Friday, March 2, 2007

Khawarij

Also known as Kharijites, these people were among the earliest radicals in the Islamic World. Kharijism traces its origins to the first Islamic Civil War: declaring that there should be no rule but Allah's, the Kharajites refused human arbitration, and instead preached a radical fundamentalist ideology, rejecting authorities that they deemed corrupt, and declaring jihad, even against other Muslims, to be the sixth pillar of Islam.

Sound familiar?

Islam's holy texts have references to battles against these people:


Book 005, Number 2328:

'Ali said: Whenever I narrate to you anything from the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) believe it to be absolutely true as falling from the sky is dearer to me than that of attributing anything to him (the Holy Prophet) which he never said. When I talk to you of anything which is between me and you (there might creep some error in it) for battle is an outwitting. I heard the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) as saying: There would arise at the end of the age a people who would be young in age and immature in thought, but they would talk (in such a manner) as if their words are the best among the creatures. They would recite the Qur'an, but it would not go beyond their throats, and they would pass through the religion as an arrow goes through the prey. So when you meet them, kill them, for in their killing you would get a reward with Allah on the Day of judgment.



Book 005, Number 2335:

Abu Dharr reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Verily there would arise from my Ummah after me or soon after me a group (of people) who would recite the Qar'an, but it would not go beyond their throats, and they would pass clean through their religion just as the arrow passes through the prey, and they would never come back to it. They would be the worst among the creation and the creatures. Ibn Samit (one of the narrators) said: I met Rafi' b. 'Amr Ghifari, the brother of Al-Hakam Ghifari and I said: What is this hadith that I heard from Abu Dharr, i. e. so and so? -and then I narrated that hadith to him and said: I heard it from the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him).


Google it and see what you get.

It is not uncommon in the Islamic World today to link radicalized Wahhabism back to Kharijism, and forward to terrorism. Readers of this blog already know about the links between Wahhabism and terrorism; here is some reading material for you regarding the links between Wahhabism and Kharijism. These are two articles that I quote in their entirety, without comment:


The Wahabi and the Khawarij

Surprising, there are many similarities between the Wahabi and the Khawarij which distinguish them from the rest of the Muslim. Some of these common points follow.

1. The Khawarij disagreed with all Muslims by maintaining that whoever commits a cardinal sin is a heretic. The Wahabis copied them by equating heresy with committing what they considered to be sins.[15]

2. The Khawarij decreed that if committing cardinal sins become common in a Muslim land then it deserved to be considered dar harb, literally a land of war and those who live in it forfeit their lives and possessions.

This is also the Wahabi's verdict on the nation of Islam if they believe that it is permissible to travel to the Prophet's tomb and the shrines of pious men and ask for their intercession with Allah, though they worship only Allah and perform good deeds.

It is clear from the previous two points that the Wahabis are more disruptive and evil than the Khawarij While the khawarij based their verdict of heresy on deeds that all Muslims agreed on being cardinal sins, the Wahabis chose acts which are not actually sins but favourable deeds performed by devout early Muslims including the Prophet's Companions.

3. The Wahabis and the Khawarij are similar in their strict application of religion and their ossified interpretations of its doctrines. Thus when the Khawarij read the Quranic verse: «Judgment belongs to Allah» they said that whoever allowed resort to settlement is an idolator. 'There is no judgment but Allah's' became their slogan. And though it is indisputable it was misapplied to justify their deviant ways. This attitude illustrates their ignorance of Islam and rigid thinking since the principle of settlement of dispute through adjudicator or third-party intervention was established by the Holy Quran, the Prophet's Tradition and the deeds of the Companions and early Muslims. It is also supported by common logic.

Similarly, the Wahabis interpreted the following verses:

«You alone we worship and You alone we pray for help».[16]

«Who is he that can intercede with Him but by His own permission».[17]

«No intercession shall avail with Him but that which He Himself allow».[18]

To mean that anyone who justifies visiting the Prophet's Mosque or the shrines of pious Muslim and ask for their intercession is an idolator. They considered such acts as tantamount to worshipping the Prophet or those pious Muslims instead of Allah. Accordingly, they declared that there is no deity but Allah and there is no intercession except His.

