EARLY HERESIES IN ISLAM – An Introduction
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Beneficent. All praise belongs to Allah the Lord of the worlds. Blessings and peace upon the Elect One in all creation, the Beloved Intercessor, our Master Muhammad, and upon his Family and Companions.
Allah has made Islam the Perfect Religion. He said: “Today I have perfected your Religion for you.” (5:3) He has decreed that it shall be preserved intact until the end of time: “It is We Who sent down the Remembrance and it is We Who will certainly preserve it.” (15:9) To this end He has created for the Seal of Prophets – after whom there is no prophet – a following of rightly-guided successors and truthful inheritors. He has named them: “Those who are firmly established in knowledge” (3:7) and has elevated them in degree above the ignorant and the transgressors by saying: “Are those who know and those who do not know equal?” (39:9) “Allah will exalt those who believe among you, and those who have knowledge, to high ranks.” (58:11)
ALLAH’S VICTORIOUS GROUP AND THE ENEMIES OF TRUTH
Allah has made those inheritors of Prophetic knowledge the means whereby He guards His Remembrance and His Religion from manipulation and change forever, as the Prophet (saw) said: “There shall not cease to be a group in my Community who shall have the upper hand and stand for truth until the end of time.” [1] He declared them invulnerable to the wrong of their enemies when he said, in another narration: “That group shall remain in charge of Allah’s Order, unharmed by those who oppose them, until the coming of Allah’s order.” [2] In the chapter of his Sahih in which he cites this hadith, Imam Bukhari states: “These are the People of Knowledge.”
Allah proclaimed for His Friends (awliya’) protection from fear and grief when He said: “Allah’s Friends! Truly no fear shall there be for them, nor shall they grieve.” (10:62) The assembly of those Friends of Allah are the elite of the true adherents of Islam in its pristine purity, known today, as in former times, as “Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama`a” or the “People of the Way of the Prophet (saw) and the Congregation of his Companions (ra).” In their ranks are found the truthful saints (al-siddiqin), the martyrs (al-shuhada’), the righteous (al-salihin), the Substitutes (al-abdal), and the great imams of scholarly endeavor (ijtihad). These are the Victorious Group mentioned by the Prophet in the hadith cited above.
It was the task of these Friends of Allah in every age to repel from His Religion the harm of those who would hijack it by means of innovated beliefs and deviant doctrines, as we were warned that this would happen by the hadith of the Prophet (saw): ” My Community shall divide into seventy-three sects, all of them in the Fire except one: those that cling to my Sunnah and that of my rightly-guided successors after me.” [3] The division he spoke of is in the foundations of belief, not in the branches of the Law, since the latter was described by the authorities as a blessing. [4] This struggle was explicitly mentioned in the hadith: ” Verily, Allah has, for every innovation plotted against Islam, a Friend (wali) to defend it and say its proofs.” [5]
Thus in the first century, the Companions (ra) of the Prophet (saw) refuted the proponents of determinism, or necessitarianism, or predestinarianism, or fatalism known as the “Jabriyya,” then those who indefinitely postponed the affirmation that major sins were punishable, known as “Postponers” or “Murji’a,” and the proponents of absolute free will, or libertarianism, known as the “Qadariyya.” They also fought those who would remove or add something in the fundamentals of the Religion such as the deniers of the Purification-Tax (al-zakat), the followers of the pseudo-prophet Musaylima, and the multifarious sects of “Separatists” or “Khawarij” who considered themselves the holiest of people and the only true Muslims in creation. [6]
In the following centuries the scholars of Ahl al-Sunna also faced down the innovations of the sect of Jahm ibn Safwan or “Jahmiyya,” those of the proponents of rationalism known as the “Isolationists” or “Mu`tazila,” both of which groups incorporated the doctrine of pure free will as well as those of the vilifiers of the Companions (ra), who came to be known as the “Rejectionists” or “Rawafid.” With those sects came that of the “Visceralists,” or “Stuffers,” or “Crammers” known as the “Hashwiyya,” who attributed corporal attributes to the Lord of the worlds and declared Prophets (as) able to openly and intentionally commit great sins (al-kaba’ir). They are also known as “Those who attribute a body to Allah” or “Mujassima,” and “Those who liken Allah to creation” or “Mushabbiha.”
