Nashville parents, brother beat boy for converting to Christianity, cut him with a knife: police
Nashville police arrested three family members after the youngest son said they beat him for renouncing Islam and converting to Christianity, with the authorities noting that the juvenile victim was trembling and wide-eyed as he described the attack.
The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department arrived at the house in Amber Hills Lane on Dec. 11 in response to a welfare check, finding the young victim, who appeared disheveled. The police noted that the boy had a cut on the back of his right hand and several lumps on his face.
As WSMV reported last Tuesday, the victim told police that his mother, father and older brother attacked him because they disapproved of his conversion. The family members charged in the incident were Nick Kadum, 57, Rawaa Khawaji, 46, and John Kadum, 29.
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“He stated [his mother], along with his brother and father, repeatedly punched him and spat in his face,” the arrest report stated. “He stated his mother then took a knife and scratched the back of his right hand with it. He stated his family, including his mother, demanded he recant and say he was a Muslim.”
As the boy described the attack, the police noted that he appeared to be trembling, and his eyes were wide, according to WSMV. The victim’s mother was charged with aggravated assault, while his father and brother were charged with domestic assault.
While the father and brother were later released from custody, WSMV reported that Khawaji remained jailed.
According to a Monday report from The Charlotte Observer, the police conducted the welfare check on the house after receiving a request from the boy’s employer. The victim told police that his family was in the middle of beating him up when the authorities arrived at the house shortly before midnight.
Davidson County arrest affidavits obtained by The Observer recount how the boy said his mother, father and brother repeatedly punched him and spat in his face. The victim’s mother then slashed his right hand with a knife.
Police said that the mother — who was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon — denied that she had attacked her son. In addition to the assault charges, the 29-year-old brother and the father were charged with domestic bodily injury, according to the outlet, and the juvenile victim was taken to a hospital.
Scholars such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was raised Muslim, have argued that Islam must undergo a peaceful reformation. Hirsi Ali published an essay on UnHerd last month, explaining her decision to convert to Christianity after identifying as an atheist for years.
During a 2015 National Press Club, the scholar proposed five amendments to Islam to help reform the religion. One of those amendments included viewing the Quran and the hadith as divinely inspired but ultimately human in origin and for Muslims to value earthly life more instead of prioritizing life after death.
Hirsi Ali argued that Sharia Law, which refers to a set of laws based on the scriptures of Islam, is responsible for widespread violence and oppression in Muslim cultures.
The former atheist also proposed eliminating the principle of “Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong,” which refers to an Islamic doctrine of action. The Christian convert asserted that this principle results in vigilantism and mob justice, particularly against individuals who have allegedly violated Sharia Law.
The scholar also called for Muslims to focus on peace and for an end to the concept of Jihad as a Holy War.
Hirsi Ali is originally from Somalia, and she is a survivor of female genital mutilation. An outspoken critic of Islam, Hirsi Ali explored atheism through figures such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and Bertrand Russell’s 1927 lecture “Why I am Not a Christian.”
She attributed her conversion to Christianity to concerns about the issues threatening Western civilization, and she believes the Christian faith offers a unifying set of values.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
