Defection from Islam: A Disturbing Human Rights Dilemma
Institute for Islamic Studies of the Evangelical Alliance in Germany - 19 January 2016 - From PROF. DR. CHRISTINE SCHIRRMACHER
Defection from Islam: A Disturbing Human Rights Dilemma
http://en.europenews.dk/Defection-from-Islam-A-Disturbing-Human-Rights-Dilemma-129724.htmlThe discussion of human rights flares up when Muslims in an Islamic country convert to Christianity and are threatened with death, as happened a few years ago in Afghanistan and as happens from time to time in other Muslim countries. In the West we immediately regard this as an attack on human rights and a restriction of the freedom of religion, but, in fact, almost all of the Islamic countries signed the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, and they regard their actions as consistent with their understanding of human rights.[2] Obviously we face a huge divergence of opinions on the nature of human rights and what it means to protect them, but what is the source of such fundamentally different ways of thinking?
Islamic Human Rights Declarations under the Preamble of the Sharia
The foundations for the widely divergent conceptions of human rights between Islamic countries and the West are ultimately to be found in the Sharia, which is the totality of laws and rules for life which are taken from the Koran and the Muslim tradition under the interpretation of authoritative Muslim theologians. Some Islamic organizations have written human rights declarations in recent decades, though these were not accepted by all Islamic states. Muslim human rights declarations differ foundationally from western human rights declarations in so far as they allocate to the Koran and to the Sharia the highest rank in deciding what rights are allocated to humans. The countries that attempt at least partially to orient their civil law around the Sharia allow human rights officially to be defined and defended only in light of the boundaries provided by the Koran and the Sharia even if some human rights organisations in these countries fight for more rights. For example, the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (1990), article 24, states, “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Sharia.” And article 25 continues, “The Islamic Sharia is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of any of the articles of this Declaration.”[3] Clearly this emphasizes the “historical role of the Islamic Ummah which God made the best nation which has given mankind a universal and well balanced civilization in which harmony is established between this life and the hereafter and knowledge is combined with faith.”[4]
This high rank of the Koran and Islamic law means that within Islamic countries in which the legal system is based on the Sharia, human rights in themselves, separated from the values of the Islamic revelation, cannot be demanded, unless such demands occur within the framework of the Koran and the Sharia and their interpretation in the local legistlation of a specific Islamic country. People whose way of thinking is shaped by secularism, the Enlightenment, and the separation of church and state have difficulty fathoming the practical implications of the Sharia for law, politics, and the entirety of public life. The extent to which social or political life is shaped by the Sharia varies from country to country. With the exception of Turkey, all the core Islamic countries (such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Iran) have anchored their constitutions in the Sharia alone, even though the practical outworking of this fact varies significantly.
Human Rights for Muslims and Non-Muslims
Islamic human rights declarations generally give priority of reference to the claim that God claims rights in relation to human beings, that humans have duties in relation to God. Humans have the duties to submit to the will of God and perferm the five “Pillars” of Islam (Testimony, Prayer five times per day, Alms, Fasting during Ramadan, and Pilgrimage to Mecca). Human rights, whether in relation to God or to society, are subordinate to these duties.
Islam is usually the official state religion in Islamic countries, and Islam is considered to be the religion of all or most of the citizens. According to the Sunni conception, the government receives its legitimation only by means of making a life according to the Sharia possible. Whenever an Islamistic opposition group has attempted to overthrow a government, they have held the opinion that the current regime was failing in this, its central task, and therefore had lost its legitimacy. A good example is the murder of president Anwar al-Sadat (June 10, 1981) by a militant section of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Their war cry of “Death to the Pharaoh,” used at the time of the murder, indicated that they thought he had lost his claim to be an Islamic leader by means of signing a peace agreement with Israeli President Menachem Begin at Camp David, and therefore he should be treated as an unbeliever imposing illegitimate political goals on an Islamic people. A godly leader, they thought, would never have signed a peace agreement with their death enemy, Israel, the Jewish state.
In an Islamic state, “Religion is the principle that forms the State. This makes the State the bearer of a religious idea and therefore a religious institution . . . which has the duty of promoting proper worship, religious instruction, and the propagation of the faith.”[5] President al-Sadat was perceived to have denied the fundamental religious purpose of the state.
Therefore, whoever lives as a Muslim in an Islamic state has a different social and in a theological sense even different legal status from that of the person who is not a Muslim. To repeat: the situation with regard to human rights within an Islamic state is significantly different for Muslims than it is for non-Muslims. By means of the practice of their faith, Muslims demonstrate themselves to be loyal to the state and therefore worthy of the full protection of the state. In contrast, non-Muslims, by means of their “unbelief,” demonstrate that they may not be truly loyal to the state and therefore not entitled to claim the full protection of the state in all cases. For this reason Muslims enjoy a much stronger status than do non-Muslims with regard to civil rights within an Islamic state. Thus, for example, non-Muslims will in most casesnot be able to receive an inheritance from a Muslim, may have serious obstacles to admission to a university, may not be allowed into the military, or may be prevented from promotion to higher levels within the government.
