04-22-2006, 05:36 PM
Facing Apostasy: The Role of Muslims
The greatest kind of danger that faces Muslims is that which threatens their moral aspect of existence, i.e., their belief. That is why apostasy from Islam is regarded as one of the most dangerous threats to the Muslim community. The ugliest intrigue the enemies of Islam have plotted against Islam has been to try to lure its followers away from it; they have even used force for this purpose. In this regard, Almighty Allah says, [And they will not cease from fighting against you till they have made you renegades from your religion, if they can.] (Al-Baqarah 2:217)
In the contemporary age, the Muslim community has been exposed to horrendous invasions and aggressive attacks, one of which is the missionary invasion that aims at uprooting the Muslim community altogether. This invasion began its missions with the Western colonialism (of the Muslim world), and it still exercises its activities in the Muslim world and among the Muslim communities and minorities (in non-Muslim countries). One of its goals is to entice Muslims to convert to Christianity. This goal was made clear in the North American Conference on Muslim Evangelization (that was held in Colorado in 1978). Forty studies about Islam and Muslims and how to spread Christianity among them were submitted to that conference, and US$1 billion was allocated for this purpose. In addition, the Zwemer Institute (in South Carolina) was established to train missionaries to preach Christianity to Muslims.
Another example is the communist invasion that spread through many Muslim countries in Asia and Europe and made every effort to put an end to Islam and grow generations who know nothing about Islam at all.
The third and most dangerous and cunning kind is the secular invasion, which still plays its role in the Muslim world, sometimes openly, and sometimes in disguise. It seeks to undermine true Islam and approves of the superstitious manifestations that are falsely claimed to belong to Islam.
The duty of the Muslim community — in order to preserve its identity — is to combat apostasy in all its forms and wherefrom it comes, giving it no chance to pervade in the Muslim world.
That was what Abu Bakr and the Prophet's Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) did when they fought against the apostates who followed Musailemah the Liar, Sijah, and Al-Aswad Al-`Ansi, who falsely claimed to be Allah's prophets after the demise of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). Those apostates had been about to nip the Islamic call in the bud.
It is extremely dangerous to see apostasy prevailing in the Muslim community without facing it. A contemporary scholar described the apostasy prevailing in this age saying, "What an apostasy; yet no Abu Bakr is there to (deal with) it."1
Muslims are to seriously resist individual apostasy before it seriously intensifies and develops into a collective one.
That is why the Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished, yet they differ as to determining the kind of punishment to be inflicted upon them. The majority of them, including the four main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi`i, and Hanbali) as well as the other four schools of jurisprudence (the four Shiite schools of Az-Zaidiyyah, Al-Ithna-`ashriyyah, Al-Ja`fariyyah, and Az-Zaheriyyah) agree that apostates must be executed.
In this regard, many hadiths were reported in different wordings on the authority of a number of Companions, such as Ibn `Abbas, Abu Musa, Mu`adh, `Ali, `Uthman, Ibn Mas`ud, `A'ishah, Anas, Abu Hurairah, and Mu`awiyah ibn Haidah.
For example, Ibn `Abbas quoted the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) as having said, "Whoever changes his religion, then kill him."
A similar wording of the hadith was reported on the authority of Abu Hurairah and Mu`awiyah ibn Haidah with a sound chain of transmission. Also, Ibn Mas`ud reported the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) as having said, "The blood of a Muslim who testifies that there is no god but Allah and that I am the Messenger of Allah is not lawful to shed unless he be one of three: a married adulterer, someone killed in retaliation for killing another, or someone who abandons his religion and the Muslim community."
Another version of this hadith was reported by `Uthman, "The blood of a Muslim is not lawful to shed unless he be one of three, a person that turned apostate after (embracing) Islam or committed adultery after having married, or killed a person without just cause."
The eminent scholar Ibn Rajab said, "Punishing a person by death for committing any of these sins is agreed upon among Muslims."2
`Ali ibn Abi Talib (may Allah be pleased with him) punished some people who apostatized from Islam and claimed that he was a god by putting them to fire after having reprimanded them and asked them to return to Islam but to no avail. He put them to fire saying these following lines of poetry:
When I saw the matter so flagrant,
I kindled fire and summoned for Qanbar"
Qanbar was the servant of Imam `Ali.3
Ibn `Abbas did not agree with `Ali about burning the apostates, quoting, as evidence for his opinion, the Prophet's hadith, "Do not punish anybody with Allah's punishment (of fire)." According to Ibn `Abbas, the apostates should have been killed by a means other than burning. Thus, Ibn `Abbas was not against killing the apostates in principle, but against killing them by fire.
Abu Musa and Mu`adh also punished a Jew by death, as he had embraced Islam and then reverted back to Judaism. Mu`adh said about that: "It is the verdict of Allah and His Messenger."
`Abdur-Raziq also reported, "Ibn Mas`ud held in custody some Iraqi people who had apostatized from Islam, and then wrote to Caliph `Umar asking him what to do with them. `Umar wrote him back, saying, 'Ask them to return to the true religion (of Islam) and the Testimony of Faith. If they are to accept this, set them free, and if they are to reject it, then kill them.' When Ibn Mas`ud did so, some of the apostates repented and some refused, and thus, he set free the repentant and killed those who renounced Islam after being believers."4
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Prophet (PBUH) accepted the repentance of a group of apostates...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is also reported on the authority of Abu `Umar Ash-Shaybani that when Al-Mustawrad Al-`Ajli converted to Christianity after having embraced Islam, `Utbah ibn Farqad sent him to `Ali, who asked him to return to Islam, but he refused, and thus `Ali killed him.5