.... By demurring from the affirmation that it is God who affirms that “each human being is a free person, whether girl, boy, woman or man, and is destined to exist for the good of all in equality and fraternity”, the Grand Imam of Al Azhar sends out a very clear message about his interpretation of Sunni Islam, namely that: “In the eyes of religions, each human being is a free person, whether girl, boy, woman or man, and is destined to exist for the good of all in equality and fraternity. But in the eyes of Allah, it ain’t necessarily so.”
.... Shari’a is a complex contextual system of religious laws and a political mindset which approves of inter alia death for apostasy, the amputation of limbs as punishment, stoning to death for adultery, the belief that a woman’s evidence is worth less than a man’s, blood money and polygamy.
Might not any of these inequalities generate or perpetuate a state of slavery? And what about the Jizya? For it is written in the Qur’an (9:29): “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” [Archbishop Cranmer] Read more
