Overall, the figures in the 2012 survey suggest that the percentage of Muslims in the countries surveyed who approve the death penalty for Muslims who leave Islam to become an atheist or convert to another religion varies widely, from 0.4% (in Kazakhstan) to 78.2% (in Afghanistan). A 2010 Pew Research Center poll showed that 84% of Egyptian Muslims believe those who leave Islam should be punished by death. The Governments of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait) did not permit Pew Research to survey nationwide public opinion on apostasy in 2010 or 2012. The survey also did not include China, India or Syria. Note that values for Group C have been derived from the values for the other two groups and are not part of the Pew report. Some establishments have drum societies and singing groups and the independent African and Pentecostal churches reflected in figures for membership that rose from 1 and 2 percent, respectively, in 1960, to 14 and 8 percent, respectively, according to a 1985 estimate. While Al-Hallaj was officially executed for possessing a heretical document suggesting hajj pilgrimage was not required of a pure Muslim, it is thought he would have been spared execution except that the Caliph at the time Al-Muqtadir wished to discredit “certain figures who had associated themselves” with al-Hallaj.

“The time I spent at GBS was a period of intense and painful transformation. Even today, Muslims regard the period as exemplary. Even the most practical guy follows this tradition in India. Services often include praise and worship through music, prayers, scripture readings, sermons, and opportunities for personal reflection. Churches, monasteries, and synagogues that had been used for the state’s secular purposes were turned over to their rightful owners, and millions of believers at last felt free to worship as their consciences led them. Wiccans specifically worship the Lord and Lady of the Isles (their names are oathbound). Similar views are expressed by the non-theistic International Humanist and Ethical Union. This split vitally affected views regarding knowledge of God. In this survey, Muslims who favored making Sharia the law of the land were asked for their views on the death penalty for apostasy from Islam. In 2013, it enacted Syariah (Sharia) Penal Code. Egypt’s penal code is silent about the punishment for apostasy from Islam. Article 1 of the Afghan Penal Code requires hudud crimes be punished per Hanafi religious jurisprudence. In the 8th century, the founder of Hanifi fiqh of jurisprudence in Islam, Abū Ḥanīfa, was charged with apostasy and punished.

Article 130 of the Afghan Constitution requires its courts to apply provisions of Hanafi Sunni fiqh for crimes of apostasy in Islam. The blasphemy laws and Article 98(f) of Egyptian Penal Code, as amended by Law 147, has been used to prosecute Muslims who have converted to Christianity. Later, when Europeans settled in Pakistan, more Muslims were converted to Christianity. In March 2006, an Afghan citizen Abdul Rahman was charged with apostasy and could have faced the death penalty for converting to Christianity. The Edict of Toleration ultimately failed when Sultan Abdul Hamid II assumed power, re-asserted pan-Islamism with sharia as Ottoman state philosophy, and initiated Hamidian massacres in 1894 against Christians, particularly of Armenians, Assyrians and crypto-Christian apostates from Islam in Turkey (Stavriotes, Kromlides). Article 2 of the Constitution of Egypt enshrines sharia. Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) is a human right which has been guaranteed under international law within the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) since 1966. Article 18 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, states that ‘everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion’. Wael Hallaq states the death penalty reflects a later reality and does not stand in accord with the deeds of the Prophet.

Contemporary Egyptian jurisprudence prohibits apostasy from Islam, but has also remained silent about death penalty. In addition to death, the family of the accused can be deprived of all property and possessions, and the individual’s marriage is considered dissolved in accordance with Hanafi Sunni jurisprudence. The apostasy wars split the two major sects of Islam – Sunni and Shia, and caused numerous deaths. As of 2014, apostasy was a capital offense in Afghanistan, Brunei, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. In Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Yemen apostasy laws have been used to charge persons for acts other than conversion. More than 20 Muslim nations have laws that declare apostasy by Muslims to be a crime. In addition, some Islamic countries without laws specifically addressing apostasy have prosecuted individuals or minorities for apostasy using broadly-defined blasphemy laws. The violence or threats of violence against apostates in the Muslim world in recent years has derived primarily not from government authorities but from other individuals or groups operating unrestricted by the government. Islamic groups have taken the law into their own hands and executed apostates. In the 8th century, apostates of Islam were killed in West Asia and Sind.