An Egyptian Muslim who converted to Christianity has gone into hiding, facing death threats after he launched an attempt to get official recognition of his change of religion, an unprecedented step in this conservative Islamic nation.
An Islamist cleric has vowed to seek Mohammed Hegazy's execution as an apostate, his family has shunned him, and Hegazy raised a storm of controversy when pictures of him posing for journalists with a poster of the Virgin Mary were published in the newspapers.
"They think I am crazy or something," the 25-year-old Hegazy said of his family, speaking to The Associated Press by phone from his hideout.
Hegazy made an unusual public splash because he sought to raise a court case to officially change his religion on his national ID card, likely the first time a Muslim-born convert has sought to do so in Egypt. His first lawyer filed the case, but then quit after the uproar, and his second is still considering whether it's worth pursuing the attempt.
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There is no law on the books in Egypt against converting from Islam to Christianity, but in this case tradition trumps the law. Under a widespread interpretation of Islamic law, converting from Islam is apostasy and is punishable by death — though killings are rare and the state has never ordered or carried out an execution.
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Hegazy's first lawyer, Mamdouh Nakhlah, told the AP he initially accepted the case because of an editorial last month by one of Egypt's highest Islamic clerics, the Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, who wrote against the killing of apostates, saying there is no worldly retribution for Muslims who abandon their religion.
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If the case makes it to court, it is opening an unknown realm of Egyptian law. Earlier this year, a court rejected an attempt by a group of Christians who had converted to Islam but then returned to Christianity and sought to restore their original religion on their ID cards.
The judge ruled that the group was treating religion like a "game" and "exploiting religion." When a higher court agreed last month to hear the group's appeal, it raised a new storm of controversy, and the appeals court has yet to rule.
Al Masry Al Yom reports that Dr. Amna Nosseir, member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs and a professor of Islamic philosophy at Al-Azhar University, said that since Hegazy converted to another "book-religion", he should face no 'hadd' and should not be killed, more so because he is not a fighter and does not fight Muslims or Islam.
On a humourous note, Dr. Amna added that Hegazy is no loss for Islam and sadly no gain for Christianity either!
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