UK ex-Muslims on BBC World Service

Oeditor · #1 by **Oeditor** » Jan 12, 2014 4:52 pm

This morning, the BBC World Service interviews members at a London meeting of ex-Muslims. Most notable that not one of them used their real name, for fear of upsetting their relatives or, at worst, suffering reprisals. One woman, despite having left Islam, still felt constrained by her family to wear enveloping clothing. One man who said that he now preferred not to associate with Muslims was just about accused of "racism" by the interviewer. There also seemed to be some conflation of being a Muslim with having a brown skin.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01pg1d7

Keep It Real · #2 by **Keep It Real** » Jan 12, 2014 6:37 pm

The interviewer seemed quite critical of some of the ex-muslims for example saying they were "stuffing their faces" during Ramadan. It's not surprising many of the ex-muslims hide their atheism from their families - one girl was convinced she'd be disowned and never be allowed to visit the family home again, and another experienced just such ostracisation upon revealing her disbelief. This kind of program seems very helpful for ex-muslims, showing them they aren't alone; aren't "weird". As is pointed out, the Quran specifically states "there is no compulsion in religion", so any kind of punishment for apostasy is forbidden.

Blackadder · #3 by **Blackadder** » Jan 12, 2014 6:45 pm

The BBC is infested with faithheads, especially carpet-sniffers. This includes the head of religious broadcasting, Aaqil Ahmed, who is a Grade A cunt. It's hardly surprising one of their little bastard minions is going to take sly digs at those who've had the balls to escape the religion of peace and suicide bombing.

Oeditor · #4 by **Oeditor** » Jan 12, 2014 8:10 pm

Keep It Real wrote:As is pointed out, the Quran specifically states "there is no compulsion in religion", so any kind of punishment for apostasy is forbidden.

I was expecting the programme to point out that many consider that statement to have been abrogated. I heard the original while half asleep so I'd need to listen again to check the context but I got the impression that it was apologetics on the part of the interviewer, not a defence by one of the ex-Muslims. I think the interviewer said that compulsion depended on hadiths and didn't mention abrogation, saying that it was just a mediaeval aberration. I could have misremembered, though. The programme is important enough to merit a transcript - I seem to have heard that the Beeb once made such available.

Keep It Real · #5 by **Keep It Real** » Jan 12, 2014 8:19 pm

Oeditor wrote:
Keep It Real wrote:As is pointed out, the Quran specifically states "there is no compulsion in religion", so any kind of punishment for apostasy is forbidden.
I was expecting the programme to point out that many consider that statement to have been abrogated. I heard the original while half asleep so I'd need to listen again to check the context but I got the impression that it was apologetics on the part of the interviewer, not a defence by one of the ex-Muslims. I think the interviewer said that compulsion depended on hadiths and didn't mention abrogation, saying that it was just a mediaeval aberration. I could have misremembered, though. The programme is important enough to merit a transcript - I seem to have heard that the Beeb once made such available.

Yes they did say many Hadiths contradict the quran in that respect, but didn't say the quranic passage had been abrogated. The passage in the quran, and it's "auspicious" placement after one of the central passages, was brought up by one of the interviewees. IMO I don't see how a "hearsay" hadith can trump the immutable word of Allah, and the program said many scholars now hold that view. Once you start abrogating the quran to that degree you might as well throw it on the fire IMO. MMMMMMM nom nom nom, lovely warming quran fire 8-)

Oeditor · #6 by **Oeditor** » Jan 12, 2014 8:50 pm

AFAIK the problem is not one of hadiths - intrinsically dubious - contradicting Allah, but of Allah contradicting himself by abrogating himself in a (chronologically) later chapter. You know, as omniscient infallible beings do all the time to their immutable pronouncements for all men for all time.
No doubt there are references all over the web but I wish I knew of a concise Idiot's Guide to Dodgy Islamic Apologetics.
Edit: further turn of the screw added.
ETA: and divine chiselling must have been required, since the First Edition is supposed to have been fossilised on a preserved tablet.

Blackadder · #7 by **Blackadder** » Jan 12, 2014 9:08 pm

Aya 2:256 which states "...there shall be no compulsion in religion" deals with forced conversion to Islam, not apostasy.

It has been used by some muslim scholars to argue against the death sentence for apostasy but the view is not universally accepted in the muslim world, far from it. Given the many, many vile threats against apostates in the Quran and the Hadith, it is very disingenuous of muslims to claim that the death sentence for apostasy has no basis in Islamic theology, even if it is not directly advocated in the Quran. Just to take one example, Saudi Arabia, which presents itself as the exemplar of Islamic jurisprudence, has a statutory death penalty for apostasy. The Saudis didn't just pull that one out of their arses. It has a long and well-established scriptural foundation.

Keep It Real · #8 by **Keep It Real** » Jan 12, 2014 9:11 pm

You're not helping! lol

Blackadder · #9 by **Blackadder** » Jan 12, 2014 9:17 pm

Keep It Real wrote:You're not helping! lol

As much as I would love to be able to say that Islam does not advocate severe punishment for apostasy, it is not true. Moreover, as an ex-muslim, I've been on the receiving end of death threats so I object to some BBC piss-ant weasel claiming that Islam is a religion of peace.