Religious Conversion as Treason
Being a Muslim means being a good citizen with all the rights of citizenship. The person who is not a Muslim cannot in all cases claim the full rights of citizenship. The person who actively turns away from Islam has thereby renounced his loyalty to the State and is guilty of treason or betrayal of his country. For Islam is “a necessary component of the foundation of the State.”[6] If a Muslim citizen renounces his faith, he attacks this foundation and threatens the security and “the stability of the society to which he belongs.”[7] Martin Forstner summarized the problem: “Only the person who believes in God, accepts his revelation in the Koran, and follows the Sharia, can be publicly regarded as a citizen in good standing, whereas the godless are regarded as enemies of society. The constantly repeated demand for a public testimony, especially by means of the required prayers five times per day and fasting during Ramadan . . . are means for the maintenance of public morality. For this reason, the confession of faith in the true religion is intrinsically tied to the rights of citizenship within an Islamic state.”[8]
Because of the role of the state in guaranteeing and protecting the religion of its subjects, if the Sharia is strictly followed, in spite of any human rights declarations, no Muslim can have the right to change his religion. If a Muslim commits treason, as it is defined by the Sharia, the divine law demands the death penalty. At the same time, non-Muslims within an Islamic state enjoy only those rights which are recognized by the Koran and Islamic law (for example, a very limited right to religious practice within the private confines of one’s own religious congregation).
From the Muslim point of view, the change of a person’s religion (for example, a conversion to Christianity) is not seen by the family or by the society as a private matter; this is regarded as a public, political act. For this reason, the primary accusation stated against converts, in addition to the shame brought to the family, is that they have betrayed their people and their fatherland.
Christians in an Islamic Society
Christians have a distinct position within Islamic societies. On the one hand, they enjoy certain rights because the classical Islamic point of view regards them as a type of partial believers, in contrast with followers of other religions than Christianity and Judaism, whom the Koran and classical Islamic theology regard as complete unbelievers. On the other hand, Christians are compelled to accept significant limitations on the practice of their religion.
Statements of the Koran about Christians and Christianity
Already in the Koran, Christians and Jews were recognized “People of the Book” (or “People of the Scripture”) (e.g., Sura 5:77). Muhammad regarded both groups as people who received a previous revelation. In this way, he drew a fundamental contrast between them and the members of the Arab tribes of the peninsula who practiced an animistic polytheism and were therefore regarded as “unbelievers” by Muhammad. At the beginning of his transition from Mecca to Medina (A.D. 622), he hoped that Jews and Christians would recognize him as a true prophet of God. His early evaluation, especially of Christians, was quite positive: Sura 5:82 praises the way the Christians loved the Muslims and also commends their modesty. Sura 3:110 maintains that there are some “believers” among Christians, and Sura 5:66 assures us that Christians will enter into Paradise, if they are faithful to their revelation, the gospel.
Over the course of several years, Muhammad’s evaluation of both Christians and Jews began to change because they rejected his message and his claim to be a prophet. Thereby they disappointed his hope that they would join his Islamic community. Wherever the Christian point of view contradicted his message, he concluded that these “recipients of scriptures” had falsified the revelation they had received from God. From this time, soon after his arrival in Medina in 622, at the very latest from 624 on, his evaluation of Jews and Christians became essentially much more negative. While he implemented his confrontation with Jews in a military manner, driving the three Jewish tribes from Medina and killing the men of military age at least of one of the three tribes, he implemented his confrontation with Christians in a predominantly theological manner, since the Christians were numerically much smaller and not organized militarily. He concluded that their faith in the crucifixion, the Trinity, and the deity of Jesus was false (Sura 4:157-159; 2:116; 5:72, 73; 9:30) and that they had “darkened the truth with lies and deception” (3:71). At this time, the Koran begins to warn Muslims not to become friends of Christians (5:51). Additionally, the Koran contains the repeated demand (e.g., 4:89) that Muslims “kill” unbelievers, whereby the question remains open as to who must be? regarded as an “unbeliever;” quite naturally, this question receives various answers.
Within this historical background, we see both recognition and rejection, both positive and negative statements, in relation to Christians and to the Christian faith. But the predominant statements are negative because they are the later statements within the Koran, for Muslim theology regards later statements within the Koran as having a higher and concluding status as divine revelation.
