Wednesday, August 12, 2009

A Harsh Reality

Recently my daughter and I took a Muslim friend of my daughter with us to see the movie The Stoning of Soraya M. The film affected my daughter's friend quite deeply. On the way home she repeated several times, "But she was innocent! They stoned her to death for adultery, and she hadn't even committed adultery. She was innocent."

She then added a very significant statement. "I'm Arab and I'm Muslim, and I believe in Sharia. If she had committed adultery, she should have been stoned. But she was innocent."

This is not a terrorist speaking, not an extremist, not a radical. It's someone who is studying for an advanced degree at one of America's best universities, and who will return to her country to become a well-respected university professor. And she believes that women in the year 2009 should be stoned to death for adultery. Why? Because she believes in Islam, and she believes in Islamic law.

You've perhaps already watched the youtube video in which Rifqa Bary expresses her fear that if she is returned to her family in Onio she will be killed by her family because of her Christian faith. There is no doubt that Muslim leaders will be quick to publicly deny this could ever happen because, as Obama Islam advisor Eboo Patel proclaimed on CNN just the other day, we all know that Islam is a religion of peace. But how many Muslims secretly believe, even if they perhaps wouldn't publicly acknowledge it as quickly as my daughter's friend, that Sharia really is to be followed by Muslims today, even in America? That people who leave Islam, just like people who commit adultery, really should be put to death.

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