Apostasy In Islam

Apostasy in Islam (ردة‎ riddah or ارتداد irtidād) is commonly defined as the conscious abandonment of Islam by a Muslim in word or through deed. It includes the act of converting to another religion or non-acceptance of faith to be irreligious, by a person who was born in a Muslim family or who had previously accepted Islam. The definition of apostasy from Islam, and whether and how it should be punished, are matters of controversy and Islamic scholars differ in their opinions on these questions.

According to the classical legal doctrine, apostasy in Islam includes not only an explicit renunciation of the Islamic faith (whether for another religion or irreligiosity), but also any deed or utterance implying unbelief, such as one denying a “fundamental tenet or creed” of Islam. Islamic jurists did not formulate general rules for establishing unbelief, instead compiling sometimes lengthy lists of statements and actions which in their view implied apostasy. Apostasy does not include individuals who were forced to embrace Islam under conditions of duress, or acts against Islam or conversion to another religion that is involuntary, forced or done as concealment out of fear of persecution or during war Taqiyya or Kitman).

Until the late 19th century, the vast majority of Sunni and Shia jurists held that for adult men, apostasy from Islam was a crime as well as a sin, an act of treason punishable with the death penalty, typically after a waiting period to allow the apostate time to repent and to return to Islam. The kind of apostasy which the jurists generally deemed punishable was of the political kind, although there were considerable legal differences of opinion on this matter. Wael Hallaq states that “[in] a culture whose lynchpin is religion, religious principles and religious morality, apostasy is in some way equivalent to high treason in the modern nation-state”. Early Islamic jurists developed legal institutions to circumvent this harsh punishment, and the standard for apostasy from Islam was set so high that practically no apostasy verdict could be passed before the 11th century. However, later jurists lowered the bar for applying the death penalty, allowing judges to interpret the apostasy law in different ways, which they did sometimes leniently and sometimes strictly. In the late 19th century, the use of criminal penalties for apostasy fell into disuse, although civil penalties were still applied.

According to Abdul Rashied Omar, the majority of modern Islamic jurists continue to regard apostasy as a crime deserving the death penalty. Some regard apostasy in Islam as a form of religious crime, although others do not. Others argue that the death penalty is an inappropriate punishment, inconsistent with the Qur’anic injunctions such as Quran 88:21–22 or “no compulsion in religion”; and/or that it was a man-made rule enacted in the early Islamic community to prevent and punish the equivalent of desertion or treason, and should be enforced only if apostasy becomes a mechanism of public disobedience and disorder (fitna). According to Khaled Abou El Fadl, moderate Muslims do not believe that apostasy requires punishment. Critics argue that the death penalty or other punishment for apostasy in Islam is a violation of universal human rights, and an issue of freedom of faith and conscience.

As of 2019, there are 12 countries that have the death sentence for apostasy, whereas in 13 other countries apostasy is illegal and the government prescribes some form of punishment for apostasy including: torture, imprisonment, annulment of marriage, loss of inheritance rights or custody rights, amongst others. Laws in various Muslim-majority countries prescribed for the apostate (Arabic: مرتد‎ murtadd) sentences ranging from execution to a prison term to no punishment. Sharia courts in some countries use civil code to void the Muslim apostate’s marriage and to deny child-custody rights as well as inheritance rights. From 1985 to 2006, three governments executed four individuals for apostasy from Islam: “one in Sudan in 1985; two in Iran, in 1989 and 1998; and one in Saudi Arabia in 1992.” Twenty-three Muslim-majority countries, as of 2013, additionally covered apostasy from Islam through their criminal laws. The Tunisian Constitution of 2014 stipulates protection from attacks based on accusations of apostasy. In a Pew Research Center poll, public support for capital punishment for apostasy among Muslims ranged from 78% in Afghanistan to less than 1% in Kazakhstan

Penalties (actual or proposed) for apostasy in some Muslim-majority countries as of 2020.
Death penalty
Prison
Converting a Muslim is a crime
Loss of child custody/marriage

Scriptural references

Quran

See also: Criticism of the Quran and Islam and Violence

The Quran discusses apostasy in many of its verses. For example:

But those who reject Faith after they accepted it, and then go on adding to their defiance of Faith, – never will their repentance be accepted; for they are those who have (of set purpose) gone astray.

— Quran 3:90

You will find others who desire that they should be safe from you and secure from their own people; as often as they are sent back to the mischief they get thrown into it headlong; therefore if they do not withdraw from you, and (do not) offer you peace and restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them; and against these We have given you a clear authority.

— Quran 4:91

Make ye no excuses: ye have rejected Faith after ye had accepted it. If We pardon some of you, We will punish others amongst you, for that they are in sin.

— Quran 9:66

He who disbelieves in Allah after his having believed, not he who is compelled while his heart is at rest on account of faith, but he who opens (his) breast to disbelief– on these is the wrath of Allah, and they shall have a grievous chastisement.

— Quran 16:106

Other Qur’anic verses refer to apostasy. According to professor of anthropology Dale F. Eickelman, some verses in the Quran appear to justify coercion and severe punishment for apostates. In contrast, legal historian Wael Hallaq writes that “nothing in the law governing apostates and apostasy derives from the letter” of the Quran. There is no mention of any specific corporal punishment for apostates to which they are to be subjected in this world, nor do Qur’anic verses refer, whether explicitly or implicitly, to the need to force an apostate to return to Islam or to kill him if he refuses to do so.

Hadith

What constitutes apostasy in Islam

Apostasy is called irtidād (which literally means relapse or regress) or ridda in Islamic literature; an apostate is called murtadd, which means ‘one who turns back’ from Islam. According to some, someone born to a Muslim parent or one who has previously converted to Islam becomes a murtadd if he or she verbally denies any principle of belief prescribed by Qur’an or a Hadith, deviates from approved Islamic tenets (ilhad), or if he or she commits a blasphemy which can be defined, in practice, as any objection to the authenticity of Islam, its laws or its prophet. For example, the former governor of Jakarta was accused and charged with blasphemy for saying that a certain Hadith, used as a slogan by opposition members, was weak and should be disregarded. A person born to a Muslim father who later rejects Islam is called a murtad fitri, and a person who converted to Islam and later rejects the religion is called a murtad milli. A Muslim woman – that is a woman born to a Muslim father – is considered an apostate if she marries a non-Muslim. This was the case for Mariam Ishag Yahia from Sudan, despite being a practicing Christian her whole life.

The jurist Imam Ibnul Humam (d. 681 AH) wrote in his book Fathul Qadir:

The reason to kill an apostate is only with the intent to eliminate the danger of war, and not for the reason of his disbelief. The punishment of disbelief is far greater with God. Therefore, only such an apostate shall be killed who is actively engaged in war; and usually it is a man, and not a woman. For the same reason, the Holy Prophet has forbidden to kill women. And for this very reason, an apostate female could be killed if she in fact instigates and causes war by her influence and armed force at her disposal. She is not killed because of her apostasy, but for her creating disorder (through war) on earth.

— Imam Ibnul Humam

A person is considered apostate if he or she converts from Islam to another religion. Apostasy can occur even if one does not formally renounce Islam. Those who were forced to denounce Islam under conditions of duress or out of fear of persecution or during war (Taqiyya or Kitman) are not considered apostates.

Evidence of apostasy in Islam, according to Reliance of the Traveller, a 14th-century manual of the Shafi’i school of jurisprudence (Fiqh), includes:

(a) bowing before sun, moon, objects of nature, idols, cross or any images symbolically representing God whether in mere contrariness, sarcastically or with conviction;

(b) intention to commit unbelief, even if one hesitates to do so;

(c) speak words that imply unbelief such as “Allah is the third of three” or “I am Allah”;

(d) revile, question, wonder, doubt, mock or deny the existence of God or Prophet of Islam or that the Prophet was sent by God;

(e) revile, deny, or mock any verse of the Quran, or the religion of Islam;

(f) to deny the obligatory character of something considered obligatory by Ijma (consensus of Muslims);

(g) believe that things in themselves or by their nature have cause independent of the will of God;

Al-Ghazali held that apostasy occurs when a Muslim denies the essential dogmas: monotheism, Muhammad’s prophecy, and the Last Judgment.

In early Islamic history, after Muhammad’s death, the declaration of Prophethood by anyone was automatically deemed to be proof of apostasy. This view has continued to the modern age in the rejection of the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam as apostates by mainstream Sunni and Shia sects of Islam, because Ahmadis consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder of Ahmadiyya, as a modern-day Prophet.

There are disagreements among Islamic scholars, and Islamic schools of jurisprudence, as to who can be judged for the crime of apostasy in Islam. Some in Shafi’i fiqh such as Nawawi and al-Misri state that the apostasy code applies to a Muslim who

(a) has understood and professed that “there is no God but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God” (shahada),

(b) knows the shariah necessarily known by all Muslims,

(d) has reached or passed puberty, and

(e) has consciously and deliberately rejected or consciously and deliberately intends to reject any part or all of Quran or of Islam (Sharia).

Maliki scholars additionally require that the person in question has publicly engaged in the obligatory practices of the religion. In contrast, Hanafi, Hanbali and Ja’fari fiqh set no such screening requirements; a Muslim’s history has no bearing on when and on whom to apply the sharia code for apostasy.

In the contemporary Islamic Republic of Iran, at least one conservative jurist, Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, has attempted to reconcile following the traditional doctrine while addressing the principle of freedom of religion enshrined in the Islamic Republic’s constitution. At a 2009 human rights conference at Mofid University in Qom, Araki stated that “if an individual doubts Islam, he does not become the subject of punishment, but if the doubt is openly expressed, this is not permissible.” As one observer (Sadakat Kadri) noted, this “freedom” has the advantage that “state officials could not punish an unmanifested belief even if they wanted to”.

While there are numerous requirements for a Muslim to avoid being an apostate, it is also an act of apostasy (in Shafi’i and other fiqh) for a Muslim to accuse or describe another devout Muslim of being an unbeliever, based on the hadith where Muhammad is reported to have said: “If a man says to his brother, ‘You are an infidel,’ then one of them is right.”

Regarding Muslim converts to Christianity, Duane Alexander Miller (2016) identified two different categories:

‘Muslims followers of Jesus Christ’, ‘Jesus Muslims’ or ‘Messianic Muslims’ (analogous to Messianic Jews), who continue to self-identify as ‘Muslims’, or at least say Islam is (part of) their ‘culture’ rather than religion, but “understand themselves to be following Jesus as he is portrayed in the Bible”.
‘Christians from a Muslim background’ (abbreviated CMBs), also known as ‘ex-Muslim Christians’, who have completely abandoned Islam in favour of Christianity.

