GATESTONE INSTITUTE: So what should international human rights organization regard as the threat: the Quran, Quranic instructions, or the people who are just following its recommended path?
Kuwaiti lawmakers have passed a legal amendment authorizing the death penalty for Muslims who curse their God or the Quran, or who defame their Prophet Mohammed or his wife. In the amended article, if the defendant publicly repents and apologizes for the crime, the penalty will be reduced to five years in jail, a fine of 10,000 Kuwaiti Dinars (KD), or both.
The approved article states that non-Muslims who commit the same crime face at least 10 years in jail. Some MPs demanded the death penalty should also apply to them as well. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan boast the same death penalty law for blasphemy. In other Muslim countries, there are different interpretations to executing people who are outspoken and have different opinion. The Islamic States also never tolerate apostasy, conversion, or freedom from religion.
Islam is a belief. It is not clear in any Muslim country why a man before a court in any Muslim country would be termed Muslim if he does not believe in the religion, or possibly any religion, just because he happened to be born into a home in which Islam happened to be the religion of the family living there.
Overriding Kuwaiti disapproval, international human rights organizations, including the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, expressed deep concern. The Chairman of USCIRF, Leo Leonard, said he judged these penalties as alarming and contrary to international human rights standards.
As the commission recognizes the Quran as a holy script for the Muslims, however, the question arises as to how can the commission can feel concerned about the new law if the law has been derived from the Quranic instructions of which they ostensibly approve?
Although most Islamists formally say that the Quran itself does not prescribe any earthly punishment for apostasy, in fact Sharia Law and Islamic schools of jurisprudence strongly advocate that an apostate must be either executed or imprisoned until he or she re-converts to Islam. In the last 1400 years, Islam has been always harsh and brutal to non-believers, apostates and people who might have different opinions. Here is what Quran says on these issues: » | Mohshin Habib | Thursday, June 14, 2012
