"There is no compulsion in religion…"

Hugh Fitzgerald explains: “There is no compulsion in religion..” 2:256 Quran

Remember the Fox journalists Centanni and Wiig, who were kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam? Their comments after they were freed were deplorable. They were full of misplaced gratitude to assorted local Arabs (i.e. “Palestinians”).

Update: re  the 11-year old schoolboy  who was  converted by Anjem Choudary without his parents consent, there’s a good piece below from Harry’s Place…

Pakistan: Polish Engineer Was Beheaded by the Taliban Because He Refused to Renounce Christianity And Convert to Islam…

Thanks to ZIP

Islamabad– Piotr Stanczak did not exhibit the slightest hint of hesitation when the Pakistani Taliban asked him to choose between execution and conversion to Islam.

Whether the Polish geologist acted out of pride or religious conviction, he decided to pay through his blood to save his faith, a choice that bewildered his killers and keep them talking about him with respect after his murder.

Afridi heads a small group of Taliban in the Orakzai tribal district and is loyal to Baitullah Mehsud, the chief of local Taliban who has a 5-million-dollar bounty on his head for being an al-Qaeda facilitator. Pakistani troops have recently been ordered to take decisive action against Mehsud.

• Islam: there is no compulsion in religion… except when there is!
• Islam’s creed – “Convert or die!”
• Hindus told to embrace Islam or pay tax

Stanczak, 42, was kidnapped September 28 on his way to survey for oil exploration in Attock district, of Pakistan’s eastern province of Punjab. The kidnappers also killed his driver and two guards.Militants released a gruesome seven-minute video in early February showing his beheading. One of the murderers blamed the Pakistani government which failed to accept their demands for the release of detained militants.When negotiations between the representatives of the Pakistani government and the hostage-takers failed, the Taliban leadership gave the Polish man a last chance to save himself, Stanczak’s captors revealed to another hostage, a Pakistani man Mohammad Amir.

Even “Harry’s Place” smells the coffee: Recruiting tomorrow’s Apostates?

Anjem Choudary - I read in The Metro this morning, has converted – in an impromptu street-corner ceremony on an 11 year old boy “to Islam” without obtaining his parent’s consent. The boy was apparently “coaxed onto the platform at an Islamic ‘roadshow’ in Birmingham”.

It is obviously the type of stunt to outrage the public and generate publicity that Choudary revels in. What concerns me more is this:

“The ‘reversion’ of such a young boy without parental consent was condemned as ‘unethical’ by Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, a member of the Muslim Council of Britain”

I notice Mr Mogra doesn’t declare the ‘conversion’ invalid. He only says that it is ‘unethical’ to perform the conversion in this way. Now from what I’m led to believe, in Islam, conversion is a one-way street. Abandoning Islam after conversion – a sort of spiritual buyer’s remorse, at it were – could be consideredapostasy, which, to Islamic fundamentalists, is a very serious ‘crime’.

From the Elder of Zion:

“There is no compusion in Islam”

From the Saudi Gazette:

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Hai’a) arrested Wednesday seven persons for “breaking their fast” during daylight hours in Ramadan. Hai’a spokesman in the Northern Border province Abdullah Al-Musheiti said that the arrests came during Hai’a campaigns in streets and districts, and that the seven had “been handed over to the authorities concerned”.

Someone ought to tell the Muttawa that Islam doesn’t approve of their actions.

Or do they know Islamic law better than I do?

(Actually, how Muslims interpret the Quranic verse “There is no compulsion in religion,” 2:256, is fascinating, at least in this article I found. In short, it appears that this particular command has either been abrogated or must be radically re-interpreted in light of later actions by Mohammed.)