| As of 2021, there were ten Muslim-majority countries where apostasy from Islam was punishable by death, but legal executions are rare. Most punishment is extra-judicial/vigilante, and most executions are perpetrated by jihadist and "takfiri" insurgents (al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, the GIA, and the Taliban). Another thirteen countries have penal or civil penalties for apostates – such as imprisonment, the annulment of their marriages, the loss of their rights of inheritance and the loss of custody of their children.
In the contemporary Muslim world, public support for capital punishment varies from 78% in Afghanistan to less than 1% in Kazakhstan; among Islamic jurists, the majority of them continue to regard apostasy as a crime which should be punishable by death.Those who disagree argue that its punishment should be less than death, should occur in the afterlife, (human punishment being inconsistent with Quranic injunctions against compulsion in belief) or should apply only in cases of public disobedience and disorder (fitna). |
