Apostasy

As anyone who's studied religion knows, in general believers detest apostates far more than unbelievers. After all, unbelievers might still be made into believers and might just be ignorant of the belief system of the religion. Apostates, on the other hand, were once believers who were fully invested in belief but then actively decided to reject the religion.

Apostasy is a term generally employed to describe the formal renunciation of one's religion — especially if the motive for so doing is deemed unworthy by one's co-religionists. The faithful almost universally condemn apostasy as far worse than simple unbelief, as the apostate has had the One True Way yet abandoned it. Some Islamic states have made apostasy a capital offense.

Apostasy does not equal heresy, which is essentially keeping with the same religion, but altering the interpretation of it rather than flat-out abandoning it or turning to a different faith. Nor does apostasy equal schism, which involves a rejection of the power and legitimacy of the established authorities of a given religion, without necessarily disagreeing with them on matters of belief.

The term "apostasy" can also be loosely applied to switching any belief-system, including political beliefs. Oddly enough for the negative connotations it receives, the word originates from the Greek apostatēs, which roughly translates as "runaway slave".

Countries where apostasy is illegal
Other Islamic countries not listed here may have laws that, while not specifically outlawing apostasy, may make it illegal if laws on blasphemy and "insulting religion" are applied broadly. Extrajudicial measures against apostates may also be taken when there is wide support in a country against apostasy, such as in the case of Egypt and Pakistan.


 * Afghanistan – illegal (death penalty)
 * Brunei &mdash; punishable by death (Section 112(1) of the Sharia Penal Code
 * Comoros
 * Egypt – annulment of marriage in one case, a two-year prison sentence in another, but 88% of Egyptian Muslims support the death penalty for apostasy
 * Iran – illegal (death penalty)
 * Jordan – Islamic courts have the power to void a person's marriage and/or inheritance based upon a conviction of apostasy
 * Kuwait – Apostates can have their marriage and/or inheritance annulled.
 * Malaysia – illegal (for ethnic Malays) in 5 of 13 states (fine, imprisonment, and flogging)
 * Morocco – not specifically in the penal code, but "in April 2013, the Supreme Council of Religious Scholars issued a religious decree (fatwa) that Moroccan Muslims who leave Islam must be sentenced to death." The Supreme Council is constitutionally recognized as the sole arbiter on religious matters.
 * Maldives
 * Mauritania – illegal (death penalty)
 * Nigeria – illegal in 12 of 37 states (death penalty)
 * Pakistan – apostates are vulnerable to various legal and extralegal punishments, but the majority (62%) of Pakistanis support the death penalty
 * Qatar – illegal (death penalty)
 * Saudi Arabia – illegal (death penalty)
 * Somalia – illegal (death penalty)
 * Sudan – illegal (death penalty)
 * Syria – possibly illegal in al-Assad's fiefdom state but certain death if you're in the ISIS-controlled area
 * United Arab Emirates – illegal (death penalty)
 * Yemen – illegal (death penalty)
 * The United St...nah, we're kidding. For now.

If one tabulates the populations of the aforementioned countries given directly in the above links, the total number of people living in countries where apostasy is illegal is a little over 772 millions compared to a total world Muslim population of 1,800 millions. That is, a population equal in size to 42.9% of all Muslims are residents of those countries.

New religious movements and cults
Adherents are usually free to leave new religious movements or cults, in part because such movements do not have the power to prevent this.

Some scholars, like the prominent American religious scholar J. Gordon Melton, while acknowledging the diversity in new religious movements and their adherents, make sweeping negative generalizations about the reliability of the testimonies of people who leave new religious movements and criticize them. This false generalization is probably due to their experiences and observations during the great American cult wars during the 1970s and 1980s.