While these heated declarations are indisputable, the intentions behind them are open to suspicions. The Wahabis chose to ignore the tradition established by the Companions and early Muslims regarding the legality of visiting the Prophet's Mosque and other shrines and asking for intercession.

4. Ibn Taimia observed that the deviant group the Khawarij was the first bida' or corruption in Islam because its followers judged other Muslims as heretics and legalized killing them.[19] It can be added that the Wahabia, and for the same reason, is the last bida' in Islam.

5. Some of the Prophet's comments on the rise of the Khawarij and their deviation from Islam also apply to the Wahabis. Consider, for example, the Prophet's saying that: «a group of people shall emerge from the east who reads the Quran without understanding it. They shall deviate from it like an arrow missing its target. Shaving the head shall be their distinguishing characteristic.»[20] In commenting on this saying, al-Qastalani said that «'due east' means east of al-Medina such as Najid and further.»

Najid is the birthplace of Wahabia from which it spread to other places. Also, shaving their heads was one of the Wahabis' established tradition which was mandatory for all their followers including women. None of the deviant groups who predated them was known to impose it. Some of the religious scholars who witnessed the rise of this movement maintained that there is no need to write books to refute the Wahabia because it is sufficient to repeat the Prophet's saying that 'Shaving the head is their distinguishing characteristic,' since none has done it before them.

6. The Prophet described the Khawarij as «those who will slaughter Muslims and leave the pagans unharmed.» This also applies to the Wahabis who fought only Muslims. Their scholars and books also call for waging war on other Muslims only.

7. Al-Bukhari reported that Ibn Omar described the Khawarij as «having applied verses revealed regarding pagans to the believers.»[24] Ibn Abbas is reported to have said on the same subject:

Don't be like the Khawarij who interpreted some [verses] of the Quran to apply to the faithful. Those verses were revealed regarding followers of other divine messages and pagans. The Khawarij were ignorant of their meanings and as a result they killed [Muslims] and looted their possessions.


The Wahabis followed suit by applying verses revealed in the case of idolaters to the believers.

8. We can now imagine the following dialogue between a Sunni and a Wahabi:

-The Wahabi: The Hanabila [i.e. followers of Imam Ibn Hanbal] books are also ours. Which of these books do you disapprove of? If you indeed have something against them then you must cite their books and not their critics!
-The Sunni: What do you think of the Karamita? [a dissident group formed during the Abbasid rule].
-The Wahabi: They are pagans and idolaters.
-The Sunni: But they claim adherence to the Prophet Household's doctrines and that their books are also theirs. But the books of the Prophet Household contain nothing but words of enlightenment and truth.
-The Wahabi: The Qaramita were liars and historians have demonstrated their heresy and falsification.
-The Sunni: Then you accept evidence presented by historians?
-The Wahabi: Yes! Imam al-Shafi said that the historian's methodology in relying on multiple sources is better, in his opinion, than the acceptance of a single source by the narrators of the Prophet's Tradition.
-The Sunni: Then you must accept what the historians considered as evidence of the Wahabi heresy. A person's deed may be held as evidence against him or her even if he denies doing it. And when the Qaramita legalized murdering Muslims and stealing their possessions no doubt regarding their heresy remained. This also applies to your Wahabi masters.
-The Wahabi: (was angry and speechless).
- The Sunni then added: What is your opinion of the description of the Khawarij as heretics who shall be punished with Hell's fire?
-The Wahabi replied: The consensus is that the Khawarij deviated from the true path and thus incurred Allah's wrath. But the Khawarij were put to rout at the Nahrawan battle and the Wahabis do not belong to them!
-The Sunni said: Why do you think the Khawarij deserved Allah's wrath? was it because of the inadequacy of their prayers and fasting?
-The Wahabi: No!
-The Sunni: Was it then because of their devotion, or recital of the Quran or paying lipservice to the truth?
-The Wahabi: No!
-The Sunni persisted: Why then? Tell me!
-The Wahabi stammered and could not manage a reply.
-The Sunni: There is one and only one reason for incurring Allah's wrath and that is legalizing the slaughter of innocent Muslims and the theft of their possessions after calling them heretics and also whoever makes the claim that he is the only true Muslim. Anyone who commits such deeds and makes such claims deserves the same fate.




