Kinzi alerted me to this story published in World Magazine tackling the issue of harassment Jordanians face when they convert from Islam to Christianity. Here is an excerpt:
Ask Samer and Abeer. Last September Jordanian security police connected to the country’s Mukhabarat, or intelligence agency, showed up at the couple’s home unannounced. They arrested Samer and detained him overnight. Samer’s crime: coming to faith in Jesus Christ 14 years ago. Originally a Muslim, Samer over the years since his conversion has been questioned several times by security police but never detained.
This time, the police turned him over to the Islamic courts. The judges convicted Samer of apostasy. In a Nov. 23 decision the court decreed that his identification papers must be changed from "Muslim" to "no religion;" that he had forfeited any inheritance; that his marriage to Abeer is now illegal and therefore he is not entitled to custody of his son.
In my humble, unbiased opinion I would say that if Jordan intends to tread on a truly democratic path, then its citizens should be given the basic right of practicing the religion of their choice.
Kinzi, i dont know the details of his case but i do not trust the source. i practically stopped reading when they wrote: “He is regarded as an apostate, and other Muslims can legally attack—even kill—Samer.” a human being with an elementary understanding of Islam would know only the state carries out punishments, not the people. too many holes in this story
Issam, I think u may have misunderstood me dude. I was responding to your suggestion that there is no such thing as an Islamic Nationality, when there actually is. I affirmed this by describing to you a comparision (for analogy sake) between Islam and the West. In essense i am drawing on the equivellancy which people tend to overlook because they dont understand Islam well or choose to become passive yet judgemental observers. At the core I am also drawing a comparision between death in the west due to being a traitor of the state and Islam’s apostacy law…because essentially they are equivellent if not more bearing in Islam. To be condemned to death for being a traitor is to die because you have betrayed a political ideology and the state…similarily to be condemned to death for apostacy in Islam is reserverd for betraying a religious ideology and your society. as for blashempy, i shudnt have mentioned it but i was merely inserting it as a way to further detail the equivellancy, sorry if it confused u dude.
i do not glorify the concept of punishment in islam. in fact religiously i shudnt because it is a measure of last resorts and in the most extreme cases. im not sure what jordan lacks is religious freedom but rather a misapplication of religious rights. if people fool around with the laws God has decreed and do things of their own free will, the result is saudia, iran, pakistan etc. when i hear a story about an apostate being chased around primitivly by members of his family wanting to kill him because they think this is what Islam says, it angers me. the mullahs in iran are another example.
jordan’s problem however is that the shari3a laws are at times “entwined” or perhaps interefered with, by other laws which often poke holes in an otherwise pretty polished system…shud it be applied correctly.
as for the apostacy law…i dont see where they went wrong. nor do i see a problem with putting ure religious affiliation on an identity card, alot of problems are solved with that one word. islam is the religion of the state under jordanian law. if people dont like it they can leave.
thanx bro, i like u too 😀
The notion that blasphemy is not punishable in the West has nothing to do with “secularism” as you mentioned in your post but rather to the “Free Will” doctrine that originated from the Judeo-Christian faith. The doctrine teaches that God has created man free, has commanded him to obey the moral law, and has promised to reward or punish him for observance or violation of this law. Unless man is really free to do whatever he wants to do or believe whatever he wants to believe, he cannot be justly held responsible for his actions, any more than for the date of his birth or the color of his eyes. Glorifying the concept of punshment is quite problematic to me and only creates an environment of fear that kills any kind of creativity and advancement in our part of the world. NO wonder that we are so behind in all fields from art to science to research.
Mixing religion and politics is just a bad idea. The crusades, Taliban, Nazism (Hitler hijacked Christianity to demonize Jews) and religious regimes in Iran and Saudi that have no regards for the human dignity or rights are living examples about this dysfunctional idea. Regarding your statement that “apostasy in Islam, and the punishments in both cases are death)”. This is also problematic to me as this concept led to the death of one million Iraqis and Iranian when mullahs were issuing fatwahs declaring that God was fighting on their own side.
Nash, I must admit that your opinion is interesting. You do not deny or minimize the lack of the religious freedom like other religious conservatives do, you glorify it and that is quite disturbing. But hey I still like you brother.