The religious status assigned by the Koran to Christians and Jews, that of partial believers, led to them receiving a distinctive legal status in the previously Christian lands of North Africa and the Middle East during the time of the rapid military expansion of Islam in the first decades after the death of Muhammad. They were regarded as “protected” (Arabic: dhimmis). They were not forced on pain of death to convert to Islam, but in recognition of the authority of Islam (especially Sura 9:29), they were required to pay a head tax and sometimes a special property tax, neither of which had to be paid by Muslims. On the one hand, their conversion may not have been always really desired because of the higher taxes they paid; on the other hand, Jews and Christians were repeatedly invited to convert to Islam by the offer to repeal the special taxes and to gain a better status in society. Christians in Muslim lands usually suffered legal disadvantages and remained barely tolerated second-class citizens who had to accept limits on the public expression of their faith, a lower societal position, and various types of public humiliation. This included matters such as prohibition against carrying weapons, riding horses, or practicing certain professions, as well as not ringing church bells or building houses taller than those of their Muslim neighbors.
The Christian Minority Today
This history is still echoing in the Islamic world. Christian minorities are generally tolerated (with the exception of Saudi Arabia, where possession of a Bible or attending a Christian prayer group is a punishable crime), but they suffer very significant restrictions on the public practice of their religion, which are imposed in various ways in the different Islamic countries. Under these restrictions, traditional Christian congregations can in most cases exist, groups of converts officially in most cases can not. There may be a requirement for a building permit to make needed repairs on a church building, but that permit may be denied for years (or even permanently), so that a church building falls into total disrepair and cannot be used. There may be no allowance for theological schools that would train local candidates for the clergy and also no allowance for foreign-born clergy to serve these churches. Christian congregations may not be allowed to buy real estate but also not be allowed to meet in private homes.
In Muslim countries there are often insults, discrimination on various levels and sometimes serious attacks on Christians and Christian organizations. This may be occasioned by an “offense” of Christians against a Muslim or the Muslim state, though a mere rumor of an offense will sometimes suffice. In some cases, churches or Christian schools may be attacked or even destroyed as representatives of Christianity or “the West”, in retaliation for the supposed suppression of Muslims in Palestine or “insults” to Islam in the West (e.g., the Danish cartoon conflict).
In a narrow sense, neither the Koran nor orthodox Muslim theology or tradition would legitimate such attacks on Christian minorities, but the breadth of possible interpretations of statements in the Koran and the tradition provides the conditions in which individual Muslims or political groups can use their religious tradition and nationalistic feelings to legitimate such violence. An example that immediately comes to mind is the duty to “defend” Islam, which is derived from the principle of imitating Muhammad, which can be applied either in a peaceful or a violent manner. Additionally, Islam divides humanity into three categories: (1) unbelievers, including the heathen and polytheists; (2) recipients of scripture, meaning Jews and Christians; and (3) Muslims, who are religiously, legally, and socially superior to other groups of people. Such an idea does not necessarily lead to violence against Christians, but it can easily be used in a manner which supports such violence.
This is part of the background needed to understand the problem of a lack of proper law enforcement when crimes “only” have an impact on Christians; the Christian minority does not have equal rights in a society and legal system shaped by Islamic norms. Accusations made by Christians against Muslims are at the most only partially accepted, and the resulting criminal proceedings are often prosecuted half-heartedly and in many cases come to nothing. To be sure, many Islamic states are taking serious steps to restrain the threats arising from Islamistic groups, but those steps tend to be much less decisive when the threat from Islamists’ movements “only” extends to the under- privileged Christian minority and does not hit the State in itself. To its credit, Egypt seems to be extending more protection to its Christian citizens in recent years, after numerous attacks by Islamists, though this may be mostly a side effect of the Egyptian attempt to restrain Islamic radicals who are also seen as a threat to many other facets of Egyptian life.
Borders of Religious Freedom for Non-Muslims
Although the constitutions of several Muslim countries affirm the right to the free exercise of religion, non-Muslims face difficulties when practicing their religions because of the role of Islam as the official state religion. The fact that Christians and Jews are not forced to convert to Islam and are allowed to maintain their religions is regarded as a sign of tolerance and religious freedom within a Muslim context. True tolerance according to a western definition would mean legal equality, which is never the case among Muslims and non-Muslims within a Muslim country. In contrast, Christians have to put up with continual pressure to convert to Islam, which comes through prejudicial treatment in the realms of education, work, and social life. Every year a few thousand Coptic Christians in Egypt can no longer endure this pressure and convert to Islam. In addition, marriage laws substantially reduce freedom of religion, as they apply to religiously mixed marriages. A Christian man is legally allowed to marry a Muslim woman only if he converts to Islam, providing a distinctive reason for conversion to Islam for some men. A marriage between a Christian woman and a Muslim man is possible in principle, but the children resulting from such a union are legally Muslims and to be instructed in the Islamic faith, causing a further shrinkage of the Christian minority of the population.
