During the month of May, several international religious freedom matters were widely reported. Most notable among them was the Boko Haram kidnapping of a group of school girls in Nigeria. Kidnappers threatened to force these girls into marriage, and convert the Christians among them to Islam.
KARAMAH has spoken for years about women’s rights in Islam, and in particular about the importance of free consent to the validity of a marriage. Today we issue this alert to discuss specifically the Islamic right of the Christian school girls, and every other human being, to choose their own belief system. The Islamic position on freedom of religion can be summarized by one famous verse the Qur’an (2:256), which states:
“Let there be no compulsion in religion…”
In other words, forced conversion to any religion, including Islam, is invalid because it is not the result of free choice by an un-coerced will.
In typical KARAMAH style, we provide educational material on the matter backed by academic references. KARAMAH has posted on its website a valuable article by Professor Muhammad Hashim Kamali on freedom of religion in Islam, from his book Freedom of Expression in Islam. We urge you to read it.
What we need today is a better global understanding of each other, so that we can help repair this global village together.
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