There is no coercion under Islam—except when there is.
Fatah officials in Ramallah claimed over the weekend that Professor Sana al-Sayegh, who teaches at Palestine University in Gaza City, was kidnapped by Hamas militiamen who forced her to convert to Islam against her will.
The officials said the president of the university, Dr. Zaher Khail, had assisted Hamas in kidnapping the professor.
They added that senior officials in the office of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh played a major role in forcing her to convert to Islam.
“She was forced to convert to Islam against her will,” the Fatah officials said. “She was kidnapped and held for two weeks during which time she was not allowed to contact her family.” Sayegh is the dean of the Science and Technology Faculty at Palestine University. She has represented the university at numerous conferences around the world over the past few years and is considered one of the most prominent experts in her field.
So much for the much-vaunted claims of religious tolerance by the Hamas leadership. Say hello to Hamastan.
Two weeks later the family was summoned to a meeting with some of Haniyeh’s aides, who were accompanied by the professor.
At the meeting, which was held at the home of Hamas official Rafik Makki, the family was told that the professor had converted to Islam and married a Muslim man.
When the professor’s stunned mother asked her if this was true, she nodded her head, murmuring: “Yes, God has guided me through the right path.” The mother later claimed that her daughter made the statement under threats from Hamas gunmen who were in the room.
You think PCUSA is going to protest this? Or that the Methodists, currently gearing up for an Israeli boycott, will mention the forced conversion of Christians in the Palestinian territories, as perhaps something they might object to?
Nah, me neither.
Sure, no compulsion… or kidnapping or rape, either.
Whom do they think they’re fooling?
They actually think that conversion under the threat of death is legitimate. After all, that is how they got started in the beginning.
This goes back a long way. Maimonides had to leave Spain because the Almoravides, a sort of proto-Wahhabi sect of barbarians from south of the Atlas Mountains that ruled the country then, was forcing Jews to convert to Islam. Of course he ended up in Egypt under Saladin’s rule, a more civilized milieu.