The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law. It’s based on the Qur’an: “They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved so you would be alike. So do not take from among them allies until they emigrate for the cause of Allah. But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper.” (Qur’an 4:89)
A hadith depicts Muhammad saying: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57). The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence.
This is still the position of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, both Sunni and Shi’ite. The late Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who was once the most renowned and prominent Muslim cleric in the world, stated: “The Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished, yet they differ as to determining the kind of punishment to be inflicted upon them. The majority of them, including the four main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali) as well as the other four schools of jurisprudence (the four Shiite schools of Az-Zaidiyyah, Al-Ithna-‘ashriyyah, Al-Ja’fariyyah, and Az-Zaheriyyah) agree that apostates must be executed.”
Qaradawi also once famously said: “If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment, Islam wouldn’t exist today.”
“Young Woman in Uganda Killed after Accepting Christ,” Morning Star News, September 29, 2022:
NAIROBI, Kenya (Morning Star News) – A 23-year-old Muslim woman in eastern Uganda who converted to Christianity on Sept. 18 was poisoned to death that night, sources said.
Namata Habiiba attended a church service on Sept. 18 at the invitation of a friend in Wakawaka village, Bugiri District and put her faith in Christ, the friend said.
Habiiba, who lived with her Muslim stepmother after her parents were killed in a vehicle accident in 2019, returned home from the church service with her friend, and her stepmother asked why she had returned so late. Habiiba told her she had attended a church service and converted to Christianity, causing her stepmother, Namu Sauya, to stop talking to her, according to the friend, whose name is withheld for security reasons.
Sauya prepared and served food for them and then left the room, said the friend, who was fasting that day and did not eat. Within minutes, Habiiba started complaining of severe stomach pain and began to vomit, the friend said.
The friend shouted for Sauya, but there was no response, she said. Soon neighbors arrived, but Sauya had disappeared, Habiiba’s friend said.
They rushed Habiiba to a hospital in Bugiri, where a doctor gave her medication, but she soon died, the friend said. A postmortem, she said, determined she had died from ingesting rat poison.
Habiiba leaves behind a 3-year-old child, an area resident said. The father is a married Muslim who had planned to take her as his second wife, the source said….
