Punishment by death for apostasy from Islam is firmly rooted in Islam's foundational texts -- both the Koran (verses such as 2:217 , 4:89, and their classical exegesis by renowned Koranic commentators such as Qurtubi, Baydawi, Ibn Kathir, and Suyuti) and the hadith (i.e., collections of the putative words and deeds of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, as compiled by pious Muslim transmitters), as well as the sacred Islamic Law (the Shari'a). For example, Muhammad is reported to have said "Kill him who changes his religion," in hadith collections of both Bukhari and Abu Dawud. There is also a consensus by all four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (i.e., Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, and Shafi'i), as well as Shi'ite jurists, that apostates from Islam must be put to death. Averroes (d. 1198), the renowned philosopher and scholar of the natural sciences, who was also an important Maliki jurist, provided this typical Muslim legal opinion on the punishment for apostasy:
"An apostate...is to be executed by agreement in the case of a man, because of the words of the Prophet, ‘Slay those who change their din [religion]'...Asking the apostate to repent was stipulated as a condition...prior to his execution."
The contemporary (i.e., 1991) Al-Azhar (Cairo) Islamic Research Academy endorsed manual of Islamic Law, 'Umdat al-Salik (pp. 595-96) states:
"Leaving Islam is the ugliest form of unbelief (kufr) and the worst.... When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostasizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed. In such a case, it is obligatory...to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed."
This doctrinal and historical legitimacy of Shari'a-mandated killing of apostates from Islam is affirmed by Heffening in his scholarly review for the authoritative, mainstream academic reference work, the Encyclopedia of Islam:
"In Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) , there is unanimity that the male apostate must be put to death...A woman, on the other hand, is imprisoned...until she again adopts Islam, ..[or] she also is put to death." [Heffening, W. "Murtadd." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Edited by: P. Bearman , Th. Bianquis , C.E. Bosworth , E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs.]
As noted by historian David Littman, writing in early 1999, Adama Dieng, then a prominent Muslim Senegalese jurist, alerted the international community to the Cairo Declaration's profoundly dangerous impact. Dieng, speaking for the International Commission of Jurists and the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights at the Commission on Human Rights in February, 1992, decried the Cairo Declaration, which under the rubric of Shari'a, deliberately restricted certain fundamental freedoms and rights -- most notably, freedom of conscience. He also argued that the Cairo Declaration introduced "in the name of defense of human rights," unacceptable discrimination against non-Muslims and women, while sanctioning the legitimacy of heinous practices -- Shari'a-compliant punishments (from corporal punishments, to mutilation, and stoning) -- "which attack the integrity and dignity of the human being."
Pew Survey data published just this past August 13, 2009 reflect, starkly, the depth and prevalence of popular support among the Muslim masses for these hideous views -- sanctioned by their theo-political Islamic leadership within the OIC -- and antithetical to our foundational Western freedoms. Specifically, the Pew findings reveal that among Pakistani Muslims, there is
"...broad support for harsh punishments: 78% favor death for [apostates] those who leave Islam; 80% favor whippings and cutting off hands for crimes like theft and robbery; and 83% favor stoning adulterers."
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