“QuietContraryMary
I'm not sure how this works exactly but apostasy from Islam in general is dangerous, but I don't know how many people and from what backgrounds in which countries would want to kill her.“
I used to live in the Middle East. Did some of my schooling there - father worked in the oil industry when I was a child. People in the Middle East are generally very polite and respectful, they are extremely law abiding as they believe their laws come from God whose existence they seem utterly sure of and they tolerate Christians and are usually kind. Certainly kinder and politer than most Londoners. But they have strict red lines. They take their religion very seriously and apostasy carries the death penalty in many countries including in Saudi. Blasphemy is also a serious crime there and homosexuality is illegal (although believe it or not I think sex change operations are allowed in places like Iran). Some U.K. so called liberals might object and take offense to how I have described the Middle East. But I’m sure the people there would generally have no problems with how I have just described it.
You can actually have a nice life living there as a westerner if you respect all their lines and can ignore the things that would be considered wrong here. Many western people would find those things bothering their conscience when they became aware of them even if it wasn’t affecting them personally though.
People here often just don’t understand it because in the U.K. most religious people actually doubt parts of their own religion and generally don’t believe that books like the Old Testament are perfect and 100% literally true. In the Middle East lots of people really do believe the Koran is the literal and perfectly expressed word of the divine. They don’t just say they believe that in my experience, they actually believe that. Also in the U.K. a religion is mostly just a person’s private set of beliefs about moral and spiritual matters. But in the Middle East Islam is also a political and legal system as well, it’s a bit like an ideology that affects almost every aspect of life. In this particular context and setting apostasy (leaving the religion which includes a political and legal system) is more like treason was in the Middle Ages here. Not all Muslim majority countries are like this. Turkey is still fairly secular (but that is changing). The most modern Muslim majority country I’ve ever been to is Malaysia, I worked there about a decade ago. In Malaysia they have Islamic law and Muslims are subject to the shariah police and courts and can get flogged for things like premarital sex and drinking but non-Muslims can drink in bars and do as they pretty much like. They get around the Islamic apostasy law by giving everyone a mandatory ID card with their religion on it and if a Muslim tries to convert they just say no, you are still a Muslim, you cannot change. They got around the apostasy law by making committing apostasy legally impossible. In the future the U.K. might become more like Malaysia with different laws for different people, but I don’t believe it will ever become like the Middle East. I hope it stays as it is though.
In some ways, unlike the West, the Muslim world seems to be becoming more religious as time goes on and not less. Iran didn’t become an Islamic Republic until the 1970’s. Malaysia didn’t elevate shariah courts to the level of other courts until the 1980’s. Pakistan didn’t even introduce blasphemy laws until the 1980’s. I believe Afghanistan where the taliban recently ruled and in some places still do used to attract hippies in the 1960’s.