Punishment of Apostacy in Islam — Page 78
78 worshipper. As some people misconstrued some verse of the Holy Quran, without regard to its context, and assumed that it had reference to all pagans, and in consequence declared as many as four hundred verses of the Holy Quran as abrogated; in the same way, some divines were misled by such narratives as mentioned the execution of an apostate or some apostates, and applied them erroneously to the case of every apostate and ignored the fact that the narratives relied upon by them related to apostates who had taken up arms against the Muslims. They also ignored the fact that in earlier times an apostate immediately went and joined the enemies of the Muslims and fought along with them against the Muslims. Such a person spelt even greater danger to the Muslims than their declared enemies as he was aware of the condition and circumstances of the Muslims and could prove of great assistance to the enemy. Whenever such divines read about the execution of an apostate, they immediately concluded therefrom that apostacy was punishable with death, without inquiring into the circumstances under which, and on account of which, the apostate had been executed. They discovered that the apostates had been fought against in the time of Hazrat Abu Bakr and Hazrat Ali, may Allah be pleased with them, and without inquiring into the circumstances which had necessitated the fighting, erroneously concluded that every apostate was punishable with death. It is, however, fortunate that though some divines proclaimed that simple apostacy was punishable with death, several divines refused to subscribe to this view, and stated plainly that Islam had not appointed any punishment for simple apostacy or for simple