Religion Islam: Conceptions and misconceptions

[Mycernius]

Firstly I would apologise to anyone for doing this thraed first, but I felt that it is time for this subject to be broached. Mainly it is to carry on the discussion that has started in What does religion that nothing else can bring. At the moment there is quite a discussion concerned with Islam and it should really have its own place. For past reference see this page at post 90 and subsequent posts after it. I hope there are more muslim members on the forum that can post here beside Belle74311 san. A wider view on this subject would be better than just one person defending it.
It seems that Islam is currently a misunderstood religion because of the current problems in the Middle East. There also seems to be a subject that a lot of people will not criticise or analyse in any detail, the way that Christianity is. Whether it is the PC lobby that have caused this silence or not I don't know, but it seems whilst you can happily have a go at Christianity, its belief system, different following and interpretations there seem to be an almost complete silence on Islam. Hopefully this thread can shed a bit more light on Islam along with constructive criticism about its beliefs. Please keep it civil and polite or it could end up being locked down as have other threads on Islam because some people are intolerant idiots.

 

[Tsuyoiko]

I find it hard to contribute to a discussion about Islam because of my ignorance of the subject - unlike Christianity, which I know a lot more about as I was brought up as a Christian. Perhaps that is why other people find it hard to discuss too. But I have certainly learnt a lot from Belle so far, and I hope contributions from Belle and other Muslims on this thread will help me learn more

 

[Revenant]

I don't really have anything to add, just that I am quite happy to hear from a seriously practicing Muslim. I would like to hear more about Islam from a practitioners point of view, and especially, were it possible, some of the more moving verses. Most often, I hear some of the verses that are supposed to support some person's theory that Islam is an evil religion.

I have heard that, as Belle74211 has said, that the Quran, and Muhammad's (sp?) writings are truly a moving pieces of work, and that it really is a passionate message of love.

 

[bossel]

Do I sense a slight bias here? This is quite a misrepresentation. If I'm not mistaken, Shia do believe in Mohammed being the prophet, but that Ali would have been his "natural" successor as leader (not prophet) of all Muslims.

If that was the case, they wouldn't put Ali (may God be please w/him) higher than the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh).

What makes you think so? According to shia.org:
"Prophet Muhammad Mustafa (PBUH&HF) is the last of the prophets sent by God and the sealer of prophets for NO more are to come, EVER!"

Oh my! The Gospel of Barnabas.
That little medieval fake (oooh, I meant antique relic) that was nowhere to be found (or mentioned) until the 16th century.

Haha..very funny. I'm not Christian so I don't take offense to it. Either way...why would the mention of Muhammed (pbuh) be "invented" into Christian scripture if they're so against it?

Christian scripture? Why, how, when, what? It's not Christian scripture. As I said, it's most probably a medieval fake. Perhaps done by a former Christian converted to Islam, but nobody knows.

BTW, AFAIK, the GoB calls Mohammed the Messiah. What's your opinion?

what does AFAIK and GoB mean? Sorry i'm ignorant w/the abreviations!:souka:

AFAIK = as far as I know
GoB = Gospel of Barnabas

There is not one single contradiction in the Quran, there is not one single disproved scientific fact in the Quran. If you pick up a Quran in Japan, and one in Malaysia, one in India, Egypt, France, American, it is all EXACTLY the same. There is not one punctuation missing in the Quran. For over 1400 years it has been kept perserved because it is the word of God.

If it has been preserved so well, how comes that after finding & restaurating Koran fragments from perhaps 1200 years ago, German scientist Puin (link only German, sorry) comes to the conclusion that up to 1/5th of the Koran has to be re-read/-interpreted? Reason being mainly that many Aramaisms in the Arabic language of the day later were given up in favour of related Arabic terms with a more or less similar, but not identical, meaning.

For disproved scientific "facts":
2. 261.The likeness of those who spend their wealth in the Way of Allâh, is as the likeness of a grain (of corn); it grows seven ears, and each ear has a hundred grains.

18.47. And (remember) the Day We shall cause the mountains to pass away (like clouds of dust), and you will see the earth as a levelled plain, and we shall gather them all together so as to leave not one of them behind

20.53. Who has made earth for you like a bed (spread out); and has opened roads (ways and paths etc.) for you therein; and has sent down water (rain) from the sky. And We have brought forth with it various kinds of vegetation.

