Brumar, whether a civil war or conflict was going on or not is irrelevant, the mere selective killing of a group of people because of their religious beliefs remains the same... civil war or not does not make a difference... both are religiously motivated.... you may not agree on this point, but that is your prerogative.
I am no scholar, but I can tell you this, Islam does not impose the death penalty on people who convert, there are numerous ayehs (statements in the Holy Qur'an) that states there is no compulsion in faith... and that to me indicates that if one chooses to convert, that is up to him or her... the death penalty may have been imposed at some time at the beginning of Islam before all the ayehs were revealed... I really don't know.
now for your question "Why is it illegal to even attempt to convert a Muslim in all Muslim countries?" ... these are country made rules ... governments believe that missionaries will convert people by providing them what they are not… which is considered exploitation and the government’s role is to protect the citizens from such exploitation…
as for terrorism, crazy people do crazy things... no rationale can explain their actions other than by crazy... why did some crazy people blow up themselves and others just this past week in Riyadh Saudi Arabia...? what are they against ? didn't Secretary Rumsfield say that American military personnel will be completely withdrawn from Saudi Arabia by August ... a mere three months away ? ... no rationale or Islamic teachings can explain it other than they were crazy... and by the way, only one of the three compounds housed some American military personnel... the two others housed Lucent Technologies personnel and others… and all of the residents were of Middle Eastern and other countries...
I've always said, and still say, that education is the only way to change crazy behavior... Islamic countries should promote accurate understanding of Islam ... and that it does not encourage nor support terrorist activities... but there is a flip side to that which governments and the leaders do not like nor want to see... and that is that people have to take an active role in shaping their governments’ policies… democracy.
If non-Muslims accurately learn and understand Islam, the war against terrorism can be transformed to debates debunking falsehoods.
regards
amein |
