Recordings › Monday Nights with Mufti #202| Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth · 16 Feb 2021 › Segment 20 of 57
Did the Prophet order a scribe killed for leaving Islam?
hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis hadees ahaadith muftis koran quraan al-quran makki and madani makki madani meccan makki surah madani surah makka mekka madina al-madinah madeenah yathrib ummah umma ummatThe scribe who fled to Makkah: treason, not apostasy
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This segment1:11:59 to 1:14:32 · 2 min 33 sGeneral teaching
The answer in brief
machinesummary, machine-writtenNot for apostasy, he says: the scribe was not executed, and the issue was treason, since he exposed Madinah's weak points to its enemies; apostasy laws were treason laws.
In more detail
A super chat asks whether the Prophet ordered one of his scribes executed for becoming an apostate, a hadith Islamophobes use. Mufti Abu Layth says not really: the man, Abdullah [?], was not executed, and the issue was not apostasy but the harm he caused at a time of lawlessness, tribal law and treaties between Madinah and Makkah. He says that on going to Makkah the man rallied the Quraysh, mocked Islam and exposed Madinah's weak points and how it could be attacked, around the time of the Battle of the Trench, when the Muslims prepared with trenches. He says such acts were grave, unforgivable crimes, treason of the highest degree, and that the apostasy laws of that time were in essence treason laws.
Question as read aloud · questioner not identifiedDid the Prophet order one of his scribes to be executed because he became an apostate? Islamophobes use that hadith.
- Some terms in this segment are uncertain
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says the apostasy laws of that time were in essence treason laws.
“so yes they did have laws of treason and i've explained this in the past that that is what our apostasy laws were in essence they were treason laws”
Category: historical claim
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine1:11:59 to 1:14:32 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
and his monkey business in misquotations i go through all these verses and there are some things the quran does not highlight how did jesus die it doesn't highlight that okay it doesn't mean he didn't die but then the quran doesn't mention how moses died it doesn't mention how many people died nobody knows where moses was buried or what happened to moses it didn't you see just because we don't know something doesn't mean that oh it didn't happen so yeah right and the prophet right there's quite a few super chat did the prophet order one of his scribes to be executed because he became
an apostate islamophobes used that hadith uh no not really so the hadith that you're speaking about is abdullah and it's not about you see you have to understand something that person was not executed but in that day and age there were certain treaties that the people of medina had with mecca and you see we keep forgetting and i mentioned this on so many occasions we keep forgetting that the world then was radically different yeah you have to go back to a time when there
is a sense of lawlessness and tribal laws and what abdullah did is he ran it wasn't about him apostating it was about the harm he caused when he went to makkah because when he went back there he was there trying to one fair enough okay he was trying to rally them and mocking islam fair enough but he was trying to expose how they could be attacked and how they could be sabotaged because he'd lived there so he was telling them basically all the weak points and the pressure points of medina
and the medinan society how to attack them and you have to remember they were with the battle of azerba and things like this so and luckily they didn't know the complete um they thought they knew all the pressure points but they you know obviously the muslims prepared with the trenches and stuff so you have to remember these things in the past were dealt as they were not just minor issues these were grave unconscionable unforgivable crimes because you see what you were basically saying was
wipe the entire community out and that was outlawed and this is why it was treason it was treason to the highest degree so yes they did have laws of treason and i've explained this in the past that that is what our apostasy laws were in essence they were treason laws how can the story of zulkarnain not refer to a flat earth oh for god's sake [Laughter] i won't say you're doing it with that but you're doing it with the super chat
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Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2021-02-16-S20, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/--pntsar8ck/s/20/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2021, February 16). Did the Prophet order a scribe killed for leaving Islam? [Video, segment 2021-02-16-S20, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/--pntsar8ck/s/20/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2021. "Did the Prophet order a scribe killed for leaving Islam?" Video, segment 2021-02-16-S20, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded February 16, 2021. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/--pntsar8ck/s/20/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2021-02-16-S20, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Did the Prophet order a scribe killed for leaving Islam?}}, year = {2021}, month = {2}, date = {2021-02-16}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/--pntsar8ck/s/20/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/--pntsar8ck/s/20/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2021-02-16-S20, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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