THE JABRIYYA AND MURJI’A
Al-Qurtubi wrote in his commentary of the verse “Those are a people who have passed away. Theirs is that which they have earned, and yours is that which you earn. And you will not be asked of what they used to do.”(2:134):
“Together with a human being’s action was created his ‘capacity to act’ (qudra), through which one comprehends the difference between a deliberate movement and mere reflex (haraka al-ra`sha), for instance. The Jabriyya hold that a human being does not earn anything [by his acts] and that he is like vegetation of which the wind disposes. The Qadariyya and Mu`tazila hold the opposite of these two positions and say that a human being creates his own acts.”
In his commentary of the verse “And hold fast, all of you together, to Allah’s rope, and do not separate into factions” (3:103), he wrote:
“The Jabriyya’s twelve sects respectively hold the following beliefs: ‘No act is the doing of human beings. Allah does everything.’ ‘We do perform acts but have no actual capacity (istita`a) of our own to do them; we are like dumb beasts led by a rope.’ ‘Everything has been created, and nothing is created anymore.’ ‘Allah punishes people for His own acts, not theirs.’ ‘Follow whatever comes to your heart, and do what you deem beneficent.’ ‘A human being earns neither reward nor punishment.’ ‘Whoever wishes to act, let him act; the felicitous one is not harmed by his sins, and the wretched one is not helped by his piety.’ ‘Whoever drinks the cup of Allah’s love is no longer obliged to worship with his limbs.’ ‘Whoever loves Allah no longer fears Him, as the lover does not fear his beloved.’ ‘Whoever increases in knowledge is exempted from worshipping in proportion to it.’ ‘The world belongs equally to all human beings. There is no precedence among them in their father Adam’s inheritance.’ ‘Acts proceed from us and we have the capacity to perform them.’ [In contradiction to the first two tenets above.]”
The Jabriyya are identified as the Murji’a themselves in the hadith: “Two groups of my Community have nothing to do with Islam: the Murji’a and the Qadariyya.”[7]
Al-Mubarakfuri in his Tuhfat al-Ahwadhi (6:302) mentioned the following explanation by al-Tibi:
“The truth is that the Murji’a [in this hadith] are the Jabriyya, who hold that the attribution of an act to a human being is like its attribution to an inanimate object. They were thus named because they ‘postpone’ Allah’s commands and His prohibitions so as not to depend upon them, and so they allow themselves to commit grave sins. They exaggerate [Allah’s Decree] while the Qadariyya neglect [it]. The truth is between the two.”
THE QADARIYYA AND MU`TAZILA
Al-Suyuti succintly defined Qadari doctrine as “the claim that evil is created by human beings.”[8] Ibn Abi Ya`la relates the following description of the Qadariyya: “They are those who claim that they possess in full the capacity to act (al-istita`a), free will (al-mashiyy’a), and effective power (al-qudra). They consider that they hold in their grasp the ability to do good and evil, avoid harm and obtain benefit, obey and disobey, and be guided or misguided. They claim that human beings retain full initiative, without any priority in Allah’s will for their acts, nor even in His knowledge of them. Their doctrine is similar to that of Zoroastrians and Christians. That is the very root of heresy.”[9]
The Qadariyya or “Libertarians” are little different from the rationalists known as the Mu`tazila or “Isolationists” and both are traced back to the same founder, `Amr ibn `Ubayd Abu `Uthman al-Basri (d. ~144), who walked out of the teaching circle of al-Hasan al-Basri and “isolated” himself. Al-Dhahabi introduces him as “the ascetic (al-zahid), the devout (al-`abid), the Qadari, the elder of the Mu`tazila and the first of them.”[10] He returned onto the Ahl al-Sunna the label of Qadariyya –in the opposite sense of those who over-emphasize Allah’s Decree –in a book entitled al-Radd `ala al-Qadariyya.
