"ALYSSA A LAPPEN" ibrahim_aly071@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote in message
news:NriDj.8479$Id3.2758@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ...
> Court in Cairo refused to rule in a case filed by Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy
> ...
<snip> ...
> The Administrative Court in Cairo refused to rule in a case filed by
> Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy, a convert to Christianity who is seeking official
> recognition of his conversion from Islam to Christianity, court
officials
> said yesterday 29th January 2007. ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
This is an interesting subject (i.e. 'Whosoever will, let him
disbelieve'),
especially when you consider the wider debate that's going on in Egypt and
elsewhere (generally dissimulation in nature) over this emotive
"conversion"
from Islam question. Full stories at these mainstream media links:-
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/857/eg9.htm
<Quote> ...
In what was being described as an unprecedented step, an Egyptian Muslim
last week filed a suit at the Administrative Court asking that his
religion
be changed on legal do***ents from Muslim to Christian.
Claiming that he had embraced Christianity in secret nine years ago,
married
a Muslim woman with the same inclination, and is about to have a baby,
25-year-old Mohamed Ahmed Hegazi wants to become legally Christian in
order
that the couple's child will be registered as a Coptic Christian in
identity
papers.
The freedom to change his religion was a human right, Hegazy said.
The story became even more sensational when in speaking to the press,
Hegazi's father said that his son had told him that he had been subject to
"pressures" and financial inducements from Coptic preachers to convert to
Christianity. Hegazi's father also claimed that his son was still a Muslim
at heart. Coptic lawyer Mamdouh ****hla also said he quit the case after he
became certain that Hegazi only seeks to become a celebrity.
In ****t Said, Hegazi's home city, some 300 intellectuals, poets and
lawyers
later issued a statement entitled, "Take your hands off the Sacred
Religions", urging both Muslims and Christians not to give Hegazi
attention
or sup****t because "he's a long way from both Islam and Christianity."
Hegazi said that he had a strong case, and that he would use views
expressed
by Grand Mufti Sheikh Ali Gomaa in a recent article that appeared in The
Wa****ngton Post, arguing that the grand mufti's views were as good as a
fatwa (religious ruling) on the subject.
In the article, Gomaa said that "the matter is left until the Day of
Judgement, and it is not to be dealt with in the life of this world. It is
an issue of conscience, and it is between the individual and Allah."
In the "On Faith" online forum of both the Wa****ngton Post and Newsweek
magazine, which published Gomaa's views on Islam and apostasy on 21 July,
the mufti said that, "the essential question before us is can a person who
is Muslim choose a religion other than Islam? The answer is yes, they can
because the Quran says, 'Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion,'
[Quran, 109:6], and, 'Whosoever will, let him believe, and whosoever will,
let him disbelieve,' [Quran, 18:29], and, 'There is no compulsion in
religion. The right direction is distinct from error,' [Quran, 2:256]."
These verses from the Quran discuss a freedom that God affords all people.
But from a religious perspective, the act of abandoning one's religion is
a
sin punishable by God on the Day of Judgement. If the case in question is
one of merely rejecting faith, then there is no worldly punishment," Gomaa
wrote. [Nashwa Abdel-Tawab]
<Unquote> ...
AND:-
http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/faith_ideas/europe_islam/secular_world
<Quote> ...
A group of twelve (Orthodox Christian) Copts who had converted to Islam in
order to obtain a divorce had sought for a year to revert to their
ancestral
faith; on 9 February 2008, Egypt's supreme administrative court ruled in
the
men's favour. This was consistent with a judgment by the court of
administrative justice on 29 January which ruled against the government's
denial of identity do***ents to Bahai'is (Egypt obliges its citizens to
register according to their religious faith, and allows only three
options:
Muslim, Christian, Jew).
Does Egyptian law permit a Muslim to convert? The civil court's
recognition
of the Copts' right in this case overturns earlier legal declarations that
it does not, on the grounds that apostasy is expressly forbidden by
sharia.
Fred Halliday points out that what the sharia forbids depends to a great
extent on who is speaking for it.
The Coptic case is im****tant in a country where religious authorities have
a
strong influence in judicial decisions. But it will remain much harder (in
Egypt as elsewhere) for Muslims, if they so wish, to convert; the Copts
who
benefited from this ruling are not considered apostates because, after
all,
they were born Christian. The Grand Mufti has already caused trouble for
himself by suggesting that the sharia does not forbid Muslims to convert
in
this life, but punishes them only (and horrendously) in the hereafter. For
many in Egypt, the decision on conversion is not about how the Egyptians
should best be governed now, but about what God intended and revealed
1,400
years ago. [Roger Scruton]
<Unquote> ...
--
Peace
--
Allah is one but Islam is a mosaic. The Muslim world is a linguistic tower
of Babel, an ethnic patchwork, a geographical puzzle and a political
kaleidoscope offering a picture of extraordinary doctrinal diversity.
[Slimane Zéghidour]
Zuiko Azumazi
zuiko.azumazi@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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