Oeditor · **#10** by **Oeditor** » Jan 12, 2014 9:30 pm

The interviewer had a Muslim-sounding name. I seem to have noticed a tendency for the BBC to send matching interviewers to interview non WASP subjects. Understandable for the World Service but they seem to be treading as if on eggshells on their main UK TV channels too.

Keep It Real · **#11** by **Keep It Real** » Jan 12, 2014 9:38 pm

Blackadder wrote:
Keep It Real wrote:You're not helping! lol

As much as I would love to be able to say that Islam does not advocate severe punishment for apostasy, it is not true. Moreover, as an ex-muslim, I've been on the receiving end of death threats so I object to some BBC piss-ant weasel claiming that Islam is a religion of peace.

But Islam means peace. :what:

Maybe it's been distorted through politically motivated actors into it's prevalent violent form to a high degree? It sucks hairy rat balls that you received death threats, I'm really sorry to hear that. If there were a way that ex-muslims could appease their persecutors through citing the quran then that should be encouraged, no doubt. I've just checked my copy, and although there are abrogation notes for many of the verses, 2-256 is not one of them.

Blackadder · **#12** by **Blackadder** » Jan 12, 2014 9:58 pm

2:256 has not been abrogated. But like I said, it does not deal with apostasy so it's irrelevant to my situation, despite the attempts by apologists to claim that it does. And Islam was not born in a peaceful environment. It was forged in war, spread through war and conquest and a very signifiant part of its holy book deals with the prosecution of war and its accompanying social and political considerations.

While in some places and in some historical periods it gained a veneer of sophistication and enlightenment, it is today represented throughout much of the world by its torch bearers, the red-neck Saudi clerics who are as backward, barbaric and evil as pretty much any prehistoric human civilisation. These are the people that young radicals in the West idolise and the early days of Islam, when muslims were in a state of more or less continual war, is painted by these radicals as some kind of Golden Age, when the religion was at its purest and most powerful. So to me, it does not mean peace. Anything but.

Oeditor · **#13** by **Oeditor** » Jan 12, 2014 10:19 pm

Keep It Real wrote:But Islam means peace. Maybe it's been distorted through politically motivated actors into it's prevalent violent form to a high degree? It sucks hairy rat balls that you received death threats, I'm really sorry to hear that. If there were a way that ex-muslims could appease their persecutors through citing the quran then that should be encouraged, no doubt. I've just checked my copy, and although there are abrogation notes for many of the verses, 2-256 is not one of them.

Why should anyone leaving a religion appease those that remain? Why would any Muslim writing notes on the Koran comment that the "best" bits have been cancelled? I'm no expert but I don't think abrogation requires Allah to say explicity - "Oh, I messed that bit up, here's what I really mean now that I'm sober". It simply means that later contradictions cancel out earlier statements. Here's what a more jaundiced commenter has to say:

Qur’an 9:29—"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth, from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."

(Note: Sura 9 was one of the last two Surahs revealed, and therefore abrogates any Qur'anic teachings that conflict with it.)

Sounds like quite sever compulsion, to me.
http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2009/11/does-quran-2256-show-that-islam-is.html

Matthew Shute · **#14** by **Matthew Shute** » Jan 13, 2014 1:34 am

Keep It Real wrote:
But Islam means peace.

Doesn't the word Islam mean "submission" or "surrender"? Salam means "peace", I think. Someone more qualified can talk about the derivation.

Aern Rakesh · **#15** by **Aern Rakesh** » Jan 13, 2014 8:39 am

Matthew Shute wrote:
Keep It Real wrote:
But Islam means peace.
Doesn't the word Islam mean "submission" or "surrender"? Salam means "peace", I think. Someone more qualified can talk about the derivation.

wikipedia wrote:Islam is a verbal noun originating from the triliteral root s-l-m which forms a large class of words mostly relating to concepts of wholeness, safeness and peace.[18] In a religious context it means "voluntary submission to God".[19][20]

GenesForLife · **#16** by **GenesForLife** » Jan 17, 2014 7:29 pm

Oeditor wrote:This morning, the BBC World Service interviews members at a London meeting of ex-Muslims. Most notable that not one of them used their real name, for fear of upsetting their relatives or, at worst, suffering reprisals. One woman, despite having left Islam, still felt constrained by her family to wear enveloping clothing. One man who said that he now preferred not to associate with Muslims was just about accused of "racism" by the interviewer. There also seemed to be some conflation of being a Muslim with having a brown skin.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01pg1d7

The interviewer is a pompous arse who doesn't know that racism can only come from people with societal privilege. Ex-muslims are especially oppressed and are at the receiving end of douchecanoes who play the race card. I say this as a brown chap who is fed up of, at times, having other pompous arses walk up to me and say "Salaam Alaykum" - I don't share their fucking faith and I'd rather not be spoken to that way.

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