Ex-Muslims comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. One of them is the individuals who did not stop believing in a faith, or a god, and transitioned into another faith from Islam. Or a more moderated, ordinary version of the faith compared to, for example, the Islamists who want political power.
Some even become religious leaders in another faith. One example was recently reported on wit the Reverend Majed El Shafie. He was being tortured and imprisoned on Egypt. He was leading a successful underground church movement. Christians who were Muslims. It happens, more than one might assume.
Shafie was held in the Abu Zabal Prison for one week in 1998 because of leading a group of 24,000 Christians in a religious movement. It was stated that he would be free and have his vehicle returned to him, as well as a house and a beautiful woman if he renounced his fellows in the Christian faith. An interesting offer, seems.
Granted, this publication is the Christian Post, so pardon the slant of the reportage here — skeptical antennae up!
The only name sold out by Shafie, apparently, was his Lord and Saviour: Jesus Christ. To most reading these references to higher powers and prophets do not hold much weight.
After saying these things, Shafie was beaten or three days with further torture and imprisonment. Then he was sent to the police hospital to recover for three months. On three charges, he was sentenced to death.
The intimidation tactic, as is usual by states, was to shut him up. Shafie escaped to Israel and was given asylum in Canadian society. He wanted to created a human rights non-profit to help the innumerable number of persecuted religious believers of faiths all over the world.
He did. Now, it has been operational for about 15 years or more. The organization is One Free World International, and remains based on the real suffering of a persecuted religious person and, in particular and relevant to the community here, an ex-Muslim. Another flavour or variety of ex-Muslim in the growing community of non-believers.
Rev. Shafie stated, “I was taken to the prison for seven days torture… They started by shaving my hair off my head, putting my head in buckets of cold and hot water, hanging me upside down. On the third day, they released dogs to attack me but the dogs didn’t attack. After that, they crucified me for two days and a half.”
He described how they caused a cut on the back his left shoulder, to the bone, and then rubbed salt in the open wound, where he almost died and need hospital treatment for those three months as a result.
The torturers did not want Shafie dead right away; they wanted the reverend, and ex-Muslim, to suffer first, and quite a lot by the sound and tone of it. They then work to destroy the reputation of the individual before killing them to keep them from becoming a martyr for the general public.
If you are a religious ex-Muslim, you may want to look into the organization founded by Shafie through a Google or other search engines. There are all kinds of help available in the world. It is only a matter of finding it.
Reference
Smith, S. (2018, August 1). Egyptian Pastor Details How He Was Tortured for Christ, Used Jet Ski to Escape. Retrieved from https://www.christianpost.com/news/egyptian-pastor-details-how-he-was-tortured-for-christ-used-jet-s….
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