یادداشت: عنوان فارسی: ارتداد و آزادی عقیده در تفکر شیعه
Freedom has always been considered as a long-standing issue by religious scholars. It has a special place in Islam and among Muslim thinkers. In Islamic perspective, freedom is one of the greatest human values. Those who defend the freedom of belief in terms of religion and justify it based on Islamic beliefs, immediately they are confronted with the question of whether the freedom of changing a belief is accepted by Islam. What are the rules of those who intend to convert from Islam? In addition, how does this limitation coincide with the principle of freedom This thesis was dedicated to response the question of whether it is compatible with the rulings of apostasy and the freedom of belief accepted by Shia thought or not. It was necessary to check the Shia’s view on each topic separately in order to be able to speak about reconciliation or incompability. Therefore, this research was organized into four chapters. Library research has shown that there is no relationship between these two issues. Moreover, by referring to resources, it was concluded that apostasy is not in conflict with the freedom of belief. To achieve this result, descriptive method was used. This thesis showed that the study of this issue was not possible without distinguishing between the concept of the freedom of belief and the right to the freedom of belief, as well as the concept of apostasy and the right of apostasy.
Finally, the result was that there is no conflict between apostasy and the freedom of belief by nature or the right to use the freedom of belief in case of choosing or rejecting a belief preliminarily. The apparent conflict came to the stage of right to use the freedom of belief in changing belief after accepting it. Here it exited thematically from the scope of freedom since one has no right to apostasy at all. Therefore, while accepting the principle of both, there was no real conflict between them. In addition, the worldly punishment of apostate is related only to when apostasy expresses public along with plots to .harm Islam not in case of personal apostasy
Keywords: Religion, Islam, Shia, Apostasy, Apostate, freedom, the freedom of belief, Right to use the freedom of belief, coercion, and death penalty