Islam and Apostasy

Apostasy (ارتداد, irtidād and ridda), or leaving the religion, is a serious offense in Islam. The punishment for apostasy as prescribed by Muhammad and as delineated in all four schools of Islamic law is execution. One who commits apostasy is called a murtad (مرتد, or 'apostate'). One who hides his apostasy is referred to as a munāfiq (منافق, or 'hypocrite').

Definition

In Islam, the rejection in part (of any of the pillars, or individual beliefs in Islam) or whole of the religion, amounts to apostasy.^[1][2] Numerous Sahih (authentic) hadiths attribute this punishment as explicitly prescribed by Muhammad. In Sahih Bukhari, for instance, it is recorded that “Allah's Apostle said, 'Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him'”.^[3] Apostasy is also famously one of only three reasons, according to Muhammad, for which killing a Muslim is permitted.^[4]

Historical Context

Islamic law draws heavily on the desert tribal norms that characterized its birthplace in 7th century Arabia. In this context, as in much of the ancient world, religion was a primarily communal rather than personal affair - commitment to the belief system of one's people was at the same time the basis of one's membership among those people. To abandon one's religion was to renounce not only a system of belief, but also (in the absence of strong secular notions of nationhood) the the society or community that was founded upon that belief. Thus, the norm in Arabia at the birth of Islam was to view apostasy as tantamount to a form of treason and renunciation of one's belonging to one's community. This did not, however, merit execution in all cases. After all, Muhammad himself was allowed to live in Mecca despite abandoning the 'religion of his forefathers', even if he was made to face some amount of persecution. Once Muhammad's movement of military conquest based out of Medina began, however, his group of believers was in a constant state of war with his neighbors. Since Muhammad cemented rather than overturned most of the contemporary tribal norms, this meant that apostasy at any point amounted to treason during a state of war, and thus merited execution. Islamic scholars, drawing on Muhammad's life, took these norms and turned them into the perennial dictates of Islamic law. Even among classical scholars born hundreds of years after Muhammad, the Islamic caliphate was held to be in what was essentially a perpetual state of conquest, based on the Dar al-Harb and Dar al-Islam (the Abode of War and the Abode of Peace) dichotomy, perpetuating the justification of this ruling. Since Islamic law is unchanging, however, and since a collapse of the Islamic state was not anticipated, the overwhelming majority of traditional Islamic scholars today continue to hold execution as the proper punishment for apostasy. Today, the punishment for apostasy is execution in 11 Muslim-majority countries and is outlawed and otherwise punishable in many, many more.^[5]

In early Islam

There are no accounts in the hadith considered authentic by traditional Islamic scholars of Muhammad executing apostates, largely due to the absence of individuals apostatizing during Muhammad's life. Academic historians have also shown that, despite the pretensions Islamic orthodoxy, Muhammad's original criteria for one to qualify as a 'believer' was in all likelihood a minimal monotheistic faith rather than the outright acceptance of the entirety of the Quran or Muhammad's individual dictates, which may account for the lesser number of apostates. Nonetheless, there is an incident in Sahih Bukhari where Muhammad is reported to to have banished a Bedouin who expressed the desire to discard his religion. This may, however, be due moreso to the very early Medinan stage of Islam at which this event is said to have taken place, a time when most of Islamic law and doctrine had not yet been formulated, rather than what the Islamic tradition holds to have been Muhammad's ultimate judgement on apostasy.

The ruling of execution given by Muhammad according to numerous hadith falls into sharp relief upon Muhammad's death and under the caliphate of Abu Bakr, when thousands of converts to Islam "apostatized" and were summarily killed in what became known as the Riddah (lit. "apostasy") Wars (632–633 CE). These "apostates" had, in fact, only refused to pay the Zakat tithe and not openly renounced Islam. Refusing to accept even a single part of Islamic doctrine, however, is considered apostasy, and Abu Bakr dealt with them as such, reportedly prompted by a Quran 9:5, which commands Muslims to embattle Islam's enemies until they surrender the tithe and commit to offering prayers. Abu Bakr did not bring the bloody Riddah Wars to an end until all the apostates were either killed or had reverted to Islam. Several other narrations report Muhammad's companions (sahabah) implementing his command and executing atheists,^[3] Christians,^[6] and Jews^[7] for leaving Islam.

