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From: mayne@vsserv.scri.fsu.edu (William (Bill) Mayne)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: treatment of apostates
Message-ID: <1990Nov13.151612.26483@wpi.WPI.EDU>
Date: 13 Nov 90 15:16:12 GMT
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Someone in commenting on the death sentence against Salman Rushdie
pointed out that under Islamic law he was not condemned for blasphemy
but for apostacy. The actual explanation was something like "not that
he wrote (the offensive things in "The Satanic Verses") but that he
wrote them _as a Muslim_." Since Rushdie is from a Muslim family his
blasphemy was taken as evidence of apostacy, which is (I was told)
punishable by death under Islamic law. The person who raised this
point went to on question the validity of considering Rushdie a Muslim
since he had never formally converted to Islam. This may be very important
as a point of Islamic law is not relevant to my followup question.

I ask if this condemnation of Rushdie for apostacy is an examle of what
we in the U.S. would call "selective prosecution." Ordinary examples would
be a district attorney charging someone with a crime under an old law
rarely enforced though violations happen all the time and are accepted,
such as criminal laws against fornication. But this also raises a larger
issue of treatment of apostates in modern times in Islamic countries.
If I had been raised in a Muslim family, openly practiced Islam for a time,
and later abandoned Islam and openly converted to another faith, would I
be either theoretically or actually in danger of being condemned to death?
To make the case even stronger, suppose I was not raised a Muslim but
did voluntarily and formally convert, but later changed my mind and
became a Christian or Bahai? First I wonder abstractly about Islamic law
as recorded in the Quran or other writings, second about actual practice
in various Muslim countries. It has been claimed in the western media
for example that Bahais in Iran have been executed for apostacy in
recent times (since the revolution), though other religions, not considered
apostate from Islam, are tolerated. I'd like to hear the Muslims' side
of this.

Bill Mayne            | "Last but not least, avoid cliches like
ayne@nu.cs.fsu.edu    | the plague. Find viable alternatives."
                      | --- William Saffire