Murder in the Name of Allah — Page 64
Murder in the Name of Allah after having believed. If We forgive a group of you, a group shall We punish, for they have been guilty. ' (9. 66) Those to be forgiven are obviously such of the munafiqun who repented and became sincere. Muslims. As regards those who are to be punished, one verse further down we read: 'Allah promises the munafiqun - both men and women - and the disbelievers the fire of hell, wherein they shall abide. It will suffice them. And they shall have everlasting punishment. ' (9. 68). And, finally:. They swear by Allah that they said nothing, but they did say the word of disbelief and did disbelieve after they had embraced Islam. . . . So if they repent, it will be better for them, but if they turn away, Allah will punish them with a grievous punishment in this world and the hereafter. And they shall have neither friend nor helper in the earth. (9. 74)⁹. The Prophetsa knew that Abdullah b. Ubayy b. Salul was the leader of the munafiqun, but he took no action against him. On the contrary, the. Propheta prayed for him when he died. Umar b. al-Khattab is reported to have said:. When the Prophetsa went and stood by the dead body of Abdullah b. . Ubayy and was about to pray, I asked him: 'Are you going to pray over. God's enemy?' The Prophetsa smiled and said: 'Get behind me, Umar. I have been given a choice and I have chosen. It was said to me: 'Ask pardon for them or ask it not. Even if you ask pardon for them seventy times God will not pardon them' If I knew that by asking pardon more than seventy times he would be forgiven, I would do it. ' Then he prayed over him and walked with his dead body and stayed at his grave until he was buried. 10. Freedom of conversion is the acid test of 'no compulsion in religion'. . It cannot be a one-way freedom - the freedom to enter Islam, but not to leave it. There are ten direct references to recantation in the Quran: one in the Meccan surah of Al-Nahl and the remaining nine in the Medinite surahs. In none of these verses is there the slightest hint of capital punishment for those who recant. . One of the Quran's most explicit statements on recantation is the 143rd verse of Al-Baqarah. The Qiblah was changed from Jerusalem to. Mecca in the second year of Hijrah. Ibn Ishaq reports:. And when the Qiblah was changed from Syria to the Kabah, Rifaa b. . Qays, Qardam b. Amr, Kab b. al-Ashraf, Rafib Abu Rafi, al-Hajjaj b. . Amr and an ally of Kab's, al-Rabi b. al-Rabi b. Abul-Huqayq and Kinana b. al-Rabi b. Abul Huqayq came to the Prophets and asked: 'Why have 64