( CNN ) -- A Sudanese court sentenced a pregnant 27 year old woman , called Meriam Yehya Ibrahim , to death this week . Her crime was she fell in love and married a Christian man and affirmed her faith in Christianity . She was subsequently accused , and convicted , of apostasy , since the court in Khartoum regards her as a Muslim even though she was raised Christian by her mother after her Muslim father left when she was six years old . Since the court does not recognise her marriage to a non-Muslim either , she has also been convicted of adultery and sentenced to 100 lashes . As disturbing as the above story may be , unfortunately it does not come as a surprise . Countries such as Sudan , Pakistan and more recently Brunei are increasingly lurching towards archaic and inane interpretations of Sharia and applying laws that undermine basic human rights and equality . This not only puts them at odds with the modern world , it puts them at odds with the trajectory progressive Muslim thinkers and reformists have been travelling in for the last 200 years . The idea that Muslims who leave Islam should be killed is prominent in medieval jurisprudential texts that were written at a time when religious faith and political allegiance were inextricably linked . Hence , leaving the faith was deemed treason and construed as an act of rebellion against political authorities . As Muslim political empires became more diverse , conceptions of political allegiance began to change and in 1844 , the Ottoman Empire abolished the death penalty for apostasy from Islam . Al-Azhar in Egypt , the world 's most influential Sunni religious authority , followed suit in 1958 and issued a formal fatwa ( religious edict ) abolishing the death penalty for apostasy . Apostasy laws also blatantly contradict the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ( UGHR ) which was introduced in 1948 and signed by most Muslim-majority countries at the time . However , the so-called `` Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam , '' issued by Organization of Islamic Conference ( OIC ) Foreign Ministers in 1990 , contains the following clauses : . `` Article 10 : Islam is the religion of unspoiled nature . It is prohibited to exercise any form of compulsion on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to convert him to another religion or to atheism . '' `` Article 22 ( a ) : Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shar'iah . '' `` Article 25 : The Islamic Shari'ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification to any of the articles of this Declaration . '' The last two articles of this bizarre and highly-politicized declaration , allow Muslim-majority countries to violate the UDHR by invoking the Sharia as though there was a unified version of it . Not only is there no single interpretation of Sharia , but certain Muslim-majority countries seem adamant on re-invigorating some of the most regressive and outmoded interpretations of it in an almost defiant and aggressive manner . This lurch towards medievalism is largely driven by the global Islamist movement , which was born in 1928 when the Muslim Brotherhood was established , and gained real momentum after the Iranian revolution in 1979 . The current regime in Sudan , which seized power after a military coup in 1989 , has systematically used Islamism to silence domestic dissent . They have even reached out to Islamist militant groups in the region and hosted the late al Qaeda leader , Osama bin Laden , in the early 1990s . The global Islamist movement seeks a much greater role for Islam in the political sphere and , in its political stances , is defined by its opposition to the West . In synchronizing a medieval interpretation of Islam with politics , this movement seeks to challenge and reverse progress on human rights and equality that has been made in recent decades . Hence , we are witnessing the introduction of increasingly antiquated laws that discriminate and undermine basic rights . It is time for the Cairo Declaration to be revoked and for the Muslim human rights discourse to catch up with , and contribute as an equal partner to , modern international human rights discourse . It is also time for human rights groups and the international community to take a strong stance against any state that violates the rights of ordinary citizens for making choices the rest of us take for granted .
A Sudanese court sentenced a pregnant 25 year old woman to death this year . Her crime was she married a Christian man , affirming her faith in Christianity . Unfortunately , this does not come as a surprise , write Maajid Nawaz and Muhammad Hussain . Certain countries are lurching towards inane violations of the law , they say .