Miller introduced the term ‘Muslim-background believers’ (MBBs) to encompass both groups, adding that the latter group are generally regarded as apostates from Islam, but orthodox Muslims’ opinions on the former group is more mixed (either that ‘Muslim followers of Jesus’ are ‘heterodox Muslims’, ‘heretical Muslims’ or ‘crypto-Christian liars’).

Punishment

Proselytization and apostasy of Muslims to leave Islam and join another religion is considered a religious crime by many writers. Throughout the history of Islam, proselytization and apostasy of Muslims was forbidden by law.

There are differences of opinion among Islamic scholars about whether, when and how apostasy in Islam should be punished.

Execution

Legal opinion on apostasy by the Fatwa committee at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, concerning the case of a man who converted to Christianity: “Since he left Islam, he will be invited to express his regret. If he does not regret, he will be killed according to rights and obligations of the Islamic law.” The Fatwa also mentions that the same applies to his children if they entered Islam and left it after they reach maturity.

In Islamic law (sharia), the view among the majority of medieval jurists was that a male apostate must be put to death unless he suffers from a mental disorder or converted under duress, for example, due to an imminent danger of being killed. A female apostate must be either executed, according to Shafi’i, Maliki, and Hanbali schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), or imprisoned until she reverts to Islam as advocated by the Sunni Hanafi school and by Shi’a scholars.

Many Islamic scholars have viewed apostasy as a hadd (pl. hudud) crime, i.e. a crime with a scripturally prescribed punishment, although this classification has been contested by Hanafi and Shafi’i jurists, as well as by some notable scholars of other schools, such as the Malikite Abu al-Walid al-Baji and Hanbalite Ibn Taymiyyah.

Under traditional Islamic law an apostate may be given a waiting period while in incarceration to repent and accept Islam again and if not the apostate is to be killed without any reservations. This traditional view of Sunni and Shia Islamic fiqhs, or schools of jurisprudence (maḏāhib) each with their own interpretation of Sharia, varies as follows:

Hanafi – recommends three days of imprisonment before execution, although the delay before killing the Muslim apostate is not mandatory. Apostates who are men must be killed, states the Hanafi Sunni fiqh, while women must be held in solitary confinement and beaten every three days till they recant and return to Islam. Penalty for Apostasy limited for those who cause Hirabah after leaving Islam, not for personal religion change.

Maliki – allows up to ten days for recantation, after which the apostate must be killed. Both men and women apostates deserve death penalty according to the traditional view of Sunni Maliki fiqh.

Shafi’i – waiting period of three days is required to allow the Muslim apostate to repent and return to Islam. After the wait, execution is the traditional recommended punishment for both men and women apostates.

Hanbali – waiting period not necessary, but may be granted. Execution is traditional recommended punishment for both genders of Muslim apostates.

Ja’fari – waiting period not necessary, but may be granted according to this Shia fiqh. Male apostates must be executed, states the Jafari fiqh, while a female apostate must be held in solitary confinement till she repents and returns to Islam.

However, according to legal historian Sadakat Kadri, while apostasy was traditionally punished by death, executions were rare because “it was widely believed” that any accused apostate “who repented by articulating the shahada” (LA ILAHA ILLALLAH “There is no God but God”) “had to be forgiven” and their punishment delayed until after Judgement Day. This principle was upheld “even in extreme situations”, such as when an offender adopts Islam “only for fear of death”, based on the hadith that Muhammad had upbraided a follower for killing a raider who had uttered the shahada.

Civil liabilities

In Islam, apostasy has been traditionally considered both a religious crime and a civil liability; the punishment for the former includes death or prison, while the latter leads to civil penalties. Therefore, in all madhhabs of Islam, (a) the property of the apostate is seized and distributed to his or her Muslim relatives; (b) his or her marriage annulled (faskh); (c) any children removed and considered ward of the Islamic state. In case the entire family has left Islam, or there are no surviving Muslim relatives recognized by Sharia, the apostate’s property is liquidated by the Islamic state (part of fay, الْفيء). In case the apostate is not executed, such as in case of women apostates in Hanafi school, the person also loses all inheritance rights. Hanafi Sunni school of jurisprudence allows waiting till execution, before children and property are seized; other schools do not consider this wait as mandatory.

Other views on punishment

Various early Muslim scholars did not agree with the death penalty, among them Ibrahim al-Nakha’i (d. 715) and Sufyan al-Thawri and their followers, who rejected the death penalty and prescribed indefinite imprisonment until repentance. The Hanafi jurist Sarakhsi also called for different punishments between the non-seditious religious apostasy and that of seditious and political nature, or high treason.

Medieval Islamic scholars also differed on the punishment of a female apostate: death, enslavement, or imprisonment until repentance. Abu Hanifa and his followers refused the death penalty for female apostates, supporting imprisonment until they re-embrace Islam. Hanafi scholars maintain that a female apostate should not be killed because it was forbidden to kill women under Sharia. In contrast, Maliki, Shafii, Hanbali and Ja’fari scholars interpreted other parts of Sharia to permit death as possible punishment for Muslim apostate women, in addition to confinement.

Contemporary reform Muslims such as Quranist Ahmed Subhy Mansour, Edip Yuksel, and Mohammed Shahrour have suffered from accusations of apostasy and demands to execute them, issued by Islamic clerics such as Mahmoud Ashur, Mustafa Al-Shak’a, Mohammed Ra’fat Othman and Yusif Al-Badri. Despite claiming to have received death threats, Edip Yuksel also believes that high-profile apostates who are controversial should be killed. He wrote, “Apostasy is not what gets one killed. It’s a combination of being controversial and having a high profile.”

Prominent recent examples of writers and activists killed because of apostasy claims include Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, executed by the Sudanese government, as thousands of demonstrators protested his execution, and Faraj Foda, victim of Islamic extremists who were later arrested and imprisoned for 20 years. The Egyptian Nobel prize winner Najib Mahfouz was injured in an attempted assassination, paralyzing his right arm. The case of Abdul Rahman, an Afghan who converted from Islam to Christianity, sparked debate on the issue. While he initially faced the death penalty, he was eventually released as he was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial. Additionally, some, although not all Islamic states that do not directly execute converts from Islam sometimes instead indirectly facilitate extrajudicial killings performed by the apostate’s family, particularly if the apostate is vocal.

Opposition to execution

Over the centuries a number of prominent ulema, including the Maliki jurist Abu al-Walid al-Baji (d. 474 AH) and Hanbali jurist Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328), held that apostasy is not a hadd crime and thus is liable only to a discretionary punishment (ta’zir). Some early authorities, such as Ibrahim al-Nakhai and Sufyan al-Thawri, as well as the Hanafi jurist Sarakhsi (d. 1090), believed that an apostate should be asked to repent indefinitely and never condemned to death. According to Sarakhsi, apostasy from Islam is a great offense, but its punishment is postponed until the Day of Judgement. The view that the Quran speaks only of otherworldly punishment for apostasy was also held by the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar (1958-1963) Mahmud Shaltut, who held that the prescription of death penalty for apostasy found in hadith was aimed at prevention of aggression against Muslims and sedition against the state. Contemporary scholar Mirza Tahir Ahmad quotes a number of companions of Muhammad or early Islamic scholars (Ibn al-Humam, al-Marghinani, Ibn Abbas, Sarakhsi, Ibrahim al-Nakh’i) to argue that there was not a ijma (consensus among scholars or community) in favor of execution of murtadd in early Islam.

Contemporary Islamic Shafi`i jurists such as the Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa and fiqh scholar Taha Jabir Alalwani along with Shi’a jurists such as Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri and Grand Ayatollah Hussein Esmaeel al-Sadr and some jurists, scholars and writers of other Islamic sects, have argued or issued fatwas that the changing of religion is not punishable, but these minority opinions have not found broad acceptance among the majority of Islamic scholars. However others have successfully argued that the majority view, in both the past and the present, wasn’t a severe punishment for mere apostasy.

Javed Ahmad Ghamidi writes that punishment for apostasy was part of divine punishment for only those who denied the truth even after clarification in its ultimate form by Muhammad (Itmaam-i-hujjat), hence, he considers it a time-bound command and no longer punishable.

Tariq Ramadan states that given “the way the Prophet behaved with the people who left Islam (like Hishâm and ‘Ayyash) or who converted to Christianity (such as Ubaydallah ibn Jahsh), it should be stated that one who changes her/his religion should not be killed”. He further states that “there can be no compulsion or coercion in matters of faith not only because it is explicitly forbidden in the Qur’an but also because free conscious and choice and willing submission are foundational to the first pillar (declaration of faith) and essential to the very definition of Islam. Therefore, someone leaving Islam or converting to another religion must be free to do so and her/his choice must be respected.”

Reza Aslan argues that the idea that apostasy is treason rather than exercise of freedom of religion is not so much part of Islam, as part of the pre-modern era when classical Islamic fiqh was developed, and when “every religion was a religion of the sword“.

This was also an era in which religion and the state were one unified entity. … no Jew, Christian, Zoroastrian, or Muslim of this time would have considered his or her religion to be rooted in the personal confessional experiences of individuals. … Your religion was your ethnicity, your culture, and your social identity… your religion was your citizenship.

The Holy Roman Empire had its officially sanctioned and legally enforced version of Christianity
The Sasanian Empire had its officially sanctioned and legally enforced version of Zoroastrianism.
while in China, Buddhist rulers fought Taoist rulers for political ascendancy.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, a minority sect found in South and Southeast Asia, rejects any form of punishment for apostasy whatsoever in this world, citing hadith, Quran, and the opinions of classical Islamic jurists to justify its views. However, Ahmadiyya Muslims are widely considered as non-Muslim apostates and persecuted by mainstream Islam, because of their beliefs.

Quran

The basis for an opposition to execution for mere apostasy in the Qur’an stems from the following:

There is no compulsion in religion; truly the right way has become clearly distinct from error; therefore, whoever disbelieves in the Shaitan and believes in Allah he indeed has laid hold on the firmest handle, which shall not break off, and Allah is Hearing, Knowing.

— Quran 2:256

Say, “The truth is from your Lord”: Let him who will believe, and let him who will, reject (it): for the wrong-doers We have prepared a Fire whose (smoke and flames), like the walls and roof of a tent, will hem them in: if they implore relief they will be granted water like melted brass, that will scald their faces, how dreadful the drink! How uncomfortable a couch to recline on!

— Quran 18:29

And if your Lord had pleased, surely all those who are in the earth would have believed, all of them; will you then force men till they become believers?

— Quran 10:99

Therefore do remind, for you are only a reminder. You are not a watcher over them;

— Quran 88:21–22

He said: “O my people! See ye if (it be that) I have a Clear Sign from my Lord, and that He hath sent Mercy unto me from His own presence, but that the Mercy hath been obscured from your sight? shall we compel you to accept it when ye are averse to it?

