Mar 31, 2025 12:00 pm By Robert Spencer
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.”
“Christian Couple, Woman They Led to Christ Poisoned to Death,” Morning Star News, March 28, 2025:
NAIROBI, Kenya (Morning Star News) – A Muslim woman in eastern Uganda this month killed a Christian couple and accidentally took her own daughter’s life with the same poison she used on those who had led her to Christ, sources said.
Doreen Nairuba died on March 16 from eating poisoned food prepared by Hanifa Hamiyat in Nabiganda town, Butaleja District, an area neighbor said. Nairuba was six months pregnant.
Hamiyat’s 18-year-old daughter, Marriam Kapisa, died the same day after unknowingly eating the food prepared for Nairuba and Nairuba’s husband, Jackson Wampula, who died from the poisoning the next day (March 17), residents said.
Nairuba had been sharing her Christian faith with Kapisa, who had finished high school exams and was awaiting results to determine entry to college. Hamiyat was angry that the couple had brought her daughter to a church service on March 17, an area source said.
A Muslim neighbor who had seen the Christian couple leaving for church with Kapisa and returning with her that afternoon informed Hamiyat, who asked him to find out from her daughter where she had been, the area source said.
At about 5:30 p.m. the neighbor intercepted Kapisa, and she told him she had attended the church service. He and Kapisa returned to her home and told her mother.
“The mother was very angry with the girl, but since it was Ramadan she did not want to cause a lot of alarm, hence she kept quiet,” said the area source, who had made a brief visit to the family that day.
During Ramadan it is common for area Muslims to share food with other families in the evening to break the daily fast, and at 7 p.m. Hamiyat prepared a meal and sent Kapisa to share it with the Christian couple, the source said.
“The daughter didn’t know that her mother had put some poison in the food,” he said. “When the daughter reached Doreen’s home, the three participated in sharing of the food, and immediately [afterward], she left.”
At home, Kapisa complained of stomach pain and was soon vomiting and wailing, the source said.
“The mother asked what could be the problem, and why had she delayed? The girl answered that she shared in eating the food with Doreen’s family, and she was in deep pain. Upon hearing that, Hamiyat shouted in a loud voice, “Allah Karim [Generous Allah], I have killed myself,” said the source, who visited the family upon hearing their distress.
Kapisa was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she died, he said.
After about an hour, Nairuba and her husband started suffering stomach pain and diarrhea and made an emergency call to another neighbor.
“When I arrived at the house the two were in bad state, and I took them to a nearby clinic where they were given first aid before they were referred to the main hospital,” said the neighbor, whose name is also withheld for security reasons.
Nairuba died before reaching the hospital, and Wampula died the next day at the hospital, the neighbor said.
In tests carried out on samples of remaining food, doctors found it contained a poisonous drug that caused the death of the couple and Kapisa, said the neighbor.
Local leaders detained and questioned Hamiyat, and she confessed to having poisoned the food, the neighbor said.
“I never intended to kill my daughter, but my plan was to kill the neighbors because of taking my daughter to church during this holy month of Ramadan,” she said, according to the source. “Our imam had assured us that when you kill a kafir [infidel], Allah rewards one with a Jannah [paradise] called Firdausi, so I wanted to get that Jannah.”…