among the ques­tions raised is, if Islam can eas­i­ly be embraced, by the same token, why does it not allow Mus­lims to leave Islam ?

It is unques­tion­able that Islam indeed rec­og­nizes human rights, in fact from its very incep­tion, long before these ideas were devel­oped and doc­u­ment­ed in its mod­ern sec­u­lar form by the West like the Unit­ed Nations Uni­ver­sal Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights, 1948. Islam, as sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly reflect­ed by the Cairo Uni­ver­sal Islam­ic Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights, 1981, advo­cates human rights via shari­ah. These objec­tives include the estab­lish­ment of jus­tice, indi­vid­ual edu­ca­tion and preser­va­tion of human wel­fare or inter­ests by pro­tect­ing and pre­serv­ing the free­dom of thought, wor­ship, rights to prop­er­ty and preser­va­tion of the prog­e­ny. These con­sti­tute the invi­o­lable prin­ci­ples of human rights”.

What many fail to under­stand is that Islam is prob­a­bly the only reli­gion that hon­ors its fol­low­ers to the utmost. Islam regards its adher­ents, both orig­i­nal­ly born Mus­lim as well as con­verts, as invalu­able assets. Once they come to the fold of Islam, they stand equal. There­fore, the respon­si­bil­i­ties, duties and rights of all Mus­lims are basi­cal­ly the same. Indi­vid­u­al­ly, they are equal­ly enti­tled to achieve suc­cess in this world as well as sal­va­tion in the here­after, guid­ed by and with­in the para­me­ters set up by shariah.

Mus­lims firm­ly believe that they are in the ter­ri­to­ry of truth, the right path. They are bathed in the bright­est light. For Mus­lims, truth is light, false­hood is dark­ness. There­fore, it is a grave injus­tice to them if they were to devi­ate from that truth. Fur­ther­more, the fact that Islam pro­hibits apos­ta­sy reflects the integri­ty and cred­i­bil­i­ty of the reli­gion. If Islam were to grant per­mis­sion for Mus­lims to change reli­gion at will, it would imply it has no dig­ni­ty, no self-esteem. And peo­ple may then ques­tion its com­plete­ness, truth­ful­ness and perfection.

Echo­ing the obser­va­tions of Syed Muham­mad Naquib al-Attas, rights” or huquq in Islam refers to some­thing that is right, true, cor­rect and prop­er. Free­dom” or ikhti­yar means a choice for the good or bet­ter. So it is nei­ther one’s right nor is it free­dom to choose some­thing evil, false, wrong, incor­rect or imperfect.

Reli­gious­ly, moral­ly and legal­ly, man has no right to do wrong. Nev­er­the­less, there are fee­ble, con­fused Mus­lims around. They may be the result of improp­er or inad­e­quate edu­ca­tion or the lack of expo­sure to the more com­pre­hen­sive teach­ings of Islam. And due to world­ly temp­ta­tions, this weak­ness caus­es their reli­gious foun­da­tions to become shaky. Appar­ent­ly, their com­mon fea­ture is a lack of knowl­edge and under­stand­ing of Islam. So if one insists on adopt­ing the afore­men­tioned wrong con­cep­tion of rights” and free­dom”, one is actu­al­ly expos­ing one’s shame­ful ignorance !

For con­verts, before they become Mus­lims, no mat­ter for what rea­son, it is only rea­son­able that they must have a cer­tain degree of basic knowl­edge about Islam. They must take efforts to study the fun­da­men­tals of the reli­gion first. This is actu­al­ly their respon­si­bil­i­ty and duty. Take note that rights do not come out of a vac­u­um ; they are accom­pa­nied by cer­tain respon­si­bil­i­ties and duties. For exam­ple, before one can exer­cise one’s free­dom to buy a car of his choice, one must first obtain a dri­ving licence. With­out that doc­u­ment, one will only endan­ger one­self as well as oth­ers. One can­not scream to be giv­en the right or free­dom to buy if the require­ment of respon­si­bil­i­ty is not ful­filled beforehand.

Mus­lims must under­stand that once they come into the fold of Islam, there is no ques­tion of leav­ing the faith or revert­ing to their ear­li­er beliefs even if the very rea­son for one to come to Islam in the first place ceas­es to exist. One may be a bad or a non-prac­tis­ing Mus­lim, but there is hard­ly any room avail­able for one to denounce that religion.

One can­not argue that Islam does not rec­og­nize the idea of free­dom of wor­ship. First and fore­most, the very doc­trine of Islam, as reflect­ed in the Quran, teach­es that there is no com­pul­sion. Free­dom of wor­ship is to be under­stood not only in the sense of mak­ing a choice for the bet­ter, but also in the sense of free­dom to prac­tise a par­tic­u­lar reli­gion. Once one accepts Islam or decides to become a Mus­lim, one is sub­ject­ed to all the rules pre­scribed by the religion.

If Islam for­bids apos­ta­sy, not only the Mus­lims must observe it, but the fol­low­ers of oth­er reli­gions that do not have such pro­vi­sions must appre­ci­ate and respect this posi­tion as well. This is actu­al­ly the free­dom of wor­ship that must be per­ceived by all.Endmark

The author is a Senior Fel­low for the Cen­tre for Syari­ah, Law and Polit­i­cal Sci­ence, Insti­tute of Islam­ic Under­stand­ing Malaysia (IKIM)
Cite this arti­cle as : Wan Azhar Wan Ahmad, Islam on Free­dom of Reli­gion,” in Bis­mi­ka Allahu­ma, July 2, 2006, last accessed March 19, 2024, https://​bis​mikaal​lahu​ma​.org/​h​i​s​t​o​r​y​/​i​s​l​a​m​-​o​n​-​f​r​e​e​d​o​m​-​o​f​-​r​e​l​i​g​i​on/

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28 responses to “Islam on Free­dom of Religion”

  1. godisjudge Avatar
    godisjudge

    Some of the views here and espe­cial­ly the death sen­tence for peo­ple leav­ing islam is exact­ly why non-believ­ers sus­pect the faith. Such extreme opin­ions by its fol­low­ers shows how much man has had their hand in the devel­op­ment and under­stand­ing of the reli­gion. Let God pun­ish those that have wronged. Who is man to judge.

  2. Shadowofears Avatar
    Shadowofears

    1. Media maligns Islam
    Islam is with­out doubt the best reli­gion but the media is in the hands of the west­ern­ers who are afraid of Islam. The media is con­tin­u­ous­ly broad­cast­ing and print­ing infor­ma­tion against Islam. They either pro­vide mis­in­for­ma­tion about Islam, mis­quote Islam or project a point out of pro­por­tion, if any.
    When any bomb blasts take place any­where, the first peo­ple to be accused with­out proof are invari­ably the Mus­lims. This appears as head­lines in the news. Lat­er, when they find that non-Mus­lims were respon­si­ble, it appears as an insignif­i­cant news’ item.
    If a 50 year old Mus­lim mar­ries a 15 year old girl after tak­ing her per­mis­sion, it appears on the front page but when a 50 year old non-Mus­lim rapes a 6 year old girl, it may appear in the news in the inside pages as News­briefs’. Every­day in Amer­i­ca on an aver­age 2,713 cas­es of rape take place but it doesn’t appear in the news, since it has become a way of life for the Americans.

    2. Black sheep in every community :
    I am aware that there are some Mus­lims who are dis­hon­est, unre­li­able, who cheat, etc. but the media projects this as though only Mus­lims are involved in such activ­i­ties. There are black sheep in every com­mu­ni­ty. I know Mus­lims who are alco­holics and who can drink most of the non-Mus­lims under the table.

    3. Mus­lims best as a whole :
    Inspite of all the black sheep in the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty, Mus­lims tak­en on the whole, yet form the best com­mu­ni­ty in the world. We are the biggest com­mu­ni­ty of tee-totallers as a whole, i.e. those who don’t imbibe alco­hol. Col­lec­tive­ly, we are a com­mu­ni­ty which gives the max­i­mum char­i­ty in the world. There is not a sin­gle per­son in the world who can even show a can­dle to the Mus­lims where mod­esty is con­cerned ; where sobri­ety is con­cerned ; where human val­ues and ethics are concerned.

    4. Don’t judge a car by its driver :
    If you want to judge how good is the lat­est mod­el of the Mer­cedes” car and a per­son who does not know how to dri­ve sits at the steer­ing wheel and bangs up the car, who will you blame ? The car or the dri­ver ? But nat­u­ral­ly, the dri­ver. To ana­lyze how good the car is, a per­son should not look at the dri­ver but see the abil­i­ty and fea­tures of the car. How fast is it, what is its aver­age fuel con­sump­tion, what are the safe­ty mea­sures, etc. Even if I agree for the sake of argu­ment that the Mus­lims are bad, we can’t judge Islam by its fol­low­ers ? If you want to judge how good Islam is then judge it accord­ing to its authen­tic sources, i.e. the Glo­ri­ous Qur’an and the Sahih Hadith.

    5. Judge Islam by its best fol­low­er i.e. Prophet Mohammed (pbuh):
    If you prac­ti­cal­ly want to check how good a car is put an expert dri­ver behind the steer­ing wheel. Sim­i­lar­ly the best and the most exem­plary fol­low­er of Islam by whom you can check how good Islam is, is the last and final mes­sen­ger of God, Prophet Muham­mad (pbuh). Besides Mus­lims, there are sev­er­al hon­est and unbi­ased non-Mus­lim his­to­ri­ans who have acclaimed that prophet Muham­mad was the best human being. Accord­ing to Michael H. Hart who wrote the book, The Hun­dred Most Influ­en­tial Men in His­to­ry’, the top­most posi­tion, i.e. the num­ber one posi­tion goes to the beloved prophet of Islam, Muham­mad (pbuh). There are sev­er­al such exam­ples of non-Mus­lims pay­ing great trib­utes to the prophet, like Thomas Car­lyle, La-Mar­tine, etc.

    A few select­ed vers­es from the Qur’an are often mis­quot­ed to per­pet­u­ate the myth that Islam pro­motes vio­lence, and exhorts its fol­low­ers to kill those out­side the pale of Islam.
    1. Verse from Surah Taubah
    The fol­low­ing verse from Surah Taubah is very often quot­ed by crit­ics of Islam, to show that Islam pro­motes vio­lence, blood­shed and brutality :
    Kill the mushriqeen (pagans, poly­the­ists, kuf­far) where ever you find them.”
    [Al-Qur’an 9:5]
    2. Con­text of verse is dur­ing battlefield
    Crit­ics of Islam actu­al­ly quote this verse out of con­text. In order to under­stand the con­text, we need to read from verse 1 of this surah. It says that there was a peace treaty between the Mus­lims and the Mushriqs (pagans) of Makkah. This treaty was vio­lat­ed by the Mushriqs of Makkah. A peri­od of four months was giv­en to the Mushriqs of Makkah to make amends. Oth­er­wise war would be declared against them. Verse 5 of Surah Taubah says :
    But when the for­bid­den months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wher­ev­er ye find them, and seize them, belea­guer them, and lie in wait for them in every strat­a­gem (of war); but if they repent, and estab­lish reg­u­lar prayers and prac­tise reg­u­lar char­i­ty, then open the way for them : for Allah is oft-for­giv­ing, Most merciful.”
    [Al-Qur’an 9:5]
    This verse is quot­ed dur­ing a battle.
    3. Exam­ple of war between Amer­i­ca and Vietnam
    We know that Amer­i­ca was once at war with Viet­nam. Sup­pose the Pres­i­dent of Amer­i­ca or the Gen­er­al of the Amer­i­can Army told the Amer­i­can sol­diers dur­ing the war : Wher­ev­er you find the Viet­namese, kill them”. Today if I say that the Amer­i­can Pres­i­dent said, Wher­ev­er you find Viet­namese, kill them” with­out giv­ing the con­text, I will make him sound like a butch­er. But if I quote him in con­text, that he said it dur­ing a war, it will sound very log­i­cal, as he was try­ing to boost the morale of the Amer­i­can sol­diers dur­ing the war.
    4. Verse 9:5 quot­ed to boost morale of Mus­lims dur­ing battle
    Sim­i­lar­ly in Surah Taubah chap­ter 9 verse 5 the Qur’an says, Kill the Mushriqs where ever you find them”, dur­ing a bat­tle to boost the morale of the Mus­lim sol­diers. What the Qur’an is telling Mus­lim sol­diers is, don’t be afraid dur­ing bat­tle ; wher­ev­er you find the ene­mies kill them.
    5. Shourie jumps from verse 5 to verse 7
    Arun Shourie is one of the staunchest crit­ics of Islam in India. He quotes the same verse, Surah Taubah chap­ter 9 verse 5 in his book The World of Fat­wahs’, on page 572. After quot­ing verse 5 he jumps to verse 7 of Surah Taubah. Any sen­si­ble per­son will realise that he has skipped verse 6.
    6. Surah Taubah chap­ter 9 verse 6 gives the answer
    Surah Taubah chap­ter 9 verse 6 gives the answer to the alle­ga­tion that Islam pro­motes vio­lence, bru­tal­i­ty and blood­shed. It says :
    If one amongst the pagans ask thee for asylum,grant it to him, so that he may hear the word of Allah ; and then escort him to where he can be secure that is because they are men with­out knowledge.”
    [Al-Qur’an 9:6]
    The Qur’an not only says that a Mushriq seek­ing asy­lum dur­ing the bat­tle should be grant­ed refuge, but also that he should be escort­ed to a secure place. In the present inter­na­tion­al sce­nario, even a kind, peace-lov­ing army Gen­er­al, dur­ing a bat­tle, may let the ene­my sol­diers go free, if they want peace. But which army Gen­er­al will ever tell his sol­diers, that if the ene­my sol­diers want peace dur­ing a bat­tle, don’t just let them go free, but also escort them to a place of security ?
    This is exact­ly what Allah (swt) says in the Glo­ri­ous Qur’an to pro­mote peace in the world.

  3. Xman Avatar
    Xman

    Ishark,
    If you mar­ry a Mus­lim woman & then have chil­dren. What reli­gion will the kids be ? What if the woman wants them to grow up as Mus­lim and you dont ?

    This is a com­mon sce­nario that usu­al­ly ends up in divorce.

    Even if you did allow your wife to bring them up as Mus­lims, they would get con­fused by your actions as a non-mus­lim. There will be no har­mo­ny in such a household.

  4. Malikam X Avatar
    Malikam X

    Ishark, did you mean to say some­thing that did­nt come out when you sub­mit­ted yr comment.…

  5. terence Avatar
    terence

    Dav. what abt sura 9.111 ? I did­nt catch what you were try­ing to say abt it.

  6. startucuus Avatar
    startucuus

    Allow me to quote Don­ald Mor­gan’s com­ment on John 14:6 No one comes to the Father except
    through me.”

    If you must accept Jesus as your sav­ior in order to be saved {John 14:6}, what about the bil­lions of beings that die as fetus­es, infants, men­tal defi­cients, etc.? For them to accept Jesus would be impos­si­ble, so they are con­demned to hell because of con­di­tions over which they had no control.

    Also, if Bill Clin­ton said, I am THE Pres­i­dent…” Does it mean that he is the ONLY President ?

    hmm­m­mm.… (I am begin­ning to think that this hmm­m­mm thing is a very good and polite protocol)

  7. dav Avatar
    dav

    Hmmm Star­tu­cus, U are an inter­est­ing knowl­edgable thinker. God Bless you.

    Hi All,

    The Bible n The Quran were writ­ten long time ago. The Bible were record­ing of many phrophets. God gave the com­mand­ments as a guid­ance to the par­tic­u­lar ppl, the Israelites. The Quran called them the ppl of the Book, the LAW. So the Israelite are bound by the com­mand­ments God gave to them. So the it applies to the Israelites of that time. I think with­out The LAW once always claim igno­rance of what GOD wants. Is just like deal­ing with a child. Telling them what is right and what is wrong in your home(nation). What will hap­pen if the rules is bro­ken. Hoev­er a father in a home still loves the child (isralites). God being a lov­ing God will also reach out to his peo­ple. A lov­ing father would also to the same. Jere­mi­ah 31:31 God said,
    31Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah :

    32Not accord­ing to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt ; which my covenant they brake, although I was an hus­band unto them, saith the LORD :

    33But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel ; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts ; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

    34And they shall teach no more every man his neigh­bour, and every man his broth­er, say­ing, Know the LORD : for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the great­est of them, saith the LORD : for I will for­give their iniq­ui­ty, and I will remem­ber their sin no more.

    Jesus gave a new com­mand­ment ” A new com­mand­ment I give to you that you love one anoth­er as I have love you”. Here He has gave a strong mes­sage. If you love will you kill ? If you say you love will you steal ? The utmost impor­tance of all this is the direc­tion back to GOD. Jesus ful­filled the phroph­cies of the phrophets and more bet­ter showed the way to a mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ship with God for all ppl.

    John 14:6
    Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

    Nabi Isa here is mak­ing a serius state­ment, this the way. Believe in Me and I will show you the way”. He us not say­ing some­thing like” I myself is not sure if I am going to heav­en or telling you some­thing like Sura 9.111

    Again I will ask you, your deci­sion will either make a Lov­ing God hap­py or some­one else happy.

    Please read both the Injil(Gospel) to decide. Not because some­one else in a far away land tells you so.

  8. Ishark Avatar
    Ishark

    Dear, Malikam X
    Q4. Cir­cum­ci­sion. every man’s night­mare. How­ev­er, yr argument…u must keep what­ev­er God gave u…. I hope you dont believe that… pls make sure you cut yr nails and hair and brush yr teeth and etc, etc, etc… you get my drift ? Oth­er­wise, nev­er take the plane because if God had want­ed men to fly, He would haver giv­en them wings, huh?.”

  9. Ali Avatar
    Ali

    Chris­tians are no longer bound by the Law but dead to it.”

    Hmm I guess that allows you com­plete author­i­ty to put aside the Thou shall Not KILL’, Thou shall not com­mitt Adul­tery’, Thou shall not steal’ etc etc all on that alleged demon­ic feel­ing’ inside you which push­es you towards anni­hi­lat­ing the Law while keep­ing you con­tent under the delu­sion that its God telling you to go ahead and break up all the com­mand­ments cos He Loves You’.

    Some hypocrisy — I guess the church did take that into con­sid­er­a­tion dur­ing the Cru­sades when All of the cru­saders FILLED with the Holy Ghost dec­i­mat­ed thou­sands of Arabs, Turks, Mus­lims, Jews and Chris­tians alike ALL because they believed Jesus loves them’.

