'There should be no compulsion in religion'

Mariam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag is a Christian who is facing the death penalty in Sudan for the crime of apostasy. Mariam claims that she never was a Muslim, bur raised as a Christian from her childhood. I admire her courage for standing firm on her faith and refusing to bow to the immense pressure she has been put under by the Sudanese authorities. I also hope that the judicial system in Sudan sees some sense and drops all charges against her. Whoever she choses to marry regardless of her faith or that of her husband is no business of the state.

This judgment is inhumane, un-Islamic and beyond doubt, an insult to the Quran and the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

As always, such incidents generate a lot of media attention, and rightly so. Thankfully there are people in this world who give their time and energies for the sake of freedom and human rights. But sadly there are also those who take this as an opportunity to push ahead with their anti-Islam agenda under the cover of protest.

According to Elizabeth Kendal, a Canberra-based Christian rights activist, the death sentence for Mariam Yahya is in accordance with Islam and must be condemned as Islam's 'inherent inhumanity'. She further states that the real reason for the exponential growth of Islam is due to its apostasy laws.

The article in question also makes some fantastic assumptions about Islam.

Lets begin with her comment on the Quranic verse 13:15.

'And to Allah prostrates whoever is within the heavens and the earth, willingly or by compulsion, and their shadows [as well] in the mornings and the afternoons.'

According to Kendal, this verse is the evidence that Quran supports compulsion in the matter of faith.

The particular passage of Quran in question is describing the Majesty of God. i.e., everything in the universe follows the laws He has created, just like the shadows which submit to the movement of the sun in the mornings and in the evenings. There is no mention of apostasy here.

In fact, Quran does not deal with any worldly punishment for people who abandon their faith in Islam.

There is an unequivocal commandment in the Holy Quran 'There should be no compulsion in religion' (2:256) which should remove any doubts about the Islamic position on this matter.

But Kendal finds another concept in the Quran which proves that the Sudanese court is following the true Shariah.

She states that apostasy is equal to 'Fitnah' which according to the verse 2:217 is worse than killing. This surely means that apostates must be killed.

Lets start with the word 'Fitnah' first. According to this verse, Fitnah is

'but to hinder men from the way of Allah, and to be ungrateful to Him and to hinder men from the Sacred Mosque, and to turn out its people therefrom..'

i.e., stopping Muslims from performing pilgrimage and declaring war on them is the 'Fitnah'.

Thus, Fitnah clearly means Persecution.

The verse further states that 'and persecution (Fitnah) is worse than killing.’

And what of the persecutors, the Meccan chiefs who had vowed to finish Islam and a handful of its followers? The verse continues,

'And they will not cease fighting you until they turn you back from your faith, if they can.'

And what happens to any apostates?

'And whoso from among you turns back from his faith and dies while he is a disbeliever, it is they whose works shall be vain in this world and the next. These are the inmates of the Fire and therein shall they abide.'

i.e., their fate rests is with their Lord in the afterlife. No worldly punishment has been recommended for them whatsoever. In fact the verse guarantees them the freedom to live out their life in disbelief.

Kendal then tries to use the next source of Islamic jurisprudence, the Hadith, sayings of the Holy Prophet Muhammad to prove that he founded a totalitarian religion which should be feared by the world.

For example she quotes a Hadith, '

"Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him'

Firstly, the narration is highly dubious and has been rejected as weak or even fabricated by many scholars, and secondly the Hadith in question has been mistranslated by inserting the word 'Islamic' which doesn't exist in the original text. One argument which has been used to dismiss this narration as a fabrication is that if it the commandment was taken based on the actual text, no one would be allowed to change their faith. i.e., a person converting to Islam would deserve death as much as someone apostasizing from Islam.

There is no sound basis for any penalties for apostasy in Hadith literature. Many jurists and classical scholars have made the error of equating apostasy with treason and declaration of war; an error which should have been rectified long time ago. But thanks to the medievalist regimes that still exists in many Islamic countries, we find ourselves lamenting the plight of human rights there almost on a daily basis.

Unfortunately, the scattered and disconnected leadership of the orthodox sects of Islam is still busy pushing the Muslims back into the dark ages. Such judgements against religious freedom only expose their insecurities about their own faith and its place in the modern world. It is astonishing to see them openly contradicting the clear commandments of the Quran and the Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him).

But people like Kendal are also guilty of misleading their readers about their own religious texts and the skeletons (often stoned to death) hidden in them. Unlike the Quran which allows complete religious freedom, the Bible is very clearly against such notions.

For example Deuteronomy says;

'but you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. And you shall stone him with stones until he dies, because he sought to entice you away from the Lord your God'

Many Christians may object to this as not applicable to them anymore, but St. Paul wasn't so fond of apostates himself. He condemned them to death too, and the Church complied gladly for many centuries.

What the contemporary orthodox Islam is suffering from is the same malaise which the medieval Christianity suffered for a long time; a departure from the source of guidance and the politicization of religion. If anything, such punishments are only the artefacts of Judeo-Christian ideas which seeped into the Islamic thought during the early centuries of Muslim expansion.