In Islamic law

Islamic jurisprudence is derived from the reported words of Muhammad, especially as interpreted and implemented by the Rashidun ("rightly guided") Caliphs and his other companions.

In the four schools

Imam Abu Hanifa’s prescription, as found in his student al-Shaybani's Kitab al-Siyar, grants the apostate a period of three days to revert back to Islam before facing the death penalty. All four schools of Sunni jurisprudence are in agreement with this ruling, with only slight variations on whether and how the grace period and punishment are to be applied to females.^[6] The Hanafi school of jurisprudence, the most popular school of jurisprudence in the world today, holds that female apostates form an exception to the rule and, rather than being killed, ought to be beaten every three days and put under confinement until death or repentance, while the remaining Shafi'i, Maliki, and Hanbali schools all agree the verdict for the female apostate is the same as for the male.^[8] In Shia Islam, according to the Ja'fari school, the male is to be executed, but females imprisoned and beaten at the times of the daily prayers (salah).^[9] All four schools also hold that the apostate must be: performing an act of free will, of adult age (beyond the puberty, in Islamic law), is of sound mind, and acting intentionally.^[9] It is important to note that the Islamic ruling on apostasy only applies to apostates from Islam, not to those who apostatize from other religions, and especially not to those who apostatize from other religions in order to convert to Islam, as this final act is considered to be highly meritorious.

The specific rulings for the four Sunni schools as well as the Ja'fari school of Shia Islam are as follows:

• The Hanafi school recommends three days of imprisonment before execution to allow repentance and reversion, although the delay before killing the apostate is not mandatory. Male apostates must be executed, while female apostates must be held in solitary confinement and beaten every three days until they recant and return to Islam.

• The Maliki school allows a waiting period of three days for repentance and reversion, after which the apostate must be killed. This applies to both males and females.

• The Shafi'i school requires a waiting period of three days for repentance and reversion, after which the apostate must be killed. This applies to both males and females.

• The Hanbali school recommends a waiting period of three days for repentance and reversion. Then, the apostate is to be invited three times to repent and revert. If the apostate refuses this invitation, they must be executed. This applies to both males and females.

• The Ja'fari school does not require a waiting period, but allows one to be granted if the apostate was born a disbeliever (rendering them a murtad al-milli). Male apostates must be executed, while female apostates must be held in solitary confinement and beaten at the times of the daily prayers and restricted to light rations of food until she repents and reverts.^[9][10][11]

There are also civil law penalties for apostates who are imprisoned, awaiting execution, or have taken flight.^[9][12] Except for the Hanafites, the apostate's right to dispose of his or her property is suspended pending repentance. An apostate loses the right to inherit (from anyone, Muslim or otherwise). The schools and jurists within them differ on whether all an apostate's property goes to their Muslim heirs, or just that acquired before his apostasy (if a male). The apostate's marriage contract is annulled upon the act of apostasy, even if they repent, or is suspended pending repentance within the wife's waiting period in the Shafi'i school (if already consumated) and Shia Ja'fari school (if the apostate was born a disbeliever).

Modern Muslims

A Pew poll released on April 30, 2013 asked Muslims in 39 countries between 2008 and 2012 questions about religion, politics and society based on 38,000 face-to-face interviews. In one question, asked in 37 of these countries with a combined Muslim population of just over 1 billion people, the survey asked participants whether they favored or opposed the death penalty for leaving Islam. Using the complete dataset for this question on page 219 of the full report^[13], and weighing the responses by Muslim population^[14] indicates that overall, 40% of Muslims in these countries favour the death penalty for apostasy from Islam.

The percentage was below 10% in Central Asia, Turkey and Balkan countries included in the survey. It was above 50% in Afghanistan (79%), Egypt (88%), Jordan (83%), Malaysia (58%), Pakistan (75%), Palestinian Territories (62%), and Djbouti (62%). It is possible that support for the penalty has fallen in the years since the survey was conducted due to worldwide distaste for the actions of ISIS and attempts to distance Islam from the actions of that group, and in Egypt following the negative experience of Muslim Brotherhood government.

