Islam and Apostasy

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] 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'”.^[2] Apostasy is also famously one of only three reasons, according to Muhammad, for which killing a Muslim is permitted.^[3]

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 in many, many more.^[4]

During Muhammad's life

We do not know of any apostates being killed during the lifetime of Muhammad for the specific crime of apostasy. This is largely due to the lack of individuals apostatizing during Muhammad's life. However in one Sahih Bukhari hadith, Muhammad is seen deporting a Bedouin who desired to discard his religion. This incident alone does not indicate Muhammad viewing apostasy as anything less than treason or a crime worthy of death. This alleged incident occurred during the early stages of Islam in Medina where Muhammad’s Islam and its revelations were incomplete and a far cry from the all encompassing way of life it was to become by the time of his death. After the death of Muhammad and under the Caliphate of Abu Bakr, many apostates had been killed during the lengthy “Riddah (apostasy) wars”. This attests to the fact that apostasy had already become a serious crime within Islam and was not some later innovation. In fact, it was a Qur’anic verse^[5] which prompted Abu Bakr to fight against the people who refused to pay tithe. These people were not rejecting Islam as a whole but only refusing to abide by one of its five pillars (Zakat). As historians will testify, Abu Bakr took up arms against them in a bloody war which lasted for over a year (632–633 CE). The Caliph did not put down his arms until all rejectors were either killed or had reverted back into the fold of Islam. There are also many narrations which record Muhammad's command being followed by his companions, with atheists,^[2] Christians,^[6] and Jews^[7] being put to death for leaving Islam.

Islamic jurisprudence on Apostasy is derived from the words of Muhammad and the aforementioned actions of the Caliph and other companions. If rejecting one of the pillars of Islam is considered to be a crime warranting war against such people, it is only logical for the prescribed punishment for apostasy in Islam to be death. Imam Abu Hanifa’s prescript as seen in Al-Shybani's Kitab al-Siyar grants the apostate a stipulated period of three days to revert back to Islam or face the death penalty. All four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence are in agreement with this ruling, with only slight variations on whether to allow the grace period and the punishment for females.^[6] The Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence believe female apostates are an exception to the rule and are not to be killed, but 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, the males are to be executed, but females imprisoned and beaten at the times of Salah.^[9]

The conditions for apostasy are that the apostate is performing an act of free will, is of adult age (which means puberty in Islam), is of sound mind, and does so intentionally.^[9]

The rulings for the four four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence and the Ja'fari school in Shia Islam can be summarised as follows:^[9][10][11]

Hanafi - recommends three days of imprisonment before execution to allow repentance, although the delay before killing the Muslim apostate is not mandatory. Apostates who are men must be killed, states the Hanafi Sunni fiqh, while women must be held in solitary confinement and beaten every three days till they recant and return to Islam.

Maliki - allows three days for recantation, after which the apostate must be killed. The same applies to both men and women apostates according to the traditional view of Sunni Maliki fiqh.

Shafi'i - waiting period of three days is required to allow the Muslim apostate to repent and return to Islam. After the wait, execution is the traditional recommended punishment for both men and women apostates.

Hanbali - three day waiting period should be granted. Apostate is invited three times to repent. Execution is the traditionally recommended punishment for both genders of Muslim apostates.

And in Shia Islam:

Ja'fari - waiting period not necessary, but may be granted according to this Shia fiqh, but only if the apostate was born a disbeliever (Murtad al-Milli). A male apostate must be executed, states the Ja'fari fiqh, while a female apostate must be held in solitary confinement and beaten on the hours of salah with her food tightly rationed till she repents and returns to Islam.

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]

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.

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.

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.

• 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

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