The status of Qadaris in the eyes of Ahl al-Sunna varied. Al-Subki spoke of “a difference of opinion concerning the apostasy (takfir) of the Qadariyya.”[11] Ibn Abi Hatim in the introduction to his al-Jarh wa al-Ta`dil (1:373) relates that Ibn al-Mubarak stopped narrating from `Amr ibn `Ubayd because “he used to propagate the doctrine of absolute free will.” Al-Dhahabi refuses to call `Amr a disbeliever,[12] although some early sources such as Ibn Abi `Asim’s (d. 287) al-Sunna, al-Ajurri’s (d. 360) al-Shari`a and Ibn Batta’s (d. 387) al-Ibana relate that the Qadariyya were held so by Ibn `Abbas, Mujahid, `Umar ibn `Abd al-`Aziz, Malik ibn Anas, Ibn al-Mubarak, Sufyan al-Thawri, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal among others.
The fact is that Sufyan al-Thawri, Ibn al-Mubarak, and Ahmad all narrated from Qadaris, such as Thawr ibn Yazid, Dawud ibn al-Husayn, Zakariyya ibn Ishaq, Dawud al-Dastuwa’i and others, all of which are also among Bukhari and Muslim’s narrators as shown by Suyuti’s list of Qadaris in the two books of Sahih in his Tadrib (1:389). These narrators could never have been retained if the imams had considered them disbelievers. However, the verdict of apostasy is true from Imam Malik who did not narrate from a single Qadari in his Muwatta‘. Malik held that they should be killed unless they repented, and the narrations reporting his position of takfeer of the Qadariyya are sound.[13]
Imam al-Nawawi gave the following explanations of the belief in Allah’s Decree in his Commentary on the Forty Hadiths:
The way of the People of Truth is to firmly believe in Allah’s Decree. The meaning of this is that Allah has decreed matters from pre-eternity and that He knows that they shall take place at times known to Him and at places known to Him; and they do occur exactly according to what He has decreed.
Know that there are four kinds of decrees:
(a) The Decree in the Divine Foreknowledge. It is said concerning it: Care (`inaya) before friendship (wilaya), pleasure before childbirth, and continual harvest from first-fruits. Allah the Exalted said: “He is made to turn away from it who has been made to turn away” (51:9). In other words, one is turned away from hearing the Qur’an and from believing in this life who was driven from them in pre-eternity. Allah’s Messenger said: “Allah does not destroy except one who is already destroyed.”[14]
(b) The Decree in the Preserved Tablet. Such Decree may be changed. Allah said: “Allah erases what He will, and He consolidates what He will, and with Him is the Mother of the Book” (13:39). We know that Ibn `Umar used to say in his supplications: “O Allah, if You have foreordained hardship for me, erase it and write felicity for me.”
(c) The Decree in the womb concerning which the angel is ordered to foreordain one’s sustenance, term of life, and whether he shall be unfortunate or prosperous.
(d) The Decree which consists in joining specific forewritten matters to the appointed times in which they are to befall, for Allah the Exalted has created both good and evil and has ordained that they should befall His servant at times appointed by Him.
The evidence that Allah Almighty created both good and evil is His saying: “The guilty are in error and madness. On the day they are dragged to the fire on their faces, they will be told: ‘Taste the touch of hell.’ Lo! We created every thing with proportion and measure (qadar)” (54:47-49). That verse was revealed concerning the proponents of absolute free will or Qadariyya who were thus told: “That belief of yours is in hellfire.”
As further evidence of what has been decreed the Exalted said: “Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of the Cleaving from the evil of what He has created” (113:1). The reading of that oath at the time something good befalls Allah’s servant will repel (foreordained) evil before it reaches him. There is also in the hadith that good deeds and upholding family ties repel a bad death and eventually turn it into a good one.[15] Also, “Supplication (al-du`a) and affliction (al-bala‘) are suspended between heaven and earth, vying, and supplication repels affliction before the latter is able to come down.”[16]
The Mu`tazila claimed that Allah the Exalted has not foreordained matters, that His knowledge does not precede them, that they begin to exist only when they occur and that He knows them only at that time. They lied concerning Allah. Exalted is He above their falsehoods, and higher yet. They went into oblivion.
