By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent
CAIRO, EGYPT (Worthy News)-- Talk show host Tawfiq Okasha recently appeared on "Egypt Today" by showing a video of Muslims beheading a man for the Islamic crime of apostasy: the "crime" of converting to Christianity and then refusing to renounce that conversion.
In the video, the convert is held down with a knife to his throat by masked men while an unknown narrator recites Islamic prayers that condemn Christianity, a religion Islam considers polytheistic because of its Triune Godhead.
"Let Allah be avenged on the polytheist apostate," said the narrator in Arabic. "Allah empower your religion, make it victorious against the polytheists ..."
These vindictive prayers are not uncommon in Islam; similar prayers are broadcast in Mecca over megaphones as Muslim pilgrims circle the Ka'ba, petitioning Allah to make the lives of Christians and Jews one of "endless despair, unrelenting pain and unremitting ailment."
Finally, at the cue of "Allahu Akbar," the man with the knife begins to cut the apostate's thoat: it takes nearly two minutes to finally sever his head, which is then held high to chants of victory as Okasha asks: "Is this Islam?
Recently a leading Egyptian Salafi proclaimed that no Muslim has the right to leave his religion because of Muhammad's command to kill anyone who does; in fact, the first caliph had thousands of apostates killed by burning, beheading, and crucifixion because they tried to abandon Islam after the death of its prophet. Even today, apostasy in Islamic states is still a capital crime.
So yes, Okasha, this is indeed Islam!