Apostasy in Islam

Apostasy in Islam (, or , , an apostate from Islam is a "murtad" () is commonly defined as the abandonment of Islam by a Muslim, in word or through deed. It includes not only explicit renunciations of the Islamic faith by converting to another religion (or abandoning religion altogether), 
but also blasphemy or heresy, through any action or utterance implying unbelief, including those denying a "fundamental tenet or creed" of Islam.
While classical Islamic law calls for execution of those who refuse to repent of apostasy from Islam, the definition of this act and whether and how it should be punished, are disputed among Islamic scholars and strongly opposed by Muslim (and non-Muslim) supporters of the universal human right to choose your own religion.
, there were twelve Muslim-majority countries where apostasy from Islam was punishable by death, and another thirteen where there were penal or civil penalties. From 1985 to 2006, only four individuals were officially executed by governments for apostasy from Islam, but apostates have suffered from other legal and vigilante punishments -- imprisonment, annulment of marriage, loss of rights of inheritance and custody of children.
Mainly, loss of life has come from killings by "takfiri" insurgents ((ISIL, GIA, Taliban) and secret executions (in Iran) that are thought to have numbered in the thousands.
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, often (depending on the school of law) after a waiting period to allow the apostate time to repent and to return to Islam.
But to protect against abuse, exemption was granted to those who were originally forced to embrace Islam, or who apostasized out of fear, or (according to the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i schools) who repented. 
In addition, early Islamic jurists developed legal standards to limit the harsh punishment to apostasy of political kind, which in a religious society is similar to high treason,
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 legal criminal penalties for apostasy fell into disuse, although civil penalties were still applied.
In the contemporary world, public (Muslim) support for capital punishment varies from 78% in Afghanistan to less than 1% in Kazakhstan; among Islamic jurists the majority continue to regard apostasy as a crime whose punishment is death.
Those who disagree 
argue its punishment should be less than death, should be left to God, 
(human punishment being inconsistent with Quranic injunctions against compulsion in belief), or should be enforced only if apostasy becomes a mechanism of public disobedience and disorder ("fitna"). Secular 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.
Etymology and terminology.
Apostasy is called "irtidād" (which means relapse or regress) or "ridda" in Islamic literature—the terms do not appear in the Quran. An apostate is called "murtadd", which means 'one who turns back' from Islam. (Another source—Oxford Islamic Studies Online—defines "murtadd" as "not just any kāfir (non-believer)", but "a particularly heinous type".)
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". "Takfir" ("takfeer") ( "") is the act of one Muslim excommunicating another, declaring them a "kafir", an apostate. The act which precipitates "takfir" is termed "mukaffir".
Scriptural references.
Quran.
The Quran mentions apostasy in many of its verses, expressing God's anger, impending punishment, and refusal to accept repentance towards those who have left the faith. Traditionally, the verses that are thought to "appear to justify coercion and severe punishment" for apostates (according to Dale F. Eickelman), including the traditional capital punishment, are as follows:
 
Other scholars have pointed out that there is no mention in the Quran of the need to force an apostate to return to Islam, nor any specific corporal punishment to apply to apostates in "this" world—let alone commands to kill apostates—either explicitly or implicitly; (Verse Q.4:91 talks about "seizing and killing" those who "do not withdraw from you, and (do not) offer you peace and restrain their hands", Q.9:11-12 about "fight[ing] the champions of disbelief", but neither mention these people being apostates.) 
In fact, other verses emphasize mercy and lack of compulsion in belief:
Hadith.
The classical shariah punishment for apostasy comes from Sahih ("authentic") Hadith rather than the Quran, 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."
Other hadith give differing statements about the fate of apostates; that they were spared execution by repenting, by dying of natural causes or by leaving their community (the last case sometimes cited as an example of open apostasy that was left unpunished).
The Muwatta of Imam Malik offers a case were Rashidun (rightly guide) Caliph Umar admonishes a Muslim leader for not giving an apostate the opportunity to repent before being executed:
The argument has been made (by the Fiqh Council of North America, among others) that the hadiths above — traditionally cited as proof that apostates from Islam should be punished by death — have been misunderstood. In fact (the council argues), the victims were executed for changing their allegiances to the armies fighting the Muslims (i.e. for treason), not for their personal beliefs. As evidence, they point to two hadith, each from a different "authentic" ("sahih") Sunni hadith collection where Muhammad calls for the death of apostates or traitors. The wording of the hadith are almost identical, but in one, the hadith ends with the phrase "one who reverts from Islam and leaves the Muslims", and in the other it ends with "one who goes forth to fight Allah and His Apostle", (in other words, the council argues the hadith were likely reports of the same incident but had different wording because "reverting from Islam" was another way of saying "fighting Allah and His Apostle"):
What constitutes apostasy in Islam?