Note that a common mistake is made by commentators on this survey who don't read the full dataset at the end of the full report. In Chapter 1: Beliefs about Sharia, there is a table showing support for the death penalty for apostasy by those who answered that they were in favour of Sharia in their country in an earlier question. Multiplying the percentages in these two tables results in significantly lower, but incorrect conclusions compared to those mentioned above (Egypt, for example would appear to have 64% support for the penalty on this basis, and overall support in the countries surveyed would be approximately 35% after weighing by Muslim population).

However, this approach ignores support for the apostasy death penalty by those who answered that they do not support / don't know whether they support Sharia being the official law in their country, which surprisingly, makes a significant difference. Only the table on page 219 reveals support for the apostasy death penalty for all respondents in each country. This was confirmed by an independent analysis of the data and correspondance with Pew's Director of International Survey Research.^[15]

Nevertheless, a strong correlation can be seen in the results for the two questions on support for Sharia and support for the death penalty for apostates.^[16]

So with all points considered, we can rightly conclude from religious texts, history and even modern Muslim opinion in most of the countries with the strongest support for Sharia, that the ruling of Islam is to put apostates to death if they refuse to revert back to their Islamic faith. This ruling remains true even among the Shi'ite sect,^[17] whom together with the Sunnis constitute almost the entirety of the world's Muslim population.^[18][19]

In scripture and scholarly writing

This page simply quotes authoritative Islamic sources, i.e. the Qur'an, hadith, and both classical and modern scholars, to provide you with an accurate picture of what Islam teaches in regards to apostasy.

Modern revisionary perspectives

Some modern scholars ignore centuries of Islamic jurisprudence on the penalty for apostasy and instead interpret certain Qur'anic verses as allowing freedom of religion, including apostasy. They also argue that some apostates were allowed to live during Muhammad's lifetime, and point to a small number of early scholars who they claim supported less severe treatment of apostates. These interpretations and claims are disputed by traditionalists.

There is also a growing trend to instead interpret or contextualize hadiths and Qur'anic verses to mean that only those apostates who fought against the Muslims or gave support to their enemies were to be given the penalty. It is then regarded in these apologetics as a punishment for treason. Others claim that even talking openly about one's apostasy is an act of treason by undermining the foundation of the Islamic state, but that apostates who keep their beliefs private should be left alone.

In the Muslim world

Apostasy laws

Former Muslims are often persecuted, abused and killed by Muslims. This treatment of apostates is not simply down to the issue of state-enforced religion as some may suggest. The violence or threats of violence against apostates in the Muslim world usually derives, not from government authorities, but from family members and individuals from the Islamic communities themselves, who operate very often with impunity from the government. This point is further emphasized by the persecution and murder of former Muslims which has now become evident in many non-Muslim societies. For example, in 2007 the daughter of a British Imam was taken under police protection after receiving death threats from her father (a leader of a mosque in Lancashire) for converting to Christianity.^[20]

Apostasy and human rights

The full text taken from a paper that was presented by Ibn Warraq at a panel discussion on "Apostasy, Human Rights, Religion and Belief" held at the the 60^th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, held in Geneva, 18^th April 2005.

Apostasy rates

Muslims often (sometimes falsely) advertise news of non-Muslims converting to Islam, but they do not tell the other side of the story, where Muslims are also leaving Islam. There are more Muslims leaving Islam today than there are new converts joining it.^[21] In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, 6 million Muslims are leaving Islam each and every year. Once the majority faith of the continent, they are now the minority with Christianity being the majority. The sheer volume of recent apostates is unprecedented in the history of Islam. Here at WikiIslam, we document this news and host hundreds of written testimonies.

See Also

• Islam and Freedom of Speech

Other Core Articles

Core articles contain an overview of other articles related to a specific issue:

• Islam and Homosexuality
• Islam and Miracles
• Child Marriage in Islamic Law
• Islam and Science
• Islam and Scripture
• Islam and the People of the Book
• Islam and Violence
• Islam and Women

External Links

• Apostasy - Answering Islam
• Accusing Muslim Intellectuals of Apostasy - Aluma Dankowitz, MEMRI: Inquiry and Analysis No. 208, February, 18,2005

References