Apostasy in Modern Egyptian Law

The paper analyses the legal framework which is exploited by extremist Muslims in Egypt to establish the apostasy of a person and hence make his/her condemnation possible. From among the Egyptian laws, only family laws (aḥkām al-aḥwāl aš-šaḫṣiyya) are those that are almost entirely based on Islamic law: the provisions of marriage, divorce, childcare and inheritance. Marriage laws include the provision that in some cases the court may pronounce divorce. The court also has jurisdiction over such a case when one party converts to another religion, which is, however, very rare in the history of Islam. It is a peculiarly modern phenomenon that extremist Islamists attempt to use this law and the tribunal of family law to denounce their opponents as unbelievers. The article analyses the case of Naṣr Ḥāmid Abū Zayd and the court action against Nawāl as-Saʿdāwī.