Apostasy in Shafi tradition

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An early Sharia Manual of the Shafi'i tradition (Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, is a translation of 'Umdat al-salik by Ibn Naqib (died 1368 A.D. ISBN 0-915957-72-8 ) provides the following list of acts that entailed leaving Islam:

  1. to prostrate to an idol, whether sarcastically, out of mere contrariness, or in actual conviction, like that of someone who believes the Creator to be something that has originated in time. Like idols in this respect are the sun or moon, and like prostration is bowing to other than Allah, if one intends reverence towards it like the reverence due to Allah;
  2. to intend to commit unbelief, even if in the future. And like this intention is hesitating whether to do so or not: one thereby immediately commits unbelief;
  3. to speak words that imply unbelief such as "Allah is the third of three," or "I am Allah — unless one's tongue has run away with one, or one is quoting another, or is one of the friends of Allah Most High (wali, def: w33) in a spiritually intoxicated state of total oblivion (A: friend of Allah or not, someone totally oblivious is as if insane, and is not held legally responsible (dis: k13.1(O:))), for these latter do not entail unbelief;
  4. to revile Allah or His messenger (Allah bless him and give him peace);
  5. to deny the existence of Allah, His beginningless eternality, His endless eternality, or to deny any of His attributes which the consensus of Muslims ascribes to Him (dis: v1);
  6. to be sarcastic about Allah's name, His command, His interdiction, His promise, or His threat;
  7. to deny any verse of the Quran or anything which by scholarly consensus (def: b7) belongs to it, or to add a verse that does not belong to it;
  8. to mockingly say, "I don't know what faith is";
  9. to reply to someone who says, "There is no power or strength save through Allah": "Your saying 'There's no power or strength, etc.' won't save you from hunger";
  10. for a tyrant, after an oppressed person says, "This is through the decree of Allah," to reply, "I act without the decree of Allah";
  11. to say that a Muslim is an unbeliever (kafir) (dis: w47) in words that are uninterpretable as merely meaning he is an ingrate towards Allah for divinely given blessings (n: in Arabic, also "kafir");
  12. when someone asks to be taught the Testification of Faith (Ar. Shahada, the words, "La ilaha ill Allahu Muhammadun rasulu Llah" (There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah)), and a Muslim refuses to teach him it;
  13. to describe a Muslim or someone who wants to become a Muslim in terms of unbelief (kufr);
  14. to deny the obligatory character of something which by the consensus of Muslims (ijma', def: b7) is part of Islam, when it is well known as such, like the prayer (salat) or even one rak'a from one of the five obligatory prayers, if there is no excuse (def: u2.4);
  15. to hold that any of Allah's messengers or prophets are liars, or to deny their being sent;

(n: 'Ala' al-Din 'Abidin adds the following:

  1. to revile the religion of Islam;
  2. to believe that things in themselves or by their own nature have any causal influence independent of the will of Allah;
  3. to deny the existence of angels or jinn (def: w22), or the heavens;
  4. to be sarcastic about any ruling of the Sacred Law;
  5. or to deny that Allah intended the Prophet's message (Allah bless him and give him peace) to be the religion followed by the entire world (dis: w4.3-4) (al-Hadiyya al-'Ala'iyya (y4), 423-24).)
  • There are others, for the subject is nearly limitless.

As may be evident from some of the acts listed (e.g. intent to commit unbelief) above that in Islam, blasphemy by a Muslim in and of itself may constitute an act of apostasy and the concepts of heresy, blasphemy, and apostasy are linked through the Islamic concept of kufr. The acts that constitute apostasy or blasphemy are not universally agreed upon by all Muslims and different Muslim authorities cite different means of becoming an apostate. Below is a list, gleaned from [1] [2] and [3], of acts commonly seen as resulting in apostasy: