Journalists' Forced Conversion Not Contrary to Islam
by Robert Spencer
Posted Aug 30, 2006
The most bizarre element of the two weeks of captivity suffered by Fox News reporter Steve Centanni and photographer Olaf Wiig was the video that surfaced depicting their conversion to Islam. Even before the journalists revealed that their conversions had been coerced, there were indications that they were not acting freely. While reading a statement he himself had ostensibly written, Centanni stumbled over words, appeared to puzzle over the handwriting, and seemed to grimace after pronouncing the words “peace be upon him” after the name of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Most jarring was the video editor’s invocation of the favorite Koran verse of Western analysts of Islam and terrorism, “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256). The irony of featuring this verse in a video depicting two forced conversions has been widely noted. In fact, however, the juxtaposition of this verse with the video of Centanni and Wiig was probably not simply transparent deception, as strange as that may seem.
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