{"id":8343,"date":"2011-10-07T06:40:34","date_gmt":"2011-10-07T10:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=8343"},"modified":"2011-10-07T06:40:34","modified_gmt":"2011-10-07T10:40:34","slug":"muslim-expert-let-the-pastor-go-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/muslim-expert-let-the-pastor-go-free","title":{"rendered":"Muslim expert: Let the pastor go free!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Here we go again: an Iranian Pastor, Youcef Nadarkhani, faces execution if he does not recant his conversion to Christianity,&#8221; writes Beliefnet&#8217;s Dr. Hesham A. Hassaballa. &#8220;Last year, Mr. Nadarkhani was found guilty of \u201capostasy\u201d last year, which was upheld by the Iranian Supreme Court. Now, if he does not recant, he could be executed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Why?&#8221; asks the Islamic expert. &#8220;Why should he be executed? Because he left Islam? That is totally his choice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What? Don&#8217;t Muslims routinely execute anyone who converts to another religion? No, writes Dr. Hassaballa:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>What I do not understand is this claim, by many Muslims, that anyone who leaves the faith does so upon pain of death. From where did this come? Clearly not the Qur\u2019an. A cursory reading of even a poor translation of the Qur\u2019an would reveal that Islam places the sanctity of human life at the utmost of importance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Dr. Hassaballa then quotes 11 separate Islamic scriptures making his case, noting:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The evidence is overwhelming: Islam firmly upholds freedom of choice in matters of faith. In fact, it is part of God\u2019s plan to have different faiths and to allow the humans to choose their own path. What\u2019s more, the Qur\u2019an states that the reason war is sometimes necessary- as a last resort and in self-defense \u2013 is to preserve religious freedom.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, the Qur\u2019an is not silent about apostasy. There are numerous references to apostasy, but not one verse says the apostate is to be killed for his or her choice:<\/p>\n<p>If Islam claims that the humans have complete freedom of will \u2013 which they do \u2013 then how can an apostate be killed? What kind of faith is so threatened by the rebellion of some of its adherents that it mandates they be murdered? Contrary to the contention of many, Islam is not that kind of faith.<\/p>\n<p>Let the Pastor Go Free.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/commonwordcommonlord\/2011\/10\/let-the-pastor-go-free.html#ixzz1a5fpN22A\" target=\"_blank\">CLICK HERE to read more<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Here we go again: an Iranian Pastor, Youcef Nadarkhani, faces execution if he does not recant his conversion to Christianity,&#8221; writes Beliefnet&#8217;s Dr. Hesham A. Hassaballa. &#8220;Last year, Mr. Nadarkhani was found guilty of \u201capostasy\u201d last year, which was upheld by the Iranian Supreme Court. Now, if he does not recant, he could be executed.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1006,55],"tags":[2257,2208,1699],"class_list":["post-8343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iran","category-islam","tag-iran","tag-islam","tag-youcef-nadarkhani"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Muslim expert: Let the pastor go free!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/muslim-expert-let-the-pastor-go-free\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Muslim expert: Let the pastor go free!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;Here we go again: an Iranian Pastor, Youcef Nadarkhani, faces execution if he does not recant his conversion to Christianity,&#8221; writes Beliefnet&#8217;s Dr. Hesham A. Hassaballa. &#8220;Last year, Mr. Nadarkhani was found guilty of \u201capostasy\u201d last year, which was upheld by the Iranian Supreme Court. Now, if he does not recant, he could be executed.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/muslim-expert-let-the-pastor-go-free\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-10-07T10:40:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Muslim expert: Let the pastor go free!","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/muslim-expert-let-the-pastor-go-free","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Muslim expert: Let the pastor go free!","og_description":"&#8220;Here we go again: an Iranian Pastor, Youcef Nadarkhani, faces execution if he does not recant his conversion to Christianity,&#8221; writes Beliefnet&#8217;s Dr. Hesham A. Hassaballa. &#8220;Last year, Mr. Nadarkhani was found guilty of \u201capostasy\u201d last year, which was upheld by the Iranian Supreme Court. Now, if he does not recant, he could be executed.&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/muslim-expert-let-the-pastor-go-free","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-10-07T10:40:34+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/muslim-expert-let-the-pastor-go-free","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/muslim-expert-let-the-pastor-go-free","name":"Muslim expert: Let the pastor go free!","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-10-07T10:40:34+00:00","dateModified":"2011-10-07T10:40:34+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/muslim-expert-let-the-pastor-go-free#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/muslim-expert-let-the-pastor-go-free"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/muslim-expert-let-the-pastor-go-free#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Muslim expert: Let the pastor go free!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8343"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8345,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8343\/revisions\/8345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}