The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law. It’s based on the Qur’an: “They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved so you would be alike. So do not take from among them allies until they emigrate for the cause of Allah. But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper.” (Qur’an 4:89)
A hadith depicts Muhammad saying: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57). The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence.
This is still the position of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, both Sunni and Shi’ite. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the most renowned and prominent Muslim cleric in the world, has stated: “The Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished, yet they differ as to determining the kind of punishment to be inflicted upon them. The majority of them, including the four main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali) as well as the other four schools of jurisprudence (the four Shiite schools of Az-Zaidiyyah, Al-Ithna-‘ashriyyah, Al-Ja’fariyyah, and Az-Zaheriyyah) agree that apostates must be executed.”
Qaradawi also once famously said: “If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment, Islam wouldn’t exist today.”
“Pair arrested over ‘plot to kill female relative who renounced Islam,’” by Martin Bentham, Evening Standard, September 5, 2019:
Two men accused of plotting to kill a female relative who left Britain and renounced Islam have been arrested by armed law enforcers.
Mohammed Patman, 53, from Ilford, and Darya Khan Safi, 49, from Coventry, were detained by National Crime Agency (NCA) firearms officers at their homes in the capital and the West Midlands.
The pair, who are both originally from Afghanistan, are wanted by the authorities in Slovakia over allegations that they have been conspiring to murder a 25-year-old female relative working there.
The arrests follow months of surveillance of the two men by the NCA’s armed operations unit during which the pair were seen preparing for multiple trips to Austria, where the woman lived, and Slovakia, where she ran a company with her husband.
The preparations including blacking out the windows and putting winter tyres on a vehicle they used to drive to both countries for what law enforcers believe were surveillance trips conducted against their alleged intended victim.
Phone and internet records were also obtained which officers allege show the men discussing the potential murder plot, including planning events both at home and abroad….