| Ahl as Sunnah vs the "Salafi" Movement - Apostasies and Heresies |  |  |  |
| Radd al Salafiyya - Refutations |
| Written by Al-Shaykh Jamil Effendi al-Siqdi al-Zahawi |
Apostasies and Heresies
The Khawarij were the first to separate from the Congregation of Muslims. The Messenger of God had spoken about them and ordered them to be killed and fought: "They will pass through Islam like an arrow passes through its quarry. Wherever you meet them, kill them!"ft1 "They are the dogs of the people in Hell."ft1 "They recite Qur'an and consider it in their favor but it is against them."ft1 The Khawarij went out of Islam in the time of our master `Ali, may God be pleased with him. They declared him and Mu`awiya disbelievers and declared licit their blood and property as well as the blood and property of those with him. They made the land of the former a land of war and declared their own land an abode of faith. They only accepted from the Prophet's Sunna what agreed with their own doctrine, deduced evidence for their doctrine from what was not perspicuous in the Qur'an, and applied the verses revealed concerning the idolaters to the people of Islam. Yet despite their disbelief, neither the Companions nor the Successors declared them disbelievers, just as Ibn Taymiyya has transmitted. `Ali said to them: "We do not start out killing you nor are you kept out of the mosques of God in which you mention His name. We do not rescind the rights of protection with respect to your life and property afforded you by Islam as long as your hand is with us." The great among the Companions debated the Khawarij, like Ibn `Abbas, until four thousand returned to the truth.
As for the fighting of the people of the Ridda -- apostates -- one category among them apostatized Islam and returned to the disbelief which they were on with respect to idol worship. Another category apostatized and followed Musaylima and they were the Banu Hanifa and some other tribes. Yet another group apostatized, followed and agreed with Aswad al-`Anasi in Yemen. Others said claims of Tulayha al-Asadi were true; they were the Ghatafan, Fazara and other tribes. Still others did the same with respect to Sujah. All these denied the prophethood of Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace. They refused to pay the tax on Muslims and to pray, abandoning the rest of the Shari`a as well. One class of apostates distinguished between prayer and the tax. They denied the obligatoriness of conveying the latter to the Imam. In reality, those are the People of Rebellion (baghi). The name "Ridda" was attached to them only because of their entry into the throng of the apostates.
The Qadariyya separated from the Congregation of Muslims in the final period of the time of the Companions. They were composed of two sects. The first directly denied the divine Decree (qadar). They said that God did not foreordain His servants to commit acts of disobedience nor does he guide the one in error and foreordain the guidance. In their view, the Muslim is one who makes himself Muslim by himself and the one who prays makes himself a prayer by himself, and so forth and so on with respect to other acts of obedience and disobedience. This sect makes the servant the creator (khaliq) of his own deeds instead of God.
The second sect is just the opposite of the first. They claim that God compels people to act in a certain way and that disbelief and disobedience among human creatures are like the black and white color of their skins. In their view, the creature has no part to play in doing none of this. On the contrary, all acts of disobedience in their view are ascribable to God. The perpetrators of such acts are the followers of Iblis where he says: "Because You have sent me astray, I shall ambush them" (7:16). Similarly, the idolaters say: "Had God willed, we nor our forefathers would not have been idolaters" (6:148). Yet for all this disbelief and misguidance on the part of the Qadariyya, not one of the Companions nor any of the Successors declared them to be disbelievers. Rather, they stood right before them and explained to them their misguidance from the Qur'an and Sunna. They did not make killing them an obligation incumbent on Muslims nor exact against them the judgments made against the people of apostasy.
Then, the Mu`tazila separated from the Congregation of Muslims in the period of the Successors. Among their doctrines of disbelief is their claim that the Qur'an is created. They also deny that the Prophet, on him be God's blessing and peace, can intercede in the behalf of perpetrators of acts of disobedience and assert that perpetrators of disobedience will reside eternally in hell fire and so on and so forth with respect to their teachings. Again, not one of the ulama of that time declared them unbelievers but the scholars among the Successors and those who succeeded them confronted them. They refuted them and explained to them the falsity of their doctrine. They did not exact on them the laws against apostates. On the contrary, on them and those before who made unwarranted innovations in the religion they carried out the Muslim laws of inheritance and marriage and buried them in Muslim ground.
