Born muslims and apostates

[Te'oma]

Something has been bothering me. I have spoken to a few people that were born into muslim families who have admitted that they said the shahadah because it was expected of them rather then because they felt the guidance from Allah to do it. If these people move away from Islam as adults, are they apostates or were they ever truly muslims?

[al-ghazalli]

If these people move away from Islam as adults, are they apostates or were they ever truly muslims?

The Ulema of Aqeedah state if these persons even had faith which was the size of an atom they would be Muslim...only denying Islam or denying a pillar within Islam takes one outside the fold of Islam and causes them to become apostates.

And Allah Knows Best.

[Te'oma]

But my point is, what if they never truly accepted the 5 pillars? You hear about people being apostates in places like Afghanistan but if they were never truly muslims in their heart then how can they be called murtads

[al-ghazalli]

well thats the tricky part...we can't look into their hearts...unless they confess to us we will never know. We can only judge fiqhi wise by a person's outward actions.

If someone publicly denies ever accepting Islam then they were never Muslims in the first place.

And Allah Knows Best.

[Te'oma]

so would that be a legitimate defence under sharia? Has anyone ever heard of someone using this as a defence? I have read that there were those in Makkah that accepted Islam only because the Prophet(SAW) had taken control of the city. If these people turned away from Islam would they have been put to death?

[Te'oma]

I will tell you what had made me think of this. Today I was talking to an Iranian guy whose family fled Iran around 1980. He now attends a christian church here and I asked him why he had turned away from being shi'ite. His response was that he never felt like a muslim growing up. He just went through the motions to please his family and to prevent the police from arresting him as an apostate and killing him. My thought was that if he never felt like a muslim then he probably wasn't one in the first place but being native born, he wouldn't have the option of paying jizya and living as a non muslim.

[Cashew]

This appears to be one of those unpleasant grey areas so resistant to absolutist thinking.

I don't for a minute believe that "apostasy=death" was the generally accepted sharia practice under the caliphates, if for no other reason than that they were highly cosmopolitan and had vast numbers of people constantly moving into and out of their jurisdiction.

Another reason is that if we are to accept that sharia is rational and fair, and if the penalty for apostasy is so high, then why aren't there explicit and detailed instructions for the kind and amount of Islamic education that would legally guarantee a child's Muslim identity? Why isn't there some sort of test?

[tickledpinko]

That's why we say Allah SWT guides who He wills...one can even be the daughter or son of a mullah or sheikh (although this almost never happens, wallahuaalam), and that person can end up an apostate, it could be partially the parents' fault, but every individual is responsible for his/her actions. Mashaallah though, the reverts are some of the best Muslims I know, because they treat Islam like a precious, newfound treasure. From what i've witnessed and experienced myself, some born muslims tend to take Islam for granted, they don't even bother to understand it on a deeper, more sincere level, so then when they are faced with devout people from other religions, they feel empty and start doubting themselves, feeling like the truth has never been with them all long. We all just need to re-discover the deen, born Muslims have alot to learn from reverts, I myself started taking a deeper and more serious interest in my deen after meeting a revert in my college, mashaallah, the first thing i felt at that time was a pang of envy and lots of admiration for the revert sister. We born-Muslims have so much to be thankful for, we have it much easier than the revert brothers and sisters who have their non-Muslims parents and families to deal with.

[GothiKa]

If the authorities allow the kind of apostates Teoma has described to go free, those apostates who believed in Islam once,like Mace, will also use the same excuse as the former to save their butts from execution. In this case, it would be difficult to distinguish a true apostate from one who was never really a Muslim to begin with.

[elji]

when there is no official punishment for apostates in islam then why such a defence? beats me!

If people want to leave Islam thats fine, there is total free will in islam.

[Cashew]

...it would be difficult to distinguish a true apostate from one who was never really a Muslim to begin with.

That's precisely the issue Te'oma is addressing.

[in_exile]

This appears to be one of those unpleasant grey areas so resistant to absolutist thinking.

I don't for a minute believe that "apostasy=death" was the generally accepted sharia practice under the caliphates, if for no other reason than that they were highly cosmopolitan and had vast numbers of people constantly moving into and out of their jurisdiction.

Another reason is that if we are to accept that sharia is rational and fair, and if the penalty for apostasy is so high, then why aren't there explicit and detailed instructions for the kind and amount of Islamic education that would legally guarantee a child's Muslim identity? Why isn't there some sort of test?

the reason being that just because the punishment for apostacy is death doesnt mean that the muslims or the state go around looking for apostates to kill...

if a person was a muslim (or thought he was) then decided he didnt want to be a muslim but just kept the matter to himself living as a non muslim, reality is the rulers would not go around asking him 'yo are you still muslim'

the matter is the same with adultery... yes adultery is punishment by stoning to death, but the state doesnt go searching for adulterers to stone to death, if people did it in privacy the truth is the state would not touch them....

its when people come out as such and start proclaiming to the world how they were muslim but islam is a piece of filth blah blah blah., that rules for apostacy etc come into play within an islamic state

[extempers]

This appears to be one of those unpleasant grey areas so resistant to absolutist thinking.