— Quran 11:28

Jonathan A.C. Brown explains that “According to all the theories of language elaborated by Muslim legal scholars, the Qur’anic proclamation that ‘There is no compulsion in religion. The right path has been distinguished from error’ is as absolute and universal a statement as one finds. The truth had been made clear, and now, ‘Whoever wants, let him believe, and whoever wants, let him disbelieve,’ the holy book continues (2:256, 18:29). “, and hence the Qur’an granted religious freedom. Peters and Vries, in contrast, write that the Quranic verse 2:256 was traditionally interpreted in a different way, considered abrogated (suspended and overruled) by later verses of Quran by some classical scholars. Peters and Vries note that some interpreted this verse has been that it “forbids compulsion to things that are wrong but not compulsion to accept the truth”. However, that isn’t true since Muslim scholars have established the abrogated verses and (2:256) isn’t among them, moreover, many Qur’anic commentators and Muslim scholars interpret (2:256) by reasoning that the truth of Islam is so self-evident that no one is in need of being coerced into it; and embracing Islam because of coercion would not benefit the convert in any case.

Khaled Abou El Fadl claims that the verses (88:21–22) emphasizes that even Muhammad does not have the right to think of himself as a warden who has the power to coerce people. This is reaffirmed by many of the historical reports regarding the Qur’anic revelation that emphasize that belief and conviction cannot be coerced. He further states that moderates consider the verse (2:256) to be enunciating a general, overriding principle that cannot be contradicted by isolated traditions attributed to the Prophet. He concludes that moderates do not believe that there is any punishment that attaches to apostasy.

S. A. Rahman, a former Chief Justice of Pakistan, argues that there is no indication of the death penalty for apostasy in the Qur’an. W. Heffening states that “in the Qur’an the apostate is threatened with punishment in the next world only.” Wael Hallaq holds that nothing in the law governing apostate and apostasy derives from the letter of Quran. The late dissenting Shia jurist Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri stated that the Quranic verses do not prescribe an earthly penalty for apostasy.

Islamist author Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi argued that verses ^{[Quran 9:11]} of the Qur’an sanction death for apostasy. In contrast, Pakistan’s jurist S. A. Rahman states “that not only is there no punishment for apostasy provided in the Book but that the Word of God clearly envisages the natural death of the apostate. He will be punished only in the Hereafter…” Rahman also highlights that there is no reference to the death penalty in any of the 20 instances of apostasy mentioned in the Qur’an. Ahmet Albayrak explains in The Qur’an: An Encyclopedia that regarding apostasy as a wrongdoing is not a sign of intolerance of other religions, and is not aimed at one’s freedom to choose a religion or to leave Islam and embrace another faith, but that on the contrary, it is more correct to say that the punishment is enforced as a safety precaution when warranted if apostasy becomes a mechanism of public disobedience and disorder (fitna). At this point, what is punished is the action of ridiculing the high moral flavour of Islam and posing a threat to public order. Otherwise, Islam prohibits spying on people and investigating their private lives, beliefs and personal opinions.

Enayatullah Subhani argues that death penalty mentioned in the Hadith is not for the apostates, rather it is the punishment of collective conspiracy and treason against the government.

Hadiths

Writing in the Encyclopedia of Islam, Heffening holds that contrary to the Qur’an, “in traditions [i.e. hadith], there is little echo of these punishments in the next world… and instead, we have in many traditions a new element, the death penalty.” Wael Hallaq states the death penalty reflects a later reality and does not stand in accord with the deeds of Muhammad.

Ayatollah Montazeri holds that it is probable that the punishment was prescribed by Muhammad during early Islam to combat political conspiracies against Islam and Muslims, and is not intended for those who simply change their belief or express a change in belief. Montazeri defines different types of apostasy; he argues that capital punishment should be reserved for those who desert Islam out of malice and enmity towards the Muslim community, and not those who convert to another religion after investigation and research.

Historic impact

The charge of apostasy is often used by religious authorities to condemn and punish skeptics, dissidents, and minorities in their communities. From the earliest history of Islam, the crime of apostasy and execution for apostasy has driven major events in Islam. For example, the Ridda wars (civil wars of apostasy) shook the Muslim community in 632-633 AD, immediately after the death of Muhammad. These apostasy wars split the two major sects of Islam – Sunni and Shia, and caused numerous deaths. Sunni and Shia sects of Islam have long called each other as apostates of Islam.

The term Zindīq refers to a freethinker, atheist or a heretic. Originally it referred to a dualist and also the Manichaeans, whose religion for a time threatened to become the dominant religion of the educated class and who experienced a wave of persecutions from 779 to 786. A history of those times states:

“Tolerance is laudable”, the Spiller (the Caliph Abu al-Abbās) had once said, “except in matters dangerous to religious beliefs, or to the Sovereign’s dignity.” Mahdi (d. 169/785) persecuted Freethinkers, and executed them in large numbers. He was the first Caliph to order composition of polemical works to in refutation of Freethinkers and other heretics; and for years he tried to exterminate them absolutely, hunting them down throughout all provinces and putting accused persons to death on mere suspicion.

The New Encyclopedia of Islam states that after the early period, with some notable exceptions, the practice in Islam regarding atheism or various forms of heresy, grew more tolerant as long as it was a private matter. However heresy and atheism expressed in public may well be considered a scandal and a menace to a society; in some societies they are punishable, at least to the extent the perpetrator is silenced. In particular, blasphemy against God and insulting Muhammad are major crimes.

From the 7th century through the 18th century, atheists, materialists, Sufi, and Shii sects were accused and executed for apostasy in Islam. In the 8th century, apostates of Islam were killed in West Asia and Sind. 10th-century Iraq, Sufi mystic Al-Hallaj was executed for apostasy; in 12th-century Iran, al-Suhrawardi along with followers of Ismaili sect of Islam were killed on charges of being apostates; in 14th-century Syria, Ibn Taymiyyah declared Central Asian Turko-Mongol Muslims as apostates due to the invasion of Ghazan Khan; in 17th-century India, Dara Shikoh and other sons of Shah Jahan were captured and executed on charges of apostasy from Islam by his brother Aurangzeb.

Other sources say that executions of apostates have been “rare in Islamic history”. While Al-Hallaj was officially executed for possessing a heretical document suggesting hajj pilgrimage was not required of a pure Muslim, it is thought he would have been spared execution except that the Caliph at the time Al-Muqtadir wished to discredit “certain figures who had associated themselves” with al-Hallaj. (Previously al-Hallaj had been punished for talking about being at one with God by being shaved, pilloried and beaten with the flat of a sword. He was not executed because the Shafi’ite judge had ruled that his words were not “proof of disbelief.”) According to historian Bernard Lewis, in the “early times” of Islam, “charges of apostasy were not unusual, and … the terms unbeliever and apostate were commonly used in religious polemic … in fact such accusations had little practical effect. The accused were for the most part unmolested, and some even held high offices in the Muslim state. As the rules and penalties of the Muslim law were systematized and more regularly enforced, charges of apostasy became rarer.” When action was taken against an alleged apostate, it was much more likely to be “quarantine” than execution, unless the innovation was “extreme, persistent and aggressive”.

During the colonial era, death for apostasy was abolished in many Muslim-majority colonies. Similarly, under intense European pressure, death sentence for apostasy from Islam was abolished by the Edict of Toleration, and substituted with other forms of punishment by the Ottoman government in 1844; the implementation of this ban was resisted by religious officials and proved difficult. A series of edicts followed during Ottoman’s Tanzimat period, such as the 1856 Reform Edict. Despite these edicts, there was constant pressure on non-Muslims to convert to Islam, and apostates from Islam continued to be persecuted, punished and threatened with execution, particularly in eastern and Levant parts of the then Ottoman Empire. The Edict of Toleration ultimately failed when Sultan Abdul Hamid II assumed power, re-asserted pan-Islamism with sharia as Ottoman state philosophy, and initiated Hamidian massacres in 1894 against Christians, particularly of Armenians, Assyrians and crypto-Christian apostates from Islam in Turkey (Stavriotes, Kromlides).

In “recent decades” before 2006, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom listed four cases of execution for apostasy in the Muslim world: one in Sudan in 1985; two in Iran, in 1989 and 1998; and one in Saudi Arabia in 1992.

Apostasy in the recent past

Background

More than 20 Muslim-majority states have laws that declare apostasy by Muslims to be a crime. As of 2014, apostasy was a capital offense in Afghanistan, Brunei, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Executions for religious conversion have been infrequent in recent times, with four cases reported since 1985: one in Sudan in 1985; two in Iran, in 1989 and 1998; and one in Saudi Arabia in 1992. In Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Yemen apostasy laws have been used to charge persons for acts other than conversion. In addition, some predominantly Islamic countries without laws specifically addressing apostasy have prosecuted individuals or minorities for apostasy using broadly-defined blasphemy laws. In many nations, the Hisbah doctrine of Islam has traditionally allowed any Muslim to accuse another Muslim or ex-Muslim for beliefs that may harm Islamic society. This principle has been used in countries such as Egypt, Pakistan and others to bring blasphemy charges against apostates.

The violence or threats of violence against apostates in the Muslim world in recent years has derived primarily not from government authorities but from other individuals or groups operating unrestricted by the government. There has also been social persecution for Muslims converting to Christianity. For example, the Christian organisation Barnabas Fund reports:

The field of apostasy and blasphemy and related “crimes” is thus obviously a complex syndrome within all Muslim societies which touches a raw nerve and always arouses great emotional outbursts against the perceived acts of treason, betrayal and attacks on Islam and its honour. While there are a few brave dissenting voices within Muslim societies, the threat of the application of the apostasy and blasphemy laws against any who criticize its application is an efficient weapon used to intimidate opponents, silence criticism, punish rivals, reject innovations and reform, and keep non-Muslim communities in their place.

Similar views are expressed by the non-theistic International Humanist and Ethical Union.

Public opinion

A survey based on face-to-face interviews conducted in 80 languages by the Pew Research Center between 2008 and 2012 among thousands of Muslims in many countries, found varied views on the death penalty for those who leave Islam to become an atheist or to convert to another religion. In some countries (especially in Central Asia, Southeast Europe, and Turkey), support for the death penalty for apostasy was confined to a tiny fringe; in other countries (especially in the Arab world and South Asia) majorities and large minorities support the death penalty.

In the survey, Muslims who favored making Sharia the law of the land were asked for their views on the death penalty for apostasy from Islam. The results are summarized in the table below. Note that values for Group C have been derived from the values for the other two groups and are not part of the Pew report.

