[quote]
Originally posted by Musalman:
** Brother, can you kindly shed light on what is the basis of your conclusion that the application is only confined to the people towards whom the Prophet (PBUH) had been directly assigned?
**
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Brother stunned answered your question by referring you to the sources i.e. to the website. Yet, for some reason, you did not provide any feedback. He asked if you had read it. You said you had. Yet you still had no comment on it. You kept insisting that your side of the argument is the only valid side. If you had read the relevant article properly you would have seen that it had said:
"I do acknowledge the possiblity that the opinion of the majority of the Muslim scholars is correct, but I request all those who read my reply to please point out the error in my reasoning that follows, rather than informing me that I have presented an opinion that is different from the majority of the Muslim scholars."
You obviously have not read it properly. You only used it to provide sources for that hadith which I had provided earlier - along with those exact sources. Who are you trying to kid? All that I can say about your statements cited above is that you have very successfully criticized your own interpretation of this particular issue of the punishment of apostasy. However, a more honest and a more academic approach of criticizing Islam would rather have been to first understand the implications arising from the analysis of the article cited and then to criticize those implications.
Do you consider what you have done as being intellectually honest?
For your convenience the article is given below:
In a nutshell, I do not ascribe to the opinion that the punishment for apostasy is death. As I shall explain in the following paragraphs, in my opinion, the Shari`ah has not fixed any punishment for apostasy. I must also point out here that there is, more or less, a consensus among the scholars that an apostate should be killed. But I think that the basis of this opinion of the Muslim scholars is questionable. I do acknowledge the possiblity that the opinion of the majority of the Muslim scholars is correct, but I request all those who read my reply to please point out the error in my reasoning that follows, rather than informing me that I have presented an opinion that is different from the majority of the Muslim scholars. I present my opinion with the necessary details in the following paragraphs:
As you should be aware of the fact that the basis of the opinion regarding the death penalty of an apostate is not any verse of the Qur’an, but a saying ascribed to the Prophet (pbuh), as reported by Bukhari, in his "Kita’b al-Jiha’d wal-Siyar", "Kita’b istitabah al-murtaddi’n" and "Kita’b al-ai`tisa’m bil-Kita’b wal-Sunnah", in which the Prophet (pbuh) is reported to have said:
"Whoever changes his Religion, kill him".
Obviously, if the matter had ended here, I would have had no objection in submitting that the Prophet (pbuh) has fixed the punishment for ALL apostates to be death.
But the matter does not end here. We know that the Qur’an has referred to the issue of apostasy at more than one place (for example see Al-Baqarah 2: 217, Al-Baqarah 2: 108, A’l Imra’n 3: 90, Al-Nisa’ 4: 137 and Al-Nahl 16: 106). But at none of these places does the Qur’an mention the punishment of death for such people who change their religion. The Qur’an does mention that such people shall face a terrible punishment in the hereafter but no worldly punishment is mentioned at any of these instances in the Qur’an. This situation obviously raises a question mark in the mind of the reader that if Allah had wanted to give the punishment of an apostate a permanent position in the Shari`ah, the punishment should have been mentioned, at least at one of the above mentioned places. If the Qur’an had kept completely silent about the apostate, the matter would have been different. But the strange thing is that the Qur’an mentions apostasy, and still does not mention the punishment (if any) it wants the apostate to be subjected to.
Moreover, the Qur’an clearly mentions in Al-Baqarah 2: 256 that:
"There is absolutely no compulsion in religion"
While if the referred directive (regarding the apostate) ascribed to Prophet (pbuh) is taken to be general and not specific for a particular people, the Qur’anic statement: "There is absolutely no compulsion in religion" would lose all its meaning. If a person is to be killed in case he converts to another religion, it would imply that the statement of the Qur’an only means that a person cannot be forced to accept Islam, but he CAN be forced to remain a Muslim throughout his life. It is quite obvious that such is not the case.
