Sharia
Apostasy

According to the classical doctrine, apostasy from Islam is a crime as well as a sin, and can be punished with the death penalty, typically after a waiting period to allow the apostate time to repent and to return to Islam. Wael Hallaq writes that " 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 set the standard for apostasy from Islam so high that practically no apostasy verdict could be passed before the 11th century, but 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. This view is dominant in conservative societies like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. A number of liberal and progressive Islamic scholars have argued that apostasy should not be viewed as a crime. Others argue that the death penalty is an inappropriate punishment, inconsistent with the Qur'anic verses such as "no compulsion in religion"; 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. 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.

Twenty-three Muslim-majority countries, as of 2013, penalized apostasy from Islam through their criminal laws. As of 2014, apostasy from Islam was a capital offense in Afghanistan, Brunei, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. In other countries, Sharia courts could use family laws to void the Muslim apostate's marriage and to deny child-custody rights as well as inheritance rights. In the years 1985–2006, four individuals were legally executed for apostasy from Islam: "one in Sudan in 1985; two in Iran, in 1989 and 1998; and one in Saudi Arabia in 1992." While modern states have rarely prosecuted apostasy, the issue has a "deep cultural resonance" in some Muslim societies and Islamists have tended to exploit it for political gain. In a 2008–2012 Pew Research Center poll, public support for capital punishment for apostasy among Muslims ranged from 78% in Afghanistan to less than 1% in Kazakhstan, reaching over 50% in 6 of the 20 countries surveyed.
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