One version of an important hadith says: “A man who leaves Islam and engages in fighting against God and His Prophet shall be executed, crucified, or exiled” (Abu Duwad, Sunan, 33, hadith 4339). The crime being singled out for punishment is not the simple changing of one’s faith, but rather the definite choice to engage in war against the Muslim community. Christians must model their lives after the biblical prophets and apostles who left all to do God’s will. Given the ongoing hostility between the Muslims and their opponents, conversion from Islam generally meant that a person left the Muslim community and joined its opponents. Muslims in these states face penalties for blasphemy, heresy and, most famously, apostasy. They face restrictions on the public practice of religion and strict limits on the building or renovation of places of worship. The classical legal texts from each of the surviving schools of Islamic law provide a range of restrictions on the religious liberty of both non-Muslims and Muslims. For example, in the 19th century, some of the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints traditionally practiced polygamy, yet in a case heard in 1879, the Supreme Court upheld the criminal conviction of one of these members under a federal law banning polygamy.

Most of these restrictions can be traced back to classical Islamic law. You can taste and see the goodness of God. They are five things that a Muslim must do so they can live a good and responsible life. Therefore, forced conversions are simply unacceptable, and anyone who would use force rather than persuasion to promote religion must ignore the view of the person central to the Qur’an. The first concerns Muslims who profess Islam outwardly but who then attempt to destroy the Muslim community from within, using every opportunity to discredit the Prophet (2:8-18). However, the Qur’an does not recommend the death penalty even for this group of religious hypocrites, or munafiqun. In passages from the last two years of the Prophet’s time in Medina (631-32 CE), the Qur’an encouraged – even commanded – Muslims to bring these hostile forces under the authority of the Muslim state. These are not inevitable developments of Islam’s two most authoritative sources, the Qur’an and the Prophet’s actual practice, but rather a contestable departure from them. Other countries believed to be Israelite are Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Belgium, France, Netherlands, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and Denmark. Unfortunately, many Muslim-majority countries have failed to follow the Prophet’s example.

The Zango Kataf riot of 1992 is one example of political violence in the south; when the local government announced markets would be moved out of southern Zango, riots erupted and thousands of people were killed as this was yet another instance of governmental discrimination that displaced the predominantly Christian locals. In one recorded example, an elderly Christian woman came to see the caliph Umar and then refused his invitation to embrace Islam. It is, for example, no miracle that a man in good health should suddenly die. For example, there is one hadith in Bukhari’s collection (one of the most important collections of hadith for Sunni Muslims) that tells of a man who came to Medina and converted to Islam. The reference here to “splitting himself off from the community” is interpreted to mean one who actively boycotts and challenges the community and its legitimate leadership. In fact, in the first centuries of Islam after the Prophet’s death, when the community was more threatened from outside forces, the laws prohibiting apostasy, blasphemy and heresy were used often against political and theological opponents; at other times, Muslim critics of Islam were allowed to remain and function within the Muslim community despite their controversial views.

Far from punishing him with death, the Prophet let him go free, without imposing any penalty at all (Bukhari, Sahih, 9, 92, hadith 424). A contradiction, therefore, exists between certain sayings attributed to the Prophet and his actual conduct. The answer, I believe, is no. The Qur’an itself does not prescribe any worldly penalty – let alone death – to those who leave Islam. Castor and Polydeuces were twin brothers who shared different fathers but the same mother. It specifies only a severe punishment that they will suffer in the life after death – the same other-worldly punishment the Christian tradition reserved for apostates. However, the hadith themselves offer no evidence to suggest that Prophet Muhammad himself ever imposed the death penalty for the mere act of conversion from Islam. Shortly after his arrival, however, he informed Prophet Muhammad that he wanted to return to his former religion. On a practical level, it repeatedly emphasises the role of the Prophet as teaching people about God rather than forcing them to convert to Islam. The Qur’an emphasises free choice. So the Qur’an does not endorse use of the sword to force conversions to Islam. The capstone of the qur’anic case for religious liberty is the fact that not even the Prophet Muhammad could impose or force people to profess Islam.