- "When will Muslims become ‘humanitarian’?"

Ahmad Baghdadi, a journalist and academic on the subject of political Islam at Kuwait university, wrote in Al Ittihad, an Emirates government daily newspaper, on April 4: “When will Muslims become like the rest of God’s creation and leave creation to the Creator [God]? When will they become aware that they do not have the right to judge people’s faith? When will they wake up from their delusion of thinking they are the best of people when it comes to faith? When will Muslims wizen up and learn that our creator sees more than those who he created and that [our creator] did not delegate the issue of people’s faith to the Muslims? Why do we find only Muslims in the world that kill a human just because they do not want to be Muslims and want to change their religion?

Baghdadi continued: “Everyday, hundreds of Christians and others ‘apostatize’ their religion and convert to Islam and their nations do not confront them badly, but leave them the freedom of choice. A few days ago, the newspapers read that Abdul Rahman, who lives in Afghanistan-that the Americans librated from the Taliban movement-wanted to change his religion from Islam to Christianity because of his own private convictions, what happened? The world rose up on this poor man, as if life is not miserable enough for him living in Afghanistan. The Afghani regime-that America produced which is a matter that is forbidden if we want to go into the details on a religious level- sought to take him to court and issue a judgement of execution!

"But the West, who are freedom owners and are ensuring security in Afghanistan, stood by him and supported his right in believing in his God how he wants and by any religion. The Afghani regime stepped back for fear of wasting millions of dollars that the Western world promised the Afghani regime for its construction. In other words, this regime that calls for religiousness sold his religion for an offer from the world. The regime declared Abdul Rahman insane to get rid of the religious responsibility meanwhile Abdul Rahman stood hard by his stance to convert and did not care about the consequences of his decision which could have resulted in his death. Thank God someone was there to stand by him otherwise his body would have been dangling on the rope of the scaffold!”

Baghdadi added: “Those who do not understand religion must read Mahmoud Shaltout’s book ‘Islam - A Dogma and A Law (Sharia)’. Without going into the details, Shaltout expressed a fear of terrorism arising on behalf of some religious clerics. He also said that the death punishment to those who covert to another religion is not in the Quran and that the Hadith ‘who changes his religion, kill him’ is a Hadith of one that cannot be taken in the courts. Unfortunately, no one listens to him and his opinion is lost in the ignorance and small insight on religious matters. However, we find that Muslims deserve the award of abusing the Muslim religion and with competence too by their stiff and unjustified stands on those who want to convert. Then, after all that, the wonder: why does the West stand against us? And on top of this and that, they rant about Muslim forgiveness and human rights. As if people are stupid and do not understand!

“Please, explain to me, because I do not know how to deal with the Muslim mentality, how can a country where millions live on the sale of drugs forbidden in Sharia, the intellectual mind and even atheists, judge a person because of his convictions? Why do Muslims, amongst all people, seek to kill those who change their religion? And the rest of the world, with no exceptions, allows its citizens to embrace any religion they want without threats on their lives...separation from the parents and the ripping apart of the family? Why do Muslims not learn to respect the humanity of the human and his right to choose? The Muslim world is the only one that insults the humanity of the human by killing him if he changes his religion, and if the woman chooses a life partner without the approval of her guardians. With this, we wonder: when will Muslims ‘become human beings’? When will they become like the rest of humans, living naturally with the rest of God’s creations without harming th! em?” - Al Ittihad, Morocco