Chapter: Combatting the Aggressor and Executing the Apostate

Introduction
The term jāniʾ (aggressor)—plural junāh—linguistically denotes transgression against a person’s body, property, or honor. Such an aggressor is to be repelled by the least severe means; if he cannot be stopped except by killing, he may be killed without indemnity and without sin.

As for the murtad (apostate), the root meaning is “one who turns back.” The Almighty says, “and do not turn back on your heels” (Quran 5:21). In legal terminology, it refers to one who willingly abandons Islam after having entered it.

Thus, whoever associates partners with Allah; denies His Lordship, His exclusive right to be worshiped, or any of His attributes; claims that He has a consort or a child; rejects any of His Scriptures or any of His Messengers; reviles Allah or any of His Messengers; denies the prohibition of something whose unlawfulness is plain and unanimously agreed upon, such as fornication; or denies the permissibility of something Allah has clearly made lawful to His servants, such as bread—once the ruling has been explained to him, if he persists, or if someone of his standing could not reasonably be ignorant of it, he becomes an unbeliever. This is because he has willfully opposed Islam, refused to submit to its rulings, and declined to accept the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger ﷺ.