THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE VS. LYING IS AN OBLIGATION
“[T]he Arab has no scruples about lying if by it he obtains his objective. . . . Arab society . . . is ruthless, stern and pitiless. It worships strength and has no compassion for weakness, the Arab is more interested in feelings than facts, in conveying an impression rather than giving a report.”
—Sania Hamady1
Truth is a central theme of the Bible, where it is linked to human freedom: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). The Bible is very clear that we should search for the truth and abide by it. Jesus calls Himself “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6) and promises to send the “the spirit of truth,” (the Holy Spirit) Who “will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). He calls Satan the father of lies (John 8:44). Christians and Jews are never commanded to compromise the truth for the purpose of achieving any goal. On the contrary: “But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish” (James 3:14–15).
Unlike the Bible, the Koran and Islamic law promote a dualistic view on moral values, and particularly on truth-telling. Islamic law books start by saying that lying is “unlawful” (Reliance r8.0), but then they proceed to state the conditions under which lying becomes permissible, and even mandatory.
So in Islam, lying goes from being unlawful on one page to being an obligation on the next page—if it is for the benefit of Islam: “When it is possible to achieve an aim by lying but not by telling the truth, it is permissible to lie if attaining the goal is permissible, and lying is obligatory if the goal is obligatory” (Reliance r8.2). So if performing jihad, which is an obligation, requires lying, then a Muslim is obliged to lie. Islam allows lying under three conditions: in war with non-Muslims, in marital relations, “to smooth over differences” when a man is “talking with his wife or she with him,” and in settling disagreements among Muslims (Reliance, r8.2). In one hadith, Muhammad claims that “inventing good information” is not really a lie if it’s done to achieve a good purpose. In other words, the ends justify the means: “He who makes peace between the people by inventing good information or saying good things, is not a liar” (Bukhari 49:857).
Islamic law also obliges Muslims to slander, exaggerate, and mislead for the same reasons (Reliance, r2.16, r9.2, r10.3).
“Liars” are condemned in the Koran—when they are infidels who refuse to convert to Islam (Koran 9:107), or shirkers who refuse to go fight with Muhammad: “Had it been a near adventure and an easy journey they had followed thee, but the distance seemed too far for them. Yet will they swear by Allah (saying): ‘If we had been able we would surely have set out with you.’ They destroy their souls, and Allah knoweth that they verily are liars” (Koran 9:42). Thus in Islam lying could be a sin for some and a virtue for others; it all depends on how lying serves the goals of Islam.
Islamic doctrine is that deception is not only a valid tactic for Muslims—it is an attribute of Allah himself. Several times in the Koran, Allah describes himself as the greatest deceiver of all:
• “And they (the unbelievers) planned to deceive, and Allah planned to deceive (the unbelievers), and Allah is the best of deceivers” (3:54)
• “Are they then safe from Allah’s deception? No one feels safe from Allah’s deception except those that shall perish” (7:99)
• “And (remember) when the unbelievers plotted deception against you (O Muhammad), to imprison you, or kill you, or expel you. They plotted deception, but Allah also plotted deception; and Allah is the best of deceivers (8:30)
Muslim authorities have gone so far as to create several religious doctrines that justify lying as a tool to assist in Islam’s own ascendancy:
• “Taqiyya”: dissimulation of the fact that you are a Muslim
• “Kitman”: lying by omission or partial truth
• “Muruna”: using stealth or flexibility to blend in with the enemies of Islam
• “Tawriya”: deliberate ambiguity, concealing, or creative lying
All of the above also allow Muslims to break their oaths—particularly if they violate only the intention of the oath, not its letter (Reliance o19.1–5). Such mincing of words and mixed messages regarding lying do not serve Muslim society—where appreciation of the truth is suppressed and distrust prevails—well.
It is permitted for a Muslim who lives in non-Muslim land to take an oath on the Koran and Allah and not be held accountable. While in the West that is called perjury, under Islamic law it is considered an honorable lie: “Allah will not call you to account for thoughtlessness in your oaths, but for the intention in your hearts” (Koran 2:225). That means if the intention is to benefit Islam, as in jihad, then taking a false oath on a Koran, the Islamic holy book, in a non-Muslim country would not be considered a sin in Islam.
While the Bible strictly forbids breaking one’s oath (Numbers 30:1–2), Islam approves breaking one’s oath when it is expedient to do so (Koran 2:225). If a Muslim discovers a better option after taking an oath, he is allowed to break his oath, take the better option, and make expiation (Koran 5:89; Bukhari 7.67.427; Muslim 15.4054). Islam provides that certain charitable acts can substitute for the performance of the oath (Reliance o20.0–4). Muhammad himself broke his oaths (at-Tahrim 66.2) and treaties (al-Anfal 8.58, al-Tawbah 9.3) with Banu Qaynuqa and the Quraysh, violating the treaty of Hudaybiyya by refusing to return Umm-Kulthum to Mecca (Bukhari 8.78.619 and 9.89.260). So according to Islamic sharia law, an oath is not binding.
