Short answer
Yes, and often harshly. Many think only Islam has had apostasy laws. Christian law also punished a change of faith, for over a thousand years. Rome's Christian emperors took away the rights of anyone who left the faith: no will, no inheritance. Castile's law code of the 13th century ordered death for a Christian who became a Muslim. In 1512 the Portuguese cut off the nose, ears, right hand and left thumb of Fernão Lopes. He was a soldier in India who had become a Muslim and joined the Muslim side. The Spanish Inquisition burned people for keeping Islam or taking it up. In 1680 a man of Cádiz who held to his Islam was burned alive in Madrid. Portugal's law of 1603 ordered slaves from West Africa to be baptised, children without their consent. The Law of Moses also orders death for turning to other gods. Islam's own penalty for apostasy was a law against treason, and only a Muslim state's court could apply it. Today many converts are still rejected by their own families. The Qur'an says: "Let there be no compulsion in religion".
Full explanation
Rome's Christian emperors
When the Roman Empire became Christian, it punished those who left the faith. The Catholic Encyclopedia sums up the law codes of the emperors Theodosius and Justinian. Apostates lost all their civil rights. They could not give evidence in court. They could neither leave property to anyone nor inherit it.
"When the Roman Empire became Christian, apostates were punished by deprivation of all civil rights. They could not give evidence in a court of law, and could neither bequeath nor inherit property." It cites the Theodosian Code, book XVI, title 7 (De apostatis), and the Code of Justinian, book I, title 7. "In the Middle Ages, both civil and canon law classed apostates with heretics."
- 4th and 5th centuries
Christian Rome
Apostates lose their civil rights: no evidence in court, no will, no inheritance.
- 13th century
Castile's law code
A Christian who becomes a Muslim is to die for it.
- 1499
Granada
Christians who had become Muslims are imprisoned if they refuse to return.
- 1512
Goa
Fernão Lopes loses his nose, ears, right hand and left thumb.
- 1559
Seville
Three Moriscos are burned for keeping Islam.
- 1603
Portugal and Brazil
Slaves from Guinea must be baptised; children without their consent.
- 1680
Madrid
Lázaro Fernández, called Mustafa, is burned alive for holding to Islam.
- 2010
Britain
66% of converts surveyed say their family reacted badly.
Castile's law: death for becoming a Muslim
The Siete Partidas are the main law code of King Alfonso X of Castile, from the 13th century. One law calls a Christian who becomes a Muslim a traitor. If he is found in the king's lands, it says, "let him die for it". The next law deals with one who becomes a Muslim and then comes back. He was still to be punished and branded for life. He could never give evidence, hold office, make a will or inherit. Yet the same code forbids forcing Muslims to become Christians. It says they should be won by good words, "not by force".
The title on Muslims (moros) in the law code of King Alfonso X of Castile. Law 2 says Christians should win Muslims to the faith by good words and preaching, "not by force", and forbids forcing them. Law 4 says those who renounce the faith of Christ and become Moors do a very great wickedness and treason; if such a man "be found in any place of our lordship, let him die for it" ("que muera por ello"). Law 5 says an apostate, a Christian who became a Jew or a Moor and then repented and came back, is still not to go unpunished: he is to be branded infamous for ever, so that his testimony is never accepted, he may hold no office, and he may neither make a will nor be made anyone's heir.
Granada, 1499: converts to Islam put in prison
Granada, the last Muslim kingdom in Spain, surrendered in 1492. Its treaty forbade forcing Christians who had become Muslims back to Christianity. In 1499 Cardinal Cisneros used a gap in the treaty to call them in. He put in prison those who refused to return to Christianity. On 18 December 1499 one such woman was being led away. She cried out that she was being forced to become a Christian, and the city rose in revolt. Spain then set the treaty aside.
The Treaty of Granada barred forcing the elches, Christians who had become Muslims, back to Christianity against their will. In 1499 Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros used a loophole to summon elches and imprison those who refused to return to Christianity. On 18 December 1499 officials escorting a woman elche were surrounded after she shouted that she was being forced to become a Christian, and the revolt began. Its suppression was used to repudiate the treaty, and Muslims were offered baptism, slavery or death, or exile; by 1501 the Muslims of Granada had nominally become Christian.
