Dawah Tactics 101

hello. i'm not, of course, an expert. and in my country the prevalent view among the 'devout' is that the punishment for apostates is death. but critically, they cannot say why exactly. since this question disturbs me (i'm muslim, btw) i did do some searching, and while i do not know that i ought to make conclusions, i have found out some things. that the death punishment for apostasy is nowhere mentioned in the Quran. that, like shamil explains, it was originally for when apostates were treasonous to their state. which makes me question whether the death punishment is really for the apostasy, or actually for the treason?

in any legal ruling, i believe, the reason for the ruling is highly important, because failure to understand the reasons for a legal ruling means you cannot later put the legal precedent within context. i personally do not see why an apostate should be killed, or harrassed beyond maybe an attempt to re-convert him (to make sure that he/she really knows what he/she is turning away from), if the apostate remains a law-abiding member of society, and does not then set up a career maligning his/her former religion and/or the state religion. otherwise it seems to me to be inconsistent with islam's tenet of voluntary faith. after all, someone could be an apostate through a lack of understanding about the religion, or something that happened to close his heart to it. someday, Allah may open his heart to islam again. if he's dead, he won't have that chance, now, would he?

DeExupery wrote: Dear All, Thanks for your answer. So it's a yes? If someone stops to believe and refuse to repent, then he/she should be killed, even if he/she doesn't do anything wrong? But why? Isn't Islam not a compulsory, and even in Quran it's said that "To you your religion and me mine," Why we should kill someone that stops believing? It stops his/her chance getting hidayah in the future and really unfair and unjust for him/her. Fox P.S. Dear Shamil, you mentioned that it happened to prevent treason, so do you suggest that it only is applied then and not now?

I know of no instance where it has been applied outside Taliban controlled Afghanistan, and the Taliban is a disgrace to Islam. They follow the teachings of a heretic who created his own version of Islam in the 19th century. Perhaps it has been applied in Saudi Arabia, but they also follow a heretical version of Islam (Wahhabism) and, furthermore, use Wahhabism as a form of totalitarian control. They distort the principles of Islam to maintain power.

Your comment "Why we should kill someone that stops believing?" ignores my entire post. The law was applied to people who LIED in the first place about their belief in order either to spy or to save their lives in battle. No Muslim I know of believes a person should be killed for leaving Islam. I know of one fellow who left Islam and regularly visits his old mosque to see his friends. As I said, it was a law with a political, not religious, significance. It is anachronistic and the only people who discuss it seriously are non-Muslims, particularly Islamophobes who want to denigrate Islam.

I'm not implying you are an Islamophobe, by the way. Your question is legitimate and deserves clarification. But I think to understand the spirit of Islam your question should have been phrased: "Who believes that apostates should be killed?" Then you would see the living spirit of Islam, rather than learn the genesis of an outdated law.

Nausheen wrote: Auzubillahi minash shaitan ir rajeem, Bismillah ir rahman ir rahim, DeExupery wrote: Dear All, As a non muslim, I would love to ask something very disturbing after I discuss with other moslems about apostasy. He mentioned that apostates will have death penalty. Is it true that apostates from Islam will have death penalty? That's a tough question, and now its time for a muslim to run away ... If I give you a very short answer, it is a Yes. However it is not so simple. Broadly speaking, an apostate needs to declare himself as one for the penalty to be imposed. Secondly, such a punishment can be given only in a land which upholds the islamic sharia as its law, not in a secular democratic country.  Further, the apostates are given a chance to recant and return ... it is a very technical thing, and punishments of hudud in Islam according to fiqh are to be imposed under most dire circumstances only - it is the responsibility of those imposing the punishment to find clauses of requittal. Peace, Nausheen

It comes from a time when spies would claim to have accepted Islam, infilitrate the community at Medina, then once they gathered information would run back to their tribe. In its original context it was no different than the laws against treason the United States currently has.

Also, Muhammad Salallahu alaihi wassalam gave orders that, in battle, if an enemy pronounced the shahada the Muslims were forbidden to kill him. Once this was learned by the pagans, they would regularly shout the shahada in battle when threatened with death. Afterwards they would renounce it. In this situation the rule concerning apostasy was not about someone in good conscience changing faiths, but rather about enemy combatants who lied about their adoption of Islam to avoid death in battle.