These dubious Islamic doctrines, absolving Muslims from telling the truth and keeping even the most solemn kind of promises should be a clue to all Muslims that their religion is flawed. But somehow, Muslim apologists never give up on justifying Islamic teachings. As a matter of fact, they take advantage of the permission Islam gives them to lie to promote Islam. One example is their defense of the concept of jihad by defining it as an internal “struggle” in talking to Westerners—when they know that in their own books it is clearly defined as “war with non-Muslims to establish the religion”(Reliance o9.0).
Deception in defense of Islam and its goals is big business for Islamic organizations and lobbying groups in the West. It’s an obligation under Islamic law, and it comes naturally to most Muslims. The reason I know this is that I was one of them and felt the exact same way. Lying in defense of Islam is something Muslims all over the world do. (Islamic governments regularly engage in it as well.)
Take, for example, new translations of the Koran from Arabic to English that intentionally mislead about what the original says, watering down its harsh, violent commandments. Koran 4:34 clearly orders men to beat (“wadribuhunnah” in Arabic) their disobedient wives. But a newly created website on the Koran called corpus.quran.com denies that the word “beat” is in the Koran at all.2 Other translations, such as that of Muhammad Yusuf Ali, try to soften the Koran’s message to beat women by adding the word (lightly) when the Koran clearly does not use the word “lightly.”3 Imams and other Muslim leaders claim that the commandment in the Koran for men to “beat” their wives really means they should “honor” their wives.4 The deception is blatant.
“Awful doom,” “fight for Allah,” “shameful,” “painful,” “go to Hellfire,” “terror,” “slay disbelievers,” “warfare ordained for you,” “retaliation prescribed for you,” and “Allah’s curse” are some of the most common expressions in the Koran. In recent translations, however, these words are gone from the English.
Lying is practiced at the highest levels in Islamic society. While speaking in Germany, the top Sheikh of Al Azhar University denied that execution is the punishment for leaving Islam, but when he speaks in Arabic to Muslims he says the exact opposite, that apostates must be killed.5
Another example of Islamic lying for a greater goal is when the Arab media and Arab education establishment rewrite history about Israel and the West. Arab children, myself included, were taught that Jerusalem was originally an Arab and Islamic city. Still today, children in Gaza and West Bank Arab schools are taught that Yasser Arafat died as a result of being poisoned by Jews and that he was a martyr. And the Arab media refuses to expose such outrageous lies because those who expose Islamic lies are condemned as apostates.
Muslim leaders are often unaware of how ridiculous they appear when they lecture on Arabic TV on how beautiful it is for a Muslim to trick Jews into converting to Islam for Allah’s sake. Cleric Mahmoud Al-Masri made this exact brag on Egyptian national TV.6 The same preacher also taught children that it is necessary to lie to your wife, to Jews, and in time of war—though he explained they wouldn’t understand the reasons, because they were children.7
The values of truth, honesty, and integrity are hardly mentioned in the Koran or preached by Islamic clerics. There are no Islamic legitimate examples of telling the truth for the truth’s sake for clerics to teach from. Because Islamic doctrine is based on dual thinking and trickery, Muslims are not allowed to think for themselves. It is the job of the Muslim cleric to keep them ignorant, deceived, and confused. They lie to their own people, as well as to the kafirs.
Islamic education is focused on memorizing and not on analysis and interpretation. Competitions on memorizing the Koran are the most popular Islamic competitions. Muslims are allowed self-expression only if what they express redounds to the greater glory of Muhammad (the perfect man), the Koran (the perfect book), and sharia (the perfect set of laws). Muslims are in the habit of lying to promote Islam, but many of them are probably unaware of how explicitly their own law books command them to lie, slander, and deceive. Islam is in a constant race to keep its followers ignorant, confused, and unaware of the reality of their doctrine.
Likely it is hard on honorable Muslims who live in the West to lie for the benefit of Islam, or to look the other way when they see Islamic authorities saying things they know are not true. But it is the norm, the unspoken rule of life in Islam to just look the other way when you hear lies you don’t like because there is no use in fighting them. Those who try to uncover lies in Muslim society end up getting badly hurt. Access to the internet has opened the eyes of some Muslims and given those who want to know the truth a free educational opportunity. Some are now learning about the contradictions and immorality of Islamic doctrine for the first time. But the majority of Muslims I know don’t even want to know because uncovering Islamic lies could get them into terrible trouble, and end up cutting them off from their friends and family and entire life as they know it.