Mutilated for becoming a Muslim: Fernão Lopes, 1512
Fernão Lopes was a Portuguese soldier in Goa, in India, which Portugal took in 1510. There he became a Muslim, married a local woman and joined the Muslim side. In 1512 the Portuguese took the city back. The Muslim commander, Rasul Khan, handed over the Portuguese converts on a promise that their lives would be spared. The governor, Afonso de Albuquerque, had them tortured instead, and many of them died. Lopes's nose, ears, right hand and left thumb were cut off. In 1516 he feared being treated as a traitor in Lisbon. So he left his ship at the remote island of Saint Helena. He lived there almost alone until he died in 1545.
A Portuguese soldier who took part in the conquest of Goa in 1510 under Afonso de Albuquerque. When Albuquerque returned nearly two years later, Lopes had married a local woman, converted to Islam and gone over to Rasul Khan. Rasul Khan handed over the Portuguese renegades on condition that their lives be spared; they were tortured instead, and many died. As their leader, Lopes had his nose, ears, right hand and left thumb cut off. On his way home he chose to stay on the remote island of Saint Helena, where he lived almost alone for about thirty years and died in 1545.
Reviews A. R. Azzam's book on Fernão Lopes. Lopes became a Muslim and offered to fight his countrymen for the Muslim ruler of Bijapur. Albuquerque "ordered his henchmen to chop off Lopes's nose, ears, right hand and left thumb". In 1516 he received a royal pardon and set out for Portugal, but, fearing he would be treated as a traitor in Lisbon, he jumped ship at Saint Helena. After 14 years there he returned to Lisbon on a passing ship and met the king and queen, then went back to his island, where he died about a dozen years later.
1510: Portugal takes Goa
Lopes, a Portuguese soldier, is left in the garrison.
He becomes a Muslim
He marries a local woman and joins the Muslim side.
1512: promised his life, then mutilated
His nose, ears, right hand and left thumb are cut off.
1516: left on Saint Helena
Afraid of being treated as a traitor in Lisbon, he leaves his ship at the island.
1545: he dies on the island
He lived there almost alone for nearly thirty years.
Burned for keeping Islam
From 1502 the Muslims of Castile had to be baptised or leave. They were called Moriscos. The Inquisition, the Church's court for wrong belief, then tried them for keeping Islam in secret. At Seville on 24 September 1559, three Moriscos were burned. Christians who became Muslims were burned too. An auto de fe was the public ceremony where the Inquisition's sentences were read. At the great auto de fe in Madrid on 30 June 1680, there was one Muslim among the accused. Lázaro Fernández, called Mustafa, came from Cádiz. He had become a Muslim and sailed as a corsair, a sea raider. The historian Henry Charles Lea writes that he held firm to his new faith and "was burnt alive".
On the Inquisition's trials of Moriscos, the Muslims of Spain baptised by force, for keeping Islam. "In the Seville auto de fe of September 24, 1559, there were three Moriscos burned and eight reconciled with sanbenito and prison; of these six were also scourged, including three women." Of the great Madrid auto de fe of 30 June 1680: "there was but one Mahometan, Lazaro Fernandez, alias Mustafa, a native of Cadiz, who had apostatized and sailed as a corsair; he was pertinacious in his adopted faith and was burnt alive."
Sets out the terms of surrender by which Ferdinand and Isabella received the Muslims of Granada as subjects, promising them their lands, their mosques and their own law. Describes how the forced conversions in Granada followed the arbitrary methods of Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros, Archbishop of Toledo, and how the royal decree (pragmatica) of 12 February 1502 ordered all Moors to leave the kingdoms of Castile and Leon by the end of April, keeping back boys under fourteen and girls under twelve, on conditions that made leaving impossible: they could sail only from ports of Biscay, could not go to Navarre, Aragon, the Turks or the Moors of Africa, and faced death for staying. Lea says the edict offered no stated alternative, so that conversion, the only way to escape it, could be called voluntary; he heads the passage "Enforced conversion in Castile".
