Apostasy = Death (Ibn Majah's Chain)
Ibn Majah 2535 records the apostasy death-penalty teaching with Ibn Majah's chain. This completes the cross-collection attestation: the apostasy hadith is preserved in all six canonical Sunni collections (Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi, Nasa'i, Ibn Majah).
The substantive issues are addressed in entries b12, t02, n02, d03. The Ibn Majah contribution: completing the cross-collection record. The apostasy death penalty is not a single-collection teaching; it is the consensus of the entire canonical Sunni record.
The analysis from those entries applies fully here.
- P1. Ibn Majah 2535 preserves the apostasy death-penalty hadith.
- P2. The hadith is now established across all six canonical Sunni collections.
- P3. The cumulative cross-collection attestation makes the teaching the consensus of canonical Sunni Islam.
- P4. Classical fiqh in all four schools and the major Shia school applies the death penalty.
- P5. Modern Muslim-majority states retain apostasy as capital crime.
- P6. Modern Muslim apologetic responses (community-leaver only, restorative justice, etc.) cannot refute the textual basis.
- P7. A morally serious framework does not establish death as the punishment for changing religion. (See entries b12, t02, n02, d03.)
Ibn Majah 2535 completes the cross-collection attestation of the apostasy death penalty. The hadith is now established as the consensus of canonical Sunni Islam. (See entries b12, t02, n02, d03 for substantive analysis.)
Community-leaving (treason), not religious change.
Multiple variants use religious-change language. (See b12.)
Q 2:256 forbids compulsion in religion.
Conflict is real and is the problem. (See b12.)
Restorative justice through istitāba.
Death follows refusal to recant. (See t02.)
Modern reform is occurring.
Reform is uneven. (See b12.)
Other traditions historically had similar laws.
Repudiated; Islamic textual basis remains. (See b12.)