    Chris­tians had best learn from their bloody past on the atroc­i­ties com­mit­ted by the church — a mer­ci­ful and peace­ful reli­gion — I think NOT. Fur­ther­more I won­der what do you chris­tians have to say about the fol­low­ing com­mand attrib­uted to Jesus in YOUR bible :

    For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be giv­en ; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be tak­en away from him. But those mine ene­mies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hith­er, and SLAY them before me. And when he had thus spo­ken, he went before, ascend­ing up to Jerusalem” (Luke 19:26 – 28)

    Hmmm kill all who don’t sub­mit to rule — does­n’t sound very peace­ful to me. Kin­da explains the atti­tude of the church over the years to non chris­tians. Also pret­ty much explains the Chris­t­ian Wests ram­page on the Islam­ic world.

    As for ask­ing Jesus whether he is God [fun­ny why you would resort to a gut feel­ing which you attribute to some holy spir­it that has no qualms on you rip off the sanc­ti­ty of the Law, rather than try and read what Jesus was alleged to have said in your bible] — if feel­ing good is all it takes for you guys to con­clude that some holy spir­it has entered you — well I guess you could con­clude that the tooth fairy is God, Bud­dha is God, hey even Vince McMa­hon could qual­i­fy base dupon your stu­pid assump­tions and weird orgy feel­ings of being infest­ed by some demon­ic pos­ses­sion that gets you falling on the floor bub­bling out gibberish.

  10. Ahmad Avatar
    Ahmad

    Dear Ishark,

    I would sug­gest that you refer to the fol­low­ing site ie Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar) who in my opin­ionc could give you a bet­ter insight of what Islam is all about. There are quite num­ber of arti­cles explained with sci­en­tif­ic fact about Allah is the Cre­ator and Islam as a whole and present it in a very lay­man terms.

    http://​www​.hyahya​.org

    I have col­lect­ed 152 books and arti­cles of Harun Yahya and if you need it in a cd form,
    email me your home address at ripaai@​yahoo.​com, I’ll send them one, free of charge.

    If you are sin­cere enough to learn please refer.

    Thanks

  11. tariq Avatar
    tariq

    good point Terence
    the bible also says tht OT is to be fol­lowed forever :

    The LORD heard you when you spoke to me and the LORD said to me, I have heard what this peo­ple said to you. Every­thing they said was good. Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my com­mands ALWAYS, so that it might go well with them and their CHILDREN FOREVER!”
    [Deuteron­o­my 5:28 – 29]

  12. Malikam X Avatar
    Malikam X

    Ishark Pls click on the fol­low­ing site. This may be the rea­son why the Moslems feel so strong­ly about the Quran.

    http://​www​.theinim​itable​quran​.com/​I​n​i​m​i​t​a​b​l​e​F​e​a​t​u​r​e​s​.​h​tml

  13. Malikam X Avatar
    Malikam X

    Ishark, kind­ly give me time to get back to your burn­ing and per­ti­nent and hard and long ques­tions. I’m com­par­ing reli­gions so..let me try. I’m try­ing to get some­thing back to you in 1 week’s time. But, for the time being some answers…

    Q3. Nope. I dont think it is writ­ten”. Lit­er­al­ly Quran (not Koran) means The Recita­tion”. It was revealed to Muham­mad and, as he was illit­er­ate, he would recite it to his com­pan­ions, who will then have it scribed. Its form, in Ara­bic, amaz­ing­ly, has not changed since it was revealed 1400 years ago. That’s why you have some peo­ple who are Hafizs” (mean­ing to guard/​preserve) that’s how it has been pre­serve with­out change from Day 1. Since it is regard­ed as the true Word of God, I would expect ANY true Word of God” to be per­fect, unchange­able. Also, I think, some­where in the Quran, the Quran itself CHALLENGES humans to cre­ate some­thing that can equal its accu­ra­cy and lin­guis­tic excel­lence. Quite amaz­ing, i guess.

    Q4. Cir­cum­ci­sion. every man’s night­mare. How­ev­er, yr argument…u must keep what­ev­er God gave u.… I hope you dont believe that… pls make sure you cut yr nails and hair and brush yr teeth and etc, etc, etc… you get my drift ? Oth­er­wise, nev­er take the plane because if God had want­ed men to fly, He would haver giv­en them wings, huh?.

    His­tor­i­cal­ly, how­ev­er, cir­cum­ci­sion was Abra­ham’s covenant/​promise to God that his seeds” and those who fol­low his way” will be cir­cum­cised. By the way, I have read some­where that Amer­i­cans do it because it seems to let them tahan longer”… (I’ve got to try it someday…)

    Q5. Actu­al­ly, ter­ror­ists come in all col­ors and shapes. MaoTze­Tung and the Shaolin monks were con­sid­ered Subversives/​rebels/​extremists. Ever heard of Michael Collins ? VCD da… He was with the IRA… ter­ror oo.

    More recent­ly, the Okla­homa City bomb­ing was a ter­ror­ist attack on April 19, 1995, in which the Alfred P. Mur­rah Fed­er­al Build­ing, a U.S. gov­ern­ment office com­plex in down­town Okla­homa City, Okla­homa, was destroyed, killing 168 peo­ple. It is the dead­liest domes­tic ter­ror­ist attack in the his­to­ry of the Unit­ed States and was the dead­liest act of ter­ror­ism with­in U.S. bor­ders until Sep­tem­ber 112001.

    Of course, the Mus­lim ter­ror­ists again, huh ? Nope.

    Two men lat­er con­vict­ed of the bomb­ing, Tim­o­thy McVeigh and his friend Ter­ry Nichols.
    Also, it was nev­er proven who actu­al­ly did the 911 job.

    Q6. If mus­lim woman wears tudung for the obvi­ous rea­sons, why is it they still put on cos­met­ics ? Isnt tat con­tra­dict­ing the very rea­son they wear a tudung for ?

    »»»»»> Right on, mate!!!
    »»»»»> You said it exact­ly the way it should be said. I cant add any­thing else.
    »»»»»> All of you Mus­lim women with tudung” and 2.53 inch thick cos­met­ics, lis­ten up!!!

  14. Terence Avatar
    Terence

    Inter­est­ing.

    If what Leon says is true, then Jesus lied.

    Because, the NET EFFECT was, if by the act of Jesus”, we are no longer bound by the Law , then Jesus DID, in effect, come to destroy…

    hmm­m­m­mm.…

  15. Leon Avatar
    Leon

    Star­ta­cus, you fail to notice that Jesus pro­claimed from the cross that all was ful­filled and then He died. The Law and all that goes with it died with Jesus. The New Cre­ation com­menced at His Res­ur­rec­tion. Chris­tians are no longer bound by the Law but dead to it. Chris­tians live as a new cre­ation in Christ. Chris­tians no longer observe the Jew­ish Sab­bath but Sun­day, the Day Jesus rose from the dead and the first day of the new creation.

  16. Startucus Avatar
    Startucus

    Thank you, pvb. I appre­ci­ate your response. I will not use great words like peace, for­give­ness, grace and write beau­ti­ful essays. I am still study­ing life so if you may bear with my shortcomings.

    What you just did was you, your­self, by your OWN AUTHORITY, have sin­gle-hand­ed­ly ren­dered the Old Tes­ta­ment null and void”. I think even the nor­mal layper­son will ask, By what/​whose author­i­ty did he do that by?” …because it seems to me to it is a BIG and SERIOUS mat­ter, ie the abro­ga­tion of the Old Tes­ta­ment. So. Why dont we do this…

    Will you REALLY fol­low what Jesus” (your God) have him­self said, in your New tes­ta­ment even ?

    Do you REALLY want to know, in your own words, the path Jesus taught us (incl you) to FOLLOW”. Will you then REALLY FOLLOW ?

    What if, Jesus” so very solemn­ly affirms, that until heav­ens and the earth are no more” that .… NOT ONE JOT OR ONE TITTLE (not one dot, not one lit­tle stroke- he” is VERY seri­ous here) shall be dropped (or dis­ap­pear) from the Law of the Prophets till ALL be full­filled”? What if all this comes from the New Testament ?

    Will you then fol­low ? I hope you will not tell me that you will fol­low what oth­er MEN tell you. Espe­cial­ly when, YOUR GOD (“Jesus”) said, in very CLEAR and EXPLICIT words …

    In Matthew 5:17 – 18

    Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets ; I am not come to destroy, but to ful­fill. For ver­i­ly, I say unto you, till heav­en and earth pass, one jot or one tit­tle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.”

    In your own beau­ti­ful words, for it is when we do not fol­low the words of Christ that we fail…”

  17. pvb Avatar
    pvb

    Star­tu­cus

    You quote the Old Tes­ta­ment. That is the his­to­ry of Chris­tian­i­ty before the light of the world came to us. The Old Tes­ta­ment was the LAW before GOD gave us the GIFT OF GRACE through the sac­ri­fice of the per­fect light. You must use the New Test­n­ment to point to the fail­ures of Chris­tains, for it is when we do not fol­low the words of Christ that we fail because we are only human.

    Mohamed, Mohd Shafeeque, Sis­ter Safiyyah

    Just the same Mus­lims believe that we can not under­stand your book the Koran!!!

    tariq

    Chris­tain­i­ty deals with truth of what is in your heart, for­give­ness and grace. What good is there if only in the out­ward appear­ance but in the heart, Islam is being cursed for forc­ing a per­son to stay com­mit­ted to a reli­gion they no longer follow ?

    The strongest pow­er in the world is for­give­ness and grace, that is the path Jesus taught us to fol­low and that is the path what true Chris­tains are try­ing to follow.