18.86. Until, when he reached the setting place of the sun, he found it setting in a spring of black muddy (or hot) water.

86.5. So let man see from what he is created!
6. He is created from a water gushing forth
7. Proceeding from between the back-bone and the ribs,

a.s.o. (and so on)

 

[Mycernius]

The Qu'ran suffers from the same problem as the Bible. A writen source that has been transcibe over the centuries. Mistakes will happen and inconsistences will appear. No matter how good the copist are human errror will happen. There is also the change and usage of language, as Bossel pointed out, over the span of time. The original Qu'ran was written almost 1500 years ago in a particular poetic style. Language changes over that amount of time. Modern arabic will read differently than ancient arabic. Language evolve, the best examples being English and Spanish and even Japanese.

Thanks for the sites Kumo. I'm really learning a lot about how people love to distort the Quran because there's no mistake or contradiction in it. And it makes me even stronger in my faith. You gave me a lot of stuff here, and it's obvious that i can't go through each one of them on this site. So here's something even better and far superior to my knowledge:

http://www.submission.org/answering-Islam.htm

I have only been able to look at one of the links you showed because there's a lot of stuff in there. But the site above, if i'm not mistaken, answers every single contradiction. It's there to go through and look at if you want.

And here's another:

http://www3.sympatico.ca/shabir.ally/new_page_6.htm

It answers the supposed contradiction of the inheritance law in the Quran. This site contains 3 pages worth of information on just that one topic that will completely disprove those claims. It just goes to show how much answers can be given on just one false claim.

You can find the same sort of sites for people who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. using inconsistant logic to try an make the errors fit so they do not appear as errors.
Just as a side note. I have several muslim friends. As with most muslims, when they were young they went to the mosque to learn to read the Qu'ran in arabic. What they told me was they were taught to read and recite from it, but were never taught what the words meant. Meaning that the only arabic that they were taught was in the book. Hardly any of them can actually read, write and speak arabic apart from tracts from the Qu'ran. They were not taught how to interpret the book from a critical point of view, just recite and repeat.

 

[belle74311]

I don't really have anything to add, just that I am quite happy to hear from a seriously practicing Muslim. I would like to hear more about Islam from a practitioners point of view, and especially, were it possible, some of the more moving verses. Most often, I hear some of the verses that are supposed to support some person's theory that Islam is an evil religion.

I have heard that, as Belle74211 has said, that the Quran, and Muhammad's (sp?) writings are truly a moving pieces of work, and that it really is a passionate message of love.

I just wanted to thank you for a positive comment and thank you Mycernius for opening up this subject to others. The Quran is really a truly moving piece of work. Everytime I open it up, it's as if it's talking to me. And I have heard that from other Muslims as well. The best way is to get your hands on a Quran (Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation) because he is the most accepted and his comentaries really go into detail. And another thing that I have experienced in Islam is that there is no limit. The more you delve into it, the wider it opens up...it really is amazing. And the yes, reading the verses of the Quran are moving, but also if you've ever heard it...even if you don't understand, can bring people to tears because of how beautiful it sounds. The Quran is beautiful, and when you combine the Quran, the recitation of it, the prayer, the examples of Prophet Muhammed (pbuh...there are different spellings in English ) it becomes an experience you will never want to fall out of.

There is also a book called Hadith. The Hadith is basically collections of the things that Prophet (pbuh) did and said in his everyday life. There is one by Sahih al Bukhari...if you can get that one as well, it would be really good because it can help you understand Islam further.

I'm sure that Christianity is discussed more than Islam, so the best way to come to understand Islam is to purchase the texts that I have given you above. Also, I recomend lectures from Hamza Yusuf if you can find it. He's a Christian convert to Islam...speaks English perfectly and really explains things in a way you will be able to understand. So I hope these things are helpful for you guys who want to know more about Islam.

 

[belle74311]

What makes you think so? According to shia.org:
"Prophet Muhammad Mustafa (PBUH&HF) is the last of the prophets sent by God and the sealer of prophets for NO more are to come, EVER!"



Christian scripture? Why, how, when, what? It's not Christian scripture. As I said, it's most probably a medieval fake. Perhaps done by a former Christian converted to Islam, but nobody knows.