Enslaved Africans: baptised by law
Hundreds of thousands of the Africans carried to the Americas were Muslims. Portugal's law code of 1603 applied in Brazil too. It ordered anyone who owned slaves from Guinea to have them baptised within six months. An owner who failed would lose them to whoever claimed them. Children of ten or under were to be baptised within a month. The law gives the reason: "with these it is not necessary to wait for their consent". An older slave who still refused after a priest's warning was not to be forced. In 1685 France's Code Noir ordered that every slave in its American islands be baptised.
"That those who have slaves from Guinea have them baptised." Anyone, of whatever state, who has slaves from Guinea is to have them baptised and made Christians within six months of acquiring them, "on pain of losing them to whoever claims them". If a slave over ten years old will not become a Christian when his master asks, the master is to tell the prior or curate of the church; if the slave, warned by the priest and asked before witnesses, still refuses baptism, the master incurs no penalty. Slaves of ten or under are to be baptised within a month, "because with these it is not necessary to wait for their consent". The children born to women slaves from Guinea are to be baptised at the times usual for Christian children. The code was issued in 1603 and its fifth book stayed in force in Brazil until the criminal code of 1830.
A history of the hundreds of thousands of West African Muslims enslaved in the Americas from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. It traces the slaving routes into Senegambia, the Fula lands, Hausaland and the old Mali region; shows that many of the captives could read and write Arabic; tells the lives of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, Omar ibn Said and Bilali Muhammad; describes compulsory baptism, new names and the pressure against Muslim practice; covers the Bahia uprising of 1835; and explains why Islam did not survive among their descendants.
The French royal edict governing slavery in France's American islands. Its second article orders that all slaves in the islands be baptised and instructed in the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion, and that settlers who buy newly arrived Africans report them within a week to the governor and intendant, who are to have them instructed and baptised.
Judaism: the Law of Moses, and its courts
The Law of Moses orders death for anyone who secretly tempts others to serve other gods. This holds even for a brother or a son. It orders stoning for anyone found worshipping other gods, on the word of two or three witnesses. Yet the rabbis made such sentences very rare. The Mishnah is the earliest written collection of Jewish law after the Bible. It calls a court that puts someone to death once in seven years a destructive court. Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva said that on their court, no one would ever have been put to death. Even in modern Israel, leaving Judaism has a legal cost. In 1962 its Supreme Court ruled on a man born a Jew who had become a Catholic. It held that he did not count as a Jew under the Law of Return.
“If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.”
“If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God, in transgressing his covenant, And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel: Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die. At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.”
A Sanhedrin (Jewish high court) that puts a man to death once in seven years is called a destructive court. Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya says: once in seventy years. Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva say: had we sat in the Sanhedrin, no one would ever have been put to death. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel answers that they would then have multiplied murderers in Israel.
Oswald Rufeisen was Jewish by birth but a convert to Catholicism. In this 1962 case (16 PD 2428), which decided who is a Jew for the purposes of the Law of Return, Israel's Supreme Court found that he was an apostate and did not qualify as a Jew for the Law of Return.
Modern laws in India and Myanmar
Some countries still put hurdles in the way of changing religion. These are state laws, not the teaching of Hinduism or Buddhism. By 2023, ten states of India had laws against conversion by force, fraud or offers of reward. They say they stop only forced conversions. But take Uttar Pradesh's law of 2021. A person who wants to convert must tell the district magistrate, the local official, 60 days before. The police then look into the "real intention, purpose and cause" of the conversion. Afterwards the new religion is posted "on the notice board of the office". Converting without the notice can mean up to three years in prison. In Myanmar, a mainly Buddhist country, a law of 2015 set up a board in each local area. Anyone who wants to change religion must apply, give reasons and be interviewed. Then comes a 90-day study period before the board decides. Few people want police questions and a public notice about their faith. So laws like these can put people off changing religion at all.
