The right to choose your own religion

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The right to choose your own religion

By N. Mahmood Ahmad

Recently Israel, the only liberal-democratic state in the Middle East, attempted to adopt legislation granting a minority of ultra-Orthodox rabbis the legal right to define who is Jewish. Alarmed at this sweeping move within Israel, many Jews who are not Orthodox - a category that includes most American Jews - were able to prevent immediate passage of the bill. In doing so, they won a temporary victory for millions of Conservative and Reformed Jews who would otherwise effectively be designated as non-Jewish by the Israeli state.

Governments have sought to impose such restrictions on individual religious identity throughout history. In 360 C.E., the Roman Empire issued the Edict of Thessalonica, making Nicene Christianity the only official religion. All other forms of Christianity were declared heresies, and anyone caught professing them would be punished by death. Since then, state control over religion has been the impetus for the wars of religion in Europe, the Inquisition in Spain, and closer to home, the burning of witches in Salem, Massachusetts.

About sixty years ago, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, seeking to turn over a new leaf by guaranteeing that "everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion." Nevertheless, world governments still trample upon the right to declare oneself a member of a particular faith.

In the Muslim world in particular, the right to choose one's own religion is already being denied to millions. Even in purportedly democratic countries such as Malaysia and Pakistan, a minority of religious extremists are able to dictate matters of conscience. In 2007, the Malaysian Federal Court ruled that a woman who had converted from Islam to Christianity could not legally do so because as a member of the traditionally Muslim Malay ethnic group, she was constitutionally required to be a Muslim. Similarly, Article 260 of Pakistan's Constitution defines who is a "Muslim" and a "non-Muslim". In 1974, the Parliament approved a constitutional amendment specifically designating members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, as non-Muslims. The Pakistani Government has, in fact, mandated that anyone applying for a passport who declares himself a Muslim must swear that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, is an impostor and that his followers are non-Muslim. Constitutions are intended to limit the power of the state and guarantee basic freedoms - for example, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees free exercise and prohibits establishment. By contrast, the Malaysian and Pakistani Constitutions do precisely the opposite - they force a state-imposed faith upon their citizens, while also limiting free exercise of their own chosen creed.

Such legislation creates a culture of hatred, emboldening religious extremists to commit atrocities with impunity. In May, Pakistani Taliban slaughtered 86 Ahmadi Muslims in a coordinated attack on two of the Community's mosques in Lahore, Pakistan. Meanwhile, Article 260 and other laws remain, including Pakistan's notorious anti-blasphemy laws. Indeed, the trend in other countries, including Malaysia, and most recently Israel, is toward increased state control over individual religious identity. Israeli Jews are fortunate to have influential compatriots living in the United States, a country founded on the principles of religious freedom and remains the freest place in the world today. By contrast, the Muslim community in the United States has remained conspicuously silent on this issue. Notably, even in the wake of the attacks on Ahmadi Muslims, no Muslim organization spoke out against Pakistan's archaic laws.

It is high time that governments around the world live up to their obligations under the United Nations human rights charter, and get out of the business of dictating who may or may not call herself a Jew, Christian, or Muslim.

N. Mahmood Ahmad is a member of the Executive Board of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Lawyers Association USA. He is a lawyer based in Washington, D.C. and served on the Virginia Law Review editorial board.

Guest Voices: The right to choose your own religion - On Faith at washingtonpost.com