Scholars of Islam differ as to what constitutes apostasy in that religion and under what circumstances an apostate is subject to the death penalty.
Conditions of apostasy in classical Islam.
Al-Shafi'i listed three necessary conditions to pass capital punishment on a Muslim for apostasy in his "Kitab al-Umm". (In the words of Frank Griffel) these are:
Three centuries later, Al-Ghazali wrote that one group, known as "secret apostates" or "permanent unbelievers" (aka "zandaqa"), should not be given a chance to repent, eliminating Al-Shafi'i's third condition for them.
Characteristics.
Describing what qualifies as apostasy Christine Schirrmacher writes
 there is widespread consensus that apostasy undoubtedly exists where the truth of the Koran is denied, where blasphemy is committed against God, Islam, or Muhammad, and where breaking away from the Islamic faith in word or deed occurs. The lasting, willful non-observance of the five pillars of Islam, in particular the duty to pray, clearly count as apostasy for most theologians. Additional distinguishing features are a change of religion, confessing atheism, nullifying the Sharia as well as judging what is allowed to be forbidden and judging what is forbidden to be allowed. Fighting against Muslims and Islam (Arabic: "muḥāraba") also counts as unbelief or apostasy;
Kamran Hashemi classifies apostasy or unbelief in Islam into three different "phenomena":
Issues in defining heresy.
While identifying someone who publicly converted to another religion as an apostate was straight forward, determining whether a diversion from orthodox doctrine qualified as heresy (or blasphemy) or something permitted by God could be less so. Traditionally, 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 or are incompatible with Islamic "theological consensus". Al-Ghazali, for example, devoting "chapters to dealing with takfir and the reasons for which one can be accused of unbelief" in his work on "The Criterion of Distinction between Islam and Clandestine Unbelief".
Some heretical or blasphemous acts or beliefs listed in classical manuals of jurisprudence and other scholarly works (i.e. works written by Islamic scholars) that allegedly demonstrate apostacy include:
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."
Historian Bernard Lewis writes that in "religious polemic" of early Islamic times, it was common for one scholar to accuse another of apostasy, but attempts to bring an alleged apostate to justice (have them executed) were very rare. One conservative source (Islam Question and Answer) states that, "no one may be judged to be a "kafir" or "fasiq" except the one whom the Qur’an and Sunnah indicate is a "kafir" or "fasiq"".
The tension between desire to cleanse Islam of heresy and fear of inaccurate takfir is suggested in the writings of some of the leading Islamic scholars. Al-Ghazali "is often credited with having persuaded theologians", in his "Fayal al-tafriqa", "that takfir is not a fruitful path and that utmost caution is to taken in applying it", but in other writing he made sure to condemn as beyond the pale of Islam "philosophers and Ismaili esotericists". Ibn Hazm and Ibn Taymiyyah also "warned against unbridled takfir" while takfiring "specific categories" of theological opponents as "unbelievers".
Gilles Kepel writes that "used wrongly or unrestrainedly, this sanction would quickly lead to discord and sedition in the ranks of the faithful. Muslims might resort to mutually excommunicating one another and thus propel the Ummah to complete disaster."
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), for example, tafired all those who opposed its policy of enslaving members of the Yazidi religion. According to one source, Jamileh Kadivar, the majority of the "27,947 terrorist deaths" ISIL has been responsible for (as of 2020) have been Muslims it regards "as kafir", as ISIL gives fighting alleged apostates a higher priority than fighting self-professed non-Muslims—Jews, Christians, Hindus, etc. 
An open letter to ISIL by 126 Islamic scholars includes as one of its points of opposition to ISIL: "It is forbidden in Islam to declare people non-Muslim unless he (or she) openly declares disbelief".
There is general agreement among Muslims that the takfir and mass killings of alleged apostates perpetrated not only by ISIL but also by the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's jihadis were wrong, but there is less unanimity in other cases, such as what to do in a situation where self-professed Muslim(s) — post-modernist academic Nasr Abu Zayd or the Ahmadiyya movement — disagree with their accusers on an important doctrinal point. (Ahmadi quote a Muslim journalist, Abdul-Majeed Salik, claiming that, "all great and eminent Muslims in the history of Islam as well as all the sects in the Muslim world are considered to be disbelievers, apostates, and outside the pale of Islam according to one or the other group of religious leaders".)