  18. Ishark Avatar
    Ishark

    I just got a few burn­ing ques­tions to ask the mus­lim bors and sis.I meant no offence here should i offend any­one who there, pls accept my sin­cere apol­o­gy first.
    Case in point, I’m in love wif a mus­lim woman right now.But still being a non-mus­lim, things r real­ly get­ting dif­fi­cult for me here as there r tonnes of things i do not understand.I hope u guys do give me a pin­ter or two.
    1) Why is it that i must con­vert to islam should i mar­ry a mus­lim ? If so, even if i dun believe in the reli­gion, but becoz i wan­na be wif the per­son i love, how ? No choice right, be it like it or not i have to convert.Why is it tat reli­gion must divide a true love ?

    2) Every­one should be giv­en a choice to choose their reli­gion and not born wif it.Watz the point of being hard wired since birth to believe some things but end up when u grow up, armed wif edu­ca­tion, log­ic and com­mon sense, u decide to renounce or leave the reli­gion, can ppl judge u ? ulti­mate­ly, itz between u and the god if there hap­pens to be one in the first place.What rights go oth­ers have to place judge­ment on u but God himself ?

    3) Koran is wri­iten, and humans do make mis­takes, so am I cor­rect to say the itz might not be the entire­ly cor­rect ? Reli­gion is juz a way to guide u but by con­trol­ling u juz makes things wrong.

    4) U r born wif wat­ev­er God has giv­en you, why is it then tat u have to cir­cum­cise, to remove that piece of flesh tat god has giv­en u ?

    5) If ter­ror­ists have mis­in­ter­pret the teach­ings of koran, then why is it only mus­lims have ter­ror­ists ? How come we dont have chris­t­ian or bud­dhist terrorists ?

    6) If mus­lim woman wears tudung for the obvi­ous rea­sons, why is it they still put on cos­met­ics ? Isnt tat con­tra­dict­ing the very rea­son they wear a tudung for ?

    7) If ppl can con­vert to islam then why mus­lims can­not con­vert out of islam ? Isnt it so self­ish and unreasonable ?

    8) If addic­tion is con­sid­er a sin then should all mus­lims be lead­ing a sec­u­lar life ? Every­day ppl r juz sat­is­fy­ing their addic­tion, be it tv pro­grammes, food or oth­er world­ly desires.

    Sor­ry once again if i offend­ed any­one here, but i do hope to have my ques­tions answered.Thank u

  19. Startucus Avatar
    Startucus

    Gila & Co, please refer to the Bible which strong­ly states of apostacy…

    Deuteron­o­my 13:6 – 9 If your very own broth­er, or your son or daugh­ter, or the wife you love, or your clos­est friend secret­ly entices you, say­ing : Let us go and wor­ship oth­er gods (gods that nei­ther you nor your fathers have known, gods of the peo­ples around you, whether near or far, from one end of Dthe land to the oth­er, or gods of oth­er reli­gions), do not yield to him or lis­ten to him. Show him no pity.o not spare him or shield him. You must cer­tain­ly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people.”

    Deuteron­o­my 17:3 – 5 And he should go and wor­ship oth­er gods and bow down to them or to the sun or the moon or all the army of the heav­ens, .….and you must stone such one with stones and such one must die.”

    2 Chron­i­cles 15:13 All who would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, were to be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman.”

  20. Startucus Avatar
    Startucus

    I have also enjoyed being on the side­lines, but I could­nt help but to
    be amazed that Gila adds 1+1=1. How about 1+1+1=1 ?

    sor­ry, not reli­gious, just maths crazy.

  21. Bishop Ben Avatar
    Bishop Ben

    It is not to mean what we say that it isn’t her choice to choose what­ev­er reli­gion she wants. She is free to believe what­ev­er she wants to believe. We can­not con­trol her heart of desires.

    BUT it is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the whole com­mu­ni­ty to stop and deter apos­ta­sy from hap­pen­ing. There­fore, it is for the community’re respon­si­bil­i­ty to pun­ish apostates. ”

    I see. Peo­ple have a right to believe what they want and mus­lims have a right to kill them for believ­ing it.

  22. Mohamed Avatar
    Mohamed

    How did you get to the con­clu­sion that all mus­lims don’t know any­thing about oth­er reli­gions and besides in the Bible there is a lot of mis­takes and stat­ments that con­tra­dicts each others.