When I arrived in America, I learned more about my religion in just a few months than in a lifetime of education in the Muslim world. At first the process was intimidating. Muslims are often frustrated, not knowing what to say when asked what jihad is or what taqiyya is. No committed Muslim can venture to tell the truth about those Islamic doctrines, not even to him or herself. Those who leave Islam, such as myself, are the ones who simply could not continue with the lies. But many other Muslims continue to lie instinctively and without thinking, unaware that they have been indoctrinated into dishonesty by their own religion. Those are the hardest Muslims to convince of the truth.
It is hard for me to see Western nations treat Islam with equal respect, standing, and rights, allowing it to be practiced inside their countries on a footing equal to, if not better than, that of the Bible.
The number one enemy of Islam is the truth. And that has made the Bible itself the biggest threat to Islam. That is probably why there are two roads that Muslims who move to the West take; they either leave Islam altogether, like I did, often becoming Christians, or they go the other way and get radicalized, regardless of the truth.
Without living under Biblical truth, I personally could never have understood or discovered the sad truth about my former religion, Islam. I discovered for myself that life without the Bible leads away from the truth. That is probably the number one cultural shock every honest Muslim eventually has to confront.
“If lying is a foundation of a religion, then there is nothing one can build on.” That statement by my pastor, Jim Tolle, opened my eyes as to why Islamic society is in a constant state of chaos and self-destruction. It’s hard for me to shake my sadness over the misery inflicted on millions of Muslims, my family in Egypt included, who are unaware that the source of their misery is a God that tells them that lying, slander, and deception are holy.
My own personal experience with truth and lying was changed when I became Christian. When I wrote my first book on exposing and renouncing jihad I was already a Christian, and many Muslims regarded it as a betrayal of Islamic mores. I was called a “traitor” to Islam, a “liar,” and a “Zionist.” The taboo against being truthful to the West is so engrained in the Muslim mind that telling the truth is considered a sin in Islam. The Muslim community, both inside and outside the United States, ostracized me. I am unable to visit any Muslim country, including my birthplace Egypt, because of the death penalty for apostasy and blasphemy—in other words for becoming Christian and telling the truth.
It is hard for the West to understand that holy lying in Islam feels like a duty. That is how I felt when I was Muslim. The enormous power Allah’s command to lie has empowered a whole culture into group think, pressuring millions of individuals into feeling that lying is normal. Thus one’s conscience and one’s gut feelings about what is good and evil become irrelevant.
I was not surprised to read an Intelligence Report at www.stratfor.com that confirmed my feelings about Islamic society. The report states that polygraph tests administered to Middle Easterners, Muslims in particular, could be seriously flawed. The explanation is both cultural and religious; it was discovered that lying did not cause stress on Muslims and Middle Easterners as it does to Western Christians. This allows Muslims to defeat polygraph tests.
In fact speaking the truth can cause stress to a Muslim. From personal experience in my early years as a Christian, I often caught myself feeling a bit guilty for speaking the truth in front of Muslims. I felt the urge to continue accepting the lies I was trained to overlook in the hope of getting approval from Muslims and the culture that I grew up in. It took me a while to fully wean myself from the destructive and powerful Islamic urge to lie for the sake of Allah and for the approval of Muslims.
There is one truth that Muslims are working day and night to hide, but that the West urgently needs to hear: the central goal of Islam is to make the whole world submit, to totally wipe out Biblical values and replace them with the twisted values of the Koran. They are willing to use any means to achieve that goal. In fact, Islam’s endorsement of dishonesty and violence means that they can lie and inflict terror in pursuit of that goal while remaining guilt free and even passing a polygraph test. After 9/11, many Americans were sincerely asking “Why?” and “What did we do to provoke this?” These questions were the reason I started speaking out. I wanted to tell the American people that they had done nothing to provoke 9/11 or Islamic terrorism. That is how I started my journey to uncover the truth. I spoke out to warn America, and through that process of uncovering the truth I also started a process of personal healing and growth—ultimately out of a faith that feared the truth, and into a faith built on it.
Trust vs. Distrust
Trust develops in cultures where people are rewarded for speaking the truth, while distrust is the natural consequence in cultures that reward lying. But it’s considered offensive and racist to point out this fact as it applies to Islam. Even though it is a well-documented fact that Islamic doctrine commands lying and deception, Muslims get extremely offended when such a doctrine is brought out of their own holy books and exposed in public to the infidels (kafirs).
