learn them well so that you can beware of them and keep away from them, for whoever does not recognize polytheism is liable to fall into it.

ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “The links of Islam will be undone one by one when people grow up in Islam who know nothing of pre-Islamic ignorance.”

I therefore advise you to read the book Al-Iqtiḍāʾ aṣ-Ṣirāṭ al-Mustaqīm Mukhālafat Aṣḥāb al-Jaḥīm by Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah; the treatise The Issues in Which the Messenger of Allah ﷺ Opposed the People of Ignorance by Shaykh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb; and its commentary by the Iraqi scholar Maḥmūd Shukrī al-Ālūsī (may Allah have mercy on him).

Anyone who apostasises from the religion of Islam must first be asked to repent and granted a three-day respite. If he repents, that is sufficient; if he does not, he is to be put to death. This is based on the statement of ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) when he learned that a man had disbelieved after accepting Islam and had been executed after being invited to repent. He said, “Why did you not confine him for three days, giving him a loaf of bread each day and urging him to repent? Perhaps he would repent and return to Allah’s command. O Allah, I was neither present nor pleased when this reached me.” Mālik narrated it in the Muwaṭṭaʾ.

Apostasy arises only because of a doubt, and such a doubt is not removed instantaneously; therefore the apostate must be given time to reflect. The evidence for executing him if he does not repent is the Prophet’s ﷺ statement: “Whoever changes his religion, kill him,” related by al-Bukhārī and Abū Dāwūd.