Comparative Criminal Law and Enforcement: Islam

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.