Prophet Muhammad never punished anyone for apostasy or blasphemy, not when he was weak during the early days in Mecca and also not when he returned to his native city with a grand army during the bloodless Conquest of Mecca.
Source/Credit: Duluth News Tribune
By M. Imran Hayee | February 07, 2013
Clyde Nelson’s Local View column on Tuesday (“Islamists are out to dominate U.S.”) portrayed a dark picture of Islamic ideology. His observations were based on terrorist attacks committed by a handful of Muslims and on the unethical and inhuman treatment of minorities in some Muslim-majority countries.
As Nelson pointed out, some Muslim-majority countries do not allow conversion to any religion but Islam. In fact, apostasy is a punishable crime in Iran and Afghanistan. Pakistan continues to use the knife of its draconian blasphemy laws to stab its minority sects. Many bigoted Muslim clerics routinely incite innocent youth to commit barbaric acts against non-Muslims.
Admitted, all this is happening today in Muslim-majority countries. But do Islamic teachings actually ordain these inhuman practices?
In reality, the Quran champions religious freedom in these remarkable words, “There is no compulsion in religion.” It also promotes peaceful coexistence by pronouncing, “For you, your religion, and for me, my religion.” The Quran does not stipulate any secular punishment for apostasy and leaves the matter solely between God and an individual, allowing complete freedom to believe or disbelieve.
It is a false notion that verses revealed in Medina encourage violence compared to those revealed in Mecca, as Nelson claimed. Both of the aforementioned verses were revealed in Medina. In another verse revealed in Medina, the Quran ordains that killing a person is the same as killing the entire humanity.
Prophet Muhammad never resorted to violence during 13 years of brutal oppression in Mecca. Even when he and his followers were expelled from their homes to Medina, he never led any war of aggression. The only actions were in self-defense.
Prophet Muhammad never punished anyone for apostasy or blasphemy, not when he was weak during the early days in Mecca and also not when he returned to his native city with a grand army during the bloodless Conquest of Mecca.
At the peak of the Islamic empire in his lifetime, Prophet Muhammad assured minorities of full and equal rights. In his historic charter of privileges to the Christian monks of St. Catherine Monastery in Mount Sinai (in today’s Egypt), he ensured no compulsion on them and offered them full protection of life and property. In reality, early Islamic rule was a sigh of relief for Coptic Christians of Egypt who had experienced severe religious persecution under Roman Empire.
Where are such Muslims today?
Well, the majority of 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide today are peace-loving. Unfortunately, corrupt politicians and egocentric clerics use them as decoys in the name of Islam. As history is a witness, religions have been exploited before for political and economic gains. It wasn’t too long ago when our American courts cited the Bible and Jesus Christ to justify slavery and the oppression of black Americans.
Today it is becoming rare to find just and peaceful Muslim leaders without selfish motives. But one such leader, the Khalifa of Islam, is Mirza Masroor Ahmad, who teaches love, tolerance and justice, the true Islamic values. He is the spiritual and administrative head of the worldwide Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, comprising tens of millions of Muslims, including myself. Last June 27, during his visit to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., to address a group of 150 congressmen, senators and other dignitaries, the Khalifa said, “Peace and justice are inseparable. … You cannot have one without the other.”
Today, many Muslim-majority countries not only have failed to do justice to their minorities but also to their own religion. As a result, they not only have tarnished the image of Islam throughout the world but have ruined the peace within their own countries.
The Quran upholds the highest standards of justice in both spiritual and worldly matters of life. Even Harvard Law School has honored a Quranic verse as one of the greatest expressions of justice in history by posting it on its faculty library wall. The verse says, “Oh ye who believe, standout firmly for justice, as witnesses for Allah, even though it be against yourselves or your parents or your kins. Whether it be (against) rich or poor, for Allah can best protect both.”
In light of this great Quranic advice, I join Nelson in vehemently condemning all inhuman and ferocious practices of Muslim-majority countries. And in the spirit of justice, I invite him and my non-Muslim fellow Americans to do a thorough and fair analysis before blaming Islamic ideology for the actions of some corrupt rulers and self-centered clerics within the Muslim world.
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M. Imran Hayee of Duluth is an American Muslim and is a professor and the director of graduate studies in the electrical engineering department at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He can be reached at ihayee@d.umn.edu.
Read original post here: In response: Don’t condemn Islam for the actions of a few corrupt rulers
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