مرتد murtadd - one who turns away.
So, I read a lot of history, especially early Muslim history not only about Arabia but also in neighbouring lands. This helps gives context to what was happening in Islam - it did not appear and grow in a vacuum. Everything early Islam did was in a context, in comparison to something else or against something else.
The punishment for apostasy is not something I ever really looked into. I knew there were opinions that said those who leave Islam should be killed, but to me it always seemed to be the Islam of the jihadis and Salafis.
So I never took it seriously - you are taught from day one that Islam teaches there is "no compulsion in religion" - so I brushed it aside as militant nonsense that the true teachings of the faith would never allow.
It has only been in the last few weeks that the question of apostasy and its punishment has become a bit of a topic in my mind - mainly due to Twitter as ex-Muslims seem to be obsessed with it and the alt-right love it because it gives them a seemingly easy peasy way to prove that Muslims are mad.
Now, what I'm about to say in this blog could be wrong, it also could be right. I have no idea. What I want to do though is show how when you look at specific topics in Islam, they tend to make no sense or point to serious contradictions and flaws.
Let me also stress that this blog in no way whatsoever wishes to apologise for Islam's stance on apostasy - I totally accept that mainstream Sunni Islam accepts killing apostates is allowed and as an apostate myself, I therefore can be killed.
What I am trying to do is show Muslims and non-Muslims alike, how when you peel away and look at things in Islam with some common sense, you can find perfectly easy explanations for much of the madness that has come to define shariah and therefore Muslims' beliefs and lives.
So, first - does Islam say you should kill apostates?
Well, obviously we can't ask anyone called 'Islam' but what we can do is look at some texts that the layman and scholars may go to in order to find an answer to this.
Take note of this point: Muslims do not use heart or head when asking themselves if something is allowed/good/bad/haram/halal - they ask a book, a scholar or a website, a legal precedent. This in itself is perhaps the most serious flaw in Islam and how it is practised - not a shred of common sense.
So, let me show you what I found when I opened up the book I used as my guide for 10+ years as a Shafi'i Muslim - The Reliance of the Traveller.
Apostasy from Islam - Ridda
This is pretty clearly saying as someone who has left Islam, I "deserve" to be killed.
Now interestingly when I read this (o8.3), I went into Muslim apologist mode - i.e. if a freeman only the Caliph or his representative may kill them. "Ah," I thought, "as there is no Caliph or representative, this is a defunct law forever." Well yes that might be right, but what if a Caliph did come back? Then I am in trouble! Plus when this fatwa was written, all they knew was the Caliph; there was no alternative. Plus why the hell does a freeman only get the privilege of being murdered by the Caliph? Poor slaves.
They were using the political paradigms and language of the time to reflect the social order at that time - not a language that speaks to mankind forever, like the Quran is claimed to be.
So, based on this and numerous fatwa you can find in all schools of Sunni & Shia law, it would be foolish of anyone to argue that Islam does not condone the killing of apostates.
Some Muslims may abhor the idea, as did/do I and all of my friends and family do, but some would love it, inc. many people I have met over the past 19 years.
I have to say, when I read those pages above the hairs on my body all stood up and a cold shiver went over me. It is honestly a very scary feeling to realise that friends of yours who take these books literally, may think I deserve to be killed.
I know none of them would ever want it or do it, but if it happened, they would console themselves by saying, "well he kinda deserved it."
:) motherfuckers.
Having now been able to use my brain for the past 3 years or so, I thought I should approach this whole question of killing apostates in the same way I did with dogs.
The first question I had was - does the Quran say you can kill apostates?
I have done my best here and I have trawled forums, articles and fatwas and I have drawn a blank in terms of a clear Quranic instruction that says apostates must be killed.