As of 2023, ten Indian states had their own laws against religious conversion by force, inducement or fraud. Conversions are not totally prohibited and can be done with the authorisation of the district magistrate, following legal procedures. The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020, approved in 2021, sets one to ten years in prison for offenders, or two to ten years where the person converted is a minor, a woman or a member of a scheduled caste or tribe; unauthorised inter-religious marriage is also an offence.
Section 8: one who wishes to convert must give a declaration at least sixty days in advance to the District Magistrate; the District Magistrate shall get an enquiry conducted through police "with regard to real intention, purpose and cause of the proposed religious conversion"; failing to give it is punished with six months to three years in prison. Section 9: after converting, the person sends a second declaration within sixty days, with his particulars and his old and new religion; the District Magistrate shall exhibit it "on the notice board of the office"; the person must appear before him within 21 days. Section 5 (as amended in 2024): an unlawful conversion is punished with three to ten years in prison.
On Myanmar's Religious Conversion Law, approved by parliament in August 2015: it would establish a Religious Conversion Scrutinizing and Registration Board in each township. Anyone over 18 wishing to change religion would file an application stating the reasons for conversion. The applicant would be interviewed by at least five board members, followed by a 90-day study period, and gets a certificate of conversion only if the board approves. Human Rights Watch called it "a wholly unjustified state interference in the right to freedom of conscience and religion".
60 days before
Tell the district magistrate that you wish to convert.
A police enquiry
The police look into the real intention, purpose and cause.
Within 60 days after
Send a second declaration with your old and new religion.
A public notice
It goes up on the notice board of the magistrate's office.
Within 21 days
Appear before the magistrate in person to confirm it.
Officially atheist states
States that are officially atheist limit religion too. In 2014 a United Nations inquiry looked at North Korea. It found "an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion". In China, the constitution gives every citizen freedom of religious belief. But the ruling Party sets its own rule for its members. In 2011 a senior Party official wrote: "Members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) shall not believe in religion". So a Party member who became a Muslim would break the Party's rule.
"The commission finds that there is an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion". Apart from a few State-controlled churches, Christians are prohibited from practising their religion and are persecuted; people caught practising Christianity are subject to severe punishments.
"Members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) shall not believe in religion", said Zhu Weiqun of the Party's United Front Work Department, writing in the Party journal Qiushi. He said freedom of religious belief in China means every citizen may believe or not believe, and that "people who are not CPC members have freedom of religious belief".
Today: rejected by their own families
Today the law in Christian-majority countries no longer punishes a change of faith. But converts often pay a price at home. In 2010 Kevin Brice of Swansea University surveyed converts to Islam in Britain. Two thirds (66%) said their family had a negative attitude to their conversion. Many families softened over time. But 28% of those families stayed negative. Converts spoke of "Isolation from former family and friends".
A survey of converts to Islam in the United Kingdom for Faith Matters. "The majority (66%) of respondents reported that their family had a negative attitude towards the respondent's conversion to Islam. Only 11% of respondents reported a positive attitude, while 12% were neutral." "For those who reported a negative attitude, 43% did report that their family's attitude changed to a positive one over time, while 30% became neutral and 28% stayed negative." Converts' own words include "Isolation from former family and friends".
- 66%Families negative at first
- 11%Families positive at first
- 28%Of the negative families, still negative later
Islam's law on apostasy: a law against treason
Islamic law did have a penalty for apostasy, meaning leaving the faith. It comes from the words of the Prophet (ﷺ), not from the Qur'an. Those words point to treason. In one hadith he speaks of the one who leaves his religion, "leaving the community". Another hadith names the man "who goes forth to fight with Allah and His Apostle". Abu Dawud placed it in his chapter on apostasy. A shorter hadith says: "whoever changes his religion, kill him". Read beside the longer ones, it means the man who leaves to fight the community. In Madinah the Muslims were a small community at war. Leaving them could mean going over to the enemy. Some even planned to fake faith and drop it, to shake others. The Qur'an tells of a plan to believe in the morning and "reject it at the end of the day". The Hanafi school, one of the main schools of Islamic law, gives the reason plainly. Punishment for unbelief waits for the Hereafter. The penalty in this world exists only to ward off "waging war". Read this way, the penalty was for leaving Islam to turn against the community. Countries still punish treason today; in the United States it can carry death.
