Punishment of Apostacy in Islam — Page 42
42 that the Holy Quran does not prescribe any penalty for apostacy. This argument is devoid altogether of any validity. Even if it sets out only a hypothetical case which was only contemplated but was never put into practice, the verse would still be conclusive proof that the Holy Quran had prescribed no penalty for apostacy. If the extreme penalty had been prescribed the Jews would never have contemplated any such device as is mentioned in the verse. But in fact it was not a merely hypothetical case. This is clear from the following extract taken from page 493 of Vol. II of the commentary Bahral Muheet: Hasan and Sady relate that twelve Jewish divines of Khaibar and Urainah agreed among themselves that they should declare belief verbally in Islam during the early part of the day, without any conviction in their hearts, and that in the latter part of the day they should repudiate Islam on the ground that they had again studied their books and had discussed the matter with other divines and had come to know that Muhammad was not a true prophet and that his falsehood and that of his religion had become patent to them. When they would do that, the companions of Muhammad would fall into doubt and thinking that as they were the people of the Book and knew these matters better than themselves, they would be disgusted with their own religion (Islam) and would turn to their religion (Judaism). This incident is mentioned in several other commentaries, in some of which the names of the divines who had so agreed are also mentioned. Another verse of the Holy Quran also indicates that some such incidents actually took place. That verse is as follows: When