These are the closest I can find:
a) “Say to those who remained behind of the bedouins, “You will be called to [face] a people of great military might; you may fight them, or they will become Muslims. So if you obey, Allah will give you a good reward; but if you turn away as you turned away before, He will punish you with a painful punishment.” (48:16)
b) "As for them, they will go on fighting with you till they succeed in turning you away from your faith, if they can. Whosoever renounces his faith and dies a renegade, all his works shall be fruitless both in this world and in the hereafter. All such people deserve the fire and shall abide in there forever.” (2:217)
c) "They wish that you should disbelieve as they disbelieve, and then you would be equal; therefore take not to yourselves friends of them, until they emigrate in the way of God; then, if they turn their backs, take them, and slay them wherever you find them; take not to yourselves any one of them as friend or helper."[4:89]
There are others ayats people use as "clear evidence" but they are so weak and tenuous in their inference that they can not be taken seriously as evidence, well for a Muslim anyway. An outsider may look at some ayats of the Quran or select English translations of them and feel that it is clear - unfortunately this is not how the Quran is approached by Muslims on the whole so it wont win any arguments with them.
It is this very reason that most Muslims hate jihadi types - because they take ayats of the Quran and apply whatever meaning they want to suit their terms.
These ayats above however, if I were arguing that the Quran calls for killing apostates, I believe could be used to give some sort of credence or backup to the sharia rulings.
Now let's look at these ayats a bit closer.
a) this ayat is talking about the Bedouin Arabs who fought and then ran away - thus the words "as you turned before." So this is not about apostasy - its about leaving the field of battle. OK if you want to say that makes you a non-Muslim or whatever then fine, but all you've done is fit the Quran to your argument. This ayat therefore is discounted.
b) the ayat says anyone who turns away from their faith (see differing translations) deserves hell. There is no command for anyone to send them to hell. It says that's their punishment in the afterlife, not in this world. This ayat therefore is discounted.
c) this ayat perhaps can be the strongest to uphold the position that apostates can be killed according to Quran. So rather than just take it as black and white according to the words, I read into it a bit more. This ayat was revealed as a warning to Muhammad not to let the hypocrites (the deserters from the battle of Uhud) into camp and be trusted. Their desertion caused a rift and these verses were sent to give guidance on how to deal with it. (You need to read 4:88 and 4:89 to give it proper context). It clearly says not to make friends with them until they give up all the bad shit they're doing, like deserting. The above translation is a bit poor, this one is much cleaner -
"But take not friends
From their ranks
Until they flee from what is forbidden
But if they turn renegades
Seize them and slay them...."
So Allah is commanding Muhammad to be careful with them. The ayat is not talking about all Muslims forever but about the hypocrites at this specific time who had done this specific action which had caused a tiff among Muslims.
Therefore when it talks of them turning renegade, it makes no sense in terms of being a command to kill any Muslim who decides their not Muslim anymore from that day until the end of time. How it does make sense is in a military/social order sense where if they (the hypocrites) abandon their treaty or pact, they become renegades and can be killed (read 4:90 again to give you the full meaning).
Which you could argue is just as bad as killing apostates but then we have countries such as the USA, etc who also use the death penalty for treason in 2018.
Yet again, this ayat therefore is discounted.
So in all three ayats we have found no clear, rational or obvious evidence of the Quran stating that apostates should be killed. When looking at each one we can clearly see the reasons those ayats were 'sent down' (the context) and who the audience were.
So why does Islam say apostates should be killed?
Exactly! And this is something Muslims should be asking themselves as opposed to their mullah, Sheikh, Imam or whatever. All they'll do is open a book and follow a law laid down by an Arab or Persian 1,200 years ago!
As with Islam's crazy position on dogs, Islam's crazy position on those that leave the religion are pretty much based on hadith.
The Quranic evidence is clearly not there other than some weak inferences and creative word play - which scholars have been doing for centuries to justify their salaries and position in Muslim society. You need to remember that scholars were paid by the state much of the time - if they weren't paid then sometimes their lives depended on a certain "interpretation" of an ayat or hadith.
