Talk:Islam and Australian values

Apostasy

I am changing the apostasy bit again. This is what it was temporarily changed to:

• Apostasy: Historically the penalty for apostasy during medieval times for Muslims who openly rejected their faith was death [1]. However this was formally abolished in 1839 by a body of religious scholars of the Ottoman caliphate who examined the issue and found that the death penalty for apostasy is only applicable when it is combined with the crime of treason. This was ratified by Al-Azhar University, the leading religious authority of the Arab world at the time. This was not a new ruling as such, as it was also the view of some prominent religious Islamic scholars of the medieval period, namely al-Nakha’i (d.713), al-Thawri (d.772), al-Sarakhsi (d. 1090), al-Baji (d. 1081), and al-Sha’rani (d.1565) [2]. [3]

My initial response:

Thanks for the clarification.

Did the ruling of 1839 become law in the caliphate, or did it stop with the university?

Is it intended to be a revision of Islamic doctrine, or a revision of it's application under the current circumstances? That is, is the decision intended to apply forever, or to be revised as circumstances change? To what extent did 'foreign' interference influence the decision? That is, did they change the rule because it made Islam look so bad?

Isn't treason inevitable if someone rejects the theological foundation of the state? A non-Muslim is almost automatically opposed to theocratic Muslim rule.