Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi's Blog

The 'Hadd' Punishment Against Apostasy from Islam

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi  •  updated Jun 1, 2024 
Cross-posted from Substack

Recently, Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, a prominent British Muslim convert to Islam, issued an 'apology' on Twitter/X in which he clarified: "I fully believe in, support and defend all Islamic laws, including hadd for ridda." As the historian and linguist Marijn van Putten notes, just remove the veil of the Arabic terminology and what Hamza is calling for is the application of the death penalty against apostates (i.e. people who have abandoned Islam). While Marijn decried Hamza's remarks and suggested he would report them, Professor Jonathan Brown of Georgetown University (himself a convert to Islam) offered soft apologia for Hamza's position, describing them as "totally unremarkable religious belief." For his part, Javad Hashmi of Harvard University, who co-hosted a Bible-Qur'an course with famous New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman, critiqued Hamza's position as a "backwards, medieval view" and offered a substantive refutation of it, but he nonetheless suggested it was reflective of 'cancel culture' to report such views as problematic to social media or employers. That there are academics at prestigious Western universities offering these sorts of soft apologetics for Hamza's position is remarkable to me, but I guess the issue requires some explanation.

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Behind the Idlib Protests

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi  •  updated Jun 1, 2024 
Cross-posted from Substack

The Syrian government is not the only actor to be facing sustained protests against its rule. In the 'liberated' northwest of Syria- specifically the region of Idlib and its environs- there have been widespread demonstrations over the past three months or so against some of the policies of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, the dominant insurgent faction, led by Abu Muhammad al-Jowlani. Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham exercises authority not only through its military wing but also various bodies that are nominally independent but in fact backed and controlled by the group, such as the 'Salvation Government' and the 'Public Security Apparatus.' Ultimately, the status quo in the northwest- sustained since 2020 by a ceasefire arrangement brokered between Russia and Turkey- has given rise to a system that has many parallels with how Hamas governed Gaza prior to Israel's latest military campaign: one faction exerting hegemony and implementing an Islamist, authoritarian mode of governance.

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