This article looks into a case of conversion from Islam in Kuwait. The apostasy law in the Middle East and the reluctance by liberal Muslims to lend unambiguous support to freedom of religion are commonly viewed as the paradigmatic illustration of an `Islamic exception'. It is argued that this perception is not justified, as the law and the support given it by most liberal Muslims are not social manifestations of a specific `Islamic mentality' but one cultural way of expressing and dealing with a dilemma faced by all modern political communities: how to strike a balance between the common good and invidual freedoms. Seen in this light, the apostasy problematic is not without parallels in western liberal societies.
Aldeeb, Sami A. Abu-Salieh (1986) `Liberté religieuse et apostasie dans l'Islam' , Praxis juridique et religion3: 43-76.
2.
Al Haddad, Mohammad (1981) `The Effects of Detribalization and Sedentarization on the Socioeconomic Structure of the Tribes of the Arabian Peninsula', unpublished dissertation, University of Kansas.
3.
Anderson, Benedict (1983) Imagined Communities. London : Verso.
4.
An Na'im, Abdullahi A. (1986) `The Islamic Law of Apostasy and its Modern Applicability: A Case from Sudan', Religion16: 197-224.
5.
An Na'im, Abdullahi A. (1990) Toward an Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights, and International Law. New York: Syracuse University Press.
6.
Ayubi, Nazih (1991) Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World. London: Routledge.
7.
Braude, Benjamin and Bernard Lewis (1982) Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, Vol. 2: The Arabic-Speaking Lands. New York: Holmes & Meier.
8.
Brown, Nathan J. (1997) `Shari'a and State in the Modern Muslim Middle East', International Journal of Middle East Studies29: 359-76.
9.
Cook, Michael (2000) Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Throught. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
10.
Crystal, Jill (1992) Kuwait: The Transformation of an Oil State. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
11.
Crystal, Jill (1995) Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
12.
Deringil, Selim (2000) ` "There is No Compulsion in Religion": On Conversion and Apostasy in the Late Ottoman Empires: 1839-1856', Comparative Study of Society and History3: 547-75.
13.
Dworkin, Ronald (1977) Taking Rights Seriously. London : Duckworth.
14.
Eickelman, Dale F. (1998) `From Here to Modernity: Ernest Gellner on Nationalism and Islamic Fundamentalism', in John A. Hall (ed.) The State of the Nation, pp. 251-271. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.
15.
Finkielkraut, Alain (1995) The Defeat of the Mind. New York: Columbia University Press.
16.
García-Arenal, Mercedes, ed. (2001) Islamic Conversions: Religious Identities in Mediterranean Islam. Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, European Science Foundation .
17.
Gellner, Ernest (1994) Conditions of Liberty. London : Hamish Hamilton.
18.
Gibb, H.A.R. and J.H. Kramers (1974) Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
19.
Holmes, Stephen (1993) The Anatomy of Antiliberalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
20.
Huntington, Samuel (1993) `The Clash of Civilizations?', Foreign Affairs72(3): 22-49.
21.
Kamali, Mohammad Hashim (1997) Freedom of Expression in Islam. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society.
22.
Lamb, Christopher and M. Darrel Bryant, eds (1999) Religious Conversion: Contemporary Practices and Controversies. London: Cassell.
23.
Lindholm, Charles (1995) `The New Middle Eastern Ethnography', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute1: 805-20.
24.
Longva, Anh Nga (1997) Walls Built on Sand: Migration, Exclusion and Society in Kuwait. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
25.
Longva, Anh Nga (2000) `Citizenship in the Gulf States: Conceptualization and Practice', in N.A. Butenschon, U. Davis and M. Hassassian (eds) Citizenship and the State in the Middle East: Approaches and Applications, pp. 197-219. New York: Syracuse University Press
26.
Longva, Anh Nga (n.d.) `New Wine in Old Bottles: The Revival of the hadhar / badu Dichotomy in Kuwaiti Society and Politics'.
27.
Mahmood, Tahier (1995) Personal Law in Islamic Countries: History, Texts and Analysis. Delhi: India and Islam Research Council.
28.
Masud, Muhammad Khalid (1996) `Apostasy and Judicial Separation in British India' , in M.K. Masud, Brinkely Messick and David S. Powers (eds) Islamic Legal Interpretation, pp. 193-203. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
29.
Mayer, Ann E. (1995) Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics . Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
30.
MEC (Middle East Concern) (1995) `Egypt's Converts'. Loughborough: Middle East Concern.
31.
Momen, Moojan (1985) An Introduction to Shi'i Islam. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press.
32.
Peters, R. and G.J.J. De Vries (1976-7) `Apostasy in Islam', Die Welt des Islams17(1-4): 1-25.
33.
Piscatori, James P. (1980) `Human Rights in Islamic Political Culture', in Kenneth W. Thompson (ed.) The Moral Imperatives of Human Rights: A World Survey, pp. 139-67. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America.
34.
Rawls, John (1999a) `Justice as Fairness: Political Not Metaphysical' , in Samuel Freeman (ed.) John Rawls: Collected Papers, pp. 388-414. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
35.
Rawls, John (1999b) `The Priority of Right and the Ideas of the Good' , in Samuel Freeman (ed.) John Rawls: Collected Papers, pp. 449-72. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
36.
Raz, Joseph (1995) Ethics in the Public Domain. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
37.
Sachedina, Abdulaziz A. (1988) `Freedom of Conscience and Religion in the Qur'an' , in David Little, J. Kelsay and A.A. Sachedina (eds) Human Rights and the Conflict of Cultures: Western and Islamic Perspectives on Religious Liberty, pp. 53-90. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.
38.
Said, Edward (1978) Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
39.
Sandel, Michael (1988) Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
40.
Sfeir, George (1998) `Basic Freedoms in a Fractured Legal Culture: Egypt and the Case of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd', Middle East Journal52(3): 402-14.
41.
Stolcke, Verena (1995) `Talking Culture: New Boundaries, New Rhetorics of Exclusion in Europe', Current Anthropology36(1): 1-13.
42.
Taylor, Charles (1994) `The Politics of Recognition', in David Theo Goldberg (ed.) Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader, pp. 75-106. Oxford: Blackwell.
43.
Tétreault, Mary Ann (2001) `A State of Two Minds: State Cultures, Women and Politics in Kuwait', International Journal of Middle East Studies33(2): 203-20.
44.
Turner, Bryan S. (1994) Orientalism, Postmodernism and Globalism. London: Routledge.
45.
van Krieken, Peter (1998) Apostasy and Asylum. Lund: Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law .
46.
Villiers, Alan (1940) Sons of Sindbad. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
47.
Werff, Lyle L.Vander (1977) Christian Mission to Muslims. South Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library.
48.
Zdanowski, Jerzy (2001) ` "Saving Sinners, Even Moslems": The Arabian Mission in the Arabian Gulf', in Mercedes García-Arenal (ed.) Islamic Conversions: Religious Identities in Mediterranean Islam, pp. 301-9. Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, European Science Foundation.
49.
Zwemer, Samuel M. (1975) The Law of Apostasy in Islam. New Delhi: Amarko Book Agency.