I don't for a minute believe that "apostasy=death" was the generally accepted sharia practice under the caliphates, if for no other reason than that they were highly cosmopolitan and had vast numbers of people constantly moving into and out of their jurisdiction.

Another reason is that if we are to accept that sharia is rational and fair, and if the penalty for apostasy is so high, then why aren't there explicit and detailed instructions for the kind and amount of Islamic education that would legally guarantee a child's Muslim identity? Why isn't there some sort of test?

Fortunately you are not a historian, an anthropologist or even a Muslim to make such blatant and erroneous claims.

[Cashew]

Fortunately you are not a historian, an anthropologist or even a Muslim to make such blatant and erroneous claims.

I don't believe I've ever claimed that I was a historian, anthropologist, or Muslim, have I?

If I've ever made any such claim anywhere in this forum, would you please be so kind as to point it out to me so that I might apologize and correct any confusion I might have caused?

Would you also please provide evidence from any Islamically legitimate source that the execution of apostates was a common practice under the caliphates?

I believe In-Exile is a self-identified Muslim and his understanding of this issue seems rather close to my own.

Without the aid of photo identification, thumbprints, or iris-scans, I don't know how any vast Islamic empire could have kept any reliable record of who was and wasn't Muslim.

Of course, reliably knowing who is and isn't Muslim is of great importance if the punishment for apostasy is death.

We might then well assume that the sort of apostasy addressed by sharia was something of a public act, a self-declaration, an attempt one way or another to draw other Muslims away from Islam.

Of course, if you have evidence to the contrary from reliable Islamic sources, you should share them so that we might all learn from them.

[Joha]

We might then well assume that the sort of apostasy addressed by sharia was something of a public act, a self-declaration, an attempt one way or another to draw other Muslims away from Islam.

Of course, if you have evidence to the contrary from reliable Islamic sources, you should share them so that we might all learn from them.

Spot on, that is the reason for any punishment for apostasy. It is essentially for a public defiance of God's command and message coming from somebody who in the past led society to believe that they were a Muslim.

An Islamic state wouldn't care what you get up to in your own time, which is why if you look for the criteria for punishments, they must always involve a public sighting, or a public witness. What people have in their heart is up to God to deal with.

Islamic Law protects society from evils, not people from hell. (That's their business).

[Tahiyah]

if someone is raised in Islam and never truly accepted it, then there was a problem in the raising

at some point, the logic of Islam has to settle in..

i dont expect our non muslim members to understand this, but i am sure the muslims will

[Saudi Prince]

Some scholars say the one who does not pray is a kafer!

[al-ghazalli]

when there is no official punishment for apostates in islam then why such a defence? beats me!

this is untrue, it is Ijma of the Sahaba (May Allah Be Pleased with Them) that the murtad must be executed unless he repents.

[in_exile]

this is untrue, it is Ijma of the Sahaba (May Allah Be Pleased with Them) that the murtad must be executed unless he repents.


the guys a hadith rejector hes not gonna accept hadith never mind ijma

[Cashew]

if someone is raised in Islam and never truly accepted it, then there was a problem in the raising

at some point, the logic of Islam has to settle in..

i dont expect our non muslim members to understand this, but i am sure the muslims will

I believe the question at issue is the actual application under the caliphates of the sharia ruling regarding apostates.

The idea is that the caliphates were big busy empires and had many different kinds of people coming and going from their jurisdiction.

However, there was no reliable means of proving who was or wasn't Muslim.

But the punishment for apostasy was nonetheless death.

So, the obvious conclusion is that the death-penalty-for-apostates more than likely addresses a situation in which someone stands up publicly and announces, in effect:

"Hey, everybody! I was a Muslim! But, thank God Almighty, I'm now a fire-breathing born-again Baptist AND I'VE NEVER BEEN HAPPIER! PRAISE JESUS!! Can I get an 'Amen' from somebody? Glory hallelujah!! Yes, Islam is the devil's work that will surely lead you straight to everlasting hell! Yes, Jesus! PRAISE HIS NAME! HALLELUJAH!! GLORY TO GOD! I've left Islam forever! Thank you, Jesus! I've repented of my evil Islamic beliefs! Yes, Lord! Hallelujah! And unless Muslims want to fry forever in hell, they should follow my example! GLORY HALLELUJAH!"

Whether or not the apostate wore a toupee, ill-fitting polyester suit, and white shoes and asked his Muslim listeners for donations is another question entirely.