Punishment of Apostacy in Islam — Page 41
41 According to those Muslim divines who advocate death for an apostate he was in the right in threatening them with instant execution, but the Holy Quran clearly condemns Pharaoh’s attitude as cruel and tyrannical. How would the advocates of death for apostacy resolve this difficulty? Another absolutely conclusive verse of the Holy Quran on this subject is: A section of the people of the Book urge some from among themselves: Why not affirm, in the early part of the day, belief in that which has been revealed unto the believers and repudiate it in the latter part of the day, perchance they may turn away from their faith (3:73). This was a Jewish device whereby they hoped to create doubt and confusion among the Muslims in the hope that some of them might thereby be beguiled into repudiating Islam. If that was the purpose of their device the verse is conclusive proof that there was no punishment prescribed for apostacy. In the first place, those of the Jews who, according to this device, would announce their belief in Islam during the early part of the day, and then would repudiate Islam in the latter part, would render themselves liable to execution if the Holy Quran had prescribed death as the penalty for apostacy; and in the second place, their execution would have operated as a deterrent in the case of those who might otherwise have been tempted to follow their example and thus the design would have been frustrated both ways. The advocates of the death penalty for apostacy urge that this verse merely mentions this design of the Jews which remained part of their thinking and was never put into practice and that, therefore, this verse cannot be relied upon in support of the thesis