  23. gila Avatar
    gila

    let me ask all the mus­lim. if you guys were born as bud­dhist or hind­hu or any oth­er cult, would you want to embrace that reli­gion till death ? why ? same goes to lina joy. she was born as a mus­lim. she did­n’t have any choice to choose her reli­gion when she was born ? she was a mus­lim because of her ances­tors are mus­lim. same goes with you guys out there. you guys did­n’t any choice at all. born as mus­lim, brought up as mus­lim, etc…

    what mat­ters is what you believe after you study and learn. you can’t expect a new born baby to believe 1+1=1, rite ? you mus­lim guys out there may not have a chance to learn about oth­er reli­gion. or maybe you guys nev­er opened up your heart to learn about oth­er religion.

    for you mus­lim guys out there, i want you to do one thing. if you don’t believe that Jesus is God, i urge you guys to chal­lenge Him. Ask Jesus to prove him­self as god. say it out loud but don’t be scared. you’ll even­tu­al­ly expe­ri­ence it. Jesus loves you. He’s long­ing after you to be with him. We wants you to love him too.

  24. Sister Safiyyah Avatar
    Sister Safiyyah

    To the Non-Muslims,

    It is not to mean what we say that it isn’t her choice to choose what­ev­er reli­gion she wants. She is free to believe what­ev­er she wants to believe. We can­not con­trol her heart of desires.

    BUT it is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the whole com­mu­ni­ty to stop and deter apos­ta­sy from hap­pen­ing. There­fore, it is for the com­mu­ni­ty’re respon­si­bil­i­ty to pun­ish apostates.

    The prob­lem with West­ern defined human rights, they nev­er take account the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the com­mu­ni­ty. To each is his own, they say. So, when one errs, in a West­ern soci­ety -> to each his own.

    Have you ever seen the reac­tion of the West­ern com­mu­ni­ty in gen­er­al when one of his mem­bers err ? Take a look at some West­ern forums deal­ing with issues like adul­tery and such, a lot of them will say, It is actu­al­ly bad, but you’re enti­tled to your own choice”. Even­though, leav­ing it up to the per­son who com­mits the wrong has dev­as­tat­ed the fam­i­ly, espe­cial­ly chil­dren. Indi­vid­u­al­is­tic West­ern­ers says it is their right to do the moral wrong.

    In Islam, whence com­mu­ni­ty respon­si­bil­i­ty works hand in hand with respon­si­bil­i­ty of the indi­vid­ual, the mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty would stop/​deter this act of adul­tery. The one’s with more under­stand­ing and grant­ed hikmah will then bring the adul­ter­er to the right path of peace through coun­sel­ing and such (adul­tery can be con­sid­ered a dis­ease or a slip of igno­rance too). Else, if all fails, after treat­ment and coun­sel­ing, then if the adul­ter­er is detri­men­tal to soci­ety (in which the wrong-doer jus­ti­fies his actions as his right and a right action (even­though it is wrong), then the hudud laws comes in.

    You see, what you don’t real­ize about life is, what you do in life, effect oth­ers around you. Say you were about to run away from home, not only will this deci­sion effect you, but will effect your fam­i­ly and friends who love you.

    The West­ern com­mu­ni­ty is out of love.

    Stone heart­ed.

    Sis­ter Safiyyah

  25. julthefool Avatar
    julthefool

    Hel­lo, I made a detailed com­men­tary on this arti­cle after it appeared in The Star a while back. If you’re inter­est­ed you can read it here : http://​www​.julthe​fool​.com/​i​n​d​e​x​.​p​h​p​?​/​a​r​c​h​i​v​e​s​/​108​-​L​o​s​i​n​g​-​m​y​-​r​e​l​i​g​i​o​n​.​h​tml
    Per­son­al­ly, I think it should be up to an indi­vid­ual to decide whether they want to stay in a reli­gion or not.

  26. Mohd Shafeeque Avatar
    Mohd Shafeeque

    A/​A

    It is a seri­ous crime to even doubt about ALlah(SWT) and the prophet­hood of Muhmmad(S.A.w) If some­one leaves islam then I think they deserve that pun­ish­ment. No one should leave Islam becuaese if you were born as mus­lim to mus­lim par­ents then you have been taught all about islam. There is no excuise for such a per­son to leave Isam even after know­ing that it is a true reli­gion wor­ship­ping the one and only true god Allah(SWT).

    And think about the pun­ishemtn in here­after also. They will be pun­ish­ment in hell for eter­ni­ty. Is it real­ly worth it ? Peo­ple leave islam becos they live in the west or because con­di­tions become hard­er for them to remain mus­lim. But if we have true imaan we should over­come all this obsta­cles and still prac­tise islam ad proud­ly call our­selfves mulim. Just becos Islam is called ter­ror­ism and mur­deres by biased media con­trolled by the jews we cant leave our reli­gion. That is a very sil­ly deci­sion. Allah (SWT) will nev­er for­give any­one for that. Leav­ing the ummah is the worst sin.

  27. tariq Avatar
    tariq

    i could nev­er under­stand y a mus­lim would want to denounce his religion.
    Death penal­ty for apos­ta­sy is a good way to make a mus­lim think again before becom­ing a kafir. this way he may do some research and may find that Islam real­ly is the Truth and will not denounce his reli­gion and there­fore will be saved in the hereafter.

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