Muslim Views on the Apostate: An Insider’s Take

By an American Teacher in the Muslim World

• Indonesian 

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article regarding a personal experience I had with a Sudanese Muslim co-worker who believed that my wife should be killed because she is a Muslim apostate.  One reader, who has been living in the Islamic world for the past six years, seemed to disagree with my generalization of Muslims.  According to his experience, 80% of them simply “want to live in peace, raise their children, and be happy”, while the remaining 20% are radicals with their zombie followers who won’t hesitate to kill someone for the “crime” of apostasy.

Those numbers would seem reasonable to anyone who has limited himself to the daily handshakes and smiles of his Muslim colleagues.  I even stated myself that my first impression of my Sudanese co-workers was very positive. However, when one scratches below the surface of those friendly smiles and handshakes and brings up the topic of apostasy, he quickly realizes that the percentages presented above should be inverted.  In my view, 80% of the Muslim population would be willing to kill an apostate (if they could get away with it) while the remaining 20% believe in the saying, “live and let live”.   In order to prove my point, I will elaborate on my previous experience and add the account of a friend and previous co-worker.

Regarding my personal experience, the problem did not necessarily lie with “one” Muslim   threatening to kill my wife.  He was only one among many.  The problem mainly lied with the reaction (or inaction) of the other Muslim teachers at the university.  For example, the day after my Sudanese co-worker stated that my wife should be killed for being an apostate, he involved his Sudanese colleagues by shouting that they all agreed with him, thus calling them potential murderers. Sadly, not a single one of them disagreed with him (in public or in private).  They were mute and seemed more concerned that he was exposing the violent nature of Islam than calling them potential killers.

Then, as the word regarding this incident spread throughout the faculty,  not a single Muslim teacher, whether he was Saudi, Egyptian, Jordanian, North American, European, or convert* defended Islam by saying that Muslims don’t kill apostates and that the death threat directed towards my wife was inappropriate and not representative of Islam.  In my opinion, their silence on this matter was proof that most Muslims deal with apostasy in a violent way (death).

The complete silence of the Muslim faculty intrigued my friend John.  He now wanted to know what was really behind the smiles and handshakes of those family men.  So, after we each went our own ways once our contracts were over, John faked a conversion to Islam and has been living as a Muslim since.  After many months of indoctrination, he is now invited on a regular basis into the homes of his Muslim colleagues, where he has learned what the average Muslim thinks of non-Muslims and apostates.  These are the main points he wrote in a recent email:

– The happy faces Muslims put on in front of kafirs (infidels) are a lie and Muslims are encouraged to lie to non-believers.

– The Western World and Christianity are sick.  No Muslim can embrace either without becoming a kafir himself.

–  Jesus was a prophet, but Christians are delusional for believing he was the Son of God.

– Muslim students are obliged to show their contempt and hatred towards their Christian teachers. They say the filthiest things while smiling (that explains all the smiles I get when my students speak in Arabic).  This is the children’s jihad against the non-believers.

– Muslim immigration is a form of 5^th Column conquest.

– And finally, these family men believe that apostates should be killed after been given some time to return to Islam.

The above points were not told to John by a few radicals, but by the majority of the teachers and people in administration where he works.  So, as a concluding remark, the idea that a majority of Muslims are peaceful loving individuals who believe in the “live and let live” mantra is false.  The two examples presented above, as well as the numerous others provided by Raymond Ibrahim show that the average Muslim  would have no problem killing a Muslim apostate if they knew they could get away with it.

* I actually met numerous converts to Islam who were proud to have joined a religion that would kill them if they left it.

Author’s note: The names of the individuals in this article were changed to protect them from possible repercussions.