The CBC’s Shanifa Nasser, her bio tells us, “holds a Master’s degree in Islamic Studies,” and here she is doing her best to transform a feel-good story about a teenage girl rescued from danger into something ugly and suspicious, from which the “far-right,” those ever-present bogeymen, will benefit.

“What happens the next time a teenage girl or adult woman from Saudi Arabia flees her family and declares herself to no longer be a Muslim, does that mean automatic sanctuary?”

Well, why not?

“In Saudi Arabia, leaving Islam is treated as a crime punishable by death.”

Nasser, despite her Master’s degree in Islamic Studies, neglects to inform us that the death penalty for apostasy is not just Saudi law, but Islamic law. The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law. It’s based on the Qur’an: “They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved so you would be alike. So do not take from among them allies until they emigrate for the cause of Allah. But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper.” (Qur’an 4:89)

A hadith depicts Muhammad saying: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57). The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence.

This is still the position of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, both Sunni and Shi’ite. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the most renowned and prominent Muslim cleric in the world, has stated: “The Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished, yet they differ as to determining the kind of punishment to be inflicted upon them. The majority of them, including the four main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali) as well as the other four schools of jurisprudence (the four Shiite schools of Az-Zaidiyyah, Al-Ithna-‘ashriyyah, Al-Ja’fariyyah, and Az-Zaheriyyah) agree that apostates must be executed.”

Qaradawi also once famously said: “If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment, Islam wouldn’t exist today.”

“Who benefits from rescuing Rahaf? Questions linger after whirlwind story of Saudi teen’s asylum, by Shanifa Nasser, CBC News, January 14, 2019: