Mick Hartley

From the Jerusalem Post, the latest on Youcef Nadarkhani, the Pastor sentenced to death in Iran unless he recants his Christian faith (previously here and here):

Iran’s security officials recently delivered a book on Islam to Nadarkhani, Fox News said. He is in prison Rasht on the Caspian Sea coast.

The Iranian officials told “him they would be back to discuss the material and hear his opinion,” according to the report.

Fox cited “sources close to the case.”

David Parsons, spokesman for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday the new development is “very troubling.”

There need to be “three attempts to make him convert to Islam before they can kill him,” Parsons said. He cited Shari’a Islamic law as the basis for the three attempts rule.

Iran “is going through the motions” and “trying to do it in a very public way for the Muslim world and maybe, in their mind, thinking they can placate the West. It is outrageous,” said Parsons…

The case “should be an eye-opener for world leaders,” he said. “They should know what Islam teaches in terms of ‘inferior religions’ like Judaism and Christianity.”

Fox News wrote that it secured “a digital copy of the book given to Nadarkhani, a 300-page compilation entitled Beshaarat-eh Ahdein, meaning ‘Message of the Two Eras,’ referring to the New and Old Testaments. Through various narratives, the book claims Christianity is a fabrication and attempts to establish the superiority of Islam.”

For more background see Nadarkhani's Wiki entry.