Chapter: The Ruling on Apostates

Anyone who abandons Islam is detained and given three days to repent; if he returns to the faith he is spared, but if he refuses he is executed—his neck is struck.

Men and women are treated alike. If a group apostasizes and resists, the just ruler fights them; once captured they are put to death. Should they be seized after having killed people or taken property, they are held liable for every life and every possession.

If they ask to be left in peace on condition that they pay the jizyah (poll-tax), that request is rejected; nothing is accepted from them except a return to Islam or death.

Whoever is killed or dies while persisting in apostasy leaves no inheritance to his heirs; his estate becomes fayʾ (state booty) for the community of Muslims.

Their minor children are compelled to embrace Islam and are not enslaved. If, upon reaching puberty, they refuse, they are put to death. In our view this is the soundest opinion, and Allah knows best.

If either spouse—or both—falls into apostasy, their marriage is nullified, whether this happens before or after consummation, and it is not suspended awaiting their joint return to Islam during the ʿidda (waiting period).

According to most scholars of Medina—and this is the definitive position of Mālik as transmitted by the Baghdādī Mālikīs—the separation caused by the husband’s apostasy counts as a fasḫ (annulment), not a divorce. Ibn al-Qāsim, however, relates from Mālik that it is a single irrevocable divorce, and this is the view preferred by his followers in the Maghrib.