It all sounds too familiar, an individual renounces their faith in Islam and converts to another religion only to lose his or her life. This is what happened to a Ugandan woman named Mariam Nakirya recently. On May 8, when Awali Kakaire tried to wake up his wife Mariam for morning Islamic prayers, and when she refused to join him he strangled her to death. Kakaire left the house and when he returned put his five kids into a hole he had dug. Fortunately, the neighbors intervened, and when they questioned Kakaire he shouted, “My family has no respect for Islam[.]” Kakaire had an idea about his wife’s new faith about a month before the incident when the local imam brought to Kakaire’s attention about his wife and children skipping mosque prayers and the kids not showing up at the madrassa.

We hear stories like this all the time in the Islamic world whether it’s spouses, daughters, sons, cousins leaving Islam only to be brutally murdered for their decision. Of course Kakaire and others are remaining faithful to what they were taught, keeping in line with the spirit of Sharia law:

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.  -Quran 4:89

But if they repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, then they are your brothers in religion; and We detail the verses for a people who know. And if they break their oaths after their treaty and defame your religion, then fight the leaders of disbelief, for indeed, there are no oaths [sacred] to them; [fight them that] they might cease. -Quran 9:11-12

…I said, “By Allah, Allah’s Apostle never killed anyone except in one of the following three situations: (1) A person who killed somebody unjustly, was killed (in Qisas,) (2) a married person who committed illegal sexual intercourse and (3) a man who fought against Allah and His Apostle and deserted Islam and became an apostate.”… -Bukhari 83:37

Furthermore, the most prominent Muslim Brotherhood jurist, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, emphasized the importance of punishing individuals for apostasy saying, “If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment, Islam wouldn’t exist today.” It’s very telling when a world famous sheikh such as Qaradawi basically reveals that the linchpin of Islam is coercion. This flies in the face of so many liberal theologians who never stop quoting Quran 2:256, “There shall be no compulsion in religion.” Qaradawi also says, “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…” So much for winning the hearts and minds of individuals. We need to make a stand and tell the world this jihadist culture rooted in Sharia is not acceptable.