Can Islam Reciprocate?

THE CASE of an Afghan man facing the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity prompted outrage across the Western world in March.
Abdul Rahman, 41, was prosecuted in Kabul for abandoning Islam, a charge that carries the death penalty under Islamic law (Sharia).
The unprecedented case for Afghanistan's fledgling democracy was a trial of strength between reformists such as Afghanistan's pro-US president, Hamid Karzai, and conservative pro-Sharia clerics who still dominate the Afghan judiciary four years after the Taleban were overthrown.

Conversion a crime

Rahman converted 16 years ago, but was only arrested in February during a visit to Afghanistan when his parents denounced him as a convert after a row over the custody of his two teenage daughters. Police found him to be in possession of a Bible, and threw him into a Kabul jail where 50 prisoners cram into cells made for 15, and inmates survive on food supplied by their families.
During a one-day hearing in a Kabul court in late March, Mr Rahman was said to have 'confessed' to converting to Christianity. In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica after his arrest, Rahman said, 'I have done nothing to repent, I respect Afghan law as I respect Islam. But I chose to become a Christian, for myself, for my soul. It is not an offence.'
Abdul Wasi, for the prosecution, said he had offered to drop the charges if Mr Rahman reconverted to Islam, but he refused. 'We are Muslims and becoming a Christian is against our laws. He must get the death penalty,' said Mr Wasi.
While Afghanistan's constitution, signed into law in January 2004, states that 'followers of other faiths shall be free within the bounds of law in the exercise and performance of their religious rights,' it goes on to add that 'no law shall contravene the tenets and provisions of the holy religion of Islam'.
Executing a Christian for his faith would have set a dangerous precedent for the conservative interpretation of Afghanistan's constitution, and would have outraged Western countries whose troops are fighting to free Afghanistan from the religious zealotry of the Taleban.
There were calls from across the globe for Rahman to be released. Germany had 2,700 troops in Afghanistan, and Chancellor Angela Merkel said she had been assured by Mr Karzai that Rahman would not be executed.

The Pope's message

From the United States, which has supported Mr Karzai's fledgling democracy with billions of dollars in aid and 23,000 peacekeeping troops, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took the unusual step of telephoning Mr Karzai to seek a 'favourable resolution' to the situation. Any stronger a demand from the United States could have been counter-productive and hastened Mr Rahman's demise.
Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, meanwhile, urged the then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to withdraw 1,175 Italian troops unless Kabul guaranteed Rahman's safety. 'It is not acceptable that our soldiers should put themselves at risk or even sacrifice their lives for a fundamentalist, illiberal regime,' wrote Mr Cossiga. The Pope added his voice to the calls for clemency. In a message delivered to Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, Benedict XVI said Rahman's release 'would bestow great honour upon the Afghan people and would... foster mutual understanding and respect among the world's different religions and cultures'. Speaking about religious freedom during his Angelus blessing the following day, the Pope said some governments, while adhering to human rights on paper, in practice impose many restrictions on religious liberty. Although he didn't point the finger at any specific nations, he encouraged minority Christian communities in such situations to 'persevere in the patience and charity of Christ.' He added, 'To all those working in the service of the Gospel in such difficult situations, I want to express my heartfelt solidarity in the name of the entire Church, and assure you of my daily remembrance in prayer.'

Mentally 'unfit'

Rahman was eventually released from Kabul's maximum security Pul-e-Charki prison on March 27 after officials deemed him mentally unfit to stand trial, although that was clearly a pretext to end a case that was proving a major embarrassment to Mr Karzai's government.
As soon as news of Rahman's release was made public, Italy spearheaded a move to offer him refuge, and on March 29, Abdul Rahman arrived in Italy, where he was granted asylum.
The case has highlighted alarming ambiguities in Afghanistan's post-Taleban constitution about religious freedom in the country. Ninety-nine percent of Afghanistan's 29 million people are Muslim. A tiny Christian community is said to have been bolstered by the return of Afghan refugees who converted while living abroad before 2001. Few admit their faith through fear of retribution, and there are no known churches in the country apart from those serving expatriates, largely found inside foreign embassies.
More than 200 people demonstrated in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif last weekend to demand Rahman's execution in accordance with Sharia law, on which the constitution is largely based.