I belong to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, which has been striving to correct such errors for more than a century. Under the guidance of the Khalifatul Masih, Ahmadiyya Muslims are working tirelessly to educate not only their fellow Muslims, but other communities as well, about the true and peaceful message of Islam.

I advise Elizabeth Kendal to seek the correct information about the real message of the Quran and help the persecuted Christians like Mariam by putting forward a logical and forceful argument against those transgressors who claim to follow Islam. There is nothing more logical and forceful than the Word of God.

'There should be no compulsion in religion'.

Further Reading: Punishment of Apostasy in Islam, by Sir. Muhammad Zafrulla Khan

Not Forgotten. Abdul Haleem and Abdullah Khan- Martyrs of Kabul:

Alfazl, 17 Dec, 1926 published this article.

Hadhrat Maulvi Abdul Haleem Sahib and Hadhrat Maulvi Abdullah Khan Sahib; Eye witness account of Stoning of the Prisoners of Kabul (1925)- As told to Fazl Kareem

“The person who narrated to me the event related to Hazrat Maulana Abdul Haleem Sahib and Maulvi Abdullah Khan Sahib, had me promise him not to divulge his name. He has narrated the events after swearing to God Almighty, and as far as it is possible, I will reproduce his words accurately. I and a relative of mine were listening to this story. We had our emotions under control. But the narration was of such nature that Ahmadi or not, even the most cold hearted person would have shivered after listening to it. There was a lady, a relative of the narrator sitting close by. He eyes welled up and she started crying Mercy, Mercy and asking forgiveness from God. She said “Only God knows why these Kabulis are so cruel and stone hearted- Will they not be punished for this? Did they not feel a little bit of mercy that they slaughtered men like sheep and goat?” She started cursing the Kabulis and for many hours she stayed in the same state crying for forgiveness.”
From near my shop, ten or fifteen policemen were escorting two prisoners to some place. One of them was a youth, of about 30 years of age. And the other was a middle-aged man of more than 50 years. Both had chains around their feet. Both had turbans on their heads and were wearing trousers and coats with shoes on their feet. Behind them was a great procession of people which kept swelling as they walked through the market. People were chatting and laughing like they were going to watch an entertaining show.

A town crier was announcing that these two Qadianis will be stoned to death according to the decision of the Qazi after Asr (afternoon) prayers. Both criminals were silent, with ashen faces. The older man (Abdul Haleem) had a prayer bead and he was reciting something. We knew that the stoning will take place at Asiya Bai, so I arrived there with some of my friends. Then we were told that it will be done at Sherpur instead. So we went to Sherpur. We saw a huge crowd there and many people were still arriving. After a while, the Qazi arrived on a carriage. As soon as he arrived, he ordered the chains to be broken and the condemned were told that they can now pray salat or nafls as they wished. Both of them prayed two or four raka’ats each (I don’t remember exactly). People were standing on high spots around the ground where the condemned were standing. After prayers, both had their turbans and coats removed, leaving only their shirts and trousers on them. Then they were pushed towards the lower ground. I did not hear it myself, but people said that both of them were saying that it will be decided on the day of judgement about who is right.

Finally the Qazi picked up a stone and threw it at them. As soon as he did that, people who were already standing with stones gathered in the fronts of their shirts started raining stones at them. They were about 15-20 yards from them.

Here I asked the narrator if the condemned cried or shrieked at all. He said that I was very near them, but did not hear anything from them. Then he said that the old man (Abdul Haleem) was being hit by the stones, he placed both his hands on his face and kneeled to the ground; until he was buried half under the stones. Then a stone hit his head and as with immense pain he sat up with his hands still on his face, as one sits in prayer. His face and head were dripping with blood and in the same state he passed away.

The other criminal who was younger (Maulvi Abdullah Khan) kept standing. Every time when a stone hit him, he fell, but then stood up again; fell again and stood up again; he kept struggling to get up every time, but could not keep standing. And this is how he died too. Both had so many stones thrown at them that they were buried under the stones and we could not see anything but stones after some time.

When asked if he also thew stones, the narrator said that yes, I threw 20-25 stones. I asked, how big were the stones thrown by the people? He said that they were about 2-3 kilos each. It was a hill and whatever one could find was thrown. When asked what was he thinking when he threw the stones, he did not answer directly and said that at that time his thoughts were very different.

In this context, I (Fazl Kareem) should also narrate another incidence that Hadhrat Khalifatul Masih (Mirza Basheerudeen Mahmood) also mentioned in one of his speeches. A man belonging to Rawalpindi wrote to a friend from Kabul that those two Qadianis whose stoning you were waiting so eagerly and were postponing your departure to India for the very same reason were finally stoned to death recently. I have also thrown a few stones on your behalf so that you may also partake of the blessings of the event. Congratulations to you! When this man read the news he shared it with much happiness and glee with his friends and also mentioned this to Ahmadis as a gesture of mockery. We were not aware of this news in Qadian yet. As if this was a great victory to these people. Alas these people do not understand that this was no great victory, but a humiliating defeat. Victory went to those who attained eternal life and whose name will be remembered for days to come and generations will be praying for them. And the same land of Kabul will bear fruit from this blessed blood.

(The above has been translated from Urdu to keep the memory of the two Martyrs alive, 85 years after the event took place in Kabul, Afghanistan)