Apostasy in Islam is commonly defined as the abandonment of Islam by a Muslim, in thought, word, or through deed. It includes not only explicit renunciations of the Islamic faith by converting to another religion or abandoning religion, but also blasphemy or heresy by those who consider themselves Muslims, through any action or utterance which implies unbelief, including those who deny a "fundamental tenet or creed" of Islam,. An apostate from Islam is known as a murtadd (مرتدّ).
Humanists International is an international non-governmental organisation championing secularism and human rights, motivated by secular humanist values. Founded in Amsterdam in 1952, it is an umbrella organisation made up of more than 160 secular humanist, atheist, rationalist, agnostic, skeptic, freethought and Ethical Culture organisations from over 80 countries.
Conversion to Islam is accepting Islam as a religion or faith and rejecting any other religion or irreligion.
Religious disaffiliation is the act of leaving a faith, or a religious group or community. It is in many respects the reverse of religious conversion. Several other terms are used for this process, though each of these terms may have slightly different meanings and connotations.
Discrimination against atheists, sometimes called atheophobia, atheistophobia, or anti-atheism, both at present and historically, includes persecution of and discrimination against people who are identified as atheists. Discrimination against atheists may be manifested by negative attitudes, prejudice, hostility, hatred, fear, or intolerance towards atheists and atheism or even the complete denial of atheists existence. It is often expressed in distrust regardless of its manifestation. Perceived atheist prevalence seems to be correlated with reduction in prejudice. There is global prevalence of mistrust in moral perceptions of atheists found in even secular countries and among atheists.
The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain or CEMB is the British branch of the Central Council of Ex-Muslims. It was launched in Westminster on 22 June 2007.
Irreligion in the Maldives is a social taboo, and irreligious people are systematically socially and legally discriminated against.
Irreligion is present among a minority of mainly young people in Pakistan. Atheists in Pakistan face discrimination, persecution, and prejudice in society. Pakistan is reported by some sources to be among the thirteen countries where atheism can attract capital punishment, but according to the Library of Congress of the United States, "there is no specific statutory law that criminalizes apostasy in Pakistan." On the other hand, the Pakistani government can impose the death penalty for blasphemy.
Irreligion in the Middle East is the lack of religion in the Middle East. Though atheists in the Middle East are rarely public about their lack of belief, as they are persecuted in many countries where they are classified as terrorists, there are some atheist organizations in the Middle East. Islam dominates public and private life in most Middle East countries. Nonetheless, there reside small numbers of irreligious individuals within those countries who often face serious formal and, in some cases, informal legal and social consequences.
Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA) is a non-profit organization which describes itself as advocating for acceptance of religious dissent, promoting secular values, and aiming to reduce discrimination faced by those who leave Islam.
Capital punishment for offenses is allowed by law in some countries. Such offenses include adultery, apostasy, blasphemy, corruption, drug trafficking, espionage, fraud, homosexuality and sodomy, perjury, prostitution, sorcery and witchcraft, theft, and treason.
Sarah Haider is a Pakistani-American writer, public speaker, and political activist. She cofounded the advocacy group Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA), which seeks to normalize religious dissent and to help former Muslims leave the religion by linking them to support networks. She is the former executive director for EXMNA.
Armin Navabi is an Iranian-Canadian ex-Muslim atheist, author and podcaster, currently living in Vancouver, Canada. In 2012, he founded the online freethought community Atheist Republic, a Canada-based non-profit organisation which now has hundreds of branches called "consulates" in several countries around the world such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, enabling non-believers to interact in societies where irreligion, apostasy, and blasphemy are often criminalised and repressed. As an author, he debuted with the book Why There Is No God (2014), and in 2017 he became a co-host of the Secular Jihadists from the Middle East podcast with Ali A. Rizvi, Yasmine Mohammad and Faisal Saeed Al Mutar. In January 2018, the show was renamed Secular Jihadists for a Muslim Enlightenment, with Rizvi and Navabi as co-hosts.
Muhammad Syed is a Pakistani-American writer, speaker, and political activist. He created the Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA) advocacy group in 2013 which seeks to normalize religious dissent and to help former Muslims leave the religion by linking them to support networks. He is the co-founder, executive director, and currently the president of EXMNA.
Aaliyah Saleem, is a British secular education campaigner, writer and market researcher. She is an ex-Muslim atheist, feminist and humanist activist, and co-founder of advocacy group Faith to Faithless. She has also written under the pseudonym of Laylah Hussain.
Ali Amjad Rizvi is a Pakistani-born Canadian atheist ex-Muslim and secular humanist writer and podcaster who explores the challenges of Muslims who leave their faith. He wrote a column for the Huffington Post and co-hosted the Secular Jihadists for a Muslim Enlightenment podcast together with Armin Navabi.
Rana Ahmad or Rana Ahmad Hamd is the pseudonym of a Syrian women's rights activist and ex-Muslim born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, who fled to Germany in 2015, where she currently resides. Her flight, assisted by Atheist Republic and Faith to Faithless, was partially documented in the Vice News documentary Leaving Islam: Rescuing Ex-Muslims (2017). Her 2018 German-language autobiography Frauen dürfen hier nicht träumen, also translated into French, and became a Spiegel Top-10-best-seller. In 2017, Ahmad founded the Cologne-based Atheist Refugee Relief with the goal of providing 'practical assistance to refugees without religion and to improve their living conditions through political work.'
Association of Black Humanists is a British organisation based in London, England. It encourages humanists and atheists to meet up, socialise, share information and support other atheists as they "come out" to friends and family, particularly people in ethnic minorities and people of the African diaspora.
Ex-Muslims are people who were raised as Muslims or converted to Islam and later left the religion of Islam. Challenges come from the conditions and history of Islam, Islamic culture and jurisprudence, and sometimes local Muslim culture. This has led to increasingly organized literary and social activism by ex-Muslims, and the development of mutual support networks and organizations to meet the challenges of abandoning the beliefs and practices of Islam and to raise awareness of human rights abuses suffered by ex-Muslims.
The situation for apostates from Islam varies markedly between Muslim-minority and Muslim-majority regions. In Muslim-minority countries, "any violence against those who abandon Islam is already illegal". But in some Muslim-majority countries, religious violence is "institutionalised", and "hundreds and thousands of closet apostates" live in fear of violence and are compelled to live lives of "extreme duplicity and mental stress."
