The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law. It’s based on the Qur’an: “They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved so you would be alike. So do not take from among them allies until they emigrate for the cause of Allah. But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper.” (Qur’an 4:89)
A hadith depicts Muhammad saying: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57). The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence.
This is still the position of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, both Sunni and Shi’ite. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the most renowned and prominent Muslim cleric in the world, has stated: “The Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished, yet they differ as to determining the kind of punishment to be inflicted upon them. The majority of them, including the four main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali) as well as the other four schools of jurisprudence (the four Shiite schools of Az-Zaidiyyah, Al-Ithna-‘ashriyyah, Al-Ja’fariyyah, and Az-Zaheriyyah) agree that apostates must be executed.”
Qaradawi also once famously said: “If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment, Islam wouldn’t exist today.”
But usually Muslim spokesmen in the West are not as forthright about this as Uthman Badar is here. The real question is, how is this idea compatible with the freedoms that Australians take for granted?
“EXCLUSIVE: Days after the carnage in London, this is the moment we catch a firebrand Islamist leader on camera saying all former Muslims should be put to DEATH… in Sydney on Saturday night,” by Stephen Johnson, Daily Mail Australia, March 27, 2017 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
A leader of a hardline Islamist group which campaigns for sharia law says Muslims who leave the religion should be put to death.
Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman Uthman Badar was frank when asked about the group’s policy at a forum in Bankstown, in Sydney’s south-west, on Saturday night.
‘The ruling for apostates as such in Islam is clear, that apostates attract capital punishment and we don’t shy away from that,’ Badar said in the presence of children. An apostate is someone who decides to leave Islam.
Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia removed references to that apostasy policy from its website as Alison Bevege, a freelance journalist, sued the group for making her to sit in a women’s-only section at a separate talk in October 2014.
On Saturday night, Ms Bevege held up a printed copy of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s draft constitution of the khilafah state published on the UK site, which was on the group’s Australian website until 2015.
This outlines their vision for a global Islamic caliphate, which has Muslims and non-Muslims living under sharia law.
She asked about their policy of killing people born as Muslims who leave the faith.
Hizb-ut Tahrir is a hardline Islamist group which seeks the establishment of a global caliphate, or empire.
The extremist group is said to reject democracy, secularism and all Western models of state.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott called for the group to be shut down in 2014, but the ban was never put in place.
A spokeswoman for Justice Michael Keenan told Daily Mail Australia the ‘execution’ matter had been referred to the Federal Police.
The organisation is banned in a number of Muslim-majority countries.
Article 7c of the document said: ‘Those who are guilty of apostasy (murtadd) from Islam are to be executed according to the rule of apostasy, provided they have by themselves renounced Islam.’
Badar initially responded by saying the policy wasn’t on its website before explaining how the group’s apostasy policy was compatible with Islam.
‘The whole thing covers different aspects of Islamic sharia law,’ he said.
‘The role of apostasy in Islam is very clear. Again, this is one of the things the West doesn’t like and seeks to change the role of apostasy.’ …