I had a discussion with my friend regarding the punishment for apostasy. I told him that Islam allows a person to be killed only if he is guilty of murder or causing unrest on earth. He responded by saying that apostasy does come under fasaad fil-ard. I had always thought that fasaad fil-ard didn’t include ‘religious’ crimes like apostasy or blasphemy. What is your opinion about it? What crimes does fasaad fil-ard include? Does the classical Arabic give us the allowance to apply it to apostasy?
Answer
Why would a person who converts after believing in Islam to become a non-Muslim cause fasaad fil-ard? The word means creating disorder, chaos, and mischief. Such crimes as killing, robbery, rape etc which cause the life, wealth, or honour of people to be at the stake of the criminals is fasaad fil-ard. Does your friend believe that if a peaceful conversion of a Muslim is really going to cause disorder on earth? Is it going to be an honest interpretation of the Quranic verse?
The fact of the matter is that people make such explanations because they want to justify hadith no matter whether the Quran accepts the explanation thus emerging or not. I believe the explanation about the hadith that stipulates capital punishment for the murtad was meant for the contemporaries of the prophet is in line with the Quranic understanding. We know that Quran tells us that if the contemporaries of the prophet refused to accept faith, they were to lose their lives. If they were to disbelieve after having believed, they would lose their lives again.