I am happy to have found this website of yours. I was born a Muslim and I learned a lot of Islamic teachings after I reached adolescence. I am trying to understand my religion.
I have read in some of your answers on the issue of apostasy that the punishment for the apostate is to be put to death. But I have read on another website that the apostate who is to be put to death is the one who wages war on Islam (muhaarib).
I am more inclined towards the second opinion.
The reason for that is that I have friends who were born in Muslim families and who have Muslim names, but some of them do not know how to do wudoo’ or how to pray, but they acknowledge the Shahaadatayn.
Can we regard these people as apostates and thus put them to death?.
Firstly:
The Muslim
should not incline more towards one scholarly opinion rather than another
just because it is in accordance with his whims and desires or his
reasoning. Rather he has to accept the ruling based on evidence from the
Qur’aan and Sunnah. It is essential to put the texts and rulings of
sharee’ah before all else.
Secondly:
Apostasy
(riddah) and going out of Islam are things that may be done in the heart, on
the tongue or in one's actions.
Apostasy may
take place in the heart, such as disbelieving in Allaah, or believing that
there is another creator alongside Allaah, or hating Allaah or His Messenger
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him).
Apostasy may
take the form of words spoken on the tongue, such as defaming Allaah or the
Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him).
Or apostasy
may take the form of outward physical actions, such as prostrating to an
idol, mistreating the Mus-haf, or not praying.
The apostate
(murtadd) is worse than one who is a kaafir in the first place.
Shaykh
al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah said, refuting the pantheistic belief of the
Baatinis:
It is well
known that the kaafir Tatars are better than these (Baatinis), because the
latter are apostates from Islam, of the worst type of apostates. The
apostate is worse than one who is a kaafir in the first place in many
aspects.
Majmoo’
al-Fataawa, 1/193
Secondly:
Not every Muslim who falls into kufr is a
kaafir and apostate. There are reasons why a Muslim may be excused and not
judged to be a kaafir, for example: ignorance, misunderstanding, being
forced, and making mistakes.
With regard
to the first, a man may be ignorant of the ruling of Allaah, because he
lives far from the Muslim lands, such as one who grows up in the desert or
in a kaafir land, or has only recently come to Islam. This may include many
of those Muslims who live in societies where ignorance prevails and
knowledge is scarce. These are the ones concerning whom the questioner is
confused as to whether they are to be judged as kaafirs and executed.
The second
reason is if a person interprets the ruling of Allaah in a manner not
intended by the Lawgiver, such as those who blindly follow the people of
bid’ah (innovation) in their misinterpretations, such as the Murji’ah,
Mu’tazilah, Khawaarij and the like.
The third
reason is if an oppressor overwhelms a Muslim and will not let him go until
he makes a blatant statement of kufr out loud in order to ward off the
torture, when his heart is at ease with faith.
The fourth
is when words of kufr come to one's lips without meaning it.
Not everyone
who is ignorant about wudoo’ and prayer can be excused, when he seed the
Muslims establishing prayer and praying regularly, and he can read and hear
the verses on prayer. What is preventing him from praying or from asking
about how it is done and what its essential conditions are?
Fourthly:
The apostate
is not to be put to death immediately after he falls into apostasy,
especially if his apostasy happens because of some doubt that arose. Rather
he should be asked to repent and he should be offered the opportunity to
return to Islam and resolve his doubts, if he has any doubts. Then if he
persists in his apostasy after that, he is to be put to death.
Ibn Qudaamah
said in al-Mughni, 9/18:
The apostate
should not be put to death until he has been asked to repent three times.
This is the view of the majority of scholars, including ‘Umar, ‘Ali, ‘Ata’,
al-Nakhaii, Maalik, al-Thawri, al-Awzaa’i, Ishaaq and others. Because
apostasy comes about because of doubt, and cannot be dispelled in an
instant. Time should be allowed for the person to rethink the matter, and
the best length of time is three days.
End quote.
The saheeh
Sunnah indicates that it is essential to put the apostate to death.
Al-Bukhaari
(6922) narrated that Ibn ‘Abbaas said: The Messenger of Allaah (peace
and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Whoever changes his religion,
put him to death.”