Nas, what what an objective viewpoint be in this case? As Jeff mentioned, Jerry Falwell is not a means all end all. I’ve never read his writings, but in my circle he is not considered a leader of Christians but an embarassment. John Piper would be the man.
Samer has also been declared “mentally unstable” because of his conversion, and his signature invalid on all past and present documents. He won’t be able to sign a rental agreement or get a phone. It means he can’t live in his own country. Is this a more modern application of Sharia?
What does the Share’ia and Islamic Law say in this subject? Isnt it that you have three days to consider if you leave Islam, otherwise you are OK to be killed ? (Am I making this up- no way). Isnt that the reason why the war of Riddeh ( following the death of Mohammad) broke out. And since Islam is the religion of the state, there is nothing you can do about it. As simple as this.
onzolo, yes u are right, it is mostly out of tradition. women generally didnt even inherit in jordan until a few decades ago. tradition is always older than religion
The Hanafi form of Islamic law is used for Muslims in issues of personal status (e.g. Marriage, divorce etc…) this is an inherentence from the Ottomans.
Christians also use the Islamic inheritance laws out of tradition and to avoid disputes when no will is made, but i think if one wishes to go around it then it is possible by specifying a recipiant in ones will.
I beleive that a third form of civil (secular) personal status laws should be established for those who dont want to be governed by religious courts in their private affairs.
Natasha, I looked into it, the inheritance law i believe is the only one they are subject to, but generally there is a special court designated for the christian minority in jordan. This info is based on a lawyer relative of min in Jordan. The inheritance law i believe was not imposed on christians but i believe during the establishment they chose to take it up. Why? Because in Jordan there is no difference between a christian and a muslim when it comes to nationality, both are jordanians and both have the same origins, and as a result both are socially conditioned in the same manner, hence christians adopt the inheritance which allows a son to inherit land…this allows them to keep it in the family.
as a tarawneh for example i am allowed to (legally sell) my father’s land but i have to (socially) sell it to a member of the family. the inheritance law in shari3a allows christians to do that, and im guessing this is appealing to the larger christian tribes. thats not such a bad move on their part.
Nas,
As far as I understand, Sharia law still applies on Christians in Jordan when it comes to inheritance. I believe when dividing the inheritance, Christian women still get half the amount that their brothers get.
I think there is a way around this, but I’m not sure, something like referring the inheritance issue to the church . Any insights on this matter will be appreciated.
“OK, obviously you mean “Islamic identity.” In which case, you need to get your own card rather than using the Jordanian ID card for that.”
parakite, I can’t be 100% sure about this, i’m not fully knowledgable in Jordanian laws as I would like to be but based on what I know of my religion and of Jordanian law for that matter (as well as some logic) there are certain benefits to having it on a card. Firstly, our laws are a cruicble of shari3a, french (napolieanic), english, international and state (what we call ‘madani’ or civil law). Hence where most of these laws apply to all citizens of the state (particularily the civil laws), the sharia (islamic law) is designated for muslims. So it makes no sense that a Christian citizen in Jordan be subject to laws not pretaining to his or her religion because in Islam people of the book (monothiest religions) are to be governed by their own laws and Jordan (state-wise) recognises no religions other than the monothiest ones (i believe). I am of course assuming this is one of the reasons its done in Jordan so my argument Islamically is right but realistically in terms of application I’m not sure.
I have several christian friends in jordan and i dont think any of them have ever had to deal with the shari3a law to my knowledge…and some of them have gotten themselves in a great deal of trouble. 😀
issam there is such a thing as Islamic Nationality actually, and it not only pretains to the identity of an individualized muslim, but as a component that is part of a much larger social fabric based on Islam. Hence the equivalence of say a western seculrist state being the “political entity” would be in Islam ideology and/or the “politco-religious entity”. Disloyalty to the state is equivilent to disloyalty to religious faith/ideology/God, treason in the state is apostasy in Islam, and the punishments in both cases are death (except Islam is obviously more lenient).
The only difference in this “eqivellancy” (if we are to call it that), is that blasphemy in Islam is punishable whereas it is normal to be blasphemous in the west. i.e. to say you don’t believe in Jeses (sayidna Issa pbuh) is punishable in Islam but theres no such equivellent socio-politial mannerism in the west.
forgive my typos