Then there was the Murji'a who claimed that faith (iman) resided in the verbal assertion of belief and not in the deed. Hence, in their view, one who articulates the twofold declaration bearing witness to his faith is a believer even if he does not perform a single act of prayer the whole of his life, nor fast one day of Ramadan. Yet despite their lingering in error and their continual dogged resistance to change even after the people of truth explained to them the error of their school of thought, no one declared them unbelievers. Rather, they treated them and the people of unwarranted innovation before them as brethren of fixed and stable faith.
The Jahmiyya separated from the Congregation of Muslims. They said no God who is an object of worship is upon the throne nor does God have any speech as on earth. They denied God the attributes that He affirms of Himself in His clear Book and which His true and faithful Messenger affirms of Him and all the Companions. Likewise, they denied the vision of God in the hereafter and so forth and so on with respect to their doctrines of disbelief. In spite of that, the ulama refuted them and demonstrated to them their misguidance until they killed some of their propagandists like Jahm Ibn Safwan and al-Ju`d Ibn Dirham. But after killing them they ritually cleansed their bodies, prayed for them and buried them in Muslim ground. They did not carry out the rulings for people guilty of apostasy.
Then the Rafida or "Rejecters" separated from the Congregation of Muslims. They agreed with the Mu`tazila in their belief that they were the sole creators of their own actions. They denied the vision of the Creator on the Day of Judgment. They declared most of the Companions to be unbelievers and they vilified the Mother of the Believers (`A'isha). Despite all this non of the `ulama declared them to be unbelievers nor did they forbid the rulings of inheritance and marriage apply to them; rather they applied to them the same rulings that applied with all Muslims.
Those following the school of thought of the Pious Ancestors -- which the Wahhabis attempt to hide behind -- are distinguished by the signal absence of declaring deviant groups unbelievers as we have mentioned. Shaykh Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya said that Imam Ahmad did not declare the Khawarij disbeliever, nor the Murji'a nor the Qadariyya nor the individuals of the Jahmiyya. Indeed, he prayed behind the Jahmiyya who called people to their doctrine while they punished harshly those who did not agree with them. Ibn Taymiyya also said in essence that among the blameworthy innovations is declaring a group among the Muslims to be unbelievers, making their blood and wealth licit because of rejected innovations. For, he said, there may be in that group less unwarranted innovation than in the party carrying out the declaration of disbelief. Even if one supposes a group to have made unwarranted innovation, it is unwarranted for the group which is on the path of the Sunna to declare them unbelievers, since, perhaps, its innovation is an outgrowth of an error, and God said: "Our Lord do not blame us if we forget or make a mistake" (2:286) and: "The mistake you make will not be held against you but what your hearts on purpose intend" (33:5). The Prophet said: "Surely, has God forgiven my community error and forgetfulness and what they were forced to do."
ft1
The Consensus has long since concluded that whoever confirms what the Messenger has brought -- even if there be in it some trace of disbelief and idolatry -- should not be declared a unbeliever until the proof is furnished. The only proof that can be furnished is in the strength of Consensus not speculative but decisive. Further, the one who furnishes the proof is the Leader of the Muslims or his deputy. But disbelief only exists when one denies things necessary to the religion of Islam such as the existence of the Creator and his unity, the rejection of the message of Muhammad or the rejection of the duties of Islam like the obligatoriness of prayer.
The school (madhhab) of the People of the Prophet's Way and the Congregation of Muslims (Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama`a) shrinks from declaring anyone belonging to the religion of Islam an unbeliever. This holds even to the point of suspending pronouncements of disbelief against people who introduce unwarranted innovations into Islam, despite the command to kill them out of defense against the harms they may do -- not because of their disbelief. For there may be found joined in a single individual disbelief (kufr), belief (iman), hypocrisy (nifaq), and idolatry (shirk) and he is not a complete disbeliever. Whoever confesses Islam it is accepted from him whether he be truthful or lying. Even if signs of hypocrisy and ignorance are manifest on him, he is excused from disbelief. The same is true of hesitation and doubt even if this be weak. By now the unwarranted innovation on the part of the Wahhabis should be manifest in any case, when they introduce an unwarranted innovation by declaring Muslims disbelievers and thereby contradict what God has brought to us in the Qur'an and by the Sunna of His Messenger as well as the statements of the Imams of the religion and the learned mujtahids.
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