Overall, the figures in the 2012 survey suggest that the percentage of Muslims in the countries surveyed who approve the death penalty for Muslims who leave Islam to become an atheist or convert to another religion varies widely, from 0.4% (in Kazakhstan) to 78.2% (in Afghanistan). The Governments of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait) did not permit Pew Research to survey nationwide public opinion on apostasy in 2010 or 2012. The survey also did not include China, India, Syria, or West African countries such as Nigeria.

Afghanistan

Main articles: Freedom of religion in Afghanistan and Human rights in Afghanistan

Article 130 of the Afghan Constitution requires its courts to apply provisions of Hanafi Sunni fiqh for crimes of apostasy in Islam. Article 1 of the Afghan Penal Code requires hudud crimes be punished per Hanafi religious jurisprudence. Prevailing Hanafi jurisprudence, per consensus of its school of Islamic scholars, prescribes death penalty for the crime of apostasy. The apostate can avoid prosecution and/or punishment if he or she confesses of having made a mistake of apostasy and rejoins Islam. In addition to death, the family of the accused can be deprived of all property and possessions, and the individual’s marriage is considered dissolved in accordance with Hanafi Sunni jurisprudence.

In March 2006, an Afghan citizen Abdul Rahman was charged with apostasy and could have faced the death penalty for converting to Christianity. His case attracted much international attention with Western countries condemning Afghanistan for persecuting a convert. Charges against Abdul Rahman were dismissed on technical grounds by the Afghan court after intervention by the president Hamid Karzai. He was released and left the country to find refuge in Italy.

In Afghanistan, I’ve seen how someone
was nearly beaten to death for blasphemy.
In Kabul they are stoning apostates.

– Fareed (pseudonym)

Two other Afghan converts to Christianity, Sayed Mussa and Shoaib Assadullah, were arrested back in March 2006. In February 2006, the homes of yet other converts were raided by police. After serving five years in jail, Sayed Mussa was released in 2011, and Shoaib Assadullah was released in March 2011.

In 2012, secular university teacher Javeed from Ghazni Province wrote an article criticising the Taliban in English. The Taliban tried to seize him, but he and his wife Marina, a well-known Afgan television host, decided to flee to the Netherlands. When in 2014 it was translated to Pashto by powerful warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s son-in-law, this led to an uproar on social media with many accusations of apostasy and death threats directed at Javeed, and a large public demonstration in Kabul calling for his execution.

In late 2015, 21-year-old student and ex-Muslim atheist Morid Aziz had a religious argument with his girlfriend Shogofa, once a liberal Muslim, but radicalised whilst studying Sharia. She secretly recorded the conversation, during which he criticised Islam, and begged her to ‘forsake the darkness and embrace science’, but she called him a kafir and said he would burn in hell. The next day, she played the recording at the Friday prayer in a full mosque. Aziz was inundated with questions from relatives about how he had dared to say what he said, and he quickly went into hiding just before angry men armed with Kalashnikovs showed up at his house. 23 days later, he fled across several countries and ended up in the Netherlands, where he obtained permanent residency on 30 May 2017.

Algeria

Freedom of religion in Algeria is regulated by the Algerian Constitution, which declares Sunni Islam to be the state religion (Article 2) but also declares that “freedom of creed and opinion is inviolable” (Article 36); it prohibits discrimination, Article 29 states “All citizens are equal before the law. No discrimination shall prevail because of birth, race, sex, opinion or any other personal or social condition or circumstance”.

According to Pew Research Center in 2010, 97.9% of Algerians were Muslim, 1.8% were unaffiliated, with the remaining 0.3% comprising adherents of other religions.

By law, children follow the religion of their fathers, even if they are born abroad and are citizens of their (non-Muslim-majority) country of birth. The study of Islam is a requirement in the public and private schools for every Algerian child, irrespective of his/her religion. Although the educational reform of 2006 eliminated “Islamic sciences” from the baccalaureate, Islamic studies are mandatory in public schools at primary level and followed by Sharia studies at secondary level. Concerns have been expressed that requests by non-Muslim religious students to opt out of these classes would result in discrimination.

Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslim men (Algerian Family Code I.II.31), and Muslim men may not marry women of non-monotheistic religious groups. Prior to the 2005 amendments, family law stated that if it is established that either spouse is an “apostate” from Islam, the marriage will be declared null and void (Family Code I.III.32). The term “apostate” was removed with the amendments, however those determined as such still cannot receive any inheritance (Family Code III.I.138).

People without religious affiliation tend to be particularly numerous in Kabylie (a Kabyle-speaking area) where they are generally tolerated and sometimes supported. Notably, Berber civil rights, human rights and secular activist and musician Lounès Matoub (assassinated in 1998) is widely seen as a hero among Kabyles, despite (or because of) his lack of religion. In most other areas of the country, the non-religious tend to be more discreet, and often pretend to be pious Muslims to avoid violence and lynching.

The majority of cases of harassment and security threats against non-Muslims come from the now nearly destroyed Armed Islamic Group, an organization fighting the government who are determined to rid the country of those who do not share their extremist interpretation of Islam. However, a majority of the population subscribes to Islamic precepts of tolerance in religious beliefs. Moderate Islamist religious and political leaders have criticized publicly acts of violence committed in the name of Islam.

The “blasphemy” law is stringent and widely enforced. The non-religious are largely invisible in the public sphere, and although not specifically targeted through legislation, significant prejudice towards non-Muslim religions can be presumed to apply equally if not more so to non-believers. The crime of “blasphemy” carries a maximum of five years in prison and the laws are interpreted widely. For example, several arrests have been made under the blasphemy laws in the last few years for failure to fast during Ramadan, even though this is not a requirement under Algerian law. Non-fasting persons (“non-jeûneurs”) repeatedly face harassment by the police and civil society. Eating in public during Ramadan (particularly for people who “look Muslim”) is legal, but attracts public hostility in most areas, except for some areas of Kabylie. Most restaurants close during Ramadan.

In general, non-citizens who practice faiths other than Islam enjoy a high level of tolerance within society; however, citizens who renounce Islam generally are ostracized by their families and shunned by their neighbors. Those who “renounce” Islam may be imprisoned, fined, or co-erced to re-convert. The Government generally does not become involved in such disputes. Converts also expose themselves to the risk of attack by radical extremists.

Bangladesh

Main articles: Freedom of religion in Bangladesh and Human rights in Bangladesh

Bangladesh does not have a law against apostasy, but incidences of persecution of apostates have been reported. Some Bangladeshi imams have encouraged the killing of converts from Islam. The radical Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh, founded in 2010, created a hit list which included 83 outspoken atheist or secularist activists, including ex-Muslim bloggers and academics. Dozens of atheist and secularist Bangladeshis on this list have been targeted for practicing free speech and “disrespecting” Islam, such as Humayun Azad, who was the target of a failed machete assassination attempt, and Avijit Roy, who was killed with meat cleavers; his wife Bonya Ahmed survived the attack. Since 2013, 8 of the 83 people on the hit list have been killed; 31 others have fled the country.

Belgium

In the Western European country of Belgium, Muslims made up about 5 to 7% of the total population as of 2015. Although legally anyone is free to change their religion, there is a social taboo on apostatising from Islam. Moroccan-Belgian stand-up comedian Sam Touzani is a rare example an outspoken ex-Muslim; he was condemned by several fatwas and has received hundreds of death threats online, but persists in his criticism of Islam and Islamism.

A Movement of Ex-Muslims of Belgium exists to support apostates from Islam, and to ‘fight Islamic indoctrination’. As of 2014, it had a dozen members, who had to operate carefully and often anonymously. Additionally, Belgian academics such as Maarten Boudry and Johan Leman have led efforts to try to normalise leaving Islam in Belgium. On 16 November 2017, 25-year-old Hamza, shunned by his family (except for his supportive sister), came out as an ex-Muslim on television. He was seconded by philosopher and ex-Catholic Patrick Loobuyck, who argued that secularisation in the West gives Western Muslims such as the opportunity to embrace religious liberalism and even atheism. In December 2018, De Morgen reported that Belgian ex-Muslims had been holding secret regular meetings in secure locations in Brussels since late 2017, supported by deMens.nu counselors.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

During the Ottoman Turkish Muslim rule of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1463–1878), a large minority of the Southern Slavic-speaking inhabitants converted to Islam for various reasons, whilst others remained Roman Catholics (later known as Croats) or Orthodox Christians (later known as Serbs). These converts and their descendants were simply known as “Bosnian Muslims” or just “Muslims”, until the term Bosniaks was adopted in 1993. Not all Bosniaks (still) practice Islam nowadays; some may just be “Muslim” by name or cultural background, but not by conviction, profession or practice. In a 1998 public opinion poll, just 78.3% of Bosniaks in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared themselves to be religious.

The Ottomans punished apostasy from Islam with the death penalty until the Edict of Toleration 1844; subsequently, apostates could be imprisoned or deported instead. When Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, this practice was abolished. The Austrian government held that any mature citizen was free to convert to another religion without having to fear any legal penalty, and issued a directive to its officials to keep their involvement in religious matters to a minimum. This clashed with the rigorous hostility to conversion exhibited by traditional Bosnian Muslims, who perceived it as a threat to the survival of Islam. During the four decades of Habsburg rule, several apostasy controversies occurred, most often involving young women with a low socio-economic status who sought to convert to Christianity.

In August 1890, during the Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a sixteen-year-old Bosnian girl called Uzeifa Delahmatović claimed to have voluntarily converted from Islam to Catholicism, the Habsburg state’s official and majority religion. This stirred up controversy about whether she was forced, or whether a Muslim was even allowed to change her or his religion. Subsequent debates resulted in the Austrian Conversion Ordinance of 1891, which made religious conversion of subjects a matter of state. A strict procedure required the convert to be an adult and mentally healthy, and the conversion should be recognised by all parties involved; if not, the state would intervene and set up a commission for arbitration.

In the 20th century, religion became highly politicised in Bosnia, and the basis for most citizens’ national identity and political loyalty, leading to numerous conflicts culminating in the Bosnian War (1992–5). The resulting violence and misery has caused a group of Bosnians to reject religion (and nationalism) altogether. This atheist community faces discrimination, and is frequently verbally attacked by religious leaders as “corrupt people without morals”.

Brunei

Brunei is the latest Muslim-majority country to enact a law that makes apostasy a crime punishable with death. In 2013, it enacted Syariah (Sharia) Penal Code. Section 112(1) of the new law states that a Muslim who declares himself non-Muslim commits a crime punishable with death, or with imprisonment for a term not exceeding thirty years, depending on evidence. Under the required wait period between notification of law and its validity under Brunei’s constitution, its new apostasy law and corporal punishment will be applied starting October 2014, and capital punishment will be imposed starting October 2015.

Egypt

Legal situation

The blasphemy laws and Article 98(f) of Egyptian Penal Code, as amended by Law 147, has been used to prosecute Muslims who have converted to Christianity. For example, in May 2007, Bahaa El-Din El-Akkad, a former Egyptian Muslim and someone who worked on Dawah to spread Islam, was imprisoned after he converted to Christianity, under the charge of “blasphemy against Islam”. He was freed in 2011.

Egypt’s penal code is silent about any punishment for apostasy from Islam. Contemporary Egyptian jurisprudence prohibits apostasy from Islam, but has also remained silent about the death penalty. Article 2 of the Constitution of Egypt enshrines sharia. Both Court of Cassation and the Supreme Administrative Court of Egypt have ruled that, “it is completely acceptable for non-Muslims to embrace Islam but by consensus Muslims are not allowed to embrace another religion or to become of no religion at all [in Egypt].” The silence about punishment for apostasy along with the constitutional enshrinement of Sharia, means the death sentence for apostasy is a possibility. In practice, Egypt has prosecuted apostasy from Islam under its blasphemy laws using the Hisbah doctrine; and non-state Islamic groups have taken the law into their own hands and executed apostates.

A 2010 Pew Research Center poll showed that 84% of Egyptian Muslims believe those who leave Islam should be punished by death.

Cases and incidents

In 1992, Islamist militants gunned down Egyptian secularist and sharia law opponent Farag Foda. Before his death he had been declared an apostate and foe of Islam by the ulama at Al Azhar. During the trial of the murderers, Al-Azhar scholar Mohammed al-Ghazali testified that when the state fails to punish apostates, somebody else has to do it.

In 1993, a liberal Islamic theologian, Nasr Abu Zayd was denied promotion at Cairo University after a court decision of apostasy against him. Following this an Islamist lawyer filed a lawsuit before the Giza Lower Personal Status Court demanding the divorce of Abu Zayd from his wife, Dr. Ibtihal Younis, on the grounds that a Muslim woman cannot be married to an apostate – notwithstanding the fact his wife wished to remain married to him. The case went to the Cairo Appeals Court where his marriage was declared null and void in 1995. After the verdict, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization (which had assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981) declared Abu Zayd should be killed for abandoning his Muslim faith. Abu Zayd was given police protection, but felt he could not function under heavy guard, noting that one police guard referred to him as “the kafir”. On 23 July 1995, he and his wife flew to Europe, where they lived in exile but continued to teach.

In April 2006, after a court case in Egypt recognized the Bahá’í Faith, members of the clergy convinced the government to appeal the court decision. One member of parliament, Gamal Akl of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, said the Bahá’ís were infidels who should be killed on the grounds that they had changed their religion, although most living Bahá’í have not, in fact, ever been Muslim.

In October 2006, Kareem Amer became the first Egyptian to be prosecuted for their online writings, including declaring himself an atheist. He was imprisoned until November 2010.

In 2007 Mohammed Hegazy, a Muslim-born Egyptian who had converted to Christianity based on “readings and comparative studies in religions”, sued the Egyptian court to change his religion from “Islam” to “Christianity” on his national identification card. His case caused considerable public uproar, with not only Muslim clerics, but his own father and wife’s father calling for his death. Two lawyers he had hired or agreed to hire both quit his case, and two Christian human rights workers thought to be involved in his case were arrested. As of 2007, he and his wife were in hiding. In 2008, the judge trying his case ruled that according to sharia, Islam is the final and most complete religion and therefore Muslims already practice full freedom of religion and cannot convert to an older belief. Hegazy kept trying to officially change his religion until he was arrested in 2013 for “spreading false rumours and incitement”. He was released in 2016, after which he published a video on YouTube claiming he had reverted to Islam, and asked to be left alone.

In February 2009, another case of a convert to Christianity (Maher Ahmad El-Mo’otahssem Bellah El-Gohary), came to court. El-Gohary’s effort to officially convert to Christianity triggered state prosecutors charging him of “apostasy,” or leaving Islam, and seeking a sentence of death penalty.

“Our rights in Egypt, as Christians or converts, are less than the rights of animals,” El-Gohary said. “We are deprived of social and civil rights, deprived of our inheritance and left to the fundamentalists to be killed. Nobody bothers to investigate or care about us.” El-Gohary, 56, has been attacked in the street, spat at and knocked down in his effort to win the right to officially convert. He said he and his 14-year-old daughter continue to receive death threats by text message and phone call.

Some commentators have reported a growing trend of abandoning religion following the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, reflected through emergence of support groups on social media, although openly declared apostates still face ostracism and danger of prosecution and vigilante violence. A well-known example is the Internet activist Aliaa Magda Elmahdy (then-girlfriend of Kareem Amer), who protested the oppression of women’s rights and sexuality in Islam by posting a nude photo of herself online. In 2011, the Muslim woman Abeer allegedly converted to Christianity, and was given protection by the Church of Saint Menas in Imbaba. Hundreds of angry salafists beleaguered the church and demanded her return; during the resulting clashes, ten people were killed and hundreds were wounded.

On 21 October 2014, ex-Muslim atheist activist Ahmed Harqan featured in a debate on the popular Egyptian talk show Taht al Koubry (“Under the Bridge”). He explained why he had become an atheist and said that Islam is a “harsh religion”, which was being implemented by Islamic State (ISIS) and Boko Haram. They are doing “what the Prophet Muhammad and his companions did,” said Harqan. Four days later, in the evening of 25 October, he and his pregnant wife Nada Mandour (Saly) Harqan (also an atheist), were attacked by a lynch mob and escaped assassination when they fled to a nearby police station. Instead of taking action to help Harqan and his wife, the police officers further assaulted them and they were imprisoned, charged with blasphemy and “defamation of religion” under article 98 in the Egyptian penal code for asking “What has ISIS done that Muhammad did not do?” on the talk show. Harqan’s appearance provoked weeks of outcry from Islamic religious broadcasters and prompted much-watched follow-up shows.

Eritrea

Muslims constitute approximately 36.5–37% to 48–50% of the Eritrean population; more than 99% of Eritrean Muslims are Sunnis. Although there are no legal restrictions on leaving Sunni Islam, there are only three other officially recognised religions in Eritrea, all of them Christian: the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Catholic Church (in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Eritrea. Despite other religious groups applying for original recognition since 2002, the Eritrean government has failed to implement the relevant rights established in the constitution. It is illegal or unrecognised to identify as an atheist or as non-religious, and illegal to register an explicitly humanist, atheist, secularist or other non-religious NGO or other human rights organisation, or such groups are persecuted by authorities. Members of “unrecognised” religions are arrested, detained in oppressive conditions, and there have been reports that people have been tortured in order for them to recant their religious affiliation. Reports of the harassment and arrest of members of religious minority groups is widespread and frequent. Open Doors reported that Muslims who become Christians in Muslim-majority areas are frequently rejected, mistreated or even disowned by their families. Additionally, the Orthodox Church considers itself the only true Christian denomination in the country and puts its ex-members who convert to a Protestant faith under pressure to return.

India

According to the 2011 census, there were about 172 million Muslims living in India, accounting for approximately 14.2% of the total population. In the early 21st century, an un-organised ex-Muslim movement started to emerge in India, typically amongst young (in their 20s and 30s) well-educated Muslim women and men in urban areas. They are often troubled by religious teachings and practices (such as shunning of and intolerance and violence towards non-Muslims), doubting their veracity and morality, and started to question them. Feeling that Islamic relatives and authorities failed to provide them with satisfactory answers, and with access to alternative interpretations of and information about Islam on the Internet, and the ability to communicate with each other through social media, these people resolved to apostatise.

Indonesia

Indonesia does not have a law against apostasy, and the constitution provides for freedom of religion, accords “all persons shall be free to choose and to practice the religion of his/her choice”. But Indonesia has as a broad blasphemy law that protects all six official religions (Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism) (Article 156) and a Presidential Decree (1965) that permits prosecution of people who commit blasphemy. The Decree prohibits every Indonesian from “intentionally conveying, endorsing or attempting to gain public support in the interpretation of a certain religion; or undertaking religious based activities that resemble the religious activities of the religion in question, where such interpretation and activities are in deviation of the basic teachings of the religion.” These laws have been used to arrest and convict atheist apostates in Indonesia, such as the case of 30-year old Alexander Aan who declared himself to be an atheist, declared “God does not exist”, and stopped praying and fasting as required by Islam. He received death threats from Islamic groups and in 2012 was arrested and sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

Iran

The 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners, starting near the end of the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), were carried out by “Special Commissions with instructions to execute members of People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran as moharebs (those who wage war against Allah) and leftists as mortads (apostates from Islam).” It is unclear how many prisoners were killed (estimates vary from almost 4,500 to more than 30,000), how many of them actually were ex-Muslims or were falsely accused of having left Islam, and the exact motivations behind this massacre. Great care was taken to keep the killings undercover, and the government of Iran currently denies their having taken place. Justifications offered for the alleged executions vary, but one of the most common theories advanced is that they were in retaliation for the 1988 attack on the western borders of Iran by the PMOI Mujahedin. However, this does not fully account for the targeting of other leftist groups who opposed the Mujahedin invasion.

Hossein Soodmand, who converted from Islam to Christianity when he was 13 years old, was executed by hanging in 1990 for apostasy.

According to US think tank Freedom House, since the 1990s the Islamic Republic of Iran has sometimes used death squads against converts, including major Protestant leaders. Under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the regime has engaged in a systematic campaign to track down and reconvert or kill those who have changed their religion from Islam.

15 ex-Muslim Christians were incarcerated on 15 May 2008 under charges of apostasy. They may face the death penalty if convicted. A new penal code is being proposed in Iran that would require the death penalty in cases of apostasy on the Internet.

At least two Iranians – Hashem Aghajari and Hassan Youssefi Eshkevari – have been arrested and charged with apostasy in the Islamic Republic (though not executed), not for self-professed conversion to another faith, but for statements and/or activities deemed by courts of the Islamic Republic to be in violation of Islam, and that appear to outsiders to be Islamic reformist political expression. Hashem Aghajari, was found guilty of apostasy for a speech urging Iranians to “not blindly follow” Islamic clerics; Hassan Youssefi Eshkevari was charged with apostasy for attending the ‘Iran After the Elections’ Conference in Berlin Germany which was disrupted by anti-regime demonstrators.

The Bahá’ís in Iran, the nation of origin of the Bahá’í Faith and Iran’s largest religious minority, were accused of apostasy in the 19th century by the Shi’a clergy because of their adherence to religious revelations by another prophet after those of Muhammad. These allegations led to mob attacks, public executions and torture of early Bahais, including the Báb. More recently, Musa Talibi was arrested in 1994, and Dhabihu’llah Mahrami was arrested in 1995, then sentenced to death on charges of apostasy.

