Apostasy is treason because Islam is a polity, not only a faith

Evidence

The penalty for apostasy, in Islamic law, is death. Islam is conceived as a polity, not just as a religious community. It follows therefore that apostasy is treason. It is a withdrawal, a denial of allegiance as well as of religious belief and loyalty. Any sustained and principled opposition to the existing regime or order almost inevitably involves such a withdrawal. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1490

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how political dissent and religious categories merge; echoes the earlier point on the humbled/haughty political reframing. — connects to: U.S. lawmakers framed devout Muslim practice as treasonous grounds for military exclusion — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 285; Wahhabism legitimizes itself by declaring nearly all other Muslims apostates — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 1847; Challenging a sacralized national majority counts as treason against the faith itself — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 178
• ADDENDUM: Relevant to the sacrifice article’s theme of sacralized political order — here religious allegiance doubles as political loyalty, making dissent literal treason.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1490