In the case of the Ahmadiyya—who are accused by mainstream Sunni and Shia of denying the basic tenet of the Finality of Prophethood (Ahmadis state they believe Mirza Ghulam Ahmad is a mahdi and a messiah)—the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has declared in Ordinance XX of the Second Amendment to its Constitution, that Ahmadis are non-Muslims and deprived them of religious rights. Several large riots (1953 Lahore riots, 1974 Anti-Ahmadiyya riots) and a bombing (2010 Ahmadiyya mosques massacre) have killed hundreds of Ahmadis in that country. Whether this is unjust takfir or applying sharia to collective apostasy is disputed.
The three types (conversion, blasphemy and heresy) of apostasy may overlap—for example some "heretics" were alleged not to be actual self-professed Muslims, but (secret) members of another religion, seeking to destroy Islam from within. (Abdullah ibn Mayun al-Qaddah, for example, "fathered the whole complex development of the Ismaili religion and organisation up to Fatimid times," was accused by his different detractors of being (variously) "a Jew, a Bardesanian and most commonly as an Iranian dualist") In Islamic literature, the term "blasphemy" sometimes also overlaps with ("unbelief"), (depravity), (insult), and (apostasy).
Because blasphemy in Islam included rejection of fundamental doctrines, blasphemy has historically been seen as an evidence of rejection of Islam, that is, the religious crime of apostasy. Some jurists believe that blasphemy automatically implies a Muslim has left the fold of Islam. A Muslim may find himself accused of being a blasphemer, and thus an apostate on the basis of one action or utterance.
In collective apostasy, a self-proclaimed Islamic group/sect are declared to be heretics/apostates. Groups treated as collective apostates include zindiq, sometimes Sufis, and more recently Ahmadis and Bahais. As described above, the difference between legitimate Muslim sects and illegitimate apostate groups can be subtle and Muslims have not agreed on were the line dividing them lies. According to Gianluca Parolin, "collective apostasy has always been declared on a case-by-case basis".
Among Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and others in Ja'fari fiqh, a distinction is made between "fetri" or "innate" apostates who grew up Muslims and remained Muslim after puberty until converting to another religion, and "national apostates"—essentially people who grew up non-Muslim and converted to Islam. "National apostates" are given a chance to repent, but "innate apostates are not.
Orthodox apostasy fiqh can be problematic for someone who was raised by a non-Muslim (or non-Muslims) but has an absentee Muslim parent, or was raised by an apostate (or apostates) from Islam. A woman born to a Muslim parent is considered an apostate if she marries a non-Muslim,
even if her Muslim parent did not raise her and she has always practiced another religion. 
Someone born to an apostate from Islam, raised in their parent's new religion and who stays within that religion, is also an apostate. This is because if one of their parents was born a Muslim their offspring are considered Muslim ("according to scholarly consensus"),
and whether or not they know anything about Islam, by simply practicing the (new) religion of their parent(s) they become apostates (according to the committee of fatwa scholars at Islamweb.net).
In the 19th, 20th and 21 century issues affecting shariʿah on apostasy include modern norms of freedom of religion, the status of members of Baháʼí (considered unbeliever/apostates in Iran) and Ahmadi faiths (considered appostates from Islam in Pakistan and elsewhere), those who "refuse to judge or be judged according to the "shariʿah,"" and more recently the status of Muslims authorities and governments that do not implement classical "shariʿah" law in its completeness.
Punishment.
There are differences of opinion among Islamic scholars about whether, when and especially how apostasy in Islam should be punished,
From 11th century onwards, apostasy of Muslims from Islam was forbidden by Islamic law, punishable by death and also by civil liabilities such as seizure of property, children, annulment of marriage, loss of inheritance rights. (A subsidiary law, also applied throughout the history of Islam, forbade non-Muslims from proselytizing Muslims to leave Islam and join another religion, because it encouraged Muslims to commit a crime.) Starting in the 19th century the legal code of many Muslim states no longer included apostasy as a capital crime, and to compensate some Islamic scholars called for vigilante justice of hisbah to execute the offenders (see Apostasy in Islam#Colonial era and after).
In contemporary times the majority of Islamic jurists still regard apostasy as a crime deserving the death penalty, (according to Abdul Rashied Omar), although "a growing body of Islamic jurists" oppose this, (according to Javaid Rehman)
as inconsistent with "freedom of religion" as expressed in the Quranic injunctions (-) and ("there is no compulsion in religion"); and a relic of the early Islamic community when apostasy was desertion or treason.
Still others support a "centrist or moderate position" of executing only those whose apostasy is "unambiguously provable"; and/or reserving the death penalty for those who make their apostacy public. According to 
Christine Schirrmacher, "a majority of theologians" embrace this stance.
Who qualifies for judgement for the crime of apostasy.
As mentioned above, there are numerous doctrinal fine points outlined in fiqh manuals whose violation should render the violator an apostate, but there are also hurdles and exacting requirements that spare (self-proclaimed) Muslims conviction for apostasy in classical fiqh.
One motive for caution is that it is an act of apostasy (in Shafi'i and other fiqh) for a Muslim to accuse or describe another innocent 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."
According to sharia, to be found guilty the accused must at the time of apostasizing be exercising free will, an adult, and of sound mind, and have refused to repent when given a time period to do so (not all schools include this last requirement). The free will requirement excludes from judgement those who embraced Islam under conditions of duress and then went back to their old religion, or Muslims who converted to another religion involuntarily, either force or as concealment (Taqiyya or Kitman) out of fear of persecution or during war. Also excluded are those who have mistreated a copy of a Quran or do not pray Salat out of ignorance and misunderstanding (provided they do not continue to do so after being warned not to).
Some of these requirements have served as "loopholes" to exonerate apostates (apostasy charges against Abdul Rahman, were dropped on the grounds he was "mentally unfit").)
Death penalty.
In classical fiqh.
Traditional Sunni and Shia Islamic fiqhs, or schools of jurisprudence (maḏāhib) agree on some issues—that male apostates should be executed, and that most but not all perpetrators should not be given a chance to repent (the excluded include those who practice magic ("subhar"), treacherous heretics ("zanādiqa", and recidivists"). They disagree on issues such as whether women can be executed, whether apostasy is a violation of "the rights of God", whether apostates who were born Muslim may be spared if they repent, whether conviction requires the accused be a practicing Muslim, or whether it is enough to simply intend to commit apostasy rather than actually doing it.
Vigilante application.
In contemporary situations where apostates, (or alleged apostates), have ended up being killed, it is usually not be through the formal criminal justice system, especially when "a country's law does not punish apostasy." It is not uncommon for "vigilante" Muslims to kill or attempt to kill apostates or alleged apostates (or force them to flee the country). In at least one case, (the high profile execution of Mahmud Muhammad Taha), the victim was legally executed and the government made clear he was being executed for apostasy, but not the technical "legal basis" for his killing was another crime or crimes, namely "heresy, opposing the application of Islamic law, disturbing public security, provoking opposition against the government, and re-establishing a banned political party." When post-modernist professor Nasr Abu Zayd was found to be an apostate by an Egyptian court, it meant only an involuntary divorce from his wife (who did not want to divorce), but it put the proverbial target on his back and he fled to Europe.
Civil liabilities.
In Islam, apostasy has traditionally had both criminal and civil penalties. In the late 19th century, when the use of criminal penalties for apostasy fell into disuse, civil penalties were still applied. The punishment for the criminal penalties includes death or prison, while In all madhhabs of Islam, the civil penalties include:
The conversion of a Muslim to another faith is often considered a "disgrace" and "scandal" as well as a sin, so in addition to penal and civil penalties, loss of employment, ostracism and proclamations by family members that they are "dead", is not at all "unusual". For those who wish to remain in the Muslim community but who are considered unbelievers by other Muslims, there are also "serious forms of ostracism". These include the refusal of other Muslims to pray together with or behind a person accused of kufr, the denial of the prayer for the dead and burial in a Muslim cemetery, boycott of whatever books they have written, etc.
Supporters and opponents of death penalty.
"The vast majority of Muslim scholars both past as well as present" consider apostasy "a crime deserving the death penalty", according to Abdul Rashided Omar writing circa 2007. Some of the leading lights include:
Rationale, arguments, criticism for and against killing apostates.
The question of whether apostates should be killed, has been "a matter for contentious dispute throughout Islamic history".
