Religious Freedom, Minorities Rights & Apostasy in Islam 

Interesting to see Dr Brown translating for Shaykh Bin Bayyah in place of his usual translator Sh. Hamza Yusuf :)

As a native Arab am amazed of the accuracy of Dr. Jonathan's translation.

I think the fear of sharia law is that it falls on the human to dictate and can be so easily as any law can become corrupt. The little I know about sharia law is that it is fair but again can become corrupt and that is scary.

Shukran jazeelan :)

The 'Shariah' is not what the Muslims practice, rather the practice of 'Shariah' in accordance to the Noble Quran and the authentic 'Sunnah'

"Alwaleed Bin Talal center" !!!!! Ar you kidding me? ... are you freaking kidding me ... ? Do you know who Al Walid Bin Talal is and the amount of filth that surrounds his name. Al Walid Bin Talal is the owner of MOST if not all entertainment TV networks in the middle east ... and when I say entertainment ... you should picture the kind of entertainment one finds in hip hop music videos with all the semi-naked girls and stuff ... that's what you will see on his "Rotana network" ... and not only music videos ... but movies and all sorts of filth shows Al Walid Bin Talal is the farthest Saudi prince from islam ... the guy is a known fornicator ... women are suing him in france and spain for rape ... and now he has an institute in the US for islam ... WHAAAAAT at first I was interested in the video ... but then when I saw the name in the back ... I was shocked ... Dude this guy and this institute and these conferences have only one goal apparently ... and that is to infiltrate islam and muslims' minds and distort our religion ... good can not come from filth and filthy people ...

The Jihad declared by Abu Bakr RA against the apostates and the eventual agreement to it by the Sahabah RAA clearly proves that those persons who received religious instruction directly from the Prophet were united in deciding that an Islamic government should wage war against any group that renounces Islam. Some people argue that this event was a jihad because they consider the apostates to have been rebels who had ceased paying the government tax (zakat), dismissed the government officials and began to establish their own governments. But this argument is definitely wrong on four accounts: 1. Not all the people against whom the jihad was conducted withheld zakat. In fact they included various types of apostates. Some Arabs believed in individuals who had laid claim to prophethood and proclaimed their message in various corners of Arabia. Others renounced their faith in the prophethood of Muhammad (Sallallahu Alaihi wasallam) saying that if Muhammad had been a prophet, he would not have died. Some people acknowledged all the requirements of religion and were ready to pay even zakat. But, they added, they themselves would collect and spend their zakat and would not give it to the officials of Abu Bakr. 2. For all these various kinds of people the Companions of the Prophet used the word "apostate" (murtadd) instead of "rebel" and the word "apostasy" (irtidad) instead of "rebellion" when referring to that disturbance. From this it is clearly evident that in their view the real crime that the people had committed was apostasy and not rebellion. At the time when Abu Bakr sent Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahl to wage a jihad against the people in South Arabia who had confessed the prophethood of Laqit ibn Malik al-Azdi, he advised him: Wherever you find apostates from Oman to Hadramaut and Yemen, crush them. 3. When doubt was expressed regarding the permissibility or otherwise of waging a war against those who refused to pay zakat, Abu Bakr replied: By God! I will wage war against anyone who differentiates between prayer and zakat. This clearly means that in the view of the first caliph their real crime was not the withholding of zakat but the acceptance of one pillar (of Islam) and the rejection of another. Finally the companions agreed with the caliph to wage jihad against those refusing to pay zakat only because they were completely satisfied with the incumbent caliph's arguments that the opponents had renounced the true religion by drawing a distinction between prayer and zakat. 4. More decisive than all of the above is Abu Bakr's proclamation which he had issued in writing to each of the commanders of the eleven armies at the time he sent the armies to the various parts of Arabia to wage jihad against the apostates. The following sentences especially merit consideration: "I have come to know about the movement of those among you who have accepted following Satan and who, having no fear of God, have turned from Islam to kufr. Now I have sent you someone with an army of believers and have advised him to accept nothing from anyone except faith and to execute no one without first inviting him to God, the Mighty and Glorious One. Then whoever accepts his invitation to God and, after confession, maintains good conduct, he will accept his confession and assist him in walking in the right path. And he will fight whoever refuses until he returns to the commandment of God." (Al-Bidayah w'al-Nahayah (Vol. 6, p. 316). "