So, as we have seen again and again it all comes back to hadith...and you don't have to look far to find these hadith on apostasy - plenty full, which again should arouse suspicion.
One I think is enough to give us a flavour:
“Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.”
(That's one of the nicer ones by the way.)
Now, this is where Muslims need to make a call.
1) Either you accept these hadith as true and the basis for the laws you live your life/death against, or....
2) You accept that these hadith must be wrong as Muhammad could not possibly say and command such things.
If you chose 1, then OK, I wish you a lot of luck because your religion is a complete mess full of bizarre, immoral, disgusting and perverse laws which can not possibly be any fulfillment of a final moral code for mankind until Judgement Day.
If you chose 2, then you need to start looking at the hadith literature again and start understanding how it all came about, who the actors were, the time, place and how it has essentially been abused by those in power resulting in the contradictory mess called 'Islam' we see before us today.
A theory on Apostasy laws in the Sharia
As with all the hadith on dogs I eventually, over the course of a few years, went with choice number 2.
As with the hadith on dogs I believe these hadith on apostasy were made up too. Fabricated.
For example, the hadiths on dogs clearly show that there must have been some reason for wanting to keep dogs at bay - some say it was because of disease, others that it was an anti-Zoroastrian policy created after conquering Persia, some say it could be as simple as Abu Hurarya, the cat loving hadith transmitter, who just wanted dogs kept away from his lovely life in the palaces of Damascus.
Who knows? But they all seem a lot more logical than God sending us a Prophet to warn us that dog saliva is bad for us. Muslims who believe this is some sort of miraculous favour/secret given to us by His final Prophet really need to question what sort of conception of God they have - it sounds too human, too much like Mum & Dad taking care of baby.
Based on my recent reading of history books, I think exactly the same process has happened with apostasy. Muslims in power had to deal with an issue and used Muhammad's words to implement policy. This is simple state management combined with propaganda.
Very soon after Muhammad died, Muslims rebelled against Abu Bakr - many also left Islam. After Abu Bakr, again Muslims rebelled against Umar, after Umar against Uthman, after Uthman against Ali, .....against Hassan, .....against Muawiya.....and the list goes on and on and one and on. So leaving Islam was something quite common in those first 0.000001-200 years after Muhammad's death.
How do you think those early Caliphs inc. the wicked Umayyads could have kept control of their riches, lands and people if the Quran teaches "no compulsion"?
They had to find some way of threatening people - making them fear the Caliph. Making it God & His Prophet saying that they can't leave their religion or rebel against the state. Go do a bit of reading about the evils of al-Hajjaj and what he did when he was in control of certain regions - shocking. Muslims were rebelling all over the Peninsula; even Companions were murdered for not agreeing with Umayyad (state) policy.
Also very soon after the death of Muhammad, his Caliphs were spreading Islam by the sword. Arabia was taken (full of Christians and Jews) as well as Persia which had Zoroastrians.
What were the local populace asked to do? 1) Either become Muslim or 2) keep their faith and pay taxes or 3) on many occasions, be put to the sword.
Now, Islam is very easy to enter. You say a few words and boom bang bing you're in the club. So it is very easy to imagine hordes of Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians all saying upon the arrival of their new conquerors, "Yes, no problem, we convert. Allahu akbar."
They are then safe and pay no tax! But did they really become Muslims?
And this is why I mentioned history right at the start of this blog - go do some research yourself and you'll find many stories of people 'converting' then once things had settled down, gone back their old religions! This must have really pissed off the state and those in control. No state likes to lose taxes, does it?
Again, how do you stop this happening if you are in power? Well, you invent hadith that the Prophet said if you leave Islam, you're dead - and next to that have your Quran experts find new interpretations of ayats or even simpler, change the Quran.
Simple.
And this ladies and gentlemen is the story of what has become Islam.
Manipulated from the very start to keep power and now so far removed from what it might have ever been that we have no clue what the Quran is or who Muhammad was.
Well, that's my theory anyway. What's yours?
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