In July 2017, an activist group that spread atheistic articles and books Iranian universities, published a video on YouTube titled “Why we must deny the existence of God”, featuring famous atheist thinkers Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett. An hour before the group would meet to discuss the production of a new video, their office was raided by the police. Group member Keyvan (32), raised as a Sunni Muslim but confusingly educated in a Shia school, long had doubts about religion, and became an apostate after reading atheist literature. He and his wife had to flee after the police raid, and flew to the Netherlands three days later.

Iraq

Although the Constitution of Iraq recognizes Islam as the official religion and states that no law may be enacted that contradicts the established provisions of Islam, it also guarantees freedom of thought, conscience, and religious belief and practice. While the Government generally endorses these rights, unsettled conditions have prevented effective governance in parts of the country, and the Government’s ability to protect religious freedoms has been handicapped by insurgency, terrorism, and sectarian violence. Since 2003, when the government of Saddam Hussein fell, the Iraqi government has generally not engaged in state-sponsored persecution of any religious group, calling instead for tolerance and acceptance of all religious minorities.

In October 2013, 15-year-old Ahmad Sherwan from Erbil said he no longer believed in God and was proud to be an atheist to his father, who had the police arrest him. He was imprisoned for 13 days and tortured several times, before being released on bail; he faced life imprisonment for disbelief in God. Sherwan tried to contact the media for seven months, but all refused to run his story until the private newspaper Awene published it in May 2014. It went viral, and human rights activists came to his aid.

The 2014 uprising of the Islamic State (IS or ISIS) has led to violations of religious freedom in certain parts of Iraq. ISIS follows an extreme anti-Western interpretation of Islam, promotes religious violence and regards those who do not agree with its interpretations as infidels or apostates.

Islam has given me nothing,
no respect, no rights as a woman.
– Huda Mohammed

In the 2010s, an increasing number of Iraqis, especially young people in the capital city of Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region, were leaving Islam for a variety of reasons. Some cite the lack of women’s rights in Islam, others the political climate, which is dominated by conflicts between Shia Muslim parties who seek to expand their power more than they try to improve citizens’ living conditions. Many young ex-Muslims sought refuge in the Iraqi Communist Party, and advocated for secularism from within its ranks. The sale of books on atheism by authors such as Abdullah al-Qasemi and Richard Dawkins has risen in Baghdad. In Iraqi Kurdistan, a 2011 AK-News survey asking whether respondents believed God existed, resulted in 67% replying ‘yes’, 21% ‘probably’, 4% ‘probably not’, 7% ‘no’ and 1% had no answer. The subsequent harsh battle against Islamic State and its literalist implementation of Sharia caused numerous youths to dissociate themselves from Islam altogether, either by adopting Zoroastrianism or secretly embracing atheism.

When Sadr al-Din learned about natural selection in school, he began questioning the relationship between Islam and science, studying the history of Islam, and asking people’s opinions on both topics. At the age of 20, he changed his first name to Daniel, after atheist philosopher Daniel Dennett. He came into conflict with his family, who threatened him with death, and after his father found books in his room denying the existence of God and miracles, he tried to shoot his son. Daniel fled Iraq, and obtained asylum in the Netherlands.

Jordan

Islam in Jordan does not explicitly ban apostasy in its penal code; however, it permits any Jordanian to charge another with apostasy and its Islamic courts to consider conversion trials. If an Islamic court convicts a person of apostasy, it has the power to sentence a prison term, annul that person’s marriage, seize property and disqualify him or her from inheritance rights. The Jordanian poet Islam Samhan was accused of apostasy for poems he wrote in 2008, and sentenced to a prison term in 2009.

Kosovo

Crypto-Catholics

Kosovo was conquered by the Ottoman Empire along with the other remnants of the Serbian Empire in the period following the Battle of Kosovo (1389). Although the Ottomans didn’t force the Catholic and Orthodox Christian population to convert to Islam, there was strong social pressure (such as not having to pay the jizya) as well as political expediency to do so, which ethnic Albanians did in far greater numbers (including the entire nobility) than Serbs, Greeks and others in the region. Many Albanian Catholics converted to Islam in the 17th and 18th centuries, despite attempts by Roman Catholic clergy to stop them, including a strict condemnation of conversion – especially for opportunistic reasons such as jizya evasion – during the Concilium Albanicum, a meeting of Albanian bishops in 1703. Whilst many of these converts stayed crypto-Catholics to a certain extent, often helped by pragmatic lower clerics, the higher Catholic clergy ordered them to be denied the sacraments for their heresy. Efforts to convert the laraman community of Letnica back to Catholicism began in 1837, but the effort was violently suppressed – the local Ottoman governor put laramans in jail. After the Ottoman Empire abolished the death penalty for apostasy from Islam by the Edict of Toleration 1844, several groups of crypto-Catholics in Prizren, Peja and Gjakova were recognised as Catholics by the Ottoman Grand Vizier in 1845. When the laramans of Letnica asked the district governor and judge in Gjilan to recognise them as Catholics, they were refused however, and subsequently imprisoned, and then deported to Anatolia, from where they returned in November 1848 following diplomatic intervention. In 1856, a further Tanzimat reform improved the situation, and no further serious abuse was reported. The bulk of conversion of laramans, almost exclusively newly-borns, took place between 1872 and 1924.

Kuwait

According to a 2002 journal paper, Kuwait does not have a law that criminalizes apostasy. In practice, Kuwait’s family law prosecutes apostates. If an Islamic family court convicts a Muslim of apostasy, the court has the power to annul that person’s marriage and disqualify him/her from property and inheritance rights. For example, the prosecution of Hussein Qambar Ali in an Islamic family court, on charges of apostasy, after he converted from Islam to Christianity. Theoretically, death penalty can also be pronounced.

Blasphemy is criminalized. Law 111 of Kuwait’s Penal Code allows usage of statements posted on internet as evidence of blasphemy.

Libya

Atheism is prohibited in Libya and can come with a death penalty, if one is charged as an atheist.

In June 2013, Libya’s General National Council assembly (GNC) voted to make Islamic Sharia law the basis for all legislation and for all state institutions, a decision having an impact in banking, criminal, and financial law. In February 2016, Libya’s General National Council assembly (GNC) released adecree No.20 Changing on provisions of the Libyan Penal Code.

Malaysia

Malaysia does not have a national law that criminalizes apostasy and its Article 11 grants freedom of religion to its diverse population of different religions. However, Malaysia’s constitution grants its states (Negeri) the power to create and enforce laws relating to Islamic matters and Muslim community. State laws in Kelantan and Terengganu make apostasy in Islam a crime punishable with death, while state laws of Perak, Malacca, Sabah, and Pahang declare apostasy by Muslims as a crime punishable with jail terms. In these states, apostasy is defined as conversion from Islam to another faith, but converting to Islam is not a crime. The central government has not attempted to nullify these state laws, but stated that any death sentence for apostasy would require review by national courts. Ex-Muslims can be fined, jailed or sent for counselling.

National laws of Malaysia require Muslim apostates who seek to convert from Islam to another religion to first obtain approval from a sharia court. The procedure demands that anyone born to a Muslim parent, or who previously converted to Islam, must declare himself apostate of Islam before a Sharia court if he or she wants to convert. The Sharia courts have the power to impose penalties such as jail, caning and enforced “rehabilitation” on apostates – which is the typical practice. In the states of Perak, Malacca, Sabah, and Pahang, apostates of Islam face jail term; in Pahang, caning; others, confinement with rehabilitation process.

The state laws of Malaysia allow apostates of other religion to become Muslim without any equivalent review or process. The state laws of Perak, Kedah, Negeri Sembilan, Sarawak, and Malacca allow one parent to convert children to Islam even if the other parent does not consent to his or her child’s conversion to Islam.

In a highly public case, the Malaysian Federal Court did not allow Lina Joy to change her religion status in her I/C in a 2–1 decision.

In August 2017, a picture from a gathering of the Atheist Republic Consulate of Kuala Lumpur was posted on Atheist Republic’s Facebook page. Deputy Minister of Islamic Affairs Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki ordered an inquiry into whether anyone in the picture had committed apostasy or had ‘spread atheism’ to any Muslims present, both of which are illegal in Malaysia. The next day, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Shahidan Kassim stated atheists should be “hunted down”, as there was no place for groups like this under the Federal Constitution. Atheist Republic (AR) members present at the gathering reportedly received death threats on social media. Canada-based AR leader Armin Navabi asked: “How is this group harming anyone?”, warning that such actions by the government damaged Malaysia’s reputation as a “moderate” Muslim-majority (60%) country. The uploads sparked violent protests from some Malaysians calling Navabi an ‘apostate’ and threatening to behead him. A Kuala Lumpur AR Consulate admin told BBC OS that such meetings are just socialising events for ‘people who are legally Muslim, and atheists, and people from other religions as well’. In November 2017, it was reported that Facebook had rejected a joint government and Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission demand to shut down Atheist Republic’s page and similar atheist pages, because the pages did not violate any of the company’s community standards.

Maldives

The Constitution of the Maldives designates Islam as the official state religion, and the government and many citizens at all levels interpret this provision to impose a requirement that all citizens must be Muslims. The Constitution states the president must be a Sunni Muslim. There is no freedom of religion or belief. This situation leads to institutionally sanctioned religious oppression against non-Muslims and ex-Muslims who currently reside in the country.

On 27 April 2014, the Maldives ratified a new regulation that revived the death penalty (abolished in 1953, when the last execution took place) for a number of hudud offences, including apostasy for persons from the age of 7 and older. The new regulation was strongly criticised by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the EU’s High Representative, pointing out that they violated the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the Maldives have ratified, that ban the execution of anyone for offences committed before the age of 18.

During a question-and-answer session at one of Indian Muslim orator Zakir Naik’s lectures 29 May 2010 on the Maldives, 37-year-old Maldivian citizen Mohamed Nazim stated that he was struggling to believe in any religion, and did not consider himself to be a Muslim. He further asked what his verdict would be under Islam and in the Maldives. Zakir responded that he considers the punishment for apostasy not necessarily to mean death, since Muhammed was reported in the Hadith scriptures to have shown clemency towards apostates on some occasions, but added that “If the person who becomes a non-Muslim propagates his faith and speaks against Islam [where] there is Islamic rule, then the person is to be put to death.” Mohamed Nazim was subsequently reported to have been arrested and put in protective custody by the Maldivian Police. He later publicly reverted to Islam in custody after receiving two days of counseling by two Islamic scholars, but was held awaiting possible charges.

