Uganda: Muslim stabs wife to death for converting to Christianity during Ramadan

It would have been a capital crime any time of year, actually.

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.”

“Muslim Stabs Wife to Death for Accepting Christ during Ramadan,” Morning Star News, April 7, 2025:

NAIROBI, Kenya (Morning Star News) – A mother of six children was stabbed to death by her Muslim husband in Uganda after she attended her first church service on March 23, sources said.

Nasiimu Mirembe, whose children range in age from 3 to 18, had put her faith in Christ on March 21 after hearing the gospel from a friend in eastern Uganda’s Busembatya town council. She was 41.

She and her friend were on their way to a church service on March 23 when a Muslim neighbor, Awudu Mbulalina, greeted them 200 meters from the worship site and continued on, said the friend, whose name is withheld for security reasons.

Mirembe feared Mbulalina would tell her husband she was heading toward a church service and that he would kill her, but the friend encouraged her to trust in God and persuaded her to continue on.

After the service, where Mirembe was introduced as a new Christian, they were returning home when they met her husband, Adamu Mukungu, about 200 meters from the church site, the friend said. Mukungu did not greet them.

“I saw you come out of the church,” Mukungu told his wife, according to the friend. “What you have done is very bad, especially during this period of Ramadan.”

“Immediately he started slapping his wife,” the friend said. “I started screaming and shouting for help. Mukungu then removed a long knife and started cutting her with it.”

When Mukungu saw several church members led by a church elder rushing over, he fled, the friend said.

They took Mirembe to a nearby clinic for medical treatment, but after two hours, her condition worsened and she was referred to a larger hospital in Bugiri, where doctors found extensive internal and external bleeding….

Mirembe was mother to two sons and four daughters ages 18,15, 11, 9, 6 and 3….