No freedom of conscience

The Rahman case, and other incidents of Christian persecution in Muslim countries such as Pakistan, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, have prompted calls for 'reciprocity', meaning that Western and Christian acceptance of Muslim religious freedom requires Muslims to recognize Christian religious freedom. Recent noises emanating from the Vatican suggest a more robust approach towards relations with the Islamic world. The transfer of Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald - until earlier this year the head of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue well known for his emollient approach to interfaith relations - to Cairo was read in many quarters as a demotion. The mild-mannered English archbishop is a notable expert on Islam and has a fluent command of Arabic, so will be well placed in Cairo to keep abreast of events in the turbulent Middle East.
Born in Walsall, England, Archbishop Fitzgerald, now 68, was 20 when he was sent to Tunisia to train in the Congregation of the Missionaries of Africa, or White Fathers. He has a doctorate in theology from Rome's Gregorian University, a degree in Arabic, and is a former director of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, before being appointed secretary of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue in 1987, and president in 2002.
Dr Justo Lacunza Balda, director of the Pontifical Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, told me during an interview in Rome after Fitzgerald's transfer, 'Egypt plays a major role in the Islamic world. Archbishop Fitzgerald has all the necessary requisites to be not only the representative of the Holy See, but also representative of Catholic attitudes towards Muslims.'
With the Archbishop taking on his new role as papal nuncio to Egypt and the Cairo-based Arab League, the implicit suggestion was that his approach no longer reflected Vatican policy.
Since the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Church has lamented the lack of reciprocity in countries such as Saudi Arabia, while it has not been insistent. But that seems to be changing in the current pontificate. In an audience with the Moroccan ambassador to the Holy See on February 20, the Pope said religious freedom had to be granted reciprocally in all countries.
In March, the Vatican stepped up its efforts to demand respect for religious freedom in Islamic countries. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Secretary of State, used a public speech to emphasise that 'the strength of Islam is the weakness of Christians,' arguing that Christians should unite in support of demands for 'reciprocity' in respect for religious liberty.
At a meeting during the general consistory to appoint new cardinals in late March, Pope Benedict listed relations with Islam as one of four key issues on which he asked for input from the college of cardinals. The Commission of bishops' conferences of the European Community (COMECE), meanwhile, outlined its aims to focus on the problems of Islam in Europe and the wider world, as well as relations of European Union countries with Muslim-majority countries, from the perspective of international justice and reciprocity.

Sharia incompatible with human rights

In a hard-hitting article published in March, Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, SJ, argues that if Sharia kills a man for changing his religion, it destroys any ideal of coexistence and contradicts the UN declaration on human rights, approved in 1948 by almost all Muslim countries. Therefore, the Jesuit scholar urges, it should be condemned and cannot be the principle inspiring law. He points out that Rahman's case was not an isolated one in the wider Middle East. In Egypt alone there are at least 10,000 Muslims who convert to Christianity each year. 'This phenomenon of conversions to Christianity from Islam is rampant throughout the Middle East and in the world. The fundamentalist violence that currently characterizes the Muslim world brings many to ask themselves: can such a violent religion truly come from God? But what is the lot of former Muslims? That of having to flee, hide, emigrate.'
In demanding the death sentence for those who leave the faith, he argues, Islam shows its contempt for freedom of conscience. Moreover, by assuming that the government should punish religious dissidents, Islamic leaders become involved in political rather than religious affairs.
Fr. Samir, who teaches at Rome's Pontifical Oriental Institute, and the Catholic University of St. Joseph in Beirut, poses the crucial question as to what takes precedence in Islam; internationally recognized human rights or Sharia? If Sharia runs counter to human rights, he argues, then the international community should condemn it.
'We cannot keep silent or continue to speak of Islam in an ambiguous fashion, defining Islam as a religion that 'speaks of peace and tolerance', hiding the verses that encourage violence and brutal killings. Such an ambiguous behaviour is shameful to those who adopt it and to those who keep silent.'
The time has come for a choice, concludes Fr. Samir. 'If there is incompatibility between human rights and the rights set out in the Koran, then - I'm sorry to say - the Koran must be condemned; or else it must be said that our understanding of the Koran puts us against human rights and freedom of conscience, and so the interpretation must change. One thing is certain: we can no longer keep silent.'