would join forces with the Tatars, forming an alliance against the people of the Maghrib. This and other considerations show that the force now in Syria and Egypt is Islam’s fighting force: their might is Islam’s might, and their humiliation is Islam’s humiliation. Were the Tatars to conquer them, Islam would retain neither might nor a commanding voice, nor any dominant, ascendant fighting force of its own feared by the peoples of the earth.

Whoever deserts them for the Tatars is therefore more deserving of being fought than many of the Tatars themselves, for among the Tatars are those who have been coerced and those who have not. The Sunnah has firmly established that the punishment of an apostate is more severe than that of someone who has never been Muslim, in several respects.

One is that an apostate is put to death in all circumstances: no jizya tax is levied on him, nor is a covenant of protection concluded with him, unlike someone who has never been Muslim. Another is that an apostate is put to death even if incapable of fighting, whereas someone who has never been Muslim and is not a combatant is not put to death according to most scholars, including Abū Hanīfah, Mālik and Ahmad. Thus, the majority hold that an apostate is put to death, as is the position of Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī and Ahmad. Another is that an apostate may neither inherit nor marry, and meat from an animal he slaughters may not be eaten, unlike someone who has never been Muslim. There are other such rulings as well.

If apostasy from the very foundation of the religion is graver than disbelief in that foundation from the outset, then apostasy from its laws is graver than standing outside those laws from the outset. Thus every believer knows what the Tatars are like and knows that the apostates among them