Question

Weigh in with me on something, the no-no topic of apostasy in Islam.

There is a hadith that states leaving the religion of Islam is punishable by death.
Check it out here:
http://sunnah.com/nasai/45/16

Hadith can be denied based on it's strength currently the hadith above is holded as strong, but like many hadiths not all are timeless. (Unlike the Qur'an which can be applied in situations which are timeless.) So I got thinking.

There is no Qur'anic verse that mentions that apostasy is punishable by death. In fact the only punishment found for apostasy in the Qur'an is in Surat Al-Baqarah which just claims apostasy as sin and if you commit it there will be hell waiting for you. Is it possible the hadith up above was time bound, because there are other hadiths in which prophet Muhammad (PBUH) allowed apostates to live. (http://sunnah.com/bukhari/93/71 )

Your guys view?

Answer 1

Like the verses in the Torah, Pentateuch, The Five Books of Moses, where death was the penalty for homosexuality; bestiality; incest, rape, and murder, they may well be discontinued with God's mercy but a penalty may be extracted by God. All scriptures may be time dependent, this causes many misinterpretations.

Answer 2

Qur'an is not time dependant but it should be read with time context. In Islam if the Qur'an describes a punishment we hold this punishment as God's orders so we comply. Such as the Qur'an says the punishment for adultery is 100 lashes, all Islamic theocracies hold this ruling.

Islamic hadiths is to Muslims as the 'oral Torah' is to Jews. We are lenient with hadith, they are sometimes cryptic, and could be time dependant. An example is some hadiths are prophecies, which are obliviously time dependant.

Misinterpretations of hadiths happens consistently among the Muslim community and especially among the non-Muslim community.

Answer 3

@Opcode this will help u http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4pTGy2z530

Answer 4

@Yahoo!
I am well aware of the reconciliation efforts by Muslim apologists on this subject.

However I am not looking for a 'why', I am looking deeper into validity of the claim. The claim being, "If you are an apostate (of Islam) you are to be sentenced to death." I have voiced my thoughts above, still waiting for people to say something about them though.

Answer 5

The Talmud and it's second part the Gemara, a commentary on the Mishnah, created in the 2nd century CE, AD, is the philosophical lens in which modern Rabbi's read and understand their ancient writings. The Roman Catholic Church actually used ancient Greek's philosophy as a lens as attested by St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century AD. Just as these two branches changed over time I'm fairly sure the same occurred within Islam, as attested by their own divisions within. The apostate, heretic in the Roman Catholic Church was usually excommunicated, the same for some so called Protestant, and sometimes worse. As for Saudi Arabia it is a Kingdom and the King has absolute authority, the same goes for Iran where the ruling Theocracy has absolute authority. The Caliph's state have somewhat disappeared, there is presently an attempt in the Middle East to bring it back and there your individual interpretation will be meaningless.

Answer 6

Interestingly enough I did some deep research into where other has execution of apostates has grown from, not to put blame but mostly from Wahhabism and Salafism, these groups hold the idea that stoning people is Islamically valid. (It's not, under the five Sunni Maddhabs.)

So for now my position on apostates of Islam are allowed freedom of their choice of religion under Islamic sharia, as my maddhab supports. (Shafi'i)

Now as to Saudi Arabia I do not think we can even say it is an Islamic theocracy, I believe it is more of just a monocracy based on, "I'll do what I think is Islamic." The first four Caliph's were democratically elected, per this then they carried rule making, based on Islamic methodology. The more I look at Saudi Arabic, the less I think it is under Islamic ruling, as some of their basic laws contradict with clear cut Islamic ones, as well as the ruling man is not democratically elected but through bloodline.

As for the ISIS Caliphate, I think the general Muslim scholars and Muslims view them as heretics. So I am in no way religiously obligated to support that Caliphate.

Note to supporters of the apostate penalty hadith:
I do find most people who leave Islam to be insincere vacillators and grudge bearers, but still that does not matter, and is against the point: A whole cottage industry has emerged amongst dawah carriers and apologist trying to find exotic justifications for this ruling of some (in fact many) jurists. The answer is very simple, killing of apostates is not Islamic.

Since the Hanafite maddhab is the largest listen to Abu Hanifa who says:
"No killing of the male or female apostate."

Case Closed.