AFAIK = as far as I know
GoB = Gospel of Barnabas


If it has been preserved so well, how comes that after finding & restaurating Koran fragments from perhaps 1200 years ago, German scientist Puin (link only German, sorry) comes to the conclusion that up to 1/5th of the Koran has to be re-read/-interpreted? Reason being mainly that many Aramaisms in the Arabic language of the day later were given up in favour of related Arabic terms with a more or less similar, but not identical, meaning.

For disproved scientific "facts":
2. 261.The likeness of those who spend their wealth in the Way of Allâh, is as the likeness of a grain (of corn); it grows seven ears, and each ear has a hundred grains.

18.47. And (remember) the Day We shall cause the mountains to pass away (like clouds of dust), and you will see the earth as a levelled plain, and we shall gather them all together so as to leave not one of them behind

20.53. Who has made earth for you like a bed (spread out); and has opened roads (ways and paths etc.) for you therein; and has sent down water (rain) from the sky. And We have brought forth with it various kinds of vegetation.

18.86. Until, when he reached the setting place of the sun, he found it setting in a spring of black muddy (or hot) water.

86.5. So let man see from what he is created!
6. He is created from a water gushing forth
7. Proceeding from between the back-bone and the ribs,

a.s.o. (and so on)

Bossel...I asked about this one and it turns out that you are right. Some Shias believe that Ali( may Allah be pleased w/him) should have been the natural successor, but there are also Shias that believe that the prophethoon of Muhammed (pbuh) should have gone to Ali ( may Allah be pleased w/him). So I guess there's 2 diffferent things going on here. But thanks for educating me on that one!

About GoB...Muhammed (pbuh) is a Prophet...not a Messiah.

Also..about the disproved scientific facts...what's disproved about the verses you gave?

 

[Mars Man]

Another nice thread Mycernius !! I feel that it is especially a matter or balance for those who wish to discuss Islam. You hit the nail right on the head with the concern over the silence of Isalmic critique. I feel that there will be a good reason for such if it were to be thouroghly seached out and analyized.

I cannot add much to the discussion, but what I can, I will, as time goes by.

 

[Zentron]

Just as a side note. I have several muslim friends. As with most muslims, when they were young they went to the mosque to learn to read the Qu'ran in arabic. What they told me was they were taught to read and recite from it, but were never taught what the words meant. Meaning that the only arabic that they were taught was in the book. Hardly any of them can actually read, write and speak arabic apart from tracts from the Qu'ran. They were not taught how to interpret the book from a critical point of view, just recite and repeat.

That's kinda how it was with the Bible when it was written in Latin, nobody knew, apart from the Bishops/Priests/Vicars/whatever, how to read, write, speak Latin, so common folk didn't know what the Bible really said. Then after a few hundred people were killed, it was finally managed to get written in English so everyone could actually see what was in there... although... after that, many dropped Christianity, so there are two sides to knowing what your religious texts actually say and mean.

Just wanted to give a couple of cents.

 

[bossel]

About GoB...Muhammed (pbuh) is a Prophet...not a Messiah.

Then the GoB is not acceptable to Muslims?

Also..about the disproved scientific facts...what's disproved about the verses you gave?

- not "each ear [of grain] has a hundred grains"
- the Earth is not flat
- the sun does not set "in a spring of black muddy (or hot) water"
- men are not created from "water gushing forth & proceeding from between the back-bone and the ribs"

Perhaps your answer will be that those are only metaphors, but then what about scientific validity?

 

[belle74311]

Then the GoB is not acceptable to Muslims?

I've explained this before. The gospels in its original uncorrupted state are accpetable to Muslims.


- not "each ear [of grain] has a hundred grains"
I'm not a corn expert lol so can you give me some literature please?

- the Earth is not flat
Scientist can not disprove something that has not happened yet. This is clearly talking about the Day of Judement when everything will be leveled out...meaning the mountains, hills, buildings etc will all turn to dust. It does not say that the earth is flat! And God knows best what will happen that Day.

- the sun does not set "in a spring of black muddy (or hot) water"
What's the problem with this one?

- men are not created from "water gushing forth & proceeding from between the back-bone and the ribs"
I'm not sure who translated this link, but the Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation says:

"He (man) is created from a drop emitted"
"Proceeding from between the backbone and the ribs."
Male reproductive organ, from which there is a drop emitted, is between the backbone and the ribs.

Perhaps your answer will be that those are only metaphors, but then what about scientific validity?

