The violence of Islam against apostasy

It is entirely reasonable to point out that not all Muslims are violent or extreme in their views. David Cameron is quick to point out that what we need to resist is not Islam and Muslims, but Islamists and their extreme ideology. Let’s go with this distinction, though there are many who believe it is without merit. We can say, for the sake of argument, that it is only extremist Muslims who hold to violence as a means of gaining and preserving control over their own populations and other minority groups.

One marker for this sort of extremist ideology is surely the attitude that any Muslim abandoning their faith for another, or for no faith at all, should be put to death. Now it is irrelevant whether or not Islam actually teaches that those becoming apostates should be killed or not. In any case it must be a matter of opinion. What does matter is that it is reasonable to use this violent response to those who abandon Islam as a marker for extremism.

The most recent example of the imposition of penalties against apostasy from Islam is that of the Sudanese woman, Meriam Ibrahim, who was sentenced to death for refusing to renounce her Christian faith. She is the adult daughter of a Muslim man. An educated woman who has qualified as a doctor. Her father abandoned his family when she was a child, and she has always lived as a Christian, an Orthodox Christian, juts like her mother. It would appear that some members of her extended family had denounced her to the Sudanese authorities and finding herself brought before a court, and refusing to abandon her Christian faith, she was sentenced to hang. More than that, having married a Christian man, she was also found guilty of adultery since a notionally Muslim woman may not marry a Christian. The judgement was that she should be given 100 lashes for the adultery and then be hung for the apostasy.

Now all reasonable people must think this both a barbaric and unjust outcome. Indeed it is a perfect example of the manifestation of this violent understanding of Islam which we have already considered to be extreme, and representative of what our politicians call Islamism. But the case of Meriam Ibrahim is not an instance of some wild and blood-crazed terrorist group acting out their unrepresentative expression of Islam. On the contrary, this is the outcome of a legal process conducted by the judiciary of an independent and sovereign nation. Now if violence against those who abandon Islam is a measure of extremism then surely we must conclude that Sudan is an extremist state, since violence against those abandoning Islam is written into Sudanese law. More than that, the 30 million Muslims in Sudan may be properly considered to endorse this extremist Islam since severe penalties against those choosing to leave Islam is part of their own legal code.

Sudan has a recent history of violence and civil conflict, therefore it may well be that its legal penalties against apostasy are a unique and particular result of those local circumstances. But sadly this is not the case. This same legal violence of the Islamic state against those choosing to reject Islam is found in many other countries. Indeed it is written into the legal systems of all of these countries in one way or another:

Afghanistan, Comoros, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Yemen

That is quite a list of countries which have a legal basis for state violence against those abandoning Islam. Now if killing people because they choose to cease being Muslims is a manifestation of extremist Islam or Islamism, then each of these states is extreme and Islamist. It is very difficult, indeed it is impossible, to suggest in the light of this list, that violent Islam is a minority pursuit of a few terrorist groups. On the contrary these violent and extremist states, because that is how we must describe states who put to death those who wish to exercise freedom of belief – many of which are supposedly friendly allies of the UK – contain over 55% of the world population of Muslims.

It will be suggested, however, that most of these populations do not agree with their own state’s interpretation of Islam and that they are in fact generally moderate even if the state they belong to is violent and extreme. But a recent poll shows that sadly this is not the case. In Egypt 84% of committed Muslim respondents were in favour of the death penalty for apostasy. In Jordan 86% were in favour. In Pakistan 76% were in favour. While in Nigeria 51% were in favour.  Even in Austria 18% of Muslims support the death penalty for apostasy. But in the UK over 30% of young Muslims shockingly support killing apostates from Islam.

It is worth pointing out that all of those states which impose penalties up to death for those changing their religion are Islamic. There are no Christian states with such laws, nor Buddhist, nor Hindu, nor secular. If putting people to death because they wish to cease being Muslims is violent, extreme and Islamist then most Muslims live in such extremist Islamist states, and even when asked their own opinion, in many of these extremist, Islamist states, the Muslim population entirely approves the presence of such laws and their application by the state. Even in the West there are significant numbers of Muslims who must be considered extreme and Islamist. What else can be the conclusion when death, state and legally sanctioned death, is the popular response to the desire for freedom of belief.

Certainly we can usefully distinguish between extreme and moderate Islam, but the facts should not be disguised. Most Muslims do not live in moderate states but in ones condoning and facilitating extremism, even if such states are our allies. Most Muslims live in states that choose to act violently against those who wish to abandon Islam. Therefore the Islam experienced by most Muslims is not moderate at all, and it is dangerous for our own Government to pretend it is. We do not support and encourage the moderate Muslims here in the UK and elsewhere in the world when we fail to confront the reality that extreme and violent Islam is the basis of states representing the majority of Muslims in the world. Islamism is not the motivating ideology of a few terrorist groups. It is mainstream.