Alteration of the Subject (mawḍū‘) of Apostasy and Objecting to the Perpetual Applicability of the Death Penalty for Blasphemy and Apostasy

Abstract

This chapter is the ninth section of Kadivar’s ‘Treatise on Refuting the Punishment for Blasphemy and Apostasy’. It analyses four issues: The Method of Retaining the Permanent Nature of a Legal Ruling, A Comparison between the Permanence of Killing an Apostate with the Ruling on Theft and Some Rulings on Jihad, Change of the Subject Matter of Apostasy from the Time of the Imams to Now, and Apostasy and Freedom of Thought. In the estimation of rational beings, the subject matter of apostasy in the Qur’an, the hadith corpus, and past rulings is not identical to its understanding in our times, because the subject matter in the former is broader than changing one’s religion or leaving Islam. It extends to both aligning oneself with the enemies of and propagandising against Muslims, which would constitute a form of political, military and cultural rebellion against the state’s authority. But today, changing one’s faith is understood to be merely a conversion without any ulterior motives. Contemporary rational beings consider the subject matter of apostasy to be connected with religious and cultural freedom, whereas Islamic jurisprudence considers it to be a political crime: belligerency against the state. These two viewpoints are poles apart.