“No one knows I don’t believe. When I questioned my family and friends about Islam, I got scary answers.”@halihali619, Pakistani #ExMuslim pic.twitter.com/ENCm6PEyE7
— ExMuslim TV (@ExMuslimTV) August 29, 2020
“ExMuslim TV is a short-video platform where we share our experience, support and inspire each other. Our non-profit platform is dedicated to giving a voice to former and questioning Muslims across the world, in particular those of us who face immediate danger, as well as breaking down the stigma that surrounds us. We stand for civil liberties, equality of rights and strongly against anti-Muslim hate.” This video is featured here.
Apostasy carries the death penalty in Islamic law. This is 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 Sunni hadith depicts Muhammad saying: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57). This is not just a Sunni idea; 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.”