Murder in the Name of Allah — Page 87
Punishment for Apostasy have believed without exception. Will thou than take it upon thyself to force people to become believers? Except by Allah's leave no one can believe and He will afflict with His wrath those who will not use their understanding. (10. 100-1). When God Himself does not force people to believe, who are we to raise the sword to force belief or to set Maududian mouse-traps?. The problem with the advocates of capital punishment for apostasy is that they invariably accept literally traditions compiled hundreds of years after the Holy Prophets which obviously contradict the teachings contained in the Holy Quran. . Conflicts with the practice of the Holy Prophetsa. Our second source of law is the conduct and personal example of the Holy. Prophet. We have already demonstrated the hollowness of the claim that anyone has ever been executed for the crime of apostasy. . After all, what was the stand of the Holy Prophetsa against the. Meccans? It was that he should be allowed to profess and proclaim the message of God in peace. The Meccans did not grant him this freedom and punished those who began to believe in him. As far as the Meccans were concerned, those who believed in the message of Muhammadsa were the apostates, having recanted their faith of idol worship. . The Holy Prophetsa spent his entire life fighting in defence of the fundamental human rights that everybody should be free to choose his religion, no one should change another person's religion by force, and everybody has a right to change his own religion, whatever that religion is. . In fact, this has been the true meaning of 'Holy War', waged by all messengers of God against their opponents throughout the history of religion. The Holy Quran has repeatedly mentioned this with reference to earlier prophets of God (see 2. 5; 6. 113; 21. 42; 25. 32; 36. 8, 31; 43. 8). . To name but a few, these are Abrahams (6. 75-9; 19. 47; 21. 53, 59, 61, 69 -70; 37. 89-91,98); Eliasas (37. 126-7); Lotas (26. 166-8; 27. 57;15. 71);. Noahs (7. 60; 10. 72; 11. 26-7; 26. 117; 71. 2-21); Moses as (7. 105-6, 1247; 10. 76-9; 17. 102-3; 20. 44-5; 50-3; 26. 19-34); and Jesusas (3. 52-6; 5. 118; 19. 37; 43. 65). What was their struggle about? It was simply a response to the claim of the opponents of the prophets as that they had no right to change the faith of their contemporaries. In fact everybody has a right to choose his faith and as long as the message of peace and love is spread by peaceful means, no one has the right to prevent this by force. 87