On February 21, 1989, Yusuf Islam addressed students at Kingston University in London about his conversion to Islam and was asked about the controversy in the Muslim world and the fatwa calling for Salman Rushdie's execution. He replied, "He must be killed. The Qur'an makes it clear - if someone defames the prophet, then he must die."
Well, that reads as amazingly offensive, but then this part
Cat Stevens would later clarify the exchanges as "stupid and offensive jokes" made "in bad taste", but "part of a well-known British national trait ... dry humour on my part
sort of cancels out the whole thing. He says he was joking. He's a pop star by profession. A joke reply is probably standard for him on lots of questions.
If Muslims worldwide REALLY believe that apostates should be killed, it should be relatively easy to get 100 of them to say so on English TV, and not clarify the statement as a joke later on.
Here's a list of famous converts to Islam, if you throw out Nation of Islam converts, there aint many:
adherents.com
Evidently Queen Noor of Jordan is an American born person who converted to Islam. She does interviews fairly often. Ask her the question! And any of these CAIR reps that go on the TV occassionally, toss out that question about whether Islam requires that apostates be killed, and if so by whom, I'd really like to hear the answer. |
