Thursday, March 31, 2016
Good News: Malaysian Court Accepts a Conversion From Islam, Declares a Right to Religious Freedom
I think the greatest challenge for Muslims in civil society is accepting conversion out of Islam.
Islam has an excellent record of living with non-Muslims in their midst, and welcoming converts from other faiths to Islam. However, it is Muslim doctrine that all people really are Muslims - converting out of the faith, therefore, is apostasy, and merits the highest punishment.
In secular societies, this is not a major issue - the Muslim community just has to suck it up if their members convert out.
In Muslim societies, though, it is a major challenge to accept conversion from Islam. Therefore it is big news that the Malaysian courts have accepted the conversion of a Muslim to Christianity. The court accepted a fundamental right of religious freedom within their overwhelmingly Muslim society.
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3 comments:
The longest journey begins with a single step.
You write,
"Islam has an excellent record of living with non-Muslims in their midst."
Over the years, during visits with Christians living in Egypt, I have not found any Christian who says that. One Christian from Egypt I got to know well (he and his family attended an International Church in Holland of which I was the pastor; he had become and US citizen and was sent by a US oil company to be responsible for the building of an oil refinery in the Rotterdam area), told me that because he doesn't have a Muslim name, he could not get hired in Egypt in the field of his expertise, and there was no chance that a company he would start, would get orders from Muslim organizations, including the government.
That doesn't amount to an "excellent record" to me.
I am talking about the 1500 year record, not just the last 30.
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