A Haaretz article dated April 28, 2005, reported on a controversy over a lecture that had discussed lying in Arab cultures. Arabs complained that the lecture was racist because it raised the question. “So is it true that when an Arab opens his remarks with the expression ‘Wallahi’ [I swear by Allah], he is intending to lie?” (The translation in the brackets is mine.) The article reported some of what the lecturer had said: “Among Arabs, you will not find the phenomenon so typical of Judeo-Christian culture: doubts, a sense of guilt, the self-tormenting approach, ‘Maybe we weren’t entirely OK,’ or ‘Maybe we need to act or react differently.’ These phenomena are totally unknown in Arab-Islamic society, toward outsiders. They have no doubts about their positions or the justice of their side. They have no sense of guilt that they may have erred. They have neither twinges of conscience nor any regrets that they may have done wrong to anyone else.”8
In regard to the common Arabic expression “Wallahi,” I am sure that most Muslims know that, yes, it is true that this expression is commonly used by Muslims who lie. And that should not be shocking in members of a religion whose God calls himself a deceiver and whose laws command them to lie, slander, and exaggerate.
The denial of this fact—for example, by the Muslim students who called the lecture racist—unfortunately is what prevents Islamic culture from transformation. The students were cutting off their nose to spite their face when they allowed their distrust to prevent them from benefiting from fact-based criticism, and even from taking a pause to consider the validity of what was said. All that they would have needed to do to check the accuracy of the lecture was to open their Koran and sharia books and see for themselves the commandments to lie. But the lack of basic trust and comfort with the truth that is inculcated by a culture suffused with lies prevented them from doing that.
Trust is at the heart of religion. When one reads the Bible it becomes clear that building trust is one of its most vital principles. Trust is the glue that brings people and God together and the foundation upon which civilization is built. Bible-believing Americans who knew the importance of trust placed “In God We Trust” on U.S. currency. Having come from a culture where trust is considered an attribute of fools, it breaks my heart to see that some Americans actually want to remove that statement of trust in God from the dollar bill.
In the Bible, obedience is a product of trust: “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower” (Psalms 18:2). “And such trust have we through Christ. . . .” (II Corinthians 3:4).
In Islam, however, obedience is a product of fear. Islam forces submission through shaming, terror, and harsh and humiliating punishments rather than trust and persuasion. The obedience expected in Islam is similar to the submission of a slave to his master. This lack of trust in Muslim society places the individual in the wrong, in constant need of justifying himself. Islam has won many battles this way, but has lost the war for credibility and legitimacy.
The day Islam wedded itself to lying and slander was the day the trust factor flew out the window, to the detriment of the entire Islamic society. Yes, of course there are pockets of trust developed within certain families, clans, and sects by Muslims, whose humanity often wins out over their warped religion. But these are just rare pockets of trust—few and far between—in Islamic society. They do not fit the larger picture of Muslim society. Islamic law, by its very nature, challenges these loyalties and relationships of trust, which inevitably come into conflict with jihad and the best interests of Islam.
Islam’s doctrine on lying also destroys any hope for building trust between different Muslim sects. And what Muhammad said in a hadith about divisions within Islam has led to further distrust: “‘The Banu Isra’il split into about seventy-two sects. My community will split into seventy-three. All of them will be in the Fire except for one.’ They asked, ‘Who are they, Messenger of Allah?’ He replied, ‘Those who base themselves on what I and my Companions are doing today’” (At-Tirmidhi).9
So according to Muhammad all of the seventy-three sects of Islam will roast in hellfire except one, which he defines as the one that follows his own example. Given this hadith, no wonder all the Muslim sects point at each other in condemnation as apostates who will go to Hell.
The distrust is obvious even in Muhammad’s own heart; the Prophet himself expressed fears and distrust of Allah’s “schemes.” Muhammad was uncertain whether Allah would save him: “I am not an innovation among the Messengers, and I know not what shall be done with me or with you. I only follow what is revealed to me; I am only a clear warner” [emphasis added] (Koran 46:8–9). “. . . some scholars have considered the words ‘best of schemers’ to be one of God’s beautiful names. Thus one would pray, ‘O Best of Schemers, scheme for me!’ . . . . the Prophet used to pray, ‘O God, scheme for me, and do not scheme against me!’” (Qurtubi, IV, pp. 98–99; cf. Zamakhshari, I, p. 366).
Muhammad’s closest and most loyal companion, Abu Bakr, also expressed fear of Allah’s deception in the following hadith: “Although he had such a faith, which was too great to suffice all the inhabitants of the earth, he was afraid that his heart might go astray. So, he used to utter, while weeping: ‘Would that I have been a bitten tree!’ Whenever he was reminded of his position in Allah’s sight, he would say: ‘By Allah! I would not rest assured and feel safe from the deception of Allah (“la amanu limakr Allah”), even if I had one foot in paradise [emphasis added].’”10
As to non-Muslims, there is no hope for them at all to live in peace and equality under Islam. Non-Muslims have never had any reason whatsoever to trust Islam, which promises them Hell, doom, humiliation, subjugation, and discrimination. Allah even says in the Koran that he will purposefully lead them astray: “Whoever Allah guides is truly guided. But as for those He leads astray, you will not find any protectors for them apart from Him. We will gather them on the Day of Rising, flat on their faces, blind, dumb and deaf. Their shelter will be Hell. Whenever the Blaze dies down, We will increase it for them” (Koran 17:97).
