Does God forgive all sins of a Muslim if they apostatize from Islam and then return to it, based on the hadith "Islam demolishes what came before it"?
Whoever apostatizes from Islam and then repents and returns to it, their good deeds that preceded their apostasy are not invalidated, and their reward returns to them. This is the view of the Shafi'is and Hanbalis. The Malikis and Hanafis disagreed with this, holding that apostasy invalidates deeds even if the Muslim returns to their faith. The proof for the first opinion is the Almighty's saying: "And whoever among you apostatizes from his religion and dies while he is a disbeliever - for those, their deeds have become worthless." As for one who apostatizes to return to Islam, this is a grave error and a great risk, and it would have sufficed him to repent to Allah with sincere repentance that erases all his sins, for "the one who repents from a sin is like one who has no sin."
Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026
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