Abdullah ibn Masud reports that the Prophet (ﷺ) said the blood of a Muslim who bears witness that there is no god but Allah and that he is His Messenger may be shed in only three cases: a life for a life, a married person who commits adultery, and the one who goes out of the religion, leaving the community (al-mariq min al-din al-tarik lil-jamaʿa).
Aisha reports that the Prophet (ﷺ) said the blood of a Muslim may lawfully be shed for only one of three reasons: a married man who commits adultery; one who goes forth to fight with Allah and His Apostle; or one who commits murder. Abu Dawud places this hadith in the chapter "Ruling on one who apostatizes".
Ikrima reports that when Ali burned some heretics, Ibn Abbas said he would not have burned them, because the Prophet (ﷺ) forbade punishing anyone with Allah's punishment of fire. He would have had them killed instead, because the Prophet said: whoever changes his religion, kill him.
“A section of the People of the Book say: "Believe in the morning what is revealed to the believers, but reject it at the end of the day; perchance they may (themselves) Turn back;”
The standard Hanafi law manual explains why a woman who leaves Islam is not put to death. The rule is that punishments for unbelief wait for the Hereafter, since bringing them forward would spoil the meaning of this life as a test. The worldly penalty departs from that rule only to ward off an immediate harm, which is waging war (al-hirab). That is not expected from women, so a woman who leaves Islam is held, not killed.
Whoever owes allegiance to the United States and levies war against it, or adheres to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort, is guilty of treason, and shall suffer death, or be imprisoned for not less than five years and fined.
What happens if someone leaves Islam?
The law could apply only in a Muslim state, and only its ruler or his deputy could carry it out. No relative and no private person ever had that right. Most scholars required that the person first be invited back. The Hanbali school, another school of law, gave him three days. If he said the words of faith again, the court accepted them and did not search his heart. The Hanafi school did not put a woman to death for it at all. Women were not expected to wage war. The Qur'an speaks of those who "believe, then reject faith, then believe (again) and (again) reject faith". It names no penalty in this world for them. Today most Muslim-majority countries have no law against apostasy.
Ibn Qudamah, a Hanbali jurist, holds that, as a rule, no one may carry out a fixed penalty (hadd) except the ruler (imam) or the one he appoints to act for him. The only exception he allows is an old ruling on a master and his own slave, which has no application today.
Commenting on al-Khiraqi's rule that an apostate, man or woman, who is adult and of sound mind is to be invited back to Islam for three days before any penalty, Ibn Qudamah, a Hanbali jurist, records that inviting the apostate to repent is the view of most scholars, and that it was the ruling of Umar.
Usama ibn Zayd reports that in a battle he killed a man after the man had said "There is no god but Allah", thinking he said it only to save himself. The Prophet (ﷺ) asked again and again: did you kill him after he said there is no god but Allah? Usama said he wished he had not been a Muslim before that day.
The standard Hanafi law manual holds that a woman who leaves Islam is not put to death. She is held until she returns to Islam.
The standard Hanafi law manual explains why a woman who leaves Islam is not put to death. The rule is that punishments for unbelief wait for the Hereafter, since bringing them forward would spoil the meaning of this life as a test. The worldly penalty departs from that rule only to ward off an immediate harm, which is waging war (al-hirab). That is not expected from women, so a woman who leaves Islam is held, not killed.
“Those who believe, then reject faith, then believe (again) and (again) reject faith, and go on increasing in unbelief,- Allah will not forgive them nor guide them nor guide them on the way.”
In 2019, 79 of 198 countries and territories (40%) had laws or policies against blasphemy, including some in Europe, and 22 had laws against apostasy.
A law against treason
The hadith speaks of leaving the community. The Hanafis tie the penalty to waging war.
Only in a Muslim state
Only its ruler or his deputy could act. Never a relative or a private person.
