Several commenters point out that the Church also names “excessive wealth” as a sin. I can think of few institutions with less standing to make this point than the Catholic Church, but this isn’t really new, anyway. It misses the same point as tailpipe sin does. Wealth in and of itself isn’t sinful, because it’s inanimate. What matters is what’s done with the wealth. If one hoards it for one’s self and refuses to assist others in need, thenthat’s the sin, not the wealth. Wealth is just a tool for other ends, and it is the human pursuit of those ends which can be virtuous, sinful, or both.

There is one thing, however, amidst all the flowery overtures, theological discussion, and representations of religious pluralism that the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute and the 138 Islamic scholars forgot to mention: The Institute, which operates a website, AlTafsir.com, which it calls “the largest and greatest online collection of Quranic commentary, translation, recitation, and essential resources in the world,” includes in an “Ask the Mufti” section a number of fatwas on apostasy issued by the Institute’s chief scholar, Sheikh Hijjawi, that call for the death of Christian reverts (Christians converting to Islam and then returning to the Christian faith) and Muslim apostates. Further they state that if the Christian reverts and Muslim apostates are not killed, they should be deprived of all rights and accorded the status of non-persons.