I will give this website again:

http://www.aswatalislam.net/DisplayFilesP.aspx?TitleID=50027&TitleName=Zakir_Naik

Try to listen to Zakir Naik - Qur'an And Bible In The Light Of Science Vs Campbell...there's 4 parts. A Chrstian missionary points out the supposed scientific contradictions in the Quran and you can listen to the Answer and decide for yourself and let me know what you think

Another thing that I would like to add is that God, through the Quran tells us not to get into useless debate...because it will really never end. I as a Muslim is supposed to give you the message of Islam, which I did, and now it's upto you guys to look further into it or not. Most people as stated, don't know that much about Islam. If you take links from random websites and plug it in here without understanding and going through the whole thing completely...there's really no point is there? I think I have provided sufficient information between the other thread and this one. God says "This Book (Quran) will guide millions and mislead millions" because if you take only a part of the verse and not look at the whole section it can seem to be saying something totally different.

So if you go search into Islam to look for contradictions, that's all you will find because that's all you're looking for. If you're looking for the truth, I'm telling you it's there. The whole thing. Things that are still not scientifically proven are in the Quran, and by God's will, it will be proven in the future. Science can take u-turns, but Quran doesn't. So I will leave you with some information and I hope you guys good luck and hope you find the Truth sometime in your life. I know some of you don't believe in God now, but if you do in the future, Islam is worth it.

 

[belle74311]

Trees in Germany declare the Islamic creed: "There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is the messenger of Allah"
http://al-furqan.5u.com/untitled1.JPG

Fish with "Allah" (swt) on it
http://al-furqan.5u.com/untitled0.JPG

Goat with "Allah" (swt) on it
http://www.al-furqan.5u.com/goatalone.jpg

The nebulae that spells "Allah" (swt) and "Mohammed"(v.z.m.h)
http://www.al-furqan.5u.com/barnard_84.jpg
This is a picture taken of Barnard 84. It is a dark nebulae, which is a cloud of gas and dust in space. Though this picture is not very clear, you can still make out "Allah" written perfectly in Arabic. Above it to the far left, and still more unclear and much smaller, is a figure that spells out "Mohammed." If you would like to see the picture clearly, check it out on an astronomy site.

Your lungs, whether you like it or not, are Muslim.
http://al-furqan.5u.com/Plant6.jpg
Air Tubes in the Lungs of All Human Beings
This is the pattern of air tubes in the lung of all human beings. The pattern has been worked out with extreme precision on a computer in Saudi Arabia. The air pipes are distributed in the shape of declaration of the Islamic creed in the Arabic language that affirms the Oneness of Allah and the Prophethood of Muhammad (PBUH)."
It reads: 'La ilaha Illa Allah, Muhammad-ur-Rasulullah' There is no deity but Allah and Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) is the Messenger of Allah.
Now you know what Allah means when He says in the Quran:
We will show them Our signs....IN THEIR OWN SOULS, until they clearly see that this is the truth...
[Fusilat : 53]
and
On the earth are signs for those of assured faith,AS ALSO IN YOUR OWN SELVES: Will you not then see? [Az-Zariyat: 20-21]

Your hand spells "Allah"
http://al-furqan.5u.com/hand.jpg

"Miracle child born in Iran"
http://al-furqan.5u.com/miraclekid.JPG
Mohammed Hussein Al-Tabatibani (six years old) is one of the greatest miracles of the 21st century. He has received three diplomas in Islamic Science and just recently got a Doctorate degree in Quranic Science from Al-Hijaz University in Britain. He is the youngest memorizer of the Quran (as of now) and he will not talk to anyone except using verses from it. How did he get like this? The father of this "Miracle child", as he is called, said that before his son was born he used to ask Allah to give him a smart,healthy,and trustworthy son and that He make him one of the influential scholars. Is there any doubt as to whether his supplication was answered or not?

"Baby children born with messages from Allah"
by Mahir Matthews, Chairman: University of stellenbosch Islamic Society, stellenbosch
minor changes made to suit non-Arabs
In Lester, England in 1999 a baby girl was born. She was born with closed fists. Seeing this and finding it pretty odd, the doctors operated on her hands to open them. To the doctors surprise after opening the wrists they found two writings. On the right hand it said, "LailahaillaAllah (There is no god but Allah)" and on the left it said "Kiyamah(Day of Judgment) is near" in Arabic. The baby girl passed away shortly after her operation. Many top scholars and sheikhs from England went to her funeral; even Hafiz Patel who started the work of "delivering the message(Islam)" in England. Also, on top of that another baby was born in the Middle East a few weeks before that. After operating on his hand as well it said "the Kalima" on the right and on the left hand it said, "The Day of Judgement is near"... Almost every one of the signs of Kiyamah being near are here...