Some arguments offered for a death penalty for those who leave Islam:
Throughout Islamic history the Muslim community, scholars, and schools of fiqh have agreed that scripture prescribes this penalty; scripture must take precedence over reason or modern norms of human rights, as Islam is the one true religion; "no compulsion in religion" (Q.2:256) does not apply to this punishment; apostasy is "spiritual and cultural" treason; it hardly ever happens and so is not worth talking about.
Arguments against the death penalty include: that some scholars throughout Islamic history have opposed that punishment for apostasy; that it constitutes a form of compulsion in faith, which the Quran explicitly forbids in Q.2.256 and other verses, and that these override any other scriptural arguments; and especially that the death penalty in hadith and applied by Muhammad was for treasonous/seditious behavior, not for a change in personal belief.
Middle way.
Abu al-Walid al-Baji (d. 474 AH), medieval Maliki jurist, held that apostasy was liable only to a discretionary punishment ("ta'zir"), not penalties fixed by Islamic law ("hadd"), making the death penalty optional not mandatory.
At least some conservative jurists and preachers have attempted to reconcile following the traditional doctrine of death for apostasy while addressing the principle of freedom of religion. Some of whom argue apostasy should have a lesser penalty than death.
At a 2009-human rights conference at Mofid University in Qom, Iran, Ayatollah Mohsen 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".
Zakir Naik, the Indian Islamic televangelist and preacher takes a less strict line (mentioned above), stating that only those Muslims who "propagate the non-Islamic faith and speak against Islam" after converting from Islam should be put to death.
In practice -- historical 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 wars split the two major sects of Islam – Sunni and Shia, and caused numerous deaths. Sunni and Shia sects of Islam have long accused each other of apostasy.
Some Christian converts to Islam who reportedly reverted to Christianity and were executed include "Kyros", who was executed by burning in 769 CE, “Holy Elias” in 795 CE, “Holy Bacchus” in 806 CE.
Historian David Cook writes that "it is only with the 'Abbasi caliphs al-Mu'taṣim (218-28 AH/833-42 CE) and al-Mutawakkil (233-47 /847-61) that we find detailed accounts" of apostates and what was done with them. Prior to that, in the Umayyad and early Abbasid periods, measures to defend Islam from apostasy "appear to have mostly remained limited to intellectual debates" 
He also states that "the most common category of apostates" — at least of apostates who converted to another religion — "from the very first days of Islam" were "Christians and Jews who converted to Islam and after some time" reconverted back to their former faith.
Some sources emphasize that executions of apostates have been "rare in Islamic history". According to historian Bernard Lewis, in "religious polemic" in the "early times" of Islam, "charges of apostasy were not unusual", but the accused were seldom prosecuted, and "some even held high offices in the Muslim state". Later, "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". Another source, legal historian Sadakat Kadri, argues execution was rare because "it was widely believed" that any accused apostate "who repented by articulating the "shahada"" ("LA ILAHA ILLALLAH" "There is no God but Allah") "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 adopted Islam "only for fear of death" and their sincerity seemed highly implausible. It was based on the hadith that Muhammad had upbraided a follower for killing a raider who had uttered the shahada.
"The New Encyclopedia of Islam" also 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.
In contrast, historian David Cook maintains the issue of apostasy and punishment for it was not uncommon in Islamic. 
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.
"Zindīq" (often a "blanket phrase" for "intellectuals" under suspicion of having abandoned Islam" or freethinker, atheist or heretic who conceal their religion) experienced a wave of persecutions from 779 to 786. A history of those times states:
The famous Sufi mystic of 10th-century Iraq, Mansur Al-Hallaj was officially executed for possessing a heretical document suggesting hajj pilgrimage was not required of a pure Muslim (i.e. killed for heresy which made him an apostate), but 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.")
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.
Colonial era and after.
From around 1800 up until 1970, there were only a few cases of executions of apostates in the Muslim world, including the strangling of a woman in Egypt (sometime between 1825 and 1835), and the beheading of an Armenian youth in the Ottoman Empire in 1843.
Western powers campaigned intensely for a prohibition on the execution of apostates in the Ottoman Empire. British envoy to the court of Sultan Abdülmecid i (1839–1861), Stratford Canning, led diplomatic representatives from Austria, Russia, Prussia, and France in a "tug of war" with the Ottoman government. In the end (following the execution of the Armenian), the Sublime Porte agreed to allow "complete freedom of Christian missionaries" to try to convert Muslims in the Empire. The 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.
