Freedom of choice or death penalty for disbelief?

Question:
I am not sure what you have meant in part XIII where you have proclaimed death penalty for not believing in the Quran! You wrote:

"The possibility of killings mentioned in the Qur’an are ...., or those who were declared unworthy of living in this world anymore after they had denied the clearly communicated and understood message from God."

What do you mean by that? In fact, Quran gives absolute freedom to believe or not to believe. Although there are dozens of verses in support of this; I, however, am quoting only a few:

18.29: Say: The truth is from your Lord. Then whoever wills let him believe, and whoever wills let him disbelieve.

10.99: If it had been thy Lord's will, they would all have believed,- all who are on earth! wilt thou then compel mankind, against their will, to believe!

109.6: Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion.

2.256: Let there be NO compulsion in religion.

4.137: Those who believe, then disbelieve and then (again) believe, then disbelieve, and then increase in disbelief, GOD will never pardon them, nor will He guide them unto a way.

Verse 4:137 absolutely negates killing. If you kill a person in the first place then s/he will never get any chance to change his/her faith again and again! Because one must alive continuously for flip-flopping his/her faith. Nowhere in the Quran does it prescribe to kill or even punish a person if s/he simply doesn't believe in it. There is NO temporal punishment in Quran for not believing in it.

Please think about it and clarify your position for the reader in the next part. This is a very important point.

Response:
If you read the Qur'an carefully you learn that the messengers of God (Rasul) used to deliver their message to their nations and on denying those messages, those nations used to get punished through natural calamities. Why were they punished if believing or not believing was not a big deal? The verses you have quoted are all relevant to the fact that God never pushes faith into to the hearts of men. They have to accept faith on their own volition. However, that doesn't mean that those who wouldn't believe are not going to be punished. They will be punished in the hereafter, and a few of them who denied the messengers in this world were punished in this life as well. We know for example that the nation of Nuh, alaihissalaam, was punished through flood for not accepting his message (read surah Nuh); Pharaoh and his people were drowned for rejecting Musa's, alaihissalaam, message. That is what happened in the case of the people who denied the message of the prophet Muhammad, alaihissalaam, as well.

This law is applicable to the times of the messengers alone. In their case it is God's direct link with them that reveals to them that the people who are to be punished don't have any possibility of believing left in them any more.

You read surahs al-Araf, Yunus, Hud, al-Shu'araa, al-Qamar etc. and you will find plenty of evidence to support the understanding I have mentioned.

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