Khartoum, Sudan — The sentence of 100 lashes and death by hanging that a Sudanese judge handed to Meriam Ibrahim is consistent with Islamic law, contrary to Islamic leaders and others who cite her case as an anomaly.
In a case that has drawn international attention, Ibrahim was sentenced to death for leaving Islam and 100 lashes for having sex with an “infidel,” as her husband is Christian. She has insisted she did not violate Islamic law as practiced in Sudan because she was raised by her Ethiopian Orthodox mother and never practiced Islam, her Muslim father having disappeared when she was 6 years old. Asserting she was never a Muslim, she denies being an apostate from Islam.
Her husband, Daniel Wani, was found innocent of proselytizing, but their marriage was deemed null and void on the grounds that it is illegal for a Muslim woman to marry a Christian man. Ibrahim, 27, was subsequently charged with “adultery” and sentenced to 100 lashes. When she countered the adultery charge by insisting that she was a Christian, the charge of apostasy was added.
According to Islam and sharia (Islamic law), Ibrahim is a Muslim because she was born to a Muslim father. While Ibrahim insists she was raised as a Christian by an Ethiopian Christian mother, a Sudanese official said Ibrahim was raised Muslim by a Muslim mother, from a Muslim tribe and that she disappeared for several years before turning up again professing Christ and married to a Christian man.
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