Zayn Malik: The Most High-Profile Apostate Yet

The Most High-Profile Apostate Yet

Now 25 years old, Zayn Malik was born and raised in a working-class household in Bradford, England, the son of a Pakistani Muslim father and an English mother who was an Islamic convert. 

When he was 17, he and four other singers who were competing on the British show The X Factor were teamed up into a boy band by Simon Cowell and another judge. 

The band, called One Direction, quickly became the biggest of international acts. What set Zayn apart was that he identified as a Muslim. Oh, and his sultry good looks. Harry Styles was boyishly handsome, but Zayn was sexy. 

Depending on your point of view, this teen heartthrob was either good or bad PR for Islam. 

More from Zayn's Vogue chat: “I just want to keep it between me and whatever I believe,” he said, apropos of his spiritual identity. “I feel like that makes me move through life in a nice way. If I behave well, I will get treated well. That’s it. I don’t believe you need to eat a certain meat that’s been prayed over a certain way, I don’t believe you need to read a prayer in a certain language five times a day. I don’t believe any of it. I just believe if you’re a good person everything is going to go right for you.” 

According to the Daily Mail, Zayn's frankness about his departure from Islam has caused a “backlash” from fans who say they're variously “disappointed” and “shocked” and “ashamed” of him for “mocking” the religion of his parents. (In fact he said nothing critical about Islam; he just declared that he's no longer a believer.) 

A sampling of tweets indicates that he's broken the hearts of Muslim devotees who considered him (as one of them put it) their “Muslim idol” but who now say they hate his guts. 

For my part, I wonder whether Zayn knows that his apostasy alone is regarded by orthodox Islamic teaching as justification for the death penalty. It's certainly clear that many of Zayn's former votaries in the Muslim community are keenly aware of this theological tenet. 

As one of them tweeted: 

Don't get me wrong I love zayn but honestly i'm so disappointed and shocked....Muslim people can't leave their religion it's not allowed . he did the wrong thing. god will absolutely make a special circle of hell for him I'm so sad:(( 

Yes, it's semi-literate, but you couldn't do a better job of summing up the nature of Islamic “love.”