Apostasy in Islam

This article is about a general description and examination of apostasy from Islam. For the situation of those accused of apostasy from Islam (ex-Muslims) by country, see Apostasy in Islam by country. For the sociological perspectives of ex-Muslims, see Ex-Muslims. For organisations by and for ex-Muslims, see List of ex-Muslim organisations.

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Apostasy in Islam (Arabic: ردة, romanized: ridda or ارتداد, irtidād) is commonly defined as the abandonment of Islam by a Muslim, in thought, word, or through deed. It includes not only explicit renunciations of the Islamic faith by converting to another religion[1] or abandoning religion,[1][2][3] but also blasphemy or heresy by those who consider themselves Muslims,[4] through any action or utterance which implies unbelief, including those who deny a "fundamental tenet or creed" of Islam.[5] An apostate from Islam is known as a murtadd (مرتدّ).[1][6][7][8][9]

What statements or acts qualify as apostasy and whether and how they should be punished, are disputed among Islamic scholars.[10][3][11] While liberal Islam rejects physical punishment of apostasy,[12] Islamic supremacism calls for the death penalty of those who refuse to repent of apostasy from Islam.[13] The penalty of killing of apostates is in conflict with international human rights norms which provide for the freedom of religions, as demonstrated in human rights instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provide for the freedom of religion.[14][15][16][17]

Until the late 19th century, the majority of Sunni and Shia jurists held the view that for adult men, apostasy from Islam was a crime as well as a sin, punishable by the death penalty,[3][18] but with a number of options for leniency (such as a waiting period to allow time for repentance[3][19][20][21] or enforcement only in cases involving politics),[22][23][24] depending on the era, the legal standards and the school of law. In the late 19th century, the use of legal criminal penalties for apostasy fell into disuse, although civil penalties were still applied.[3]

As of 2021, there were ten Muslim-majority countries where apostasy from Islam was punishable by death,[25] but legal executions are rare.[Note 1] Most punishment is extra-judicial/vigilante,[27][28] and most executions are perpetrated by jihadist and "takfiri" insurgents (al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, the GIA, and the Taliban).[13][29][30][31] Another thirteen countries have penal or civil penalties for apostates[28] – such as imprisonment, the annulment of their marriages, the loss of their rights of inheritance and the loss of custody of their children.[28]

In the contemporary Muslim world, public support for capital punishment varies from 78% in Afghanistan to less than 1% in Kazakhstan;[Note 2] among Islamic jurists, the majority of them continue to regard apostasy as a crime which should be punishable by death.[19] Those who disagree[10][3][33] argue that its punishment should be less than death, should occur in the afterlife,[34][35][36][37] (human punishment being inconsistent with Quranic injunctions against compulsion in belief),[38][39] or should apply only in cases of public disobedience and disorder (fitna).[Note 3]