On 14 July 2010, Maldivian news site Minivan News reported that 25-year-old air traffic controller Ismail Mohamed Didi had sent two e-mails, dated 25 June, to an international human rights organisation, declaring that he was an atheist ex-Muslim and that he desired help with his asylum application (directed to the United Kingdom). This came after he had “foolishly admitted my stance on religion” to his colleagues at work two years earlier, word of which had “spread like wildfire”, and led to increased repression from colleagues, family, and even his closest friends shunning him, and anonymous death threats over the telephone. The same day that the report was posted, Didi was found hanged at his workplace in the aircraft control tower at Malé International Airport in an apparent suicide.

Mauritania

Article 306 of the criminal code of Mauritania declares apostasy in Islam as illegal and provides a death sentence for the crime of leaving Islam. Its law provides a provision where the guilty is given the opportunity to repent and return to Islam within three days. Failure to do so leads to a death sentence, dissolution of family rights and property confiscation by the government. The Mauritanian law requires that an apostate who has repented should be placed in custody and jailed for a period for the crime. Article 306 reads:

All Muslims guilty of apostasy, either spoken or by overt action will be asked to repent during a period of three days. If he does not repent during this period, he is condemned to death as an apostate, and his belongings confiscated by the State Treasury.

In 2014, Jemal Oumar, a Mauritanian journalist, was arrested for apostasy, after he posted a critique of Mohammad online. While local law enforcement agencies held him in prison for trial, local media announced offers by local Muslims of cash reward to anyone who would kill Jemal Oumar.

In a separate case, Mohamed Mkhaitir, a Mauritanian engineer, was arrested with the accusation of apostasy and blasphemy in 2014 as well, for publishing an essay on the racist caste system in Mauritanian society with criticism of Islamic history and a claim that Mohammad discriminated in his treatment of people from different tribes and races. Supported by pressure from human rights activists and international diplomats, Mkhaitir’s case was reviewed several times, amid public civilian protests calling for him to be killed. On 8 November 2017 the Court of Appeals decided to convert his death sentence into a two-year jail term, which he had already served, so he was expected to be released soon. However, by May 2018 he still had not been released according to human rights groups.

Morocco

The penal code of Morocco does not impose the death penalty for apostasy. However, Islam is the official state religion of Morocco under its constitution. Article 41 of the Moroccan constitution gives fatwa powers (habilitée, religious decree legislation) to the Supreme Council of Religious Scholars, which issued a religious decree, or fatwa, in April 2013 that Moroccan Muslims who leave Islam must be sentenced to death. However, Mahjoub El Hiba, a senior Moroccan government official, denied that the fatwa was in any way legally binding. This decree was retracted by the Moroccan High Religious Committee in February 2017 in a document titled “The Way of the Scholars.” It instead states that apostasy is a political stance rather than a religious issue, equatable to ‘high treason’.

When he was 14, Imad Iddine Habib came out as an atheist to his family, who expelled him. Habib stayed with friends, got a degree in Islamic studies and founded the Council of Ex-Muslims of Morocco in 2013. Secret services started investigating him after a public speech criticising Islam, and Habib fled to England, after which he was sentenced to seven years in prison in absentia.

Netherlands

In the Netherlands, a country in Western Europe, Muslims made up about 4.9% of the total population as of 2015; the rest of its inhabitants were either non-religious (50.1%), Christian (39.2%) or adherents of various other religions (5.7%). Although the freedom of expression, thought and religion is guaranteed by law in the Netherlands, there is doubt concerning the reality of this individual freedom within the small orthodox Christian minorities and within Muslim communities. The social and cultural pressure for those raised in a conservative religious family not to change or ‘lose’ religion can be high. This lack of ‘horizontal’ freedom (the freedom in relation to family, friends and neighborhood) remains a concern. Ex-Muslims often keep their views hidden from family, friends and the wider community.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali deconverted from Islam after seeing the September 11 attacks being justified by Al Qaeda’s leader Osama bin Laden with verses from the Quran that she verified personally, and subsequently reading Herman Philipse’s Atheïstisch manifest (“Atheist Manifesto”). She soon became a prominent critic of Islam amidst an increasing number of death threats from Islamists and thus a need for security. She was elected to Parliament in 2003 for the VVD, and co-producing Theo van Gogh’s short film Submission (broadcast on 29 August 2004), which criticised the treatment of women in Islamic society. This led to even more death threats, and Van Gogh was assassinated on 2 November 2004 by jihadist terrorist Hofstad Network leader Mohammed Bouyeri. He threatened Hirsi Ali and other nonbelievers by writing that her “apostasy had turned her away from the truth”, “only death can separate truth from lies”, and that she would “certainly perish”. Gone into hiding and heavily protected, she received a string of international awards, including one of Time‘s 100 most influential people of the world, for her efforts at highlighting Islam’s violation of human rights, especially women’s rights, before moving to the United States in 2006 following a Dutch political crisis over her citizenship.

Ehsan Jami, co-founder of the Central Committee for Ex-Muslims in the Netherlands in 2007, has received several death threats, and due to the amount of threats its members received, the Committee was dismantled in 2008. To fill this lacuna, the Dutch Humanist Association (HV) launched the Platform of New Freethinkers in 2015. There is a Dutch-speaking group for Muslim apostates born and/or raised in the Netherlands, and an English-speaking one for ex-Muslims who recently arrived in the Netherlands as refugees. The latter fled their country because they were discriminated against or confronted with threats, violence or persecution because of their humanist or atheist life-stance. The HV and Humanistische Omroep cooperated under the direction of Dorothée Forma to produce two documentaries on both groups: Among Nonbelievers (2015) and Non-believers: Freethinkers on the Run (2016).

Nigeria

In Nigeria, there is no federal law that explicitly makes apostasy a crime. The Federal Constitution protects freedom of religion and allows religious conversion. Section 10 of the constitution states, ‘The Government of the Federation of a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion.’.

However, 12 Muslim-majority states in northern Nigeria have laws invoking Sharia, which have been used to persecute Muslim apostates, particularly Muslims who have converted to Christianity. Although the states of Nigeria have a degree of autonomy to adopt their own laws, the first paragraph of the Federal Constitution stipulates that any law inconsistent with the provisions of the constitution shall be void. The Sharia penal code does contradict the Constitution, yet the federal government has not made a move to restore this breach of the constitutional order, letting the northern Muslim-dominated states have their way and not protecting the constitutional rights of citizens violated by Sharia.

Governor Ahmad Sani Yerima of Zamfara State, the first Nigerian Muslim-majority state to introduce Sharia in 2000, stated that because capital punishment for apostasy was unconstitutional, citizens themselves should do the killing, effectively undermining the rule of law:

If you change your religion from Islam, the penalty is death. We know it. And we didn’t put it in our penal code because it is against the constitutional provision. It is the law of Allah, which now is a culture for the entire society. So if a Muslim changes his faith or religion, it is the duty of the society or family to administer that part of the justice to him.

Sani further added that whoever opposed ‘the divine rules and regulations (…) is not a Muslim’, confirmed by Secretary-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs Lateef Adegbite, who was quoted as saying:

Once you reject sharia, you reject Islam. So, any Muslim that protests the application of sharia is virtually declaring himself non-Muslim.

In December 2005, Nigerian pastor Zacheous Habu Bu Ngwenche was attacked for allegedly hiding a convert.

Oman

Oman does not have an apostasy law. However, under Law 32 of 1997 on Personal Status for Muslims, an apostate’s marriage is considered annulled and inheritance rights denied when the individual commits apostasy. The Basic Law of Oman, since its enactment in 1995, declares Oman to be an Islamic state and Sharia as the final word and source of all legislation. Omani jurists state that this deference to Sharia, and alternatively the blasphemy law under Article 209 of Omani law, allows the state to pursue death penalty against Muslim apostates, if it wants to.

Palestine

The State of Palestine does not have a constitution; however, the Basic Law provides for religious freedom. The Basic Law was approved in 2002 by the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and signed by then-President Yasir Arafat. The Basic Law states that Islam is the official religion, but also calls for respect and sanctity for other “heavenly” religions (such as Judaism and Christianity) and that the principles of Shari’a (Islamic law) shall be the main source of legislation.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) requires Palestinians to declare their religious affiliation on identification papers. Either Islamic or Christian ecclesiastical courts handle legal matters relating to personal status. Inheritance, marriage, and divorce are handled by such courts, which exist for Muslim and Christians.

Citizens living in the West Bank found to be guilty of ‘defaming religion’ under the old Jordanian law, run the risk of years of imprisonment, up to for life. This happened to 26-year-old blogger Waleed Al-Husseini in October 2010, who was arrested and charged with defaming religion after openly declaring himself an atheist and criticising religion online. He was detained for ten months. After being released, he eventually fled to France, as the PA continued to harass him, and citizens called for him to be lynched. He later found out he was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison in absentia.

Pakistan

As of 2014, there is no law that criminalizes apostasy in Pakistan. A bill was proposed in 2007 to criminalize apostasy, but it failed to pass. It has been noted that, in theory, the principle of “a lacuna” could apply where a gap in statute law could be filled with Islamic law. However, as of 2014, there were no known cases of anyone being prosecuted for apostasy in Pakistan. Apostates can be prosecuted under Pakistan’s blasphemy law, if they desecrate the Quran or make derogatory remarks against the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. Further, Pakistan has blasphemy law that carries death penalty, but the law does not define blasphemy. Under Article 295-C of its penal code, any Pakistani Muslim who feels his or her religious feelings have been hurt, directly or indirectly, for any reason or any action of another Pakistani citizen can accuse blasphemy and open a criminal case against anyone. Inheritance and property rights for apostates was prohibited by Pakistan in 1963.

In 1991, Tahir Iqbal, whose had converted to Christianity from Islam, was arrested on charges of desecrating a copy of the Qur’an and making statements against Muhammad. While awaiting trial, he was denied bail on the presumption by a Sessions Court and the appeals Division of the Lahore High Court that conversion from Islam was a “cognizable offense”. However, it has been noted by multiple sources that there conversion from Islam is not an offense under Pakistani law. In 1992, a local imam asked Iqbal to be sentenced to death for converting to Christianity. The Pakistani judge hearing the case rejected the idea, saying that Iqbal could only be sentenced if it could be proven he had committed blasphemy.

In 2016, Pakistan’s Sindh province passed legislation to protect religious freedom by banning forced conversions of people – Sindh has a large Hindu minority compared to other Pakistani provinces. However, the Pakistan Peoples Party leadership succumbed to threats from religious parties, which pressurised it to withdraw the proposed law before it could be ratified by the governor.

Qatar

Apostasy in Islam is a crime in Qatar. Its Law 11 of 2004 specific traditional Sharia prosecution and punishment for apostasy, considering it a hudud crime punishable by death penalty.