This was also the time that Islamic modernists reformers like Muhammad Abduh (d.1905) and Rashid Rida (d.1935), argued that to be executed it was not enough to be an apostate, the perpetrator had to pose a real threat to public safety.
Efforts to convert Muslims to other religions were extremely unpopular with the Muslim community. Despite these edicts on apostasy, 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 the Genocides of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and crypto-Christian apostates from Islam in Turkey (Stavriotes, Kromlides).
In the colonial era, the death penalty for apostasy was abolished in Islamic countries that had come under Western rule or in places, such as the Ottoman Empire, Western powers could apply enough pressure to abolish it. Writing in the mid 1970s, Rudolph Peters and Gert J. J. De Vries stated that "apostasy no longer falls under criminal law" in the Muslim world, but that some Muslims (such as 'Adb al-Qadir 'Awdah) were preaching that "the killing of an apostate" had "become a duty of individual Moslems" (rather than a less important collective duty in "hisbah" doctrine) and giving advice on how to plead in court after being arrested for such a murder to avoid punishment.
Some (Louay M. Safi), have argued that this situation, with the adoption of "European legal codes ... enforced by state elites without any public debate", created an identification of tolerance with foreign/alien control in the mind of the Muslim public, and rigid literalist interpretations (such as the execution of apostates), with authenticity and legitimacy. Autocratic rulers "often align themselves with traditional religious scholars" to deflect grassroots discontent, which took the form of angry pious traditionalists.
In practice in the recent past.
While as of 2004 apostasy from Islam is a capital offence in only eight majority-Muslim states, in other states that do not directly execute apostates, apostate killing is sometimes facilitated through extrajudicial killings performed by the apostate's family, particularly if the apostate is vocal. In still other situations, it is not uncommon for "vigilante" Muslims to kill or attempt to kill apostates or alleged apostates, in the belief they are enforcing sharia law that the government as failed to.
Background.
More than 20 Muslim-majority states have laws that punish apostasy by Muslims to be a crime some de facto other de jure. 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, i.e. violate the norms of sharia (Islamic law). This principle has been used in countries such as Egypt, Pakistan and others to bring blasphemy charges against apostates.
The source of most violence or threats of violence against apostate has come from outside of state judicial systems in the Muslim world in recent years, either from extralegal acts by government authorities or 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:
Similar views are expressed by the non-theistic International Humanist and Ethical Union. Author Mohsin Hamid points out that the logic of widely accepted claim that anyone helping an apostate is themselves an apostate, is a powerful weapon in spreading fear among those who oppose the killings (in at least the country of Pakistan). It means that a doctor who agrees to treat an apostate wounded by attacker(s), or a police officer who has agreed to protect that doctor after they have been threatened is also an apostate -- "and on and on".
Contemporary reformist/liberal 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.
Apostate communities.
Regarding Muslim converts to Christianity, Duane Alexander Miller (2016) identified two different categories:
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').
Writing in 2015, Ahmed Benchemsi argued that while Westerners have great difficulty even conceiving of the existence of an Arab atheist, "a generational dynamic" is underway with "large numbers" of young people brought up as Muslims "tilting away from ... rote religiosity" after having "personal doubts" about the "illogicalities" of the Quran and Sunnah.
Immigrant apostates from Islam in Western countries "converting" to Atheism have often gathered for comfort in groups such as Women in Secularism, Ex-Muslims of North America, Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, sharing tales of the tension and anxieties of "leaving a close-knit belief-based community" and confronting "parental disappointment, rejection by friends and relatives, and charges of "trying to assimilate into a Western culture that despises them", often using terminology first uttered by the LGBT community -- "'coming out,' and leaving 'the closet'". Atheists in the Muslim world maintain a lower profile, but according to the Editor-in-chief of FreeArabs.com:
When I recently searched Facebook in both Arabic and English, combining the word ‘atheist’ with names of different Arab countries I turned up over 250 pages or groups, with memberships ranging from a few individuals to more than 11,000. And these numbers only pertain to Arab atheists (or Arabs concerned with the topic of atheism) who are committed enough to leave a trace online.
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.
By country.
The situation for apostates from Islam varies markedly between Muslim-minority and Muslim-majority regions. In Muslim-minority countries "any violence against those who abandon Islam is already illegal". But in Muslim-majority countries, violence is sometimes "institutionalised", and (at least in 2007) "hundreds and thousands of closet apostates" live in fear of violence and are compelled to live lives of "extreme duplicity and mental stress."
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.