  1. ^ a b c Schirrmacher, Christine (2020). "Chapter 7: Leaving Islam". In Enstedt, Daniel; Larsson, Göran; Mantsinen, Teemu T. (eds.). Handbook of Leaving Religion. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Vol. 18. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 81–95. doi:10.1163/9789004331471_008. ISBN 978-9004330924. ISSN 1874-6691. Archived from the original on 2 June 2021. Retrieved 29 May 2021.
  2. ^ "No God, not even Allah". The Economist. 24 November 2012. Archived from the original on 26 December 2017. Retrieved 9 January 2018.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Peters, Rudolph; Vries, Gert J. J. De (1976). "Apostasy in Islam". Die Welt des Islams. 17 (1/4): 1–25. doi:10.2307/1570336. JSTOR 1570336. By the murtadd or apostate is understood as the Moslem by birth or by conversion, who renounces his religion, irrespective of whether or not he subsequently embraces another faith
  4. ^ Hashemi, Kamran (2008). "Part A. Apostasy (IRTIDAD)". Religious Legal Traditions, International Human Rights Law and Muslim States. Brill. p. 21. ISBN 978-9047431534. Archived from the original on 23 January 2021. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
  5. ^ Peters, Rudolph; Vries, Gert J. J. De (1976). "Apostasy in Islam". Die Welt des Islams. 17 (1/4): 2–4. doi:10.2307/1570336. JSTOR 1570336.
  6. ^ Adang, Camilla (2001). "Belief and Unbelief: choice or destiny?". In McAuliffe, Jane Dammen (ed.). Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. Vol. I. Leiden: Brill Publishers. doi:10.1163/1875-3922_q3_EQCOM_00025. ISBN 978-9004147430.
  7. ^ Frank Griffel, "Apostasy", in (Editor: Gerhard Bowering et al.) The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought, ISBN 978-0691134840, pp. 40–41
  8. ^ Diane Morgan (2009), Essential Islam: A Comprehensive Guide to Belief and Practice, ISBN 978-0313360251, pp. 182–183
  9. ^ Ghali, Hebatallah (December 2006). "Rights of Muslim Converts to Christianity" (PhD Thesis). Department of Law, School of Humanities and Social Sciences. The American University in Cairo, Egypt. p. 2. Archived (PDF) from the original on 4 September 2014. Whereas an apostate (murtad) is the person who commits apostasy ('rtidad), that is the conscious abandonment of allegiance or ... renunciation of a religious faith or abandonment of a previous loyalty.
  10. ^ a b Abdelhadi, Magdi (27 March 2006). "What Islam says on religious freedom". BBC News. Archived from the original on 11 February 2017. Retrieved 14 October 2009.
  11. ^ Friedmann, Yohanan (2003). "Chapter 4: Apostasy". Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition. Cambridge University Press. pp. 121–159. ISBN 978-1139440790.
  12. ^ "Sudan death penalty reignites Islam apostasy debate". BBC News. 15 May 2014. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
  13. ^ a b Poljarevic, Emin (2021). "Theology of Violence-oriented Takfirism as a Political Theory: The Case of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)". In Cusack, Carole M.; Upal, M. Afzal (eds.). Handbook of Islamic Sects and Movements. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Vol. 21. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 485–512. doi:10.1163/9789004435544_026. ISBN 978-9004435544. ISSN 1874-6691.
  14. ^ Wood, Asmi (2012). "8. Apostasy in Islam and the Freedom of Religion in International Law". In Paul Babie; Neville Rochow (eds.). Freedom of Religion under Bills of Rights. University of Adelaide Press. p. 164. ISBN 978-0987171801. JSTOR 10.20851/j.ctt1t3051j.13. Archived from the original on 14 January 2021. Retrieved 9 January 2021.
  15. ^ Brems, Evams (2001). Human Rights : Universality and Diversity. Springer. p. 210. ISBN 978-9041116185. Archived from the original on 7 April 2023. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
  16. ^ "UN rights office deeply concerned over Sudanese woman facing death for apostasy". UN News Centre. 16 May 2014. Archived from the original on 17 April 2017. Retrieved 17 April 2017.
  17. ^ "Saudi Arabia: Writer Faces Apostasy Trial". Human Rights Watch. 13 February 2012. Archived from the original on 17 April 2017. Retrieved 17 April 2017.
  18. ^ Lewis, Bernard (1995). The Middle East, a Brief History of the Last 2000 Years. Touchstone Books. p. 229. ISBN 978-0684807126.
  19. ^ a b Omar, Abdul Rashied (2009). "The Right to religious conversion: Between apostasy and proselytization". In Mohammed Abu-Nimer; David Augsburger (eds.). Peace-Building by, between, and beyond Muslims and Evangelical Christians. Lexington Books. pp. 179–194. ISBN 978-0739135235.
  20. ^ Kecia Ali; Oliver Leaman (2008). Islam: the key concepts. Routledge. p. 10. ISBN 978-0415396387.
  21. ^ John L. Esposito (2004). The Oxford dictionary of Islam. Oxford University Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0195125597.
  22. ^ Asma Afsaruddin (2013), Striving in the Path of God: Jihad and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought, p. 242. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0199730938.
  23. ^ Gerhard Bowering, ed. (2013). The Princeton encyclopedia of Islamic political thought. associate editors Patricia Crone, Wadid Kadi, Devin J. Stewart and Muhammad Qasim Zaman; assistant editor Mahan Mirza. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. p. 40. ISBN 978-0691134840.
  24. ^ B. Hallaq, Wael (2009). Sharī'a: Theory, Practice and Transformations. Cambridge University Press. p. 319. ISBN 978-0521861472.
  25. ^ "Death sentence for apostasy in nearly a dozen countries, report says". National Secular Society. 16 November 2021. Archived from the original on 15 December 2022. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
  26. ^ Elliott, Andrea (26 March 2006). "In Kabul, a Test for Shariah". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 11 January 2016. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
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  30. ^ Rickenbacher, Daniel (August 2019). Jikeli, Gunther (ed.). "The Centrality of Anti-Semitism in the Islamic State's Ideology and Its Connection to Anti-Shiism". Religions. 10 (8: The Return of Religious Antisemitism?). Basel: MDPI: 483. doi:10.3390/rel10080483. ISSN 2077-1444.
  31. ^ Badara, Mohamed; Nagata, Masaki; Tueni, Tiphanie (June 2017). "The Radical Application of the Islamist Concept of Takfir" (PDF). Arab Law Quarterly. 31 (2). Leiden: Brill Publishers: 134–162. doi:10.1163/15730255-31020044. ISSN 1573-0255. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 July 2019. Retrieved 25 October 2021.
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  34. ^ Ibrahim, Hassan (2006). Abu-Rabi', Ibrahim M. (ed.). The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thought. Blackwell Publishing. pp. 167–169. ISBN 978-1405121743.
  35. ^ Forte, D. F. (1994), Apostasy and Blasphemy in Pakistan, Conn. Journal of Int'l Law, Vol. 10, pp. 27–41
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  37. ^ Cite error: The named reference fkazemi was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  38. ^ Abou El Fadl, Khaled (2007). The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists. HarperOne. p. 158. ISBN 978-0061189036.
  39. ^ John Esposito (2011). What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam. Oxford University Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-0199794133.
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