Proselytizing of Muslims to convert to another religion is also a crime in Qatar under Article 257 of its law, punishable with prison term. According to its law passed in 2004, if proselytizing is done in Qatar, for any religion other than Islam, the sentence is imprisonment of up to five years. Anyone who travels to and enters Qatar with written or recorded materials or items that support or promote conversion of Muslims to apostasy are to be imprisoned for up two years.

Casual discussion or “sharing one’s faith” with any Muslim resident in Qatar has been deemed a violation of Qatari law, leading to deportation or prison time. There is no law against proselytizing non-Muslims to join Islam.

Saudi Arabia

Somalia

Apostasy is a crime in Somalia. Articles 3(1) and 4(1) of Somalia’s constitution declare that religious law of Sharia is the nation’s highest law. The prescribed punishment for apostasy is the death penalty.

There have been numerous reports of executions of people for apostasy, particularly Muslims who have converted to Christianity. However, the reported executions have been by extra-state Islamist groups and local mobs, rather than after the accused has been tried under a Somali court of law.

Sudan

Article 126.2 of the Penal Code of Sudan (1991) reads,

Whoever is guilty of apostasy is invited to repent over a period to be determined by the tribunal. If he persists in his apostasy and was not recently converted to Islam, he will be put to death.

Some notable cases of apostasy in Sudan include: Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, a Sudanese religious thinker, leader, and trained engineer, who was executed for “sedition and apostasy” in 1985 at the age of 76 by the regime of Gaafar Nimeiry. Meriam Ibrahim, a 27-year-old Christian Sudanese woman was sentenced to death for apostasy in May 2014, but allowed to leave the country in July after an international outcry.

Sudanese ex-Muslim and human rights activist Nahla Mahmoud has estimated that during the years 2010, 2011 and 2012, there have been between 120 and 170 Sudanese citizens who have been convicted for apostasy, most of whom repented to avoid a death sentence.

Tunisia

Following the 2010–11 Tunisian Revolution, a Constituent Assembly worked for 2.5 years to written a new Constitution, approved in January 2014, contained a provision in Article 6 granting freedom of conscience. It also stipulates that ‘[a]ccusations of apostasy and incitement to violence are prohibited’. With it, Tunisia became the first Arab-majority country to protect its citizens from prosecution for renouncing Islam. Critics have pointed out alleged flaws of this formulation, namely that it violates the freedom of expression.

The highest profile cases of apostasy in Tunisia were of the two atheist ex-Muslims Ghazi Beji and Jabeur Mejri, sentenced to 7.5 years in prison on 28 March 2012. They were prosecuted for expressing their views on Islam, the Quran and Muhammad on Facebook, blogs and in online books, which allegedly ‘violated public order and morality’. Mejri wrote a treatise in English on Muhammad’s supposedly violent and sexually immoral behaviour. When Mejri was arrested by police, he confessed under torture that his friend Beji had also authored an antireligious book, The Illusion of Islam, in Arabic. Upon learning he, too, was sought by the police, Beji fled the country and reached Greece; he obtained political asylum in France on 12 June 2013. Mejri was pardoned by president Moncef Marzouki and left prison on 4 March 2014 after several human rights groups campaigned for his release under the slogan “Free Jabeur”. When Mejri wanted to accept Sweden’s invitation to move there, he was again imprisoned for several months, however, after being accused of embezzling money from his former job by his ex-colleagues (who started bullying him as soon as they found out he was an atheist), a rumour spread by his former friend Beji (who felt betrayed by Mejri because he had outed him as an atheist).

Turkey

Although there is no punishment for apostasy from Islam in Turkey, there are several formal and informal mechanisms in place that make it hard for citizens not to be Muslim. Non-Muslims, especially non-religious people, are discriminated against in a variety of ways. Article 216 of the penal code outlaws insulting religious belief, a de facto blasphemy law obstructing citizens from expressing irreligious views, or views critical of religions. A well-known example is that of pianist Fazıl Say in 2012, who was charged with insulting religion for publicly mocking Islamic prayer rituals (though the conviction was reversed by the Turkish Supreme Court, which determined Say’s views were a protected expression of his freedom of conscience). Irreligious Turks are also often discriminated against in the workplace, because people are assumed to be Muslim by birth, and terms such as ‘atheist’ or ‘nonbeliever’ are frequently used insults in the public sphere.

In 2014, the Turkish atheist association Ateizm Derneği was founded for nonreligious citizens, many of whom have left Islam. The association won the International League of non-religious and atheists’s Sapio Award 2017 for being the first officially recognised organisation in the Middle East defending the rights of atheists.

An early April 2018 report of the Turkish Ministry of Education, titled “The Youth is Sliding to Deism”, observed that an increasing number of pupils in İmam Hatip schools was abandoning Islam in favour of deism. The report’s publication generated large-scale controversy amongst conservative Muslim groups in Turkish society. Progressive Islamic theologian Mustafa Ozturk noted the deist trend a year earlier, arguing that the “very archaic, dogmatic notion of religion” held by the majority of those claiming to represent Islam was causing “the new generations [to get] indifferent, even distant, to the Islamic worldview.” Despite lacking reliable statistical data, numerous anecdotes appear to point in this direction. Although some commentators claim the secularisation is merely a result of Western influence or even a “conspiracy”, most commentators, even some pro-government ones, have come to conclude that “the real reason for the loss of faith in Islam is not the West but Turkey itself: It is a reaction to all the corruption, arrogance, narrow-mindedness, bigotry, cruelty and crudeness displayed in the name of Islam.” Especially when the AKP Islamists are in power to enforce Islam upon society, this is making citizens turn their back on it.

United Arab Emirates

Apostasy is a crime in the United Arab Emirates. In 1978, UAE began the process of Islamising the nation’s law, after its council of ministers voted to appoint a High Committee to identify all its laws that conflicted with Sharia. Among the many changes that followed, UAE incorporated hudud crimes of Sharia into its Penal Code – apostasy being one of them. Article 1 and Article 66 of UAE’s Penal Code requires hudud crimes to be punished with the death penalty.

UAE law considers it a crime and imposes penalties for using the Internet to preach against Islam or to proselytize Muslims inside the international borders of the nation. Its laws and officials do not recognize conversion from Islam to another religion. In contrast, conversion from another religion to Islam is recognized, and the government publishes through mass media an annual list of foreign residents who have converted to Islam.

United Kingdom

The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) is the British branch of the Central Council of Ex-Muslims, who represent former Muslims who fear for their lives because they have renounced Islam. It was launched in Westminster on 22 June 2007. The Council protests against Islamic states that still punish Muslim apostates with death under the Sharia law. The Council is led by Maryam Namazie, who was awarded Secularist of the Year in 2005 and has faced death threats. The British Humanist Association and National Secular Society sponsored the launch of the organisation and have supported its activities since. A July 2007 poll by the Policy Exchange think-tank revealed that 31% of British Muslims believed that leaving the Muslim religion should be punishable by death.

CEMB assists about 350 ex-Muslims a year, the majority of whom have faced death threats from Islamists or family members. The number of ex-Muslims is unknown due to a lack of sociological studies on the issues and the reluctance of ex-Muslims to discuss their status openly. Writing for The Observer Andrew Anthony argued that ex-Muslims had failed to gain support from other progressive groups, due to caution about being labelled by other progressive movements as Islamophobic or racist.

In November 2015, the CEMB launched the social media campaign #ExMuslimBecause, encouraging ex-Muslims to come out and explain why they left Islam. Within two weeks, the hashtag had been used over a 100,000 times. Proponents argued that it should be possible to freely question and criticise Islam, opponents claimed the campaign was amongst other things ‘hateful’, and said the extremist excrescences of Islam were unfairly equated with the religion as a whole.

Besides the CEMB, a new initiative for ex-Muslims, Faith to Faithless, was launched by Imtiaz Shams and Aliyah Saleem in early 2015.

United States

According to Pew Research Center estimate in 2016, there were about 3.3 million Muslims living in the United States, comprising about 1% of the total U.S. population. A 2015 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 23% of Americans who were raised as Muslims no longer identify with Islam. However, many of them are not open about their deconversion, in fear of endangering their relationships with their relatives and friends.

David B. Barrett, co-author of the World Christian Encyclopedia, estimated around 2000 that in the United States annually 50,000 Christians converted to Islam while 20,000 Muslims adopted Christianity. A 2002 article in The Washington Times by Julia Duin described the precarious situation of U.S. Muslim converts to Christianity: “Some have simply been shunned by their families. Others have been kidnapped by family members and friends, and put on a plane back home. All are reluctant to ask for protection from U.S. law enforcement, especially those converts with Arabic surnames who are leery of getting their names on a U.S. police report. However, there are no known instances of converts from Islam to Christianity who have been killed in the United States for their decision to leave their faith.” Ibn Warraq, author of Why I Am Not a Muslim (1995) and Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out (2003), stressed the importance of this fact as a reason for ‘not exaggerating’ the fate of former Muslims in America, noting however: “They are threatened. They are attacked physically. I cite [in Leaving Islam] instances of young students who have converted and who were attacked but were rescued just in time.”

Well-known organisations who support ex-Muslims in the United States include Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA, co-founded by Muhammad Syed, Sarah Haider and others), Former Muslims United and Muslimish.

Yemen

Apostasy is a crime in Yemen. Articles 12 and 259 of the Yemen Penal Code address apostasy, the former requires Sharia sentence be used for apostasy and the latter specifies death penalty for apostates of Islam. Yemeni law waives the punishment to an apostate if he or she recants, repents and returns to Islam while denouncing his or her new faith.

In 2012, Yemeni citizen Ali Qasim Al-Saeedi was arrested and charged with apostasy by Yemeni law enforcement agency after he posted his personal views questioning the teachings of Islam, on a Yemeni blogging site and his Facebook page.

Other countries

Apostasy is also a crime in smaller Muslim-majority countries such as Maldives and Comoros. In January 2006, in Turkey, Kamil Kiroglu was beaten unconscious and threatened with death if he refused to reject his Christian religion and return to Islam.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Laws prohibiting religious conversion run contrary to Article 18 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states the following:

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.

Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Syria voted in favor of the Declaration. The governments of other Muslim-majority countries have responded by criticizing the Declaration as an attempt by the non-Muslim world to impose their values on Muslims, with a presumption of cultural superiority, and by issuing the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam—a joint declaration of the member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference made in 1990 in Cairo, Egypt. The Cairo Declaration differs from the Universal Declaration in affirming Sharia as the sole source of rights, and in limits of equality and behavior in religion, gender, sexuality, etc. Islamic scholars such as Muhammad Rashid Rida in Tafsir al-Minar, argue that the “freedom to apostatize”, is different from freedom of religion on the grounds that apostasy from Islam infringes on the freedom of others and the respect due the religion of Islamic states.