WorldNetDaily Distorts Islamic Center Imam's Speech To Claim He Thinks Apostates "Must Be Jailed"

In Fact, Adhami Was Discussing Historical View of Apostasy

* "The right to leave my religion and still be subject to God's grace is like the discourse between the Calvinists and the Arminians about whether God's grace applies to someone who doesn't believe in salvation, remember? In Islam, in the Quran, theoretically, if you look over the Quran from cover to cover, you literally have the right to the choice to reject God's message. In every religion prior to Islam, apostasy was to be executed, regardless of whether you were a public or private apostate. It said if someone is an apostate -- and I know that, again, this is a call, a clarion call to competence, not the clichéd answer, "Oh, apostasy was like that because the Muslims had to execute people because it was a new religion, and if you left Islam it meant" -- that's a very temporal answer. If you left Islam, nothing happens?

The Quran distinguishes between public and private apostasy. If someone leaves the din, leaves the path privately, they cannot be touched. If someone preaches about apostasy or preaches their views, they're jailed.caliphate definition

* Very famous example where Uthman, the third caliph, intervened on behalf of a relative who had apostatized, and the prophet allowed it. The fact that Uthman was allowed to intervene on behalf of an apostate means that the ruling about apostasy in a private realm is not from a legal perspective 100 percent definitive.

ADHAMI: OK. The question of apostasy has two perspectives. So literally, it treats the Quran, treats the religion of God as one entity, and it has many prophets who basically taught the same things with different Sharias, right? And God says in the Quran [speaking Arabic]. God chose for each people a different quote-unquote Sharia, a different path. The same prophets, the prophetic message is the same, but the Sharia is different. So the Quranic definition of apostasy, or ridda, literally is abandoning God's law or God's path. The right to leave my religion and still be subject to God's grace is like the discourse between the Calvinists and the Arminians about whether God's grace applies to someone who doesn't believe in salvation, remember? In Islam, in the Quran, theoretically, if you look over the Quran from cover to cover, you literally have the right to the choice to reject God's message. In every religion prior to Islam, apostasy was to be executed, regardless of whether you were a public or private apostate. It said if someone is an apostate -- and I know that, again, this is a call, a clarion call to competence, not the clichéd answer, "Oh, apostasy was like that because the Muslims had to execute people because it was a new religion, and if you left Islam it meant" -- that's a very temporal answer. If you left Islam, nothing happens? The Quran distinguishes between public and private apostasy. If someone preaches about apostasy or preaches their views, they're jailed. What happened to these people? What's remarkable about the Sharia's dealing with these people is, they were never censored. What's unique here -- remember, the prophet is a legislator. Sharia left question marks about things that may become problematic in the future. Sharia stayed non-definitive about this question because eventually the Muslims would pioneer music therapy to heal people in mental health wards. In terms of its implementation, we already answered that question.caliphate definition
Adhami Wrote Article Headlined "The Right To Change One's Religion"

Adhami: "No Prophet Was Ever Given The License To Pass Judgment Over The Faith Of A Human Being -- As The Qur'an Repeatedly Reiterates, Judgment Is Ultimately With God Alone." [Common Ground News Service, 10/23/07]
Conservatives Falsely Attacked Adhami's Predecessor

Adhani Replaces Rauf As Islamic Center's Imam. Conservatives Smeared Rauf. Among the false and misleading attacks conservatives used to attack Rauf:

Washington Times columnist Jeffrey Kuhner baselessly smeared Rauf as an "unrepentant militant Muslim." [Washington Times, 8/6/10] Other conservatives baselessly portrayed Rauf as a "secret radical." [Media Matters for America, 8/17/10]

The right-wing media attacked Rauf's State Department trip to the Middle East to "discuss Muslim life in America and religious tolerance" by falsely claiming he will use the trip as a "taxpayer-funded fundraising jaunt" to finance construction of Park51. [Media Matters for America, 8/11/10]

[Fox News, Hannity, 8/12/10]

Glenn Beck falsely claimed that Daisy Khan, Rauf's wife, said that "all Americans hate Muslims." [Media Matters for America, 8/23/10]caliphate definition