Stephen Schwartz looks at the April 10 death threat list issued by an Egyptian group called "Supporters of God's Messenger [Muhammad]" against Wafa Sultan and others accused of apostasy (takfir).
It's a very good article, historically literate and not a whitewash while offering a tour of various Islamic schools and their positions around takfir.
UPDATE: Hmm, maybe some whitewashing (Hat Tip: reader 'LTEC').
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This article (pointed to by LGF) seems to give some examples showing that Schwartz is whitewashing.
Besides whitewashing, a straw man: "It is also widely believed in the West that apostasy from Islam is invariably punished by death."
Is there anything to back that up? Is it true? I think not. I doubt vast numbers of people in the West even have an opinion on this - and if the issue was called to their attention, so that they had to form an opinion, they might guess that invariable punishment by death, as a matter of fact, cannot be the case. That is not how human beings, human politics, human history works.
But still the call for death - and in effect for any lesser penalty that the occasion and that political expediency and/or the fury of the faithful may call for - stands. Still the system that makes religious identity a matter of supremacist aggression and violent coercion stands. Still the threat points to every convert or potential convert out of Islam. And that is the real issue.
Robert Spencer has earned over the years a level of trust and confidence that Stephen Schwartz has not, and on current form is not going to. Jihad Watch will tell it to you like it is (give or take normal human lapses, early false reports that have to be revised in the light of later evidence, and all the familiar chaff of the blogsphere). TCS has some writers in whom I have very little confidence, whether they present themselves as "conservative" or part of the right wing crowd or not.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: nobody should get a free pass just for hanging with the "right" crowd.
David, after that little case in Afghanistan, I suspect the number of people with that belief is pretty high. So, no straw man. A reasonable assumption based on recent media stories.
Yes, it is.