Contact of Muslims with Christian congregations, for example, by attending Christian worship services, is in most cases forbidden or strongly disapproved by means of societal proscription or may in other cases even be restricted or punished by the state. Extremely few Muslims have the opportunity to receive unprejudiced firsthand information about the Christian faith. In contrast, Muslim children growing up in a Muslim land frequently grow up with an antagonistic image of Christianity, that Christians are an underprivileged, despised minority with a falsified faith worshipping three Gods. This negative image of Christianity is all too often reinforced by instruction in the Koran, by the media, by Islamic school books, orby sermons in the mosques. It is no wonder that the chasm between Christians and Muslims is so large in many Islamic societies.
In many Muslim lands, there is no legally acceptable way of publicly proclaiming the Christian faith, whereas “it is expected that the Muslim citizen will not be exposed to any assault on his religion against which he might have to defend himself.”[9] The criticism and devaluation of Islam, the Koran, and Muhammad are expressly forbidden to non-Muslims, and according to the Islamic conception, these offenses would automatically occur if there were public access to the Bible, Christian books, or Christian gatherings. For example, the criminal law of Morocco prescribes a jail sentence of six months to three years, in addition to fine of 200 to 500 Dirham, for anyone who attempts to convert a Muslim away from Islam, and any discussion of matters of faith between a Christian and a Muslim can be the grounds for a legal accusation coming from a Muslim.[10]
Defection from Islam in the Koran and Sharia
Although the Christian minority may be tolerated with limited rights, the legal situation is entirely different for the person who has been a member of the Muslim society and has, for example, gone over to Christianity. In the western world with its separation of church and state, matters of church membership and personal faith remain private issues which are understood as individual issues of conscience. Joining or leaving the membership of any church or religious fellowship is always legally possible. But within the Islamic world, faith and religion are essentially public, community matters with great societal significance. Where Islam is the state religion, a foundational pillar of public order, and the guarantor of the common good for the entire society, religious defection is seen as subversive to an orderly, healthy society. To be regarded as a good citizen one must also be a Muslim; a change of religion is therefore an act of defection from that society and an attack on that society.
Defection from Islam “In a State of Sound Mind”
Apostasy (Arabic: irtidad) is understood to be the documented, intentional turning away from Islam by a person who was born a Muslim or who had previously converted to Islam. This defection occurs when a person does no longer recognize God and Muhammad as his prophet, occurring while a person is in full possession of his mental powers, while not under compulsion, and while not under the influence of alcohol. Children and the mentally handicapped are not capable of such a defection, and women can only commit this crime under limited circumstances, about which the various Islamic schools of law have differing opinions.
But in practice the conception of what constitutes defection from the faith is not crystal clear. The Koran warns against defection in a more general context, but it does not give a precise definition. The tradition gives clearer formulations; for example, whoever intentionally and consistently neglects the duty of daily prayer is regarded as an “unbeliever.” (It is only normal sin, not apostasy, when the offense is not against one of the five pillars of Islam.) But even the person who consciously and consistently neglects the five pillars will probably not be legally accused of defection; this normally happens only when a member of the Muslim community joins another religion.
The Koran regarding Defection: Wrath and Punishment
Unbelief (Arabic: kufr) in itself is regarded as a heavy sin, since the unbeliever will not submit himself to God. But the person who once submitted himself to God and then turns away again commits a much more serious sin. The Koran addresses the problem of defection from the faith in multiple places. “They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved … seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper.” (4:89)[11] Respected Muslim theologians take this verse as a direct reference to apostasy from Islam, a crime so serious that it always requires persecution and the death penalty. For example, the famous Cairo theologian, Muhammad Abu Zahra (1898-1974), who is often quoted in matters of defection from Islam, maintained that there are three crimes for which a Muslim must be sentenced to death: apostasy, sexual unfaithfulness after entering a legal marriage, and murder which was not a revenge or honor murder.[12]
Sura 16:106 depicts God’s “wrath” and “powerful punishment,” which apostates must expect. Sura 2:217 urgently warns against leading Muslims to apostasy, since this crime is “heavier than murder.” Sura 3:86-91 characterizes the “payment” of the rebellious as receiving the curse of God, mankind, and the angels (Sura 9:68), leaving no possibility of redemption, intercession, or help for the recipients of this curse. Even God will not forgive traitors under any circumstances, for they are unbelievers and inhabitants of the fires of hell. But even though the Koran describes such punishment in the afterlife, it does not prescribe any particular means of accusation, conviction, and punishment in this life.
The Tradition regarding Defection: Prison and Death
READ MORE
