A New Booklet on Apostasy in Islam Has Rattled Extremist Somali Clerics
By Guuleste Ali
17 October 2014
It's not often that we
hear of a battle of ideas between reformist the Muslim scholars and
fundamentalist clerics of Somalia, who are fighting tooth and nail to silence
the voice of moderation and reformation.
Somali Muslim
academics are calling for a review of the narrative of the Islamist ideologues
that encourages youngsters to participate in a holy war against non-Muslims,
and those Muslims they consider to be apostates.
A booklet titled Xadka
Riddada Maxaa ka Run Ah? (Is There Punishment for Apostasy in Islam?) and
published in Nairobi is a scholarly treatise dealing with the contentious issue
of apostasy in Islam and what punishment, if any, is prescribed by Islam.
The book, which is
little more than 130 pages, is unsettling the Somali militants as it challenges
their misuse of Islam as a political tool.
War of Ideas
Xadka Riddada, as it
is commonly known, seems to be more dangerous for Islamist militants in Somalia
than the thousands of troops sent by the African Union to the Horn of Africa
nation, or the millions of dollars spent every month fighting Islamist terrorists.
The resistance to the
book by radical clerics shows the fight against terrorism is essentially one of
ideas rather than military might.
The author, Abdi said
Ismail, is a Somali scholar who studied Economics and Islamic Religion at a
university in Saudi Arabia.
He has done extensive
research on the issue of apostasy in Islam and freedom of religion, and
concluded that Islam does not prescribe the death penalty for apostasy, and
that freedom of religion is clearly enshrined in Islam.
The booklet is a counter-narrative
to the Islamist position that Muslims cannot abandon their religion and if they
do, they should be killed -- a doctrine used to justify wanton killings in
Somalia.
Obsolete Apostasy
Law
Al-Shabaab militants
invoke an obsolete apostasy law in their fight against Somali government
officials and soldiers as well as civilians working for the government, whom
the radicals accuse of abandoning Islam simply because they oppose the
extremists' out-dated draconian version of Sharia.
The author discusses
other issues, including women's equality with men in the eyes of Islamic
Scriptures, a clear break from the Islamist view that a woman is worth half a
man and that her place is firmly in the kitchen.
Mr Ismail argues that
many of the doctrines in Islam are based on the out-dated Arab socio-economic
situation of the sixth century, and that much of the Islamic Jurisprudence now
used by Islamists is no more than tribal reading of key religious sources.
He advocates the
separation of Mosque and State, so to speak, which is contrary to the rallying
call by Islamist jihadists and their ideologues for Sharia as the supreme law
in Muslim countries. This call is equivalent to the Bible being declared the
law in Christian countries, an unthinkable preposition in this day and age.
Wishy-Washy
Moderates
Unlike the wishy-washy
moderates, Mr Ismail is clear about his position: Islam has been hijacked by
extremists as well as by the so-called moderates, who essentially justify the
militants' brutality and oppose real reform.
The extremist clerics
denounced the book shortly after it was launched last month in the
Somali-populated Eastleigh suburb of Nairobi, known as Little Mogadishu.
The radical clerics
launched a concerted onslaught on the booklet, which they described as "a
clear apostasy", effectively accusing the author of the sin that, in their
eyes, deserves the death penalty.
Following the
opposition to the book, death threats started flying around in social media
circles, and soon Ismail found himself kicked out of a hotel in Eastleigh.
Suppressing
Expression
After the radicals
also called for the banning and burning of the book, it is now effectively
banned from bookshops in Eastleigh, a clear breach of Kenya's liberal,
democratic laws.
It is unfortunate that
in Kenya, seen as a beacon of freedom and liberal democracy by Somali
intellectuals, who had to flee the oppressive tendencies in their home country,
has become a place where freedom of speech and expression is suppressed.
If the extremist
clerics' grip on the youth and their fanatical opposition to any hint of
dissent is not addressed, any hope of dissuading Muslim youngsters from being
radicalised and used by militants against their society is grim.
Mr Ali is a Somali academic
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201410171280.html
URL: https://newageislam.com/ijtihad-rethinking-islam/a-new-booklet-apostasy-islam/d/99655