Punishment of Apostacy in Islam — Page 35
35 belief. Islam is a missionary religion and claims that in all countries and among all peoples there should be complete freedom of conscience and belief, including the freedom to change one’s religion. If the view propounded by this particular divine were to be accepted, all the persecution to which the Holy Prophet, peace be on him, and the early Muslims were subjected in Mecca during thirteen years of his ministry, would be deemed to have been fully justified, as Islam was a menace to the beliefs of Quraish and to their very mode of life. Finding nothing in the Holy Quran to support his thesis, and having no answer to the clear and repeated affirmations of the Holy Quran in support of complete freedom of conscience and belief, this divine seeks to make Hadees and the alleged policy of the Successors of the Holy Prophet, peace be on him, the principal prop of his outrageous theory. If the instances cited by him are carefully examined, it will be found that in everyone of them the apostate or apostates concerned had been guilty of rebellion or murder, or armed support of the enemies of Islam. These cases shall be dealt with later in the course of this exposition. In truth for a person of average intelligence only a portion of a single verse of the Holy Quran should be conclusive that Islam does not permit any type of compulsion in matters of faith, whether it should be the case of presenting Islam to a non-Muslim and inviting him to accept it, or it should be the case of persuading one who has abjured Islam to revert to it. The direction of the Holy Quran in this respect is imperative: There shall be no compulsion in matters of faith (2:257). Matters of faith surely