A Demonstration that the
Wahhabis are Khawarij


bismillahi'rrahmani'rrahim



As for the Qarniyyun, their land has not been blessed by Allah with any wali or salih since the beginning of Islam down to the present day. Instead, he only gave it the Qarn al-Shaytan ['the Devil's Horn'], whose followers were the Khawarij of the thirteenth and subsequent Islamic centuries. So fear God, and do not be like he who is beguiled by them, and supports their corrupt sect and worthless opinion, and their state of misguidance which was explicitly described by the Prophet (upon whom be blessings and peace), who characterised them as the 'Dogs of the Fire' [kilab al-nar], and informed us that they are the 'worst of all who dwell beneath the sky', and that they 'swerve from the religion as an arrow swerves away from its target,' and that they mouth among the best of sayings in the form of their prattlings about Tawhid, and implementing the Sunna, and combating bid'as - and yet, by Allah, they are drowning in bid'a; in fact, there is no bid'a worse than theirs, which causes them to 'swerve from the religion as an arrow swerves away from its target', in spite of their superficial efforts in worship and adherence to the religion. It is as the Prophet (upon whom be blessings and peace) declared: 'one of you would despise the prayer he says among them, and the fasting he completes with them; they recite Qur'an but it goes no further than their collarbones.'

It is for this reason that he refrained (upon him be blessings and peace) from making du'a for Najd in the way that he had prayed for the Yemen and for Syria, for he said: 'Allahumma bless us in our Yemen; bless us in our Syria' - and they said, 'And in our Najd, o Messenger of Allah?' (upon him be blessings and peace), but he repeated his prayer for the Yemen and for Syria; and they repeated their utterance; until he said, the second or the third time round, in order to explain why he would not pray for Najd:

'That is the place of earthquakes, and fitnas, and from it the Devil's Horn shall rise.' [Narrated by Bukhari.] And nothing has emerged from there to bring about earthquakes and fitnas in the religion like Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who was astray and led others astray. Hence he was the Devil's Horn foretold by the Messenger (upon him be blessings and peace), and he abstained from offering prayer for Najd because of him, and because of the fitnas which would flow from his demonic da'wa. Whoever adheres to that da'wa has committed unambiguous kufr, and is destined for apostasy and 'swerving from the religion', as is visible in the case of the other mulhids [heretical unbelievers] of the age who are notorious for their ilhad, for in every case they began by holding fast to the sect of the Devil's Horn, as is well-known to scholars of experience and insight.

Wa-salla'Llahu 'ala sayyidina Muhammadin wa-'ala alihi wa-sahbihi kullama dhakaru a-dhakirun wa-ghafala 'an dhikrihi al-ghafilun.
wa'l-hamdu li'Llahi rabbi'l-'alamin


This article by a Muslim author, The Salafi Cult. better known as the Khawarij, explains that Wahhabism comes from Saudi Arabia, that its name has been changed to Salafism to keep people from knowing what it is, and then roundly condemns it as khawarij teachings. The article blames the British as the source of the "heresy" of Wahabism/Salafism; I don't buy that for a moment, but the article is nonetheless very interesting.

By the way: reading that article, don't think that it's kooks in the Islamic World condemning "the homicidally absolutist attitudes of the Islamist factions in the Arab world" as Kharijism. Here are three links to information about an article written by no less than the Dean of Islamic Law in Qatar Univeristy condemning Islamic radicalism as Kharijism.

Qatar University Dean Against Fanatic Islamists

Dean of Islamic Law, Qatar University: The fight against terrorism must begin with curricular, educational, and media reform in the Arab world

Dean of Islamic Law, Qatar University: The fight against terrorism must begin with curricular, educational, and media reform in the Arab world

More references:

Khawarij Make Takfeer of Keith Ellison

“Islamist” = “Khawarij”

Modern Khawarij

New Kharijism

Neo-Con Salafis (Saudi-Salafis)

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