Apostates in Egypt

I have written about the difficulties to convert from Islam to Christianity. In Egypt, a close ally to the US and multi-billion recipient of US arms, Mohammed Higazi (sometimes written Hegazy, if you want to google) has renouced Islam and converted to Christianity.

Not that I do like evangelistic Christians that much, I do believe that one’s belief is his private affair (I like Jews, because event though they are rassist, at least they don’t try to convert you).

On Egyptian IDs the religion is mentioned. And as it is very easy to get a new ID if you convert to Islam, the fall from Islam is frowned upon and Mohammed Higazi (will he also change his first name?) being one of less than eighty converts a year wanted to change his legal status which was much more difficult than you’d expect. About ten times as much convert from Christiantity to Islam with no problems...

But as his also Christian wife was pregnant he wanted to legalize his state so that his child could be raised as a Christian, visit Christian schools etc.. The clock is ticking.

As his case hit the news, death threats against his lawer started and Mohammed is not optimistic to win the case after being jailed and tortured in 2002 because of his converstion. But at least he won't go down without a fight.

His lawyer Mahdouh Nakhla, director of the Al Kalema Center for Human Rights is fighting since 1996 (eleven years!) for twelve born Christians who coverted to Islam due to a marriage but after the devorce wanted to return to Chritianity.

Due to those threats and due to additional preassure form the Egyptian secret police he gave up. It is widely known, that torture is rather the norm than the exception in Egyts prisons.

Islamists call apostates Murtad and support death penalty for apostates. As a lot of Egyptians worked in Saudi Arabia they got in contact with a more strict and militant Islam as the traditional Egyptian Islam and with the Muslim Brotherhood extremism threatens the about 10 percent of Copt Christians in Egypt.

Love thy neighbour as thyself

I do not hat Muslims or the Islam, I do not hate Jews or Christians or any other faiths. I do not see Scientology as a religion so I can exclude them from my “no hate list”.

Islam means submission. And I do not like to submit. I of course would submit to God, if he/she/it exists and would contact me directly (or though Metatron or any other angel). And I am not going to argue if Jesus was the physical Son of God or if it was God, the Devil or a voice in his own crazy voice who talked with Mohammed.

The problem is, that even if I’d accept, that Mohammed received the Koran from God, we sometimes do not know, what the verses tell us. When we look at the Muslim world, some scholars say, suicide-bombings are legal (always according to the Koran) other say it is not. Some say, women are equal to men, some say they are not. Some say women must cover their body completely, some say they should be modest but do not have to cover every inch of their body. Some say, Islam is tolerant, but even in Turkey, a country with a modest Islam, Christians can’t build or even renovate their churches. In Saudi Arabia there are no churches.

My point? The situation is that we can neither ask God or Mohammed ourselves, we have to submit not to God but to someone who thinks that he knows what Gods will is. And a lot of people are willing to give up their freedom and follow someone who says, he has the truth but in fact he has not.

I think of myself not as a true Christian. I hope that there is a God and hope there is an afterlife. Like Ghandi the Sermon on the Mount has touched me. And as the movie Dogma, I think, that we know what is right and what is wrong (even if we sometimes act different) and that Charity (Love thy neighbour as thyself) should be everyone’s motto.