Apostasy and other fun weekend activities

Recently, another person sent me a message about my posts on the Sharia, pointing out some verses the Bukhari Hadith having to deal with killing apostates. I promised him I'd make another post addressing the issue, but actually, I just got my friend(Amrikiya fi Misr) to do all the research for me. =-)

There are indeed verses in the Bukhari Hadith about killing non-believers. But we must first understand something about the Hadith, it is a SECONDARY source of law, meaning whatever is in the Qu'ran trumps it.

That being said, the punishment for apostates can only be given by God in the afterlife, a standard thing for religious deities to do of course. Of course, there are schools of law who reject that notion, but as I've said before, these are not the majority of Muslims. A glance at the wikipedia article on Apostasy In Islam, which has some great citations, can demonstrate how this subject is debated amongst the community.

Of course, I am not a Muslim, and so its really not my place to judge the validity of sacred texts or who has the most accurate interpretation. But I believe there are elements of enormous good in all religions, and those elements must be emphasized for the good of all mankind, not just the believers. So you won't find me denouncing religion religion in this blog. I am completely religion positive. Actually, its atheism I have a hard time understanding, but that's another matter.=-)