The tragic story of Meriam Ibrahim, a 27-year-old woman sentenced to death for apostasy in Khartoum, where she is being held with her 20-month-old son, has shocked and saddened millions of rational, moral and empathic people around the world. Along with other leaders from the international community, I have written personally to the president of Sudan seeking Ibrahim's release and am very hopeful she will soon be reunited with her family.
[A COMMENT] Even though these extreme-evil type hardline Islamic groups don't represent the majority, I do think Muslim groups need to acknowledge that they are real, rather than staying in denial. They also need to accept the damage they do to Islam's image and do something to change it, rather than expecting people from Western cultures to read this stuff and still not become "Islamophobic". Sane Islam is too quiet on this stuff.
[ANOTHER] Westerners understand force being used against force, but the issue has recently been that force has been used against words and/or freedoms.If you believe that you are entitled to use force because your faith or beliefs are being questioned, that questioning beliefs is an explicit attack we have a problem.
[ANOTHER] In many Muslim countries the punishment for apostasy is death. If it is not carried out by a court, a mob will get you. If you are in a secular country and decide to change your religion, your family and community will disown you as this is what a lot of the clergy and 'scholars' or imams encourage.
There are many Muslims throughout the world who are just cultural Muslims, i.e. Don't really practice it, simply because in this day and age religion has outlived its usefulness - not spirituality but religion. [Guardian Cif] Read more