Quran 16:68 - " And your Lord inspired the bee( grammar used for female bee), build your dwellings in hills, on trees and in (human's) habitations. " We found out after years of research : A swarm of bees (that collect the honey and build hives) consists of females only. The male bees do not take part in the construction of hive.


A Great Miracle
The word "Water" (seas,oceans,lakes) appears 32 times in the Quran
The word "Land" appears 13 times in the Quran

Now,add these numbers. The result is 45 (13+32=45), right? After arriving at this number, let us see the percentage of times water is mentioned in the Quran compared to the total amount of times the words land and water added together are mentioned.
[32/45] (100%) = 71.111111%, which equals the exact percentage of water on earth.

Now let us do the same procedure for land only placing the amount of times land is mentioned (13) instead of the amount that water (32) is mentioned.
[13/45] (100%) = 28.888889 %, which equals the exact percentage of land on earth.

Add the percentages and you come out with 100%. Is it possible that an illiterate shepherd living in the desert in the early 600's could have known any of this? No, it is impossible.Once again, conclusive evidence points to the fact that the Quran is the Word of Allah the One God and Muhammed is His prophet.

 

[No-name]

Some of that seems like the backmasking fad of the 70's and 80's or those 3D pictures I can never make out... I find it rather unconvincing. I've seen the cow with the mickey mouse spots, and I don't worship mickey mouse.

The bigger question for me would be: As a Christian who is greatly satisfied with his current realtionship with God, why should I care to investigate Islam?

When Jesus said, "It is finished." was he mistaken? When he claimed to be messiah, alpha and omega, son of God, was he mistaken? I always go back to the CS Lewis statement to the effect: Jesus was either a liar, a madman, or he was telling the truth.

Lastly- why the scriptural rewrite? The old and new testaments were fairly established and cannonized by 500 AD, and yet Islam throws them out and starts over?

 

[Mycernius]

I won't quote the entire above post because of its length, but I will comment on it. All this there is a pattern is a case of humans trying to justify how their faith is shown in our everyday lives. Humans will find patterns in anything, it is how our mind works. People will see what they want in random patterns. Hindus will see that their Gods are real by seeing patterns in food, skin and in the sky. The same goes for Christians and Jews. how many stories have you seen in the papers where someone ahs seen the face of Jesus on a piece of toast, or in the pattern of seeds on a piece of sliced fruit.
We can take all these example and put them into what is known as The law of truly large numbers. If you take a large enough sample of something because of the amount involved you will see coincidences that are not really their.
To take some of your examples:
The trees, Fish and Goat can all be found with example 'proving' that Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Jainism etc are the true faith and others are false. Random patterns give that are pure coincidences not proof of divine intervention. If they were they would always be the same.
The nebulae: Same as above. Plus the distance involved means the closer you get to this the less it would be the word of God. What we see now no longer exists because of the distance from the earth and the time light gets to travel to Earth.
The lungs: Have to trun them to make the words, plus all the branches are not included. The branches in the lungs go down to finer and finer tubes until they get to the exchange between blood and gas. Not surprsing this 'Proof' was found in Saudi Arabia, and extreme Muslim State. I would put as much faith into this if it had come from some christain medical college saying that they pattern show Christs true message.
Baby Children Born: Exactly the same as people who suffer stigmata. In that case they prove the wounds of Christ. Again random coincidences that are put into patterns to suit the faithful.
The Great Miracle: Number used to prove something. People used this exact method for the attacks of 9/11. Here are a few examples;
Date of Attack 9/11: 9+1+1=11
Sept 11th is the 254th day of that year: 2+5+4=11
State of New York: 11th state added to the union
New York City: 11 letters long
Flight 11 had 92 on board: 9+2=11
Thses example can be found all over the web under plots, conspiracies, divine retribution and other such things. Just a few things that make the above meaningless.
One tower was 1362 feet high: 1+3+6+2=12
The other was 1368 feet: 1+3+6+8=18
The 4 flights involved had 266 people in them: 2+6+6=14
Taking words from the Qu'ran and adding them up means nothing. It is how the supposed Bible Code works.
It is not conclusive towards anything.

