Originally posted by Sombra
Please could you tell me if this information is wrong, or how should I interpret it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy#In_Islam
I'm just curious. Thx.
I can only tell you my personal story about this.
When I was born I was registered as shi.ite iranian moslem like my parents. That was during the Shah reign. My parents were no religious fanatics - although both were believing in Islam they decided that neither my brother nor I have to learn about religion. So both we havent visited religious schools or lessons or something like that. We should decide by ourself if we want to learn about religion or not.
When the revolution started in Iran I was 13. I am sure that there would have been great problems if I made my decison to put down my status as shi.ite moslem in the first years of the revolution then I would have got many problems - that was a really mad time - especially the first year.
But 5 years later I had only to pay some money to some officials and everything was OK. I was also not defined as a heretic and also have not got any problems when I am dealing with iranian officials like from the embassy if I am not in iran or the others when i am in iran.
My aunt switched from Islam to christianity. That caused more problems, but according to the iranian constitution there are 4 religions defined as the religion of believers:
Islam
Christianity
Judaism
Zoroastrism.
In Iran you get extreme problems if you are member of the Bahai religion.
But I havent seen that christians, jews or zoroastrians were hunted or threatened because of their religion. Or myself for putting down shi.ite islam.
Maybe this WIKI-topic about apostasy in Islam is more for sunnite islam.
As I mentioned I dont know much about religions - so I am not the specialist to ask about this - sorry