Islamic Dark Age Thinking Raises its Ugly Head Again

Afghanistan “Abdul Rahman faces the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity”, which by the way he did “16 years ago while working for a Christian aid organisation in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawa”’.

I ask, is tolerance and freedom of worship an important element of any modern civilised nation? Lately many Muslim speakers cry, “the west suffers from Islamophobia” and ‘its only a few of the radicals causing the problem by hijacking our wonderful religion and its not fair’. Bullshit, it is sensible for enlightened people to try to protect themselves from what may become (if it hasn’t already) a worldwide scourge that is actively working to take us back to the Dark Ages.

Lets hope that it doesn’t take as long for the Muslims to ‘grow up’ as it did the Christians. The Inquisition’s attack on heresy, (“the suppression of an opinion or doctrine in philosophy, politics, science, art, etc., at variance with those generally accepted as authoritative”- Oxford Dictionary) by the Roman Catholic Church started with the Medieval Inquisition in 1184 and continued to the Spanish Inquisition that officially ended in 1834… bloody hell that’s 650 years.

Civilized people surely believe in certain universal freedoms of which freedom of religion is one. It is interesting to note that Nicholas Burns, US under secretary of state for political affairs, states, “…as regards this case, that the Afghan constitution as we understand it also provides for freedom of religion." The German secretary of state for defence Friedbert Pflueger told Bild newspaper that Rahman's persecution was "intolerable". Check your level of civilization… is he correct… yes or no? He also added “Germany had contributed 2,450 soldiers to the NATO peacekeeping force in Afghanistan to help it "become a democratic country, not so that people can be sentenced to death on religious grounds."

Afghan Supreme Court Judge Ansarullah Mawlavizada says the man could face the death penalty if he refused to revert to Islam as Sharia law proposes capital punishment for any Muslim who converts to another religion. Afghanistan's constitution states: "No law can be contrary to the sacred religion of Islam."

Even the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights declares;

“Article 18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance”.

If Muslims want respect for their religion they must come to grips with the fact that respect needs to be earned and cannot be demanded. Hopefully some respect will grow from the acquittal of this unfortunate individual.

Time for some serious “itjihad” perhaps!

Oh and by the way

Article 19 of the UN declaration states...
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060322/wl_asia_afp/afghanistanreligionislamchristianity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heresy
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20060319-072838-8361r
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html