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Muslims misguided enough to abandon Islam are free to do so

12 May 2008

I was dismayed when I read the posting "The right to change one's religion" which was posted on the City Circle blogs site on 26 October 2007. Following the migration of the City Circle website, that posting is not currently available. A similar piece with the same title and author, "The right to change one's religion" by Shaykh Abdullah Adhami was available for some time on the website of the Islamic Forum of Europe but is no longer there. From memory the content was the same as the piece that appeared on the City Circle website. The writer accepts not punishing what he calls "private apostasy", but by implication clearly concurs with the death penalty for "public apostasy."

My personal position is identical with the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which in article 18 states:

"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."

As a human being, I want those freedoms for myself. Simple symmetry requires that whatever freedoms and rights I want for myself; I must equally allow other people.

However, I recognised that many Muslims take the view that all legal and ethical principles must be derived from within Islamic sources, and at that time I had not done the necessary research. In between, Usama Hasan and Abdal Hakim Murad have addressed the correct Islamic analysis in "What Islam Really Says about Violence, Human Rights and Other Religions" which is not currently available on the City Circle website due to its migration. In particular, Abdal Hakim Murad points out that the Ottoman Caliphate abolished the penalty for apostasy shortly after 1839 and that al-Azhar University delivered a similar fatwa in 1958. However, he reminds us that radical Salafis and Wahhabis do not accept these verdicts, and Usama points out that most Deobandis, Barelwis and other "traditionalists" also do not.

Accordingly, I am adding my own contribution, having researched the subject to speak before a Jewish audience at the Liverpool Day Limmud. (I spoke on conversion into Judaism, into Islam and out of Islam.)

The most comprehensive argument I found in favour of the death penalty was from Abul Ala Mawdudi in the booklet The Punishment of the Apostate According to Islamic Law. While the linked translation was posted by two Christians opposed to Mawdudi's views, I have no reason to believe that the translation is not accurate. I encourage people to read the booklet, but find the analysis unconvincing. Not least, Mawdudi also regards banishment as an acceptable alternative punishment.

The clearest arguments that I found against the death penalty were in Apostasy, Freedom and Da'wah: Full Disclosure in a Business-like Manner by Mohammad Omar Farooq. I also recommend visiting the Apostasy and Islam blog which contains an extensive collection of further reading.

A full analysis of the issue would make this posting far too long and is unnecessary in view of the detailed exposition in the two pieces linked in the previous paragraph. However there are three points I do want to make.

1. The traditional Islamic scholars fail to distinguish between apostasy as active rebellion seeking to overthrow the Muslim state and a peaceful decision to stop being a Muslim and live, for example, as a law-abiding Christian within the Muslim state. Most political jurisdictions have practiced the death penalty for treason, and it was perfectly reasonable for the Muslim state to do so. However, that does not resolve the question of peaceable change of religious belief.
2. Allah does not mandate the death penalty even for active treason. In the Quran, verse 5.33 (Yusuf Ali translation) we find: "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter." Accordingly, there are four alternative punishments available for active treason, two of which do not involve death.
3. The Quran in verses 4.136 and 137 (Yusuf Ali translation) recognises that people may go astray repeatedly: "O ye who believe! Believe in Allah and His Messenger, and the scripture which He hath sent to His Messenger and the scripture which He sent to those before (him). Any who denieth Allah, His angels, His Books, His Messenger, and the Day of Judgment, hath gone far, far astray. Those who believe, then reject faith, then believe (again) and (again) reject faith, and go on increasing in unbelief,- Allah will not forgive them nor guide them nor guide them on the way." Such recalcitrants are jeopardising their position in the hereafter, but there is no penalty prescribed in this world.

Those who argue that entry into Islam is a one-way street are wrong theologically. Islam pioneered freedom of religion a thousand years or more before the Christian world; that is something for Muslims to be proud of, instead of Muslims seeking to deny it.