@JihadBob

I’ll still wait, patiently, for the citations from the teachings of Ecclesiastical Law on perpetual holy war so that we may compare it to Islamic Law on perpetual holy war.

Medieval Sourcebook:
Pope Urban II (1088-1099)
Speech at Council of Clermont, 1095

“On this account I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ’s heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. I say this to those who are present, it meant also for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it.”

Sounds like divinely sanctioned genocide to me. At least the Abbasids let the Jews and Christians keep their religions.

That’s not what I said. I said that Western influence from Western governments pressured the Ottoman government until it changed its laws.

“Overall, attempts within the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire to abolish the dhimma generally resulted from Western influences (both within and outside the Sublime Porte) and political calculation, not the elaboration of Islamic principles.”

–Robert Spencer.

Do you admit there was outside Western intervention in the Ottoman Empire, as there is today?

“Do you join me and these enlightened pashas who believed Hadd punishments are a relic of the past and best left in the dust bin of seventh century Arabian society?”

Yes. I don’t agree with how you phrased it but yes, they are outdated and cruel by modern standards. But at the time they were justified.

But you forget that even Spencer admitted the role of outside Western pressure and inside Western pressure (from Western-educated pashas). And it wasn’t the just the introduction of “man made law”, it was the use of the same religious reasoning that allowed Jewish scholars to ‘remove’ the death penalty.

Do you join me in condemning the unnecessary Western interference in Muslim governments that has in the past led to the destruction of Muslim countries such as the Ottoman Empire, oppression of Muslim people through colonialism, the exploitation of natural resources owned by Muslims and is now preventing Muslims from obtaining freedom and democracy in Egypt?

“According to my source, all Hadd laws were abolished except the punishment for apostasy.”

Does your source happen to be the Ottoman Caliph?

I found something better to refute both your arguments — that the death penalty for apostasy was not abolish by the Ottoman Empire and that the Western powers had nothing to do with it. Samuel Marinus Zwemer. Perhaps the most famous Christian missionary to the Muslim world who managed to get himself an impressive “probably less than a dozen [converts] during his nearly forty years of service”. But the books, magazines and articles the man published are huge. He was kind of like a 19th and 20th Century Spencer. If you read his works they are exactly Spencer-style. In this article (rant) about Apostasy, he is incensed that some Ahmadis in Britain had sent a paper to the House of Commons in which they said that Apostasy was not punishable by death and then he went on a long rant, picking out Quranic verses and Hadith to say that apostasy is punishable by death and that they were not telling the truth. (Zwemer had heard of taqqiya but hadn’t learnt how to randomly use that concept to imply a Muslim spokesman is lying)

In any case, I wouldn’t use him as a source on Islam but I assume you might like him. Even he acknowledges that the death penalty was abolished by the state. “In Turkey the Law of Apostasy was naturally the law of the courts for many centuries, until, on November 3rd, 1839, Sultan Abdul Medjid issues an imperial rescript named the Hatti Sherif, promising to protect the life, honour and property of all Ottoman subjects irrespective of religion. This was a great step forward.”

Even though the death penalty was no longer the punishment, an Armenian was beheaded in Instanbul for the crime a few years later. As usual, the Western powers pounced upon this incident, using it for propaganda and increased the pressure on the Ottoman Empire to abolish their laws. (Reminds me of what’s going on with Asia Bibi).

“The execution aroused the ambassadors of England, France, Russia and Prussia, who united in a formal demand upon the Sultan to abolish the death penalty for change of religion.”

The Sultan responded:

“Under pressure brought to bear by the before-named ambassadors, led by the British, the Sultan, on March 21st, 1844, gave a written pledge as follows:–”The Sublime Porte engages to take effectual measures to prevent, henceforward, the persecution and putting to death of the Christian who is an apostate”.

The text is long and typical Christian missionary propaganda, and despite admitting the Sultan had abolished it he continues to prove that apostasy is punishable by death, even though he wants abolition of the law. And guess what? It includes theories of creeping Sharia and stealth Jihad from 1924! I kid you not.

http://www.muhammadanism.org/Zwemer/apostasy.pdf