Apostasy, which comes from the Greek word for “defection” or “revolt,” is the partial or complete abandonment or rejection of the beliefs and practices of a religion by a person who is a follower of that religion. The charge of apostasy is often used by religious authorities to condemn and punish skeptics, dissidents, and minorities in their communities. This is especially so in religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and islam, where membership in the religious community involves publicly making or consenting to formal statements of belief. Failure to do so may provide grounds for accusations of apostasy and result in severe penalties.
In Islam, apostasy is thought of in two ways: abandoning Islam (irtidad) and deviation in religious belief (ilhad). In either case, apostasy is regarded as a kind of disbelief, together with heresy and blasphemy (verbally insulting a religion). The qUran declares that apostasy will result in punishment in the aFterliFe but takes a relatively lenient view toward apostasy in this life (Q 9:74; 2:109). This picture changed significantly during the Umayyad and abbasid caliphates (seventh century to ninth century), when Muslim jurists invoked hadith that supported the imposition of the death penalty for apostasy, except in cases of coercion. These hadith may well have been a product of the so-called wars of apostasy (the Ridda Wars) that shook the early Muslim community after the death of mUhammad in 632. According to the sharia, apostasy is identified with a long list of actions such as conversion to another religion, denying the existence of God, rejecting the prophets, mocking God or the prophets, idol worship, rejecting the sharia, or permitting behavior that is forbidden by the sharia, such as adultery. Muslims disagree over when such actions should be punished, but in the history of Islam, a variety of individuals and groups have been accused of apostasy—atheists, materialists, Sufis, and members of Shii sects. The Sufi mystics mansur al-Hallaj (d. 922) and Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi (d. 1191) were among those in the Middle Ages accused of apostasy and executed, as well many followers of ismaili shiism. In addition to death, adult male apostates may also be punished by forced separation from their spouses and denial of property and inheritance rights, depending on the legal school. Punishment of female apostates involves not death, but confinement. Punishments may be cancelled if the accused person repents his or her apostasy in public.
In the modern period, conservative Muslim authorities and religious radicals have accused Muslim modernists, intellectuals, and writers of this “crime.” Among the most famous to be charged with apostasy or the related crime of blasphemy are the Anglo-Indian writer salman Rushdie (b. 1947), the Egyptian intellectual nasr hamid abu Zayd (b. 1943), and the Bangladeshi writer and human rights advocate Taslima Nasrin (b. 1962). In some Muslim countries, apostasy charges have also been leveled against non-Muslims, for example the Bahais in Iran and Christians in Pakistan. International human rights advocates, Muslims and non-Muslims, have condemned Islamic apostasy laws in the name of justice and “freedom of thought, conscience, and religion” (Article 18, Universal Declaration of Human Rights).
Babism and Modernism: Growing Ideological Paradoxes and Formation of New Intellectual Alliances