As a Muslim, I often asked myself how an all-knowing God, the creator of the universe, could write a holy book that is so full of contradictions. A God that keeps changing his mind does not instill trust in his word.
The answer for inconsistencies in the Koran is the Islamic doctrine of abrogation—a principle unique to Islam among religions, and approved by Allah in the Koran itself:
• “When we cancel a message, or throw it into oblivion, we replace it with one better or one similar. Do you not know that God has power over all things?” (2:106)
• “When we replace a message with another, and God knows best what he reveals, they say: You have made it up. Yet, most of them do not know” (16:101)
• “God abrogates or confirms whatsoever he will, for he has with him the Book of the Books” (13:39)
• “If we pleased, we could take away what we have revealed to you. Then you will not find anyone to plead for it with us” (17:86)
I believe the contradictions in Islamic scriptures were not coincidental but have a purpose: to confuse the public, both Muslim and non-Muslim. Depending on what is needed in a conversation, Muslim sheikhs, who like magicians are experts in the art of deception, pull whatever verse is needed to fit their argument at the time, regardless of whether the verse has supposedly been “abrogated” or not.
For example Muslims like to tell the West that Islam is for religious freedom. In support of that lie, they quote a verse that has actually been “abrogated”—cancelled and reversed—but that is conveniently still on the books, in the Koran: “Let there be no compulsion in religion” (2:56). And yet public opinion in the Muslim world is overwhelmingly for the execution of apostates. According to an April 30, 2013, Pew Research survey, 86 percent of Egyptians are for executing apostates. How can that be?
The apologists for Islam who quote the “no compulsion in religion” verse know very well that Muslim public opinion has been shaped by other passages in the Koran—passages that demand the death penalty for apostasy, and that have not been “abrogated.” The deception being practiced on the West is phenomenal. There are numerous Koran verses, hadiths, and sira, or actions of Muhammad, all saying that apostates must be executed. Islam’s holy book orders Muslims to fight unbelievers until they relent and either convert to Islam or accept a state of humiliation under Islamic rule (4:89, 9; 11–12, 2:217, 9:73–74, 88:21, 5:54, 9:66, 9:29)—an obvious endorsement of “compulsion in religion.” Muhammad himself decreed the death penalty for apostasy, in several hadiths: “If someone [a Muslim] changes his religion, kill him” (Bukhari 52:260); “strike off his head” (al-Muwatta of Imam Malik, 36.18.15); “A man who embraces Islam, then reverts to Judaism is to be killed . . .” (Bukhari 89:271). According to every Islamic sect and all the different schools of interpretation of sharia law, apostates must be executed.
What level of trust can a religion have if it executes those who leave it? Very little. Muslims are told to rely—“tawakkul” in Arabic—on Allah. Some translate “tawakkul” as “trust,”11 but that’s not what the word really means. An accurate definition is throwing one’s body down (as in prostration) in servitude (to God) and attaching the heart to (his) Lordship. Tawakkul has a fatalistic element of surrender to an inevitable predetermined future or destiny. It is simply blind obedience. The actual Arabic word for trust is “thiqah,” which is not used in the Koran.12
One of the most common Arabic expressions is “inshallah,” meaning “if Allah wills.” The expression is often used in the context of making future plans, but Muslims also say it when they want to be vague and not respond to a request with a clear “Yes” or “No.” This way a Muslim can give what appears to be a “Yes,” and then, letting the request go unfulfilled, make the excuse that I never promised with a positive yes, I only said “inshallah” and Allah did not allow me to do it. This kind of word game adds to the distrust among Muslims.
There’s a hadith that might explain why Muslims are obsessed with saying “inshallah” in almost every sentence. According to this saying by Muhammad, those who do not say “Allah willing” could conceive deformed babies: “Allah’s messenger said, ‘Once Sulayman Alayhissalaam said “(By Allah) tonight I will have sexual intercourse with one-hundred (or ninety-nine) women, of whom will give birth to a knight who will fight in Allah’s cause.” On that a companion of his said, “Say Allah willing,” but he did not say Allah willing. Therefore only one of those women conceived and gave birth to a part of man. By him in whose hands Muhammad’s life is, if he had said, “Allah willing” (he would have begotten sons) all of whom would have been knights, striving in Allah’s cause’” (Bukhari, Vol. 1, p. 395).
