http://www.scribd.com/doc/216502399/Al-Shafii-and-Al-Ghazali-on-the-Treatment-of-Apostates-Ex-Muslims-by-Frank-GriffelFRANK GRIFFEL (2001). Toleration and exclusion: al-Shafii and al-Ghazali on the treatment of apostates. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 64, pp 339-354. doi:10.1017/S0041977X01000192
Some selected QuotesAl- ShafiiPage 5 - "All early jurists acknowledged that an apostate who refused to repent and return to islam should be put to death. The debate centred on the legal rights of secret apostates. The early authors of Kufa as well as those of Medina used the word zindiq to describe a secret apostate."
Page 6 - "... a born Muslim ... who knows of the early days of his youth that apostasy entails capital punishment should not be given the right to return to islam unharmed. These scholars regarded the breakaway of a Muslim who was born as such as the most severe case of apostasy."
Page 10 if a Muslim secretly held a belief that diverged of islam or if he performed the rites of another religion in secret, this made him—according to quranic principles—an unbeliever. But this unbelief was not a legal offence that was liable to capital punishment. The unbeliever would only become an apostate if he publicly announced his break of islam and continued to do so, even after having his life threatened his distinction is made in al-Shafii 's legal reasoning, but it is not expressed in terms of a clear distinction between an ‘unbeliever’ and an ‘apostate’ in the Arabic language."
Page 11 - "the application of the legal term ‘apostasy’ is based on three necessary conditions first, the apostate had to have once had faith according to al-Shafii 's definition (meaning publicly professing to islam); secondly there had to follow unbelief (meaning the public declaration of a breaking-away of islam); and thirdly, there had to be the omission or failure to repent after the apostate was asked to do so. These three criteria constitute apostasy and all three are necessary to pass capital punishment on a Muslim, while the first two are sufficient to classify a Muslim as an unbeliever."
Al-GhazaliPage 12 - "Three centuries after al-Shafii, al-Ghazali put forward an argument which led to a very different criterion for the application of the law on apostates."
Page 13 - "Al-Ghazali limited the obligatory application of theistitaba to the case of ‘ordinary people’ and held thatit was acceptable to kill propagandists and teachers of heterodoxy without granting them the right to repent. in al-Ghazali 's thinking, a Muslim unbeliever and a Muslim apostate became one and the same thing."
Page 13 - it was mentioned earlier that according to Shafii law, an accused apostate could not be sentenced as long as he was willing to profess the shahada. This resulted in the sincerity of this profession being called into question. Al-Shafii 's argument led to the conclusion that in fiqh any sceptical doubts about the sincerity of the public profession should be dismissed. This requirement was no longer considered valid at the end of the fifth/eleventh century. Al-Shafii 's application of the principle of charity in the case of apostasy was for al-Ghazali an exploitation of legal procedures."
Page 14 - "Al-Ghazali suspects that a secret apostate (zindiq) who had lied previously about his true religion, holds that a lie in religious matters is allowed.54 He refers to the taqiyya as an element of Shii creeds. The taqiyya in fact made it possible for Shiites to deny their Shii allegiances in a situation of religious persecution. The early Hanafi and Shafii jurists took note of the taqiyya (literally ‘caution’) without objecting to this practice.55 Al-Ghazali differs of this opinion and he justifies his decision that a secret apostate may be killed immediately with a reference to the lack of veracity of the public profession of a Shii. This decision opens the gate to sentencing apostates not onlyin the case of openly professed apostasy, but also in cases of supposed inward heterodoxies."
Page 15 - "A Muslim unbeliever must be considered an apostate, and the judge is obliged to purify the surface of the earth of his presence. Whether the unbelief remains secret or is made public in an open rebellion against the caliph makes no difference in the legal application of the judgment on apostates."
Page 15 - if the unbelief of a Muslim is sufficiently established, every means to kill the unbeliever is permitted, even his assassination (ightiyal)."
Topic: Al-Shafii and Al-Ghazali on the Treatment of Apostates