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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Dodging and deflecting again. When busted with evidence, you jump to a different topic altogether. [/quote]

You were asked about death for apostates in Islam. You STILL haven't answered. Who's the one dodging and deflecting?[/quote]
There seems to be a conversation going on in this post between just 2 people. Since the discussion has come up about apostasy  I would just like to offer what I have learned through research. I am not Muslim, I can not read the Quran in Arabic and must rely on a translation which, I sometime find inaccurate.

The authentically verified Hadith from Prophet Muhammad who said, "Whoever changes his religion kill him."  This statement, however, would seem to contradict numerous verses in the Quran that guarantee freedom of belief, few of which include "There is no compulsion in religion" [2:256], and "Whoever so wills may believe and whoever so wills may deny" [18:29].

Although the above-mentioned Hadith is authentic, it is also established that Prophet Muhammad never ordered the death penalty to be carried out on people known during his time to have apostatised. Of such people was a Bedouin man who came to Medina (during a time of political and military power for Muslims) to announce his Islam, but apostatised and left the city a short period later without receiving any penalty for his subsequent rejection.

Given how the Prophet treated individuals who entered and left Islam, and the numerous verses in the Quran guaranteeing freedom of belief, the Hadith decreeing a death penalty for apostasy becomes more puzzling. This can be resolved by turning to another authentic Hadith where this penalty is mentioned, but with a qualifier: "…the one leaving his religion and abandoning the group". In addition, another verse in the Quran, which can further resolve this conundrum speaks to a strategy adopted by a rival sect in Medina in one of their attempts to create a schism within the nascent Muslim community by pretending to enter Islam in the morning, then leaving it in the evening [3:72].

Its interesting to note that prior to entering Islam, the two biggest tribes in Medina were engaged in a lengthy civil war that only ended when their allegiances were redefined from the tribal to the religious. If these new allegiances were jeopardised, it was highly likely to lead to civil strife and loss of life again. Hence, the Hadith about the death penalty is not about apostasy in the strict sense of no longer believing in Islam per se. Rather, it is about what can be considered in modern terms political treason.

Human rights violations do occur in which any number of religious justifications have been used and are not limited to the Islamic faith.[/quote]

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