A worthy Phd study would be to catalogue the number of dead, killed by devotees of the Muslim cult, who were murdered for leaving Mohammed's enterprise. We know that over 200 million people have been killed in the Muslim Jihad over 1400 years. What we don't know is how many millions of people have been killed in Muslim intra-warfare in campaigns and acts of terror and violence related to apostasy [Ridda], or tribes and regions who attempted to leave the political-social construct called 'Submission'. The name says it all. Submit to Mohammed or Allah. The two need to be considered as being the same. My guess in reading the history of Islam's imperialist project is that roughly 20 million apostates have been killed by more pious [or devious, greedy, power-mongering] Muslims. This is roughly 15.000 per year, over a 1400 year period, a most reasonable estimation.

Killing apostates denotes a vicious cult. No 'religion' premised on the Golden Rule would allow the murder of someone who left the group. Islam not only allows it, it demands their execution. Apostasy in Islam is akin to treason. This must be true since the church and state are commingled and all political and social life is managed by the cult. Islam is a state of being prostrated. It is not a religion. Obey, ritualize, follow and don't inquire. Apostasy is a very clear indication that the cult in question has no Golden Rule and no interest in Free-Will.

No Muslim can reject Islam in its totality. This is the main theme of the cult. It is a total concept that demands – under the aegis of following Mohammed – that you follow the entire ritualized practices of the cult. In this vein since all humans are innately 'born Muslim', it makes war upon the Infidel Kafir a necessity. The same must be true if you leave Islam. By leaving you have joined the Infidel, the unjust, the unclean, the cursed, the evil, and the hypocrites to name a few of the demonizations of the 'Other' that one finds in the Koran.

Apostasy is granular. It can encompass thoughts, a spoken word or a deed. If you simply doubt that Allah [or Mohammed] is the unitary divine power of the human experience you are an apostate since 'Allah knows all'. If you associate anything with Allah such as a 'Son', or a Trinity, or an image, icon or picture that is apostasy. This is one reason why Islam has never produced higher art [show me the Muslim Giotto please]. If you question any part of the Koran or Islamic liturgy, or disagree with anything that Mohammed said, that is apostasy. If you treat the Quran in a 'disrespectful' manner or cease to prostrate yourself like a chanting moron and recite your 5 daily prayers, you have committed apostasy by deeds. Thus apostasy is very closely related to 'Honor' Killings, in which young girls, who have committed acts, words and even thoughts which betray true Islamic teachings and propriety, or who disobey the males of the household, are simply killed.

It is not apostasy however, if a Muslim renounces Islam to save his life. If a Muslim is surrounded by Kufar and his life is in danger he may publicly leave the cult, while privately he still adheres to the laws of Allah, for 'Allah knows all'. This exception can be found in Sura 16:106. It also ties in with the Moslem law about lying or Taqiyya in which a Moslem may lie if that lie will benefit the cult in any way or preserve or enhance its power.

For Moslems who have committed a less serious form of apostasy, such as simply announcing that they are leaving the cult, most Muslim jurisprudence will give the 'guilty' person three days to think over their actions and repent. Those who fail to recant their disbelief will incur severe punishments including imprisonment, torture and execution. Moslems charged with 'extreme' apostasy, which means attempting to bring harm or insults to Islam, the Koran or Mohammad's image, are dealt with immediately. In fundamentalist Moslem states with some form of Sharia, 'extreme' apostasy' is punished with executions. In recent years there have been reports of public murders from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt and Afghanistan. There is little doubt as well that many Western Moslem apostates guilty of 'extreme' apostasy, have been secretly murdered within the West. In some forms of Moslem jurisprudence such as the Hanafite, the female is dealt with less harshly than the male and is usually imprisoned for life. The Shafiites, Malikites and Hanbalites would punish the woman exactly as they would punish a man including the use of execution.

How many Moslems have been murdered for apostasy? No one is sure, but 20 million over 1400 years is certainly a reasonable guess. How many Western groups, organizations, and politicians descry the savagery of a cult which murders people who freely choose to leave it? How many Female and Women's organizations attack Islam for its indiscriminate slaughter of women, or the imprisonment of females for 'disrespecting' some aspect of Islamic liturgy or culture? Not many that is for sure. I doubt that the media, the educational elite, or our political masters would be as 'tolerant' of a Christian sect which murdered those wanted to leave, or maimed and killed those who questioned, debated or argued against the cult's dogma. No surer demarcation of a cult from a religion exists then in the issue of apostasy.