Al-Bukhaari
(6484) and Muslim (1676) narrated that ‘Abd-Allaah ibn Mas’ood said: The
Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said:
“It is not permissible to shed the blood of a Muslim who bears witness that
there is no god except Allaah and that I am the Messenger of Allaah, except
in one of three cases: a soul for a soul (i.e., in the case of murder); a
previously-married person who commits zina; and one who leaves his religion
and separates from the main body of the Muslims.”
The general
meaning of these ahaadeeth indicates that it is essential to put the
apostate to death whether he is waging war on Islam (muhaarib) or not.
The view
that the apostate who is to be put to death is the one who is waging war on
Islam (muhaarib) only is contrary to these ahaadeeth. The Prophet
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said that the reason why he
should be put to death is his apostasy, not his waging war against Islam.
Undoubtedly
some kinds of apostasy are more abhorrent than others, and the apostasy of
one who wages war against Islam is more abhorrent than that of anyone else.
Hence some of the scholars differentiated between them, and said that it is
not essential to ask the muhaarib to repent or to accept his repentance;
rather he should be put to death even if he repents, whereas the repentance
of one who is not a muhaarib should be accepted and he should not be put to
death. This is the view favoured by Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah (may Allaah
have mercy on him).
He said:
Apostasy is of two types: ordinary apostasy
and extreme apostasy, for which execution is prescribed. In both cases there
is evidence that it is essential to execute the apostate, but the evidence
indicating that the sentence of death may be waived if the person repents
does not apply to both types of apostasy. Rather the evidence indicates that
that is allowed only in the first case – i.e., ordinary apostasy – as will
be clear to anyone who studies the evidence that speaks about accepting the
repentance of the apostate. In the second type – i.e., extreme apostasy –
the obligation to put the apostate to death still stands, and there is no
text or scholarly consensus to indicate that the death sentence may be
waived. The two cases are quite different and there is no comparison between
them. It does not say in the Qur’aan or Sunnah, or according to scholarly
consensus, that everyone who apostatizes in word or deed may be spared the
death sentence if he repents after he is a captured and tried. Rather the
Qur’aan and Sunnah, and scholarly consensus, differentiate between the
different kinds of apostates.
Al-Saarim
al-Maslool, 3/696
Al-Hallaaj
was one of the most well known heretics who were put to death without being
asked to repent. Al-Qaadi ‘Iyaad said:
The Maaliki fuqaha’ of Baghdad at the time of
al-Muqtadir were unanimously agreed that al-Hallaaj should be killed and
crucified because of his claim to divinity and his belief in incarnation,
and his saying “I am al-Haqq [God],” even though he outwardly appeared to
adhere to sharee’ah, and they did not accept his repentance.
Al-Shifa
bi Ta’reef Huqooq al-Mustafa, 2/1091.
Based on
this, it is clear that what the questioner says about the apostate not being
killed unless he is waging war on Islam is mistaken, and the differentiation
that we have quoted from Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah may dispel any
confusion and make the matter clearer.
Waging war
against Islam is not limited only to fighting with weapons, rather it may be
done verbally such as defaming Islam or the Prophet (peace and
blessings of Allaah be upon him), or attacking the Qur’aan, and so on.
Waging verbal war against Islam may be worse than waging war against it with
weapons in some cases.
Shaykh
al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah said:
Muhaarabah (waging war against Islam) is of
two types: physical and verbal. Waging war verbally against Islam may be
worse than waging war physically – as stated above – hence the Prophet
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) used to kill those who waged war
against Islam verbally, whilst letting off some of those who waged war
against Islam physically. This ruling is to be applied more strictly after
the death of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him).
Mischief may be caused by physical action or by words, but the damage caused
by words is many times greater than that caused by physical action; and the
goodness achieved by words in reforming may be many times greater than that
achieved by physical action. It is proven that waging war against Allaah and
His Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) verbally is
worse and the efforts on earth to undermine religion by verbal means is more
effective.
Al-Saarim
al-Maslool, 3/735
Fifthly:
With regard
to not praying, the correct view is that the one who does not pray is a
kaafir and an apostate. See question no.
5208.
And Allaah
knows best.
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