Islamic
purity
By William F. Buckley Jr.
Tue Mar 28, 8:05 PM ET
YahooNews
The State Department has had a profound question to ask itself
in the matter of Abdul Rahman. Did we intend to make a theatrical point
-- that we would not stand by in his condemnation and beheading, an
arrant interference with the right of a human being to embrace
Christianity? Or would we just settle for saving Rahman's life?
Attempts at this were made by Rahman's lawyers, principally by
asserting that he was off his rocker, and therefore not responsible for
his conversion to Christianity. That line helped delay the trial, but
did not convince the hard-liners. Three Sunni preachers and one Shiite,
interviewed by The Associated Press, said they did not believe that
Rahman is insane. "He went in front of the media and confessed to being
a Christian," said Hamidullah, chief cleric of a prominent mosque. "The
government (may be) scared of the international community. But the
people will kill him if he is freed."
One Afghan cleric late last week said that the only way Rahman could
escape death would be by fleeing the country and living in exile. This
appears, at this writing, to be the most hopeful scenario. However,
some Muslim theologians take the position that to permit Rahman to
leave the country would be to forsake duty, which is to kill him for
apostasy. Spiriting him out of the country might not be easy to effect,
but the United States, with the military resources that defeated the
Taliban, must be assumed to be able to bring about the rescue of a
single Afghan citizen.
Collaterally, the State Department could publicize dissenting Islamic
views on the subject of apostasy. Interventionists have pointed out
that the Quran does not require the execution of apostates, and it is
not recorded that Muhammad himself ever exacted such punishment.
Moreover, the Quran holds that there should not be compulsion in the
matter of religion.
Some scholars maintain that the vindictive wing of Islamic justice is
playing off an anachronized 1,400-year-old tradition that fused the
religious order and the secular order. A Muslim, back then, owed
loyalty not only to the prophet but to his empire, so that any
doctrinal defection was simultaneously a blow to the empire and, as
such, treasonable. According to Andrea Elliott of The New York Times,
there have been fewer than a half-dozen executions in the Muslim world
in the past generation for the crime of apostasy.
So then a dissenting view of Muslim law could be invoked, but this
would not necessarily succeed: There is no authority in Islam to which
an appeal for definitive doctrinal judgments can be made. Nor can the
Islamist enforcers on the scene be dismissed as predisposed to
authoritarian rule. The cleric Abdul Raoulf was jailed three times for
opposing the Taliban, yet his position on Rahman is: "Rejecting Islam
is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must
die."
Authority in Afghanistan is exercised at two levels. The first, of
course, is by the formal government of Afghanistan. Its president,
Hamid Karzai, is friendly to the United States -- as one would expect,
in recognition of our having gone to war to rid his country of the
Taliban rule. Karzai is friendly but not plenipotentiary. The
government of Afghanistan is theocratic: The Sharia is the law of the
land.
Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns did not
earn a medal of freedom for his public statement in the matter, but he
was formally correct: "This is a case that is not under the competence
of the United States. It is under the competence of the Afghan
authorities."
That's right. And the hell with Afghan supremacy. If an occupying
military force whose presence every day continues to be critical to
keep Afghanistan free cannot protect one citizen who embraces the faith
of our fathers, then the government of Afghanistan should pause for a
moment to worry not about the indignation of the Afghan people if
Rahman is kept safe. Thought should be given to the indignation of the
American people, who will stare in disbelief at the phenomenon of a
country recently liberated by the expenditure of American lives and
money failing to protect from the wrath of the mob a 41-year-old
citizen whose crime was having chosen Christ.
It is a tough challenge. It is tempting to say: Get this guy out of
Afghanistan and put him away somewhere and let's move on. But the
bureaucratic escape does not reflect the passions of the leaders of the
world. Australia's prime minister wants the Afghan government to
renounce the thought of executing someone for exercising religious
liberty. So do prominent leaders in Germany, Great Britain and Italy.
The Afghan court sidestepped the main issue by releasing Rahman on a
technicality. If it arises again, the challenge for the United States
will be to devise a means of saying to the Afghan government: You
cannot do this. Not while we're around.