The Islamic doctrine of lying and deceit has been a curse on Muslims, leaving them with no choice but to feel constantly offended and angry at a world that does not trust them. They keep blaming the outside world for distrusting Islam and Muslims and accusing them of being “racists” who need to overcome their “Islamophobia”—when in reality what Muslims need to do to win the world’s trust and respect is to reject the religious laws that oblige them to lie.
Belief vs. Submission
In the West, the word religion implies a set of beliefs that a human being voluntarily trusts and finds reliable. And belief requires a thought process leading to conviction. The Bible says “Come now, let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18). Freedom of thought and conscience is a precondition for that process. Without freedom to think, reason, and believe, the very concept of religion makes no sense.
Muhammad started his religious movement with a promise that “there is no compulsion in religion,” but when he could not win the hearts and minds of people with persuasion, he totally reversed his position—from no compulsion in religion to compulsion through terror. Muhammad even boasted that terror was one of Allah’s gifts to him: “I have been made victorious through terror” (Bukhari 4:52.220). Then Allah confirmed Muhammad’s change of heart: “Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the unbelievers (those who refused to believe in Islam)” (Koran 3:151). Allah changed his mind like Muhammad, and terror became Islam’s tool for missionary work.
Reason and persuasion to belief became irrelevant to Islam, and blind obedience to both Allah and Muhammad became the theme of the Koran. Thus Allah himself says in the Koran, “The wandering Arabs say: We believe. Say (unto them, O Muhammad): Ye believe not, but rather say ‘We submit,’ for the faith hath not yet entered into your hearts. Yet, if ye obey Allah and His messenger, He will not withhold from you aught of (the reward of) your deeds. . . .” [emphasis added] (Koran 49:14) and “Whoever obeys the Messenger has obeyed Allah. . .” (Koran 4:79).
Muslims are also commanded to obey Muhammad. In the Prophet’s own words: “Whoever obeys me has obeyed Allah. Whoever rebels against me has rebelled against Allah” (Bukhari 9:89:251). Allah and Muhammad agree that Muslims must not only obey Muhammad but also follow his example in every way. Allah says, “You have a good model in the Messenger of Allah for one who hopes for Allah and the Last Day” (Koran 33:21).
Islam promotes slavishly mimicking Muhammad in every way: his attire, beard, habits, and character; his love of jihad; his promotion of terror; and even his polygamy and ownership of sexual slaves. There are dozens of hadith on the topic of a Muslim’s obligation to believe in, obey, and follow Muhammad and his Sunnah (way of life). Three examples follow: “Ash-Shafii said: ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Umar was seen making his she-camel turn round in a particular place and was asked why. He said, “I don’t know. I once saw the Messenger of Allah doing it, so I do it.”’”13 Other hadiths show that Muslims kiss the black stone in Kaaba just because they were told to do so, not because it makes sense: “The Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah consists only in following it. When ‘Umar looked back at the Black Stone, he said, ‘You are a stone and can neither help nor harm. If I had not seen the Messenger of Allah kiss you, I would not have kissed you.’ Then he kissed it” (Muslim 15:275). AbuSa’id said: I saw Wathilah ibn al-Asqa’ in the mosque of Damascus. He spat at the mat and then rubbed it with his foot. He was asked: Why did you do so? He said: Because I saw the Messenger of Allah doing so” (sunan Abi Dawud 484 w:94).
Thou Shalt Not Kill vs. Muslims Must Execute Apostates
The doctrine of Islam regarding apostasy is very simple: those who leave Islam are given three days to go back, and if they don’t they must be executed.
Islam is the only “religion” in the world that makes it a moral and legal duty for its members to execute those who leave it.
Islamic law forces Christians and Jews into three choices 1) convert to Islam, 2) be killed, or 3) live as a dhimmi, with protection from being killed in exchange for living an oppressed life under Islamic law. The luxury of this third choice is not awarded by Islamic law to those born to a Muslim father, or to people Islam refers to as idol worshippers—to atheists, Hindus, or Buddhists.
Muhammad often called those who escaped Islam “hypocrites,” even if they had been forced into it in the first place. Even if they had converted because of duress under the Islamic sword, Muhammad treated them as apostates if they went back on their forced conversions.
The proportion of the Islamic scriptures dedicated to commandments to terrorize human beings into accepting Islam, and then to terrorize them again if they try to escape from it, is astounding. That alone should disqualify Islam from being called a religion.
Looking back on my thirty-year life as a Muslim in Egypt, I don’t remember ever being asked if I wanted to be Muslim. There is no baptism, bat mitzvah, or any kind of initiation ceremony to become a Muslim. In Muslim countries there is no offer of the Muslim message to those who are born into Islam. There is no attempt to persuade them to become Muslims. Born Muslims never freely accept Islam. So I was an unwilling participant; I never consented to being Muslim. All I knew was that the people around me followed Islam and told me I was a Muslim and that there was no other choice but to live under Islamic law.
