Nothing Quite Says Hope for Reform as a Broken Neck

All it has are some textual variants: in some versions, Muhammad doesn't say "kill him," he says, "break his neck." Oh, I feel so much better! Reform is at hand!

But the weakness of his argument doesn't stop Eteraz from rushing on to some sweeping conclusions:

Let me say it again: there is no Quranic basis for an EARTHLY punishment for apostasy. (Maududi tried to find one but he failed). As such, the death penalty for apostasy is rooted in the hadith. Within the three links above, the single most important apostasy hadith, and a couple of corollary hadith, have been discredited. It becomes really difficult, in light of this information, to persuasively argue that Islamic Law should permit a death penalty for apostasy.
Now, the issue is to spread these opinions so more people can get out of their ignorance.

Yes, it's all about ignorance, isn't it? Those poor ignorant Islamic scholars, all over the world, blundering in darkness and relying on this hadith in which Muhammad says "If anyone changes his religion, kill him" to legislate a death penalty for apostasy. If only they knew that Ali Eteraz has declared this a weak hadith on the grounds that in some versions Muhammad says to break the apostates' necks!

If this is the bandwagon of Islamic reform that we are all supposed to jump on, on pain of being called "traitors" and "liars" and "hatemongers" and everything else Dean Esmay has called me, I will take a pass. The problem, of course, is not that I am convinced. It is that no Muslim who can read and check Eteraz's links will be convinced. No one who believes in the death penalty for apostasy will be convinced. And they are the ones who need to be convinced.