We shall both be amply repaid … if this truth remain with you — that an opinion, right or wrong, can never constitute a moral offense, nor be in itself a moral obligation. It may be mistaken; it may involve an absurdity, or a contradiction. It is a truth; or it is an error: it can never be a crime or a virtue. – A Few Days in Athens

Whenever apologists for Islam wish to depict the religion as tolerant, they cite the verse “Let there be no compulsion in religion, for the truth stands out clearly from falsehood” (2:256), and yet the treatment given to apostasy is one of the ugliest aspects of contemporary Islam, and one that plainly contradicts the Qur’an in almost all the lands that have adopted Islam officially. If there really is no compulsion in your religion, then why execute the people who have the intellectual decency and courage to admit that they no longer believe in your religion?

Furthermore, the Qur’an contradicts itself when it says that it has chosen people’s religion for them. Can this actually be done? Can someone CHOOSE your religion for you? Is this not an intimate matter of personal conviction? How does someone ensure that they’re not forcing hypocrisy on people when they “choose” a religion for others? What would Muslims say to a Bahá’í or Christian or Jew who came up to them and told them they’ve chosen the Bahá’í Faith, Christianity, or Judaism for them, without consulting with them to see if they honestly believe in the tenets of the imposed faith?

This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you and have approved (some translations say: chosen) for you Islam as religion. – Qur’an 5:3

So which one is it? Is there compulsion in religion, or isn’t there?

For the record–and to Muhammad’s credit– I didn’t find execution as a punishment for apostasy in the Qur’an. This practice is a post-Qur’anic invention. Qur’an 16:106-109 claims that apostates will be punish by God, and calls them losers, but there is no death penalty. Qur’an 5:54 says that God will replace the apostate who abandons Islam with a believer, but this does not say or imply the death penalty for apostasy.

Would you turn back on your heels [to unbelief]? And he who turns back on his heels will never harm Allah at all. – Qur’an 3:144

In fact, the penalty of execution for apostasy contradicts Islamic theology. The Qur’an says that God doesn’t need his creation, and that disbelief does not affect Allah at all in any way. In other words, just like in Epicurean doctrines about piety, the deity here is imagined as fully self-sufficient, but the Qur’an does not follow the logic of this to conclude that it would be blasphemous to attribute neediness, gratitude or vindictiveness to a self-sufficient deity. Is Allah self-sufficient, or is He/(She/It) not?

And do not be grieved, [O Muhammad], by those who hasten into disbelief. Indeed, they will never harm Allah at all. Allah intends that He should give them no share in the Hereafter, and for them is a great punishment. Indeed, those who purchase disbelief [in exchange] for faith–never will they harm Allah at all, and for them is a painful punishment. – Qur’an 3:176-177

Furthermore, the Qur’an claims that it is God who seals the heart of the disbeliever (Qur’an 7:100-101), and that it is therefore impossible for the disbeliever to believe (the fatalism, or pre-destination doctrine, of the Qur’an says of all things: “it is written”). This is repeated numerous times.

In some passages concerning differences between the various sects, the Qur’an says that in the end “God must judge between us and them” concerning the differences, so that it is pointless for humans to punish people for a matter that is for God to punish or judge, according to the Qur’an.

The only interpretation of the Qur’an under which apostasy can be punishable by death is one that views the Islamic community as perpetually at war with non-Muslims, in which case the rules of warfare apply forever and the possibility of peaceful coexistence with Islam is void. Sources as mainstream as al-islam.org justify execution for apostasy, calling it “treason”, presumably reasoning along these lines. Is this the interpretation that has been adopted by the countries that punish apostasy with death? And if so, how should the international community react to (the ideology that inspires) this atrocity against innocent nonbelievers?

The inconsistencies concerning apostasy in the Qur’an and the modern practice of killing apostates are one of the most heinous injustices that exist in the Islamic world today, and one of the main reasons why Islam needs a reform and a return to its foundations.

Links:

Ex-Muslims of North America

Apostasy in Islam – Wikipedia

Apostasy, from Answering-Islam.org

Singer Zayn Malik Says He’s Not a Muslim: “I Don’t Believe Any of It.”