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Why converting from Islam can be dangerous

Joanna writes: The Pope's decision to baptise a Muslim convert to Catholicism on Easter Day risked a renewed rift with the Islamic world. Here are a few reasons why the conversion is so controversial.

Classical Islamic law prevents Muslims from changing religion (apostatising) and imposes punishments including the death penalty on those who do.

To be classed as an apostate in Classical Islamic law a person must be an adult in sound mind and have acted of his own accord in deciding to leave Islam.

Apostasy (ridda- in Arabic) literally means "turning back" but is widely defined as the conversion of a Muslim to another or no religion; the desertion of Islam; the refusal by one who was a Muslim to say the basic Islamic creed; sedition against the state or the taking up of arms or making of war against the Muslim community (umma).

The variety of definitions is matched by the number of opinions on the appropriate punishment for an apostate set down in the Koran and Sunnah (acts of the Prophet).

The Koran mentions apostacy 13 times but lays down no punishment for the apostate in this life -  the matter remains one between the apostate and Allah.

Muhammad is reported to have said "The blood of a fellow Muslim should never be shed except in three cases: That of the adulterer, the murderer, and whoever forsakes the religion of Islam."  To this is often thought that Muhammad also said "and separates  himself from the community" meaning only those who take arms against the state should be punished by death.

Treatment of Apostates in Islamic states today

There is a wide range of approaches to apostasy in the Islamic world today. Saudi Arabia and Sudan condemn the convert to death while more liberal states such a Tunisia guarantee freedom of conscience. In Morocco voluntary conversion from Islam is not a crime but to encourage a Muslim to convert is illegal.

In Malaysia it is difficult to convert from Islam but recently there has been no punishment as long as they do not insult Islam. In Egypt there is not penal law against apostasy but procedural law is used as a mean of punishing by 'civil death' those who have convicted themselves of apostasy through their writings or other work. Marriages and all contracts made by the apostate are cancelled as a result of their decision to turn away from Islam.

So what happens if you want out?

The casual and carefree way in which writers in a "Christian" society  - Dawkins, Hitchens etc - can turn against religion is not a universal freedom.  The concept of apostasy,  rarely mentioned in Christianity or (these days) in Judaism,  is alive and kicking in some parts of the Muslim world,  bringing with it the concept of an apostate, who rejects his or her religion, being worse than a lifelong unbeliever.  The fatwa on Salman Rushdie was all the more savagely meant because of his Islamic upbringing. Now note this story from uneasily multicultural Malaysia....
International Herald Tribune Story apostates?  With, it must be admitted, equal ferocity..note Deuteronomy, chapter 13...

13:6  If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; (13:6-10) "Thine hand shall be first upon him." If your brother, son, daughter, wife, or friend tries to get you to worship another god, "thou shalt surely kill him, thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death."

Worth looking back at the BBC's "Crossing Continents"

and checking out the Amnesty concern of a while back...