 

[bossel]

A Chrstian missionary points out the supposed scientific contradictions in the Quran and you can listen to the Answer and decide for yourself and let me know what you think

I doubt that a Christian missionary can really speak on behalf of science. There may be exceptions, but...

Anyway, I don't see why I should listen to some crappy lectures. This is a discussion board, it's nice to give links to back up your claims, but it would be much better if you provided your own answers. We are discussing here, not some missionaries from either side.

Another thing that I would like to add is that God, through the Quran tells us not to get into useless debate...

Then why go to a discussion board? It's all about debate.

I as a Muslim is supposed to give you the message of Islam, which I did, and now it's upto you guys to look further into it or not.

To chicken out when it gets hard is not very convincing.

If you take links from random websites and plug it in here without understanding and going through the whole thing completely...there's really no point is there?

You talked about scientific validity of the Koran. If you don't analyse the points one by one, what else do you propose?

I think I have provided sufficient information between the other thread and this one.

Nope. You made a lot of claims, but if it came to backing them up, you didn't.

So if you go search into Islam to look for contradictions, that's all you will find because that's all you're looking for. If you're looking for the truth, I'm telling you it's there.

"if you go search into Islam to look for" truth, you will find it, but only the truth as you like it, want it, need it. Problem is: it usually isn't any truth that nears objectivity.

Trees in Germany declare the Islamic creed: "There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is the messenger of Allah"

The funny thing about this story about German converts is that virtually no German would recognise the "writing", for - believe it or not - they don't know any Arabic script!

Fish with "Allah" (swt) on it
Goat with "Allah" (swt) on it
Your hand spells "Allah"

Now if you compare these 3 what do you notice? That there are just some up & down lines which with a lot of imagination might symbolise something, from sardines in a tin to Allah.

For the rest of this post, I suppose, Mycernius said it all.

 

[Zentron]

I don't know much about Islam, the Quran or Mohammed, but what I do know is that the Quran means to 'surrender to God', of course I know it does mean a lot of other things, but this version is what I keep on hearing(from Muslims, not some white ignoramus who gets his info of a cereal box), personally I think that is as sad as the Christian 'fearing God but loving him'. And does anyone have any worries about taking moral lessons from a guy who marries 6 year olds and has sex with them at just 9?

 

[bossel]

In Germany there is a new book out just now, saying that Mohammed perhaps didn't exist & Islam originally was only some Christian heretic sect. I'll give more detail tomorrow.

 

[Sensuikan San]

....The Great Miracle: Number used to prove something. People used this exact method for the attacks of 9/11. Here are a few examples;
Date of Attack 9/11: 9+1+1=11
Sept 11th is the 254th day of that year: 2+5+4=11
....

Yeah!

And Sensuikan-San was born on September the 11th! Also - I was born in 1943. "7" has always been a lucky number for me.

Look at Belle's Avatar .......

I am child of destiny, perhaps ...... ?

Nah! As Mycernius said .... it's meaningless ....

.... isn't it? :liplick:

?W????




[/I][/B]

 

[Mars Man]

Wow!! Enlightenment. . . and now I know why I have five toes, and five fingers on each of those body parts called feet and hands, and five openings on my head......Nov. 7th 1956 at 11pm, added:
1+1+7+1+9+5+6+1+1+0+0=32, 3+2=5

and 5 is one less than six, which explains why all three names of mine, first, middle, and last all have 6 letters. That also explains why it is that I have only come to realize this now, 2005

Hey, I'm just having fun here, much more than trying to make any sarcastic statement--although seeing is believing, if you catch my drift, the mind automatically makes strong effort to see patterns in things.

 

[Mycernius]

Rather than start a new thread about his I decided that this could be better seen in this thread
'Judges to rule' on Kabul convert
I don't think this is doing any favours for the International Muslim community. Are there any muslims on the forum willing to talk about what this man has done and does it really merit such a harsh punishment?
To me they are helping label Islam as an intolerant religion. I know that Islam might frown upon this, the same way a Jew or Christian if it happened to their community, but not to this extent. It seems that despite removing the Taliban extremism still exists in Afghanistans judicary and government.