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Islamic Teaching on the Consequences of Apostasy from Islam

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Published: Monday 03 July 2006

Islamic Teaching on the Consequences of Apostasy from Islam

Article Index

Islamic Teaching on the Conseq...

The Qur'an

The Hadith

Opportunity to repent?

The Shari'ah

Muslim scholars discuss aposta...

References

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Dr Patrick Sookhdeo

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.[1]

Introduction

The right to religious freedom, including the right of individuals to change their religion, is taken for granted by most people in the West. However, in Islam[2] all schools of law (madhhahib) agree that adult male apostates from Islam should be killed. The majority of Muslim jurists claim that apostasy from Islam is a crime carrying the God-prescribed penalty of death. Therefore, while conversion from other religions to Islam is welcomed and actively encouraged, Muslims who leave Islam for any other religion must be sentenced to death (unless they repent and return to Islam).[3]

According to criminal law in the Islamic legal system (Shari‘ah), the state must impose mandatory punishments (hudud, singular hadd) for certain specific crimes which are claimed to be committed against God and his rights, and apostasy (rida, irtidad) is often included in this list. These crimes make up a separate category in Shari‘ah criminal law as they are the only ones to have divinely mandated obligatory prescribed punishments which cannot be changed in any way by humans. Apostasy is thus viewed as a very severe crime for which God himself has prescribed the death penalty.

The death penalty for converts from Islam has nevertheless generated much debate since references to apostasy in the Qur’an, the primary source of Islamic law, are rather ambiguous. The hadith (the authoritative traditions recording the sayings and deeds of Muhammad) are therefore the main source used to justify the Shari‘ah punishment of death for apostates.

Muhammad Iqbal Siddiqi, a popular Pakistani writer on Islam and Islamic law, represents one end of the spectrum in his book The Penal Law of Islam when he claims that:

. . . the sayings and doings of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), the decision and practice of the Caliph Abu Bakr (Allah be pleased with him), the consensus of the opinion of the Companions of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and all the later Muslim jurists, and even certain verses of the Holy Qur`an all prescribe capital punishment for an apostate.[4]

In this view he is backed by many well known traditional and contemporary scholars, including the popular 20th century Pakistani Muslim scholar Abul A‘la Mawdudi, a founding-figure of Islamism in the Indian sub-continent, whose Quranic commentary is found in millions of Muslim homes.[5]

The other, liberal end of the spectrum is represented by reformist (modernist) Muslim scholars who claim that an apostate cannot be put to death on the mere grounds of his apostasy, but only if he is also a danger to the Islamic state. Traditionalists however counter that every apostateis a danger to the Islamic social order and has committed high treason. Some reformists also add that the apostate must be given forever to repent, meaning he cannot be executed.[6]

In order to present an accurate and detailed picture of how apostasy is perceived and dealt with in Islam, it is important to discuss the references to apostasy in its two main sources: Qur’an and hadith. These are the foundational source texts from which Islamic scholars developed the Shari‘ah code, which is applied to varying degrees in many Islamic countries. Muslims assert that the Qur’an, as a divine revelation, is applicable for all people at all times. The way of Muhammad (Sunna), his sayings and deeds as recorded in the hadith, is the divinely ordained pattern for applying the Qur’an, and it is the model Muslims must emulate when dealing with issues that arise in new circumstances in a world very different from the one into which Islam first arrived. Analysing the issue of apostasy from Islam in its original sources and its further development in the Islamic schools of law will clarify the consequences faced by apostates.