The tragic story of Meriam Ibrahim, a 27-year-old woman sentenced to death for apostasy in Khartoum, where she is being held with her 20-month-old son, has shocked and saddened millions of rational, moral and empathic people around the world. Along with other leaders from the international community, I have written personally to the president of Sudan seeking Ibrahims release and am very hopeful she will soon be reunited with her family. As is frequently the case with our media working to the demands of a frenzied 24-hour news cycle, there have been a lot of loud opinions expressed in even louder voices. These have only served to obscure the facts, a close discernment of which would give any rational person hope that we will soon see an end to this senseless tragedy. Ibrahim has been sentenced for apostasy, a word that is derived from the Greek apostasia, which means defection or deviation. In Ibrahims case there have been not one, but two defections – from the Sudanese constitution and from the teachings of Islam. First, the fact that Ibrahim has been sentenced to death by a lower court, whose ruling has no standing in federal matters, has been largely ignored. The interim constitution of Sudan, drafted in 2005, explicitly permits freedom of religion in Sudan. Article 38 of the constitution, which deals with freedom of creed and worship, states that every person shall have the right to the freedom of religious creed and worship – and no person shall be coerced to accept a faith that she or he does not believe in. Whether the government of President Omar al-Bashir has followed the letter of the countrys law in its actions to date is beside the point. The point is that the case has no legal standing in a higher court. The unconstitutionality of Ibrahims sentencing (in addition to the international outrage) explains why Abdullahi Alazreg, under-secretary at Sudans Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has issued a statement saying that he expects her to be released soon (although the latest reports suggest that offer may have been retracted). There is another apostasy that bears looking at in greater detail. Ibrahims sentencing is also a clear deviation from the basic tenets of Sharia law. The famous jurist al-Ghazali (considered by many to be the single most influential Muslim after the prophet Muhammad) has stated the freedom of religion as the first of five essential rights that Sharia has granted to all individuals – the others having to do with the protection of life, lineage, intellect and property. And yet, despite all of this, Ibrahim was sentenced in the name of Islamic law. How did this happen? Her case is symptomatic of a larger malaise afflicting the Arab and Muslim world, in which events are unfolding in a manner devoid of a rational compass or a clear moral underpinning. As we have seen in the recent past, when the public puts forth questions to the religious authorities they receive answers that in many cases clash with Islamic teachings, are not governed by logic or are simply unpalatable to taste. The end result is a confusion that becomes apparent in matters such as womens rights or the freedom of belief.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 03:22:04 +0000
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