Join our campaign for the abolition of the Islamic Law of Apostasy

by Dr Patrick Sook
International Director, Barnabas Fund

Throughout 2009 Barnabas fund has been running a campaign for the abolition of the Islamic apostasy law, which imposes very serious penalties on Muslims who chose to leave their faith. All schools of Islamic law specific the death sentence for apostasy, and converts face a range of other punishments, including the loss of their families and properties. The law also provokes a powerful hostility to apostates among Muslims.

Some progressive Muslim scholars have argued that the apostasy law should be abandoned. Is it important to say quite simply that people have the freedom to enter the Islamic faith and the freedom to leave it?

Below you will find an important article by Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali. We invite you to sign our petition against the apostasy law. The more signatures we have, the more impact we can have.

Apostasy and Blasphemy in Islam: What should Christians do?
From the foreword to Freedom to Believe (McLean, VA: Isaac Publishing, 2009)

by Michael Nazir-ali

The Qur’an is fierce in its condemnation of apostasy (ridda) and of the apostate (murtadd). We have the unanimous position of the various schools of Islamic law (fiqh) that shari’ia lays down the death penalty for adult male Muslims in possession of their faculties who apostate. Some also prescribe a similar punishment for women, whilst others hold that a women apostate should be imprisoned until she recants and returns to Islam.

Although apostasy is punishable by death in only a few countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Sudan, jurists will sometimes directly invoke the authority of shari’a to sentence apostates to death. This has happened in both Iran and Afghanistan.

The Law has also become away of settling personal scores by accusing one’s adversary of blasphemy. The irony is that Muslims claim that their prophet forgave those who insulted him.

A number of attempts have been made to make it more difficult to file charges of blasphemy against someone. The only solution is for a government to have the courage to repeal it or abolish or suspend the death penalty altogether.

Most Muslim countries have subscribed to international treaties, such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights, but they subordinate such agreements to the provisions of the sharia, which, in many cases, negates the effect of the documents. It is interesting to compare the UN Declaration with the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam. In the latter there is no equivalent to Article 18 (on freedom of thought, conscience and religion) and all provisions are, ultimately, subject to Sharia. This approach has resulted in important rights under Article 18 of the UN Declaration being denied to people living in Islamic countries.

It is necessary for leading institutions in the Islamic world to undertake a major reform of Sharia. There is also the urgent task of a fundamental examination as to how the principles of the law to be found in the Qur’an can be brought into a fruitful relationship with present-day conditions and requirements. This is the case in the areas of finance, family law, penal provisions, jihad and the treatment of non-Muslims in an Islamic state.