Last week, The Committee to Protect Journalists  in New York condemned a death sentence was handed down to Mauritanian blogger Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mohamed on apostasy charges in connection to an article he published a year ago called "Religion, religiosity and craftsmen," which said that followers of Islam interpreted the religion according to circumstance and criticized Mauritania's caste system.

In court, Mohamed said he had not intended to insult the Prophet Muhammad and had repented, according to news reports. However, the court proceeded to sentence him to death because of political and religious motives. A killing fatwa was issued against Mohamed, and nationwide demonstrations led his family to denounce him and his lawyer to drop him. No other lawyer other than those assigned by the court then came forward to take up his case. Mohamed is currently waiting for possible pardoning by the Supreme Court if his repentance is “verified”, according to article 306 of the Mauritanian penal code.

This is disturbing news for many around the world who believed the era of medieval inquisitions has passed. It is also disturbing for those like me who believes true Islam is a force of freedom, peace and justice, not oppression and subjection. However, it is hardly a surprise for me and many others who are familiar with the Sunni heritage itself and deny the existence of the so-called apostasy punishment in Islam based on the word of Quran itself, and the historical facts.  

Muhammad Ibn Iss-haq wrote Prophet Mohamed’s biography, pursuant to the order of the Abbasid Caliph al Mahdi, according to Sunni tradition. At that time, and for hundreds years to come, there was no written biography of Prophet Mohamed after his death. Ibn Iss-haq wrote the Prophet's biography from the figments of his imagination to satisfy the Caliph Mahdi, making  the character of Prophet Muhammad  much like that of  Abbasid caliph Al-Mansour, the father of Caliph Mahdi, who cemented the Abbasid state with an iron fist and blood and was famous for treachery, conspiracy and murder of prisoners.

Ibn Iss-haq attributed what he wrote on the Prophet’s biography to stories of narrators of the most famous Ibn Shihab Ezzuhri. However, analytical analysis of his history proves that Ezzuhri was not within the ranks of the prophet’s companions, for he was born in El-Medina the same year that the esteemed Aisha passed away, in the year 58 Hijri and died in 124 Hijri. Ezzuhri also was a traitor to his people, dwellers of Al-Medina, which was the home of the opposition to the Umayyads, who violated its sanctity through murder, rape and pillage in the battle of El-Harra.

Ezzuhri has also reasons for ill intent. He witnessed as a child the tragedy of his people in that battle and lived the sorrows of the people of Al-Medina, but he moved to Damascus offering his services to the Caliph Abdul Malik Bin Marwan, who re-established and consolidated the Umayyad dynasty. Complying with the orders of Caliph Abdul Malik, Ibn Shihab Ezzuhri returned to Al-Medina to learn more from its elders. Then Abdul Malik bin Marwan came to Al-Medina in 75 Hijri, threatening the people of Al – Medina with his famous sermon in which he said he would murder anyone who tells him to (Fear God). Because of his inherence to Hisham and his sons, it was said that Hisham bin Abdul Malik accompanied Ezzuhri with him on the pilgrimage in 106 Hijri, the year following his assumption of the caliphate.

Abdul-Malik took Ibn Shihab Ezzuhri to Damascus to work full-time at the palace as a tutor to his boys. Abdul Malik Bin Marwan passed away in 86 Hijri, one year before his demise, Ibn Ishaq was born; 85 Hijri. At that time, Ezzuhri had left Al-Medina entirely. He was in retreat at the Umayyad caliphate palaces in Damascus serving the Caliph Abdul Malik, then served his son Al-Walid bin Abdul Malik, who died in 96 and then Caliph Suleiman bin Abdul Malik who died in 99. Then Umar bin Abdul Aziz, who died in 101 then Yazid bin Abdul Malik (Yazid II), who died in 105, and Hisham, who died in 125. Ezzuhri died one year before the latter.

While Ezzuhri was pre-occupied with serving the Umayyads in Damascus, Ibn Iss-haq was born in Al-Medina in 85, and while Ibn Iss-haq was seeking knowledge at the hands of learned men in Al-Medina , Ezzuhri was away in the palaces of the Umayyads in Damascus until he died in 124. So, where do you think they have met? It means that Ibn Iss-haq was lying in his writing, all along in all his novels that he wrote about the Prophet Mohamed during the Abbasid period after the death of Ezzuhri and claimed that he had heard it from him.

Most importantly, Mohamed, the Mauritanian blogger, quoted Ibn Iss-haq’s lies, also conveyed by Et-Tabari and Ibn Hisham in their history of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), which also contradicts the Quran. He used references from the Sunni tradition in his criticism of class inequality in Mauritania, which still has slavery as a prevailing system, and where the regime is enjoying Sunni Wahhabi legislation. Therefore, in return, Mauritanian legislators prove his point by using Mauritanian legislation to punish him with Sunni Wahhabi rule of apostasy.

Finally, the writer utilized (Ibn Iss-haq-ian biography) written by Ibn Iss-haq during the era of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mahdi, he is being punished with apostasy, which was also an invention during the era of the Abbasid caliph Al-Mahdi. This Caliph used Apostasy Rule to chase his Persians opponents in Baghdad, Iraq. The ruling regime in Mauritania and its upper class used the apostasy rule to punish those demanding justice. This is an indication that we are still living in the era of Caliph Al-Mahdi, but with a slight difference: the Abbasid state of Al- Mahdi was the superpower in the known world at the time, but now we have the State of Qatar as our Superpower.