In a speech to the United Nations in 2012, President Obama said, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” When I heard that my heart sank. President Obama must have known that what he said was in line with the sharia law that forbids criticizing the Prophet and condemns such an action as blasphemy punishable by death.
Being a Muslim is a one-sided contract, a pledge of allegiance to Islam under penalty of death—and Muslims do not even have any choice about whether to make that pledge in the first place.
Besides being the only religion to enforce membership with the death penalty, Islam is also the only religion that uses the power of the State to claim newborns for itself. In the Muslim world, leaving Islam is not just a religious sin, but also a crime against the State.
In Egypt birth certificates of all newborns with Muslim fathers are stamped “Muslim” at birth by the government. All my Egyptian government issued–documents were stamped Muslim—my student ID, identification card, and any other government-issued documents such as passports. My original birth certificate, which I still have, was stamped Muslim at the time of my birth. Even now, it would be impossible for me today to persuade the Egyptian authorities to change any of those documents even though I am a practicing Christian today. If I visited Egypt today, I would still be legally bound to practice Islam only.
The same Islamic state that branded me Muslim since birth also made it legally impossible for me to marry a Coptic Christian man when I lived in Egypt. According to Islamic sharia law, Christian and Jewish men are not allowed to marry Muslim women—so we had to go through an eight-year ordeal before we could leave the country to get married in America.
Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries have put pressure on Third World nations that are not majority Muslim to keep them from issuing marriage licenses to Muslim women and Jewish or Christian men. I was contacted by an Egyptian Muslim woman who was unable to get married to her Christian lover in his African country; she was refused a marriage license and finally had to go back to Cairo unmarried.
I am an American citizen and have lived in the U.S. for more than thirty-seven years, but Islam still does not want to leave me alone. I am now branded as an apostate under the laws of all Islamic countries.
Even though Egypt is described in the West as a moderate Muslim country, school books in Egypt today teach Muslim kids that killing apostates is a right for individual Muslims—and an obligation for Muslim governments. A recent program on Egyptian TV, discussing these school books and the right to kill apostates, revealed that cannibalism is also allowed in this situation. Schools in Egypt are teaching cannibalism, but the U.S. media and the Left in the West take no interest.14 But anyone who pays attention cannot help learning that the death penalty for leaving Islam is very real.
No wonder double talk is necessary for Muslims who want to defend Islam’s doctrine on apostates. They really approve of killing apostates, but they turn around and tell the West that Islam allows freedom of religion. Then when asked about the details, they say that a Muslim can be whatever he wants to be—in his mind. As long as the Muslim does not publicly declare he’s a Christian then he cannot be accused of apostasy or subversion against the Islamic state. Muslims who keep being Christian in their head are safe—obviously, because no one knows about it. The only problem is when a Muslim converts to Christianity and fails to conceal it. Here Islamic apologists are applying the same principle of concealment that, as we have already seen in chapter one, Islam encourages regarding sin. If you are not a Muslim in your mind, it’s okay, because Islam does not care about persuasion, real faith, or what is in a person’s heart, but only about his actions and being a loyal soldier for Islamic jihad. Only God knows how many people in Egypt who call themselves Muslim are really Muslim.
Thus Muslims who want to be Christians can go ahead as long as they keep it to themselves—as long as they never hold a Bible in front of family or in public, never befriend Christians or go to church, continue to carry government-issued ID stamped “Muslim,” never marry a Christian, and continue behaving as Muslim—going to mosque, praying Islamic prayers and celebrating Islamic holidays, and being totally loyal to Islamic causes and laws and especially the Islamic state. Then they’ll be safe and can practice Christianity in their mind. This twisted thinking allows Muslim apologists to feel justified in claiming there is freedom of religion in Islam—that it does abide by international human rights laws.
Freedom of religion is a Biblical value; it was never an Islamic value. Freedom of conscience has posed an existential threat to Islam from day one back in the seventh century. Islam is a violent rebellion against the Bible, a rebellion that has now lasted over fourteen hundred years. But Islam could not compete with the Bible when it began, and it still cannot compete with the Bible today. The reason freedom of religion is banned under Islam and by Islamic states is that Islam has no confidence it would survive in free competition with Christianity. Islam needs “compulsion in religion” to succeed. It is not adequate to compete with the Bible, and Muslims feel its inadequacy.
As we have already seen, one of the most respected leaders of Sunni Islam has said that the killing of apostates is essential for Islam to survive: “If they [Muslims] had abolished the punishment for apostasy, Islam would not exist today.” What Yusuf al-Qaradawi said is the law of Islam in all schools of sharia law.15
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which now has an envoy representing the United States, held a conference in Cairo that promulgated the sharia-based Cairo Declaration, in which words that are meant to sound like they affirm freedom of conscience actually confirm the death penalty for apostasy.
The Declaration’s deceptive Article 10 says, “Islam is the religion of unspoiled nature. It is prohibited to exercise any form of compulsion on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to convert him to another religion, or to atheism.” Notice that it’s not prohibited to use compulsion to convert anybody to Islam. Even more ominously, articles 19 and 22 of the Declaration endorse the death penalty for apostasy and blaphemy—in a particularly devious way: “There shall be no crime or punishment except as provided for in the Sharia” (19d). Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Sharia” (22a). Everyone shall have the right to advocate what is right, and propagate what is good, and warn against what is wrong and evil according to the norms of Islamic Sharia” (22b). “Information is a vital necessity to society. It may not be exploited or misused in such a way as may violate sanctities and the dignity of Prophets, undermine moral and ethical values or disintegrate, corrupt or harm society or weaken its faith” (22c).16 [Emphasis added throughout.]
The Declaration places sharia above international law on human rights, including freedom of conscience. And we know that sharia commands the death penalty for both apostasy out of Islam and criticism of Muhammad.
Even though Muslim groups in the U.S. say they are for freedom of religion, the truth is that they are not. In 2009 I joined a group of former Muslims in sending almost two hundred Freedom Pledge letters to Muslim groups in the U.S. asking them to sign in support of freedom of conscience and religion. Unfortunately, they refused. The pledge stated, “I renounce, repudiate and oppose any physical intimidation, or worldly and corporal punishment, of apostates who leave Islam, change their religion from Islam to another religion, or express unbelief in Islam, in whatever way that punishment may be determined or carried out by myself or any other Muslim including the family of the apostate, community, Mosque leaders, Shariah court or judge, and Muslim government or regime.”
Only two moderate Muslim reformists responded to our pledge letter: Dr. Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, and Dr. Ali Alyami of the Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia.
Because of Islamic laws allowing the arrest, imprisonment, and execution of those who leave Islam, many former Muslims in the West, myself included, have decided not to visit any Muslim country. The danger of getting imprisoned, executed, or killed on the street for having left Islam is real in any Muslim country, including “moderate” Egypt and Turkey. The example of Pastor Saeed Abedini’s arrest and imprisonment by the government of Iran, even with his U.S. passport, is a reminder to all of us American former Muslims never to visit our countries of origin.
The West is told that the majority of Muslims are moderate, but what does “moderate” really mean when, as we have seen, the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Egypt today support the death penalty for leaving Islam? Even though my family in Egypt is well educated and considered moderate, my mother and siblings in Egypt have severed all relations with me ever since I made it public that I am now a Christian.
Many in the West consider the execution of apostates under Islam to be an internal cultural matter among Muslims, something that does not affect the West. But the West should be concerned because killing apostates and honor killing is happening here as well. In 2009 there was the case of a seventeen-year-old girl, Rifka Bary, who escaped her home in Ohio after her Muslim father threatened to kill her when she became Christian. Instead of supporting the girl who ran for her life, the leftist media attacked her integrity and treated the story as just a family squabble. The majority of the mainstream media did not want to take the apostasy death sentence in Islam seriously.17
Few in the U.S. media seem to be interested in exposing this human tragedy. Instead, Western journalists are quick to condemn anyone who points out the truth about Islam as an “Islamophobe.” To them I say this: My fear of Islam is not a phobia. I am afraid for good reason. But I will never submit to Islamic terrorism because I became Christian.
The lack of freedom of conscience in Islamic society is detrimental to peace and stability within a nation and between nations. The sharia law against apostasy brings the threat of violence to every level of society, from the president who must be a Muslim to the street sweeper who must obey Islam. To keep Muslims within Islam, Muslim governments must subjugate and dehumanize citizens, sacrificing peace and stability by the use of force.
Faith vs. Submission
The rejection of freedom of religion in Islamic morality is proof that Islam refuses to appeal to reason to persuade people to faith. Instead it relies on force to prevail and make others submit.
Whether a religion is based on freedom of conscience or not makes all the difference. If people have freedom, then religion relies on persuasion, which is the essence of what religion should be: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). A God who loves his creatures and sets them free will not encourage his followers to lie to trick others. He will not lead believers in him to live in a culture of manipulation, condemnation, enslavement, and jockeying for control and dominance between human beings. Thus the quality of life for all is greatly improved under religions that permit freedom of belief.
On the other hand, a religion that rejects freedom of conscience and demands total submission could never be from a loving God. A good God would never authorize human beings to judge and kill other human beings over religion—even to force people to believe in him.