04-22-2006, 05:39 PM
Why Is Apostasy Severely Punished in Islam?
The Muslim community is based on belief and faith. Belief is the basic foundation of its identity, pivot, and spirit of its life. That is why it does not allow anyone to harm this identity. Hence, proclaiming apostasy is considered the most flagrant crime in the eyes of Islam as it poses a danger to the identity of the Muslim community and its moral being. In other words, it jeopardizes the first five main objectives of the Shari`ah, which Islam with its moral and legislative systems seeks to preserve — religion, life, offspring, the intellect, and property. Religion occupies the very first place here as believers may sacrifice themselves, their country, and their wealth for the sake of their religion.
Islam does not compel people to join it nor does it force anybody to accept or to leave any other religion, but it places great importance upon conviction for those who embrace it. Almighty Allah says, [Had your Lord willed, all the people on earth would have believed. So can you (Prophet) compel people to believe?] (Yunus 10:99)
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Almighty Allah does not accept that religion be taken lightly…
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He Almighty also says, [Let there be no compulsion in religion: truth stands out clear from error.] (Al-Baqarah 2:256)
However, Almighty Allah does not accept that religion be taken lightly: a person joining it one day and forsaking it another day, in the like manner of the group of Jews about whom the Qur'an says, [A section of the People of the Book say: believe in the morning what is revealed to the believers, but reject it at the end of the day; perchance they may (themselves) turn back.] (Aal `Imran 3:72)
Besides, Islam does not call for the execution of apostates who do not proclaim their apostasy or call for it. Rather, it leaves the punishment for the hereafter if they die in the state of apostasy, as Almighty Allah says, [And if any of you turn back from their faith and die in unbelief, their works will bear no fruit in this life and in the hereafter; they will be companions of the fire and will abide therein.] (Al-Baqarah 2:217). However, this type of apostate may receive a discretionary punishment in this world.
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Islam does not call for the execution of apostates who do not proclaim their apostasy or call for it.
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The death penalty with regard to apostasy is to be applied only to those who proclaim their apostasy and call for others to do the same. Islam lays down this severe punishment in order to protect its unity and the identity of its community. Every community in this world has basic foundations that are to be kept inviolable, such as identity, loyalty, and allegiance. Accordingly, no community accepts that a member thereof changes its identity or turns his or her loyalty to its enemies. They consider betrayal of one's country a serious crime, and no one has ever called for giving people a right to change their loyalty from a country to another whenever they like.
Apostasy is not only an intellectual situation whose handling is confined to discussing the principle of freedom of belief; it also involves a change of loyalty and identity. People who apostatize from Islam give up their loyalty to the Muslim nation and pay allegiance, heart and soul, to its enemies. This is denoted in the agreed-upon hadith that clarifies the kinds of people whose blood is lawful to shed and describes among those people the apostate, by saying, "Or someone who abandons his religion and the Muslim community" (Ibn Mas`ud).
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Apostasy involves a change of loyalty and identity…
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The phrase, "And the Muslim community," is part of the description of an apostate; this entails that every apostate from Islam by implication abandons the Muslim community.
Although apostasy is a criminal act, apostates' rights are not to be violated, nor are they punished except for the things they do or proclaim, verbally or in writing (against Islam and the Muslims); as speaking or acting against Islam openly is a clear-cut disbelief and cannot be interpreted otherwise. Should there be any doubt in this regard, the person accused of apostasy would be given the benefit of the doubt.
Negligence in punishing apostates who proclaim and call for their apostasy jeopardizes the whole community and exposes it to afflictions whose consequences Almighty Allah only knows. This may lead to apostates' enticing other people, especially the gullible and those of weak faith, to join them. This, in turn, may lead to those apostates forming a group hostile to the Muslim nation and seeking the help of its enemies against it. In this way, the Muslim nation will fall into intellectual, social, and political disputes and disintegration, which may develop into bloody ones or even into a civil war that could destroy everything.
One scenario took place in Afghanistan when a group of people gave up their religion and adopted communist beliefs after they had studied in Russia. They were recruited by the Communist party. The Afghani people were heedless of this danger, which gave the chance for this group to hold power in Afghanistan; and by virtue of their authority, they set to wholly change the identity of the Muslim community there. But the Muslim Afghans did not give in; they resisted as much as they could and formed the valiant Afghani jihad against the communist apostates, who even dared to request Russian military help against their people and country. The Russian troops attacked Afghanistan with tanks and artillery and heavily bombarded it.
That was the scenario of the ten-year-long civil war that destroyed Afghanistan and caused the death and injury of millions of people there.
All that was a result of ignoring the issue of the apostates and remaining silent about their crime of apostasy from the beginning. Had those renegades been punished before the situation became serious, the Afghani people would have been saved from the evils of this aggressive war and its destructive results.