He’s fortunate only to have been beaten, and of course is not at all out of danger. 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. The late Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who was once the most renowned and prominent Muslim cleric in the world, 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.”
“New Christian Beaten Unconscious for Leaving Islam,” Morning Star News, May 8, 2023:
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 8, 2023 (Morning Star News) – A former Islamic teacher remains hospitalized after Muslim extremists in eastern Uganda on Tuesday (May 2) beat him unconscious for converting to Christianity, sources said.
Shaquru Ndifuna, 33, was receiving treatment for blood loss at a medical clinic in Iganga town in the district of the same name, area Christians said.
A former Islamic teacher at Noor Islamic Institute in Mayuge District, Ndifuna is a resident of Kaliro Town Council, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Iganga town. He put his faith in Christ in January an open-air evangelistic event in Namutumba, 39 kilometers from Iganga town.
Word of his conversion spread, a cleric at the Noor Islamic Mosque began monitoring his movements, and in April three Islamic leaders visited him at his home, said an area Christian unnamed for security reasons.
“They questioned me about my absence as a teacher at Noor Mosque,” Ndifuna told Morning Star News. “I tried to explain to them about my other commitments elsewhere. One of them mentioned about me having become a Christian, but I did not respond. Afterwards the three Muslim leaders left.”
Tuesday evening (May 2) at 7:30 p.m., four Muslims intruded into his house, he said.
“They forcefully entered into the house, shouting about me having blasphemed the Islamic religion and trying to force me to confess that Jesus is not the Son of God, and that Allah is the only God to be worshipped and Muhammad is His prophet,” Ndifuna said. “I refused to renounce Jesus as the Son of God. They started beating me up.”
His wife and three children hid in a bedroom, and his wife telephoned a family friend, saying that the assailants were beating him unconscious and that he had lost a lot of blood, the source said.
“The attackers have left, I think they thought my husband is dead – they did not touch his phone nor any property,” his wife told the friend, according to the source.
The friend drove to their home, took Ndifuna to a nearby medicine shop for first aid and later transferred him to the clinic in Iganga, the source said.
“Please take care of my children, I am not sure whether I will survive,” Ndifuna told Morning Star News at the hospital. “The Muslims who injured me were trying to force me to return to Islam, but I refused.”…
Michael Copeland says
“by persuasion or by force” – Ibn Khaldun.
All normal Islam.