Turkish Muslims slam blasphemous article on Yahoo News.

Turkish Muslims slam blasphemous article on Yahoo News.(TZ).An article on popular news website Yahoo News on Monday has drawn widespread criticism from Turkish theologians for its blasphemous content and manipulation of fundamental Islamic principles. The controversial article, written by Donald Pennington, refers to Islam in its headline as “dangerous” and “outdated” and suggests that it should be rejected by all.
Referring to the conviction of a Kuwaiti man, Hamad al-Naqi, to a 10-year jail sentence for insulting the Prophet Muhammad, it describes Islam as a threat to the freedom of expression. The article also claims that Islamic law calls for the death of anyone choosing to leave Islam. Professor Hamdi Döndüren, a theologian, said the allegations in Pennington’s article are groundless and based on ignorance about fundamental Islamic principles.
Regarding the allegation that Islamic law calls for the death of anyone leaving Islam, Döndüren explained that this generalization has been made without taking into account the background of one incident. He said that during the era of Prophet Muhammad only one man was killed because he converted from Islam to another religion several times in an attempt to create public unrest in the Islamic community. At that time the punishment for inciting public unrest was the death penalty. 
Döndüren also warned that the publication of such articles that insult Islam and the Prophet Muhammad foment Islamophobia in the West. Pennington’s article also referred to the protests in the Islamic world in response to a Danish cartoonist’s publication of images of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005. He claimed that the controversy showed that “any religion with such vehement hatred for free expression must be kept in check.” Professor Ömer Faruk Harman, another theologian, said he supports freedom of expression, but this does not mean that people are free to insult the values of another person. “One can enjoy freedom of expression as long as they do not violate the freedom of others. For instance, a Muslim cannot use insulting statements about Jesus Christ,” Harman said. He also rejected the claim in the controversial article about the killing of those leaving Islam and said such a practice would be in conflict with the freedom of conscience in Islam. According to Harman, the reason for frequent attempts among Western writers to present their own misinterpretation of Islam is because Islam has since its birth been seen as a threat to the spread of Christianity.Read the full story here.