Furthermore, the Qur’an has strictly disallowed the imposition of the death penalty except in two specific cases. One of them is where the person is guilty of murdering another person and the other is where a person is guilty of creating unrest in the country (fasa’d fil-ardh) like being invloved in activities that create unrest in a society, for example activities like terrorism etc. The Qur’an says:
"Whoever kills a person without his being guilty of murder or of creating unrest in the land, is as though he kills the whole of mankind. (Al-Ma’idah 5: 32)
Obviously, apostasy can neither be termed as "murder" nor "creating unrest in the land".
Thus, in view of the above facts, we are left with one option only. We can only say that either the saying has been wrongly ascribed to the Prophet (pbuh), as it is clearly contradictory to the Qur’an and the Prophet could not have said anything contradictory to the Qur’an, or that the saying ascribed to the Prophet (pbuh) relates not to all apostates but to a particular and specific people.
If we look at the Qur’an again, this time with a slightly different perspective, we see that although the Qur’an clearly mentions that no one can be forced into Islam (nor forcably kept a Muslim), it makes the Bani Ismai’l (the Quraish) an exception.
The Qur’an tells us that Mohammad (pbuh) was not only a Prophet (Nabi) but a Messenger (Rasu’l) of Allah. The Qur’an tells us that when Allah sends His messenger in a people, these people are not allowed to live on Allah’s earth if they reject the messenger. It tells us that these people are given time in which to make up their minds and to present all their objections against the messenger (Rasu’l). It tells us that when the All-knowing Allah decides that these people have been given adequate time and that they are now absolutely clear of the truthfulness of the messenger and thus are not left with any excuse for their rejection, but still are persistent in their rejection then Allah directs His messenger to migrate from the area and then He destroys all those who have rejected His messenger. The Qur’an refers to the peoples (nations) of the messengers of old – Nuh, Hud, Lut, Sho`aib, Salaih, Musa’ (pbut) – and narrates the result of their rejection. It addresses the people of Mohammad (pbuh) – the Bani Ismai’l – and tells them that if they do not accept the message of Allah’s messenger (Mohammad) their fate shall be no different from those nations that have gone before them (See Surah Al-Qamar, the whole surah especiall verse 43 - 45).
In short, the Qur’an says that it is the unalterable law of Allah that when He sends His messenger in a people, these particular people are left with no option but to accept His message or to face the punishment of death and sometimes complete annihilation.
The Qur’an goes further to tell us how this punishment was implemented on the Bani-Ismai’l. It tells us that although the previous nations of the messengers of Allah were annihilated, because of their rejection, through (apparently) natural calamities, the believers of Mohammad (pbuh), because Allah has given them rule in a land (Medinah), shall fight the rejectors and through these believers shall Allah implement His punishment (Al-Taubah 9: 14 - 16). It directs them that the Mushriki’n (people of Bani Ismai’l) should be killed, without any exception. They should only be allowed to live if they accept Islam (Al-Taubah 9: 5). On the other hand, it also directs them that the Jews and the Christians (because they were not from Bani Ismai’l), contrary to the Bani Ismai’l, may be allowed to live, even if they do not enter the folds of Islam, but accept to live under the Muslim rule and agree to pay their taxes (Al-Taubah 9: 29).
Thus, the Prophet (pbuh) sent his messenger who declared at the time of Hajj that no one from Bani Ismai’l shall be allowed to live after the prohibited months, if he does not accept Islam. As a result of this declaration, most of the people of Bani Ismai’l accepted Islam and thus the punishment of Allah was avoided.
In my opinion, the directive ascribed to the Prophet (pbuh) regarding the apostates is only with reference to the people of Bani Ismai’l. If seen in this perspective, the saying ascribed to the Prophet (pbuh) actually would mean that these people (Bani Ismai’l) who were to be punished, according to the law of Allah, had they not accepted Islam, would face the same punishment, if at any time during their lives they leave the folds of Islam.
Conclusion
In view of the above explanation, it is my opinion that the saying ascribed to the Prophet with regard to apostates, although general in its words applies specifically to the people of Bani Ismai’l – the direct addressees and the very nation of the Messenger of Allah (pbuh).
Now I would kindly request you to criticise the reasoning in the article.
They shoot partypoopers, don't they?
[This message has been edited by Mr Partypooper (edited January 09, 2001).]