Response to a comment about those leaving their religion

Question:
Your essay is a good attempt to adopt or aquire a healthy approach but here I would like to ask some questions. If God invites us to aquire or to investigate the truth then why, when a person changes his religion, he is called a Murtid? You have said in your essay that such a person would have clear ideas of right or wrong but here I would like to say that when you are having faith, whatever may be the source, you are having some clear concepts of right or wrong. It’s gift of faith wrapped within it, may be it is adopted by 1st way or second one. The other things are your environment and your education. In other words the overall personality or nature also plays a vital role in building of the faith. All things do not have the same effect on every person, then how can we expect that approach to faith to be vacant from voilence?

Response:
There is nothing wrong in calling a person who leaves his religion a Murtad because that is the correct Arabic word for such people. The problem arises when a Murtad is condemned as a criminal. I believe that the question whether a Murtad was a criminal or not would be decided by the Almighty. If God would decide on the basis of His perfect knowledge that a certain individual left his faith because of wrong reasons, he would be held accountable for it. If the Murtad would be able to justify his decision, he wouldn’t be considered a criminal for doing that. The only exception to this rule is that the people who become believers during the time of a messenger (rasul) and then revert, they are always criminals because they know that what has been communicated to them is the truth.

Your other comments are correct. The only thing I would like to add is that when a person acquires faith in a way that he is influenced by his environment, God would give full allowance for that influence. In other words, God is not going to make any soul responsible for anything beyond what he could possibly do.

[This is Dr. Khalid Zaheer's response to a blog comment.]

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