by Paul Schemm/TN : Jul 25, 2007 : AFP
http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070724-073637-2774r
Could set crucial precedent and have far reaching effect for Egypt’s Christians.

(Cairo, Egypt)—In a move that could have far-reaching implications for Egypt’s Christians, an AFP story in the Middle East Times reports that Egypt’s official religious advisor has ruled that Muslims are free to change their faith as it is a matter between an individual and God.
“The essential question before us is…can a person who is Muslim choose a religion other than Islam? The answer is yes, they can,” Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa said in a posting on a Washington Post-Newsweek forum picked up by the Egyptian press Tuesday. Without elaborating, Gomaa added, that if the conversions undermine the “foundations of society” then it must be dealt with by the judicial system.
“The act of abandoning one’s religion is a sin punishable by God on the Day of Judgment. If the case in question is one of merely rejecting faith, then there is no worldly punishment,” he wrote.
In many Muslim societies, notes reporter Paul Schemm, those who convert to another religion are considered apostates and can be subject to capital punishment.
Hossam Bahgat of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights said: “This [ruling] is significant, especially coming from Gomaa. Between 2004 and now there have been many court cases involving Christian converts to Islam that want to convert back to Christianity who are unable to do so.”
Bahgat believes the current opinion opens the possibility of converting without threatening “the foundations of society.”
The case of 12 Coptic Christians, whose request to revert was denied by a lower court in April, goes in front of the supreme court in September, and Bahgat said that they will use Gomaa’s posting to bolster their case.