Invited back first
Most scholars required that the person be invited back; the Hanbali school gave three days.
His word was enough
If he said the words of faith again, the court did not search his heart.
Women spared
The Hanafi school did not put a woman to death for it, since women were not expected to wage war.
The charge of violence cuts both ways
Islam is often called violent and barbaric for its law on apostasy, meaning leaving the faith. Yet punishing a change of faith was not an Islamic invention. Christian Rome did it before Islam began. Castile, Portugal and the Inquisition did it for centuries after. The Qur'an itself names no penalty for people to carry out on someone who leaves Islam. It says: "Let there be no compulsion in religion". No Muslim may harm anyone for changing religion.
“Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things.”
"When the Roman Empire became Christian, apostates were punished by deprivation of all civil rights. They could not give evidence in a court of law, and could neither bequeath nor inherit property." It cites the Theodosian Code, book XVI, title 7 (De apostatis), and the Code of Justinian, book I, title 7. "In the Middle Ages, both civil and canon law classed apostates with heretics."
The title on Muslims (moros) in the law code of King Alfonso X of Castile. Law 2 says Christians should win Muslims to the faith by good words and preaching, "not by force", and forbids forcing them. Law 4 says those who renounce the faith of Christ and become Moors do a very great wickedness and treason; if such a man "be found in any place of our lordship, let him die for it" ("que muera por ello"). Law 5 says an apostate, a Christian who became a Jew or a Moor and then repented and came back, is still not to go unpunished: he is to be branded infamous for ever, so that his testimony is never accepted, he may hold no office, and he may neither make a will nor be made anyone's heir.
| Law | What it said | Who could act |
|---|---|---|
| Law of Moses | Death for tempting others to other gods; stoning for worshipping them | A court, on two or three witnesses; the rabbis made it very rare |
| Christian Rome | No civil rights: no evidence in court, no will, no inheritance | The state |
| Castile, 13th century | Death for a Christian who became a Muslim | The king's courts |
| The Inquisition | Burning for keeping Islam or taking it up | A Church court, with the state carrying out the sentence |
| Islamic law | A penalty from the hadith for leaving the community, treated as treason; the person invited back first | Only the ruler's court, in a Muslim state |
| India, ten states (today) | Uttar Pradesh: 60 days' notice, a police enquiry, a public notice; three to ten years for an unlawful conversion | The district magistrate, the police and the courts |
| Myanmar (2015) | Apply with reasons, an interview, 90 days of study, then a certificate | A board in each local area |
Perspectives
Mainstream Christian
Christians today reject these punishments. They say such laws came from kings and courts of their time, not from the Gospel, and that Christian countries gave them up long ago.
These were the laws of kings, not the teaching of Christ.
Rebuttal
The Inquisition was a Church court. In 1680 it had a man burned alive for holding to Islam. Thomas Aquinas, the Church's leading teacher, taught that anyone who stubbornly held a wrong belief should be handed to the state and killed.
Christian countries gave up such laws, while some countries still have laws against apostasy today.
Rebuttal
Christian lands gave them up only after centuries of enforcing them. The Qur'an names no worldly penalty for leaving Islam and forbids compulsion in religion. So the charge that Islam alone is cruel to those who change faith does not stand.
The Islamic perspective
For centuries, Christian rulers punished people for becoming or staying Muslim. The Qur'an says no one may be forced into a faith. Islam asks to be judged by its own teaching, as Christians ask for their faith.
Castile's 13th-century law code ordered death for a Christian who became a Muslim.
In 1512 the Portuguese cut off the nose, ears and right hand of Fernão Lopes, who had become a Muslim. He had been promised his life.
The Spanish Inquisition burned a man alive in 1680 for holding to his Islam.
Portugal's law of 1603 ordered slaves from Africa to be baptised, children without their consent.
In a British survey, two thirds of converts to Islam met a negative reaction from their families.
In Islamic law, only the ruler's court could act on apostasy, and it first invited the person back. No relative or private person could act.
The Qur'an says there is no compulsion in religion.