Posted on 12/19/2004 9:59:27 PM PST by PetroniusMaximus
The Prince of Wales is brokering efforts to end the Muslim death penalty on converts to other faiths, The Telegraph has learned.
He held a private summit of Christian and Muslim leaders at Clarence House this month to explore the centuries-old Islamic law under which apostates face persecution and even death.
His intervention follows mounting anger at the treatment of Muslims who have converted to Christianity in a number of Islamic states.
As an advocate of inter-faith dialogue, Prince Charles has come under pressure to criticise the religious law that, campaigners say, has resulted in hundreds of executions in countries from Iran to Sudan.
Among the Christians at the confidential meeting was an Anglican archbishop from a part of Nigeria where Islamic Sharia law is enforced.
Others included the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, and the Pakistani-born Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali.
It is understood that the Muslim group, which included the Islamic scholar Zaki Badawi, cautioned the prince and other non-Muslims against speaking publicly on the issue.
It argued that Islamic moderates could have more influence on the traditional position if the debate remained largely internal.
A member of the Christian group said yesterday that he was "very, very unhappy" about the outcome.
Patrick Sookhdeo, the international director of the Barnabas Fund which campaigns on behalf of persecuted Christians abroad, stressed that he was speaking on the record only because details of the meeting had already leaked.
He urged the prince and Muslim leaders in Britain to criticise openly the traditional Islamic law on apostasy, calling for it to be abolished throughout the world.
"My view, and I think the other Christians shared it, is that when something is wrong it must be stated as a wrong."
Other Christian leaders were more sympathetic to the worries of the Muslims that public criticism could prove counter-productive.
Besides Dr Sookhdeo and the Bishops of London and Rochester, others Christian leaders at the meeting included the Archbishop of Kaduna in Nigeria, the Most Rev Josiah Idowu-Fearon, and a bishop from the Orthodox Church.
Other Muslim leaders included Sayyed Yousef al-Khoei, the director of the London-based Al-Khoei Foundation, and Sher Khan, of the Islamic Society of Britain.
I'll do it myself!
Already posterd here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1304186/posts
Thoughts...
Let's imagine there is such a thing is Reformed Islam -- a version that renounces all the belief and practices that are incompatible with the religion's coexistence with other religions and non-moslem populations of the world -- laws of apostasy, desire to dominate the world, subjugation of women, insistence on being the ONLY religion in host countries.
Moslem countries that openly and clearly embrace Reformed Islam are our friends. Those that don't, or embrace its unreformed version, get a declaration of war.
Why should they bother to have the meeting, then? I think it's time for Islam to be put in the same microscope as Christianity has been. The microscope of 'enlightened' ideas of liberty, individual freedom, etc.
Since Prince Charles sees himself as some kind of dispassionate go-between here, largely because he denies the primacy of the religion he was born into (like Wojtyla), he thinks the rhetoric of modern sophisticated Western secularism should do the trick and persuade these 'backward' people in the east to mend their ways. History has shown that the only things that will work are bombs and bucks and only temporarily.
Okay Prince -adultery and divorce are wrong.
Your beliefs should be of free will and not the dictate of a country or law.
What's happening in muslim countries is shamefull and is endemic of a religion that has no desire to co-exist.
Islam and its followers talk of the oppression of Muslims around the world in places like Chechnya, Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet the persercution and murder of thousands of Christians goes largely unoticed.
I see no march for them! Where are the people on the streets of London? Why does nobody speak out for those who have died at the hands of Muslims?
I think Prince Charles was right to speak out against the plight of so many Christians in Muslim Countries.
I agree -fraternal correction of anyone including Prince Charles does not ever negate Truth -even Truth spoken by sinners.
It's OK, there have been many double threads-- the emphasis here is on the religious aspect of the whole thing.
I just pray that Prince Charles is not signing his own death warrant here.
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