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Comparative Criminal Law and Enforcement: Islam

Apostasy (ridda)



There is also the special case of the apostate from Islam. Many jurists classify apostasy as a hadd offense. He who kills an apostate is, in some schools, free from the law of retaliation. In the Hanafi school, a male apostate is given three days to repent before execution; a female is imprisoned and beaten until she repents. Some modern Muslim jurists assert that the penalty for apostasy was a later accretion from the offense of treason and has no authority from the Qur'an or elsewhere. In addition to apostasy, some jurists classify rebellion (baghi) as a hadd offense, but not in the Hanafi school.



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Law Library - American Law and Legal InformationCrime and Criminal LawComparative Criminal Law and Enforcement: Islam - Hadd Offenses, False Accusation Of Unlawful Intercourse (kadhf ), Drinking Of Wine (shurb), Theft (sariqa)