Now the latter-day Qadariyya say that the good is from Allah while the bad is from other than Him. Allah is also Exalted high above such a statement. In a sound hadith the Prophet said: “The Qadariyya are the Zoroastrians of this Community.”[17] He named them Zoroastrians because their school of thought resembles that of Zoroastrian dualism. The Dualists claim that good is effected by light and evil by darkness, and thus earned their name. Similarly the proponents of free will ascribe the good to Allah and the bad to other than Him, whereas He is the creator of both good and evil.
The Imam of the Two Sanctuaries said in his Kitab al-Irshad that some of the Qadariyya said: “It is not we but you (Ahl al-Sunna) who are the Qadariyya because of your belief in the so-called Decree.” Al-Juwayni answered these ignoramuses that they had ascribed the power of decree to themselves, and whoever claimed, for example, the power of evil and ascribed it to himself, he has earned its label, rather than one who ascribes it to other than himself and denies any authorship of it.[18]
THE JAHMIYYA
The Jahmiyya are the followers of Jahm ibn Safwan Abu Muhriz al-Rasibi al-Samarqandi or al-Khazari or al-Tirmidhi (d. 128). Bukhari narrated in the first chapter of his Khalq Af`al al-`Ibad that Jahm once came out of his house saying: “Allah is the wind and everything else.” Ibn Hajar in the introduction of Fath al-Bari defined his sect as: “Those who deny Allah’s attributes which the Book and the Sunna affirm, and who say that the Qur’an is created.” Ibn Kathir states that Jahm’s teacher in Kufa was al-Ja`d ibn Dirham, who was the first to say that the Qur’an was created, and that Jahm’s student was Bishr al-Marisi: “To him [Jahm] are ascribed the Jahmis, who claim that Allah is in every place in His Essence.” Ibn `Asakir and others traced the genealogy of Jahm’s doctrine thus: Jahm ibn Safwan < Ja`d ibn Dirham < Bayan ibn Sam`an < Talut – the nephew and son-in-law of Labid ibn A`sam, who once cast a spell on the Prophet (saw). [19]
Al-Ash`ari described them as follows:
The Jahmiyya claimed that disbelief in Allah (al-kufr billah) is but ignorance of Allah. This doctrine is attributed to Jahm ibn Safwan. The Jahmiyya claimed that if a person receives knowledge, then disavows it with his tongue, he does not commit disbelief with such a disavowal. They claim that belief (eeman) is indivisible and that its subscribers are all in one-and-the-same category. They claim that belief and disbelief can only be in the heart at the exclusion of any other member of the body … What Jahm alone said is that Paradise and the Fire shall pass away and become extinct; that belief is only knowledge of Allah and nothing else; that disbelief is but ignorance of Allah and nothing else; that no act is anyone’s doing in reality, other than Allah’s alone, and that it is His doing. [This is the core of the belief of the Jabriyya] … Jahm used to profess the ordering of good and the forbidding of indecency … He used to say that Allah’s knowledge is brought to be (muhdath). This is what they related from him. He also used to say that theQur’an is created and that it must not be said that Allah has always been cognizant of things before they take place. [This is also what the Qadariyya and Mu`tazila professed.] [20]
The Jahmiyya were considered to be disbelievers, and it is related that al-Bukhari said: “I hold as ignorant whoever does not declare the Jahmiyya to be disbelievers.” This was also the Hanbali position as shown in many places of Ibn Abi Ya`la’s Tabaqat al-Hanabila and the books of `Abd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Abu Bakr al-Khallal, and `Uthman Abu Sa`id al-Darimi. Ibn Abi Ya`la relates from the Hanbali Abu Muhammad al-Barbahari:
1. Some of the scholars, among them Ahmad ibn Hanbal, said that the Jahmi is a disbeliever (al-Jahmie kafir), he is not of the People of the Qibla, and his blood is licit to shed. He neither inherits nor is inherited-from. This is because they say that there is no jum`a prayer, nor congregational (jama`a) prayer, nor `Eid prayer; they say that whoever does not say that the Qur’an is created is a disbeliever; they consider licit the use of the sword against the Community of the Prophet (saw); they contravene all those who came before them; they investigate people with something which the Prophet (saw) never said, nor any of his Companions (ra); they try to close down mosques, humiliate Islam, and get rid of jihad; they strive toward disunity; they contradict the narrations of the Prophet (saw) and the Companions (ra); they speak on the basis of abrogated (mansukh) texts; they use ambiguous (mutashabih) texts as proofs; they instill doubt in the people concerning their Religion; they argue concerning their Lord [i.e., they deny His Attributes]; they say that there is no punishment in the grave, nor Basin (hawd), nor intercession, and that neither Paradise nor the Fire are yet created; and they deny much of what the Prophet (saw) said. [21]
THE HASHWIYYA, MUJASSIMA, AND MUSHABBIHA
Ibn `Asakir states in Tabyin Kadhib al-Muftari (p. 150-151): “The Hashwiyya and Mujassima said that Allah is materialized (hallun) over the Throne, that the Throne is His place, and that He sits on it.. . . The Mushabbiha and Hashwiyya said: Descent is the descent of His person (dhat) together with movement (haraka) and displacement (intiqal), and istiwa’ is [His] sitting on the Throne and indwelling on top of it.”
In his Sharh Mukhtasar Ibn al-Hajib al-Subki describes them thus:
The Hashwiyya are a group who deviated from the right path in their blindness. They take Allah’s verses purely in their literal sense (yujrun ayat Allah `ala zahiriha), believing that is their intended meaning (murad). They were named thus because Hasan al-Basri found some of them in his circle (halqa) holding unseemly speech, so he ordered for them to be moved to the bowels or belly (hasha) of the circle. In that sense they are the Hashawiyya or ‘Visceralists.’ It was also said that they were named thus because they are among, or actually are, the mujassima — those who ascribe a body to Allah. In that sense they are associated to ‘stuffing’ (hashw) and are called the Hashwiyya or ‘Crammers.'[22]
Of note in relation to the above literal elucidations of the name Hashwiyya is the explanation of the divine Attribute al-Samad, “The Everlasting Sovereign” given by several imams of tafsir and major Tabi`in as al-ladhi la jawfa lahu or “He who does not possess an inside.”[23] This meaning is mentioned by Bayhaqi.[24]
Al-Zabidi (d. 1205) in Taj al-`Arus identifies the Hashwiyya merely as “a group of innovators.” Al-Munawi in his commentary on the hadith: “The angels do not enter a house in which there is a dog” in Fayd al-Qadir said: “One who takes externals exclusively is a Hashwi, and one who takes secret meanings exclusively is a Batini (esotericist).” While Ibn Qutayba (d. 276) in his Mukhtalif al-Hadith (1326H ed. p. 96) states of the scholars of hadith who collect narrations without pausing to understand what they write: “Some have called them the Hashwiyya.” He avers that there is no mention of that term in the hadith, however, it is narrated from Sahl ibn Sa`d al-Sa`idi by al-Tabarani in al-Awsat that the Prophet said: “Every Community has its Zoroastrians, and every Community has its Jews, and every Community has its Christians. The Zoroastrians of my Community are the Qadariyya, its Christians are the Hashwiyya, and its Jews are the Murji’a.”[25]
Taj al-Din al-Subki assimilates them to those who declare dialectic theology (kalam) an innovation and base belief on imitation (taqleed).[26] He quotes Ibn Jahbal’s (d. 733) observation: “That party does not deem sufficient the belief (Iman) of people except if they believe that Allah lies in a specific direction (jiha).”[27]
Al-Subki also relates that the Hashwiyya, unable to answer Imam Fakhr al-Din al-Razi’s (d. 606) arguments against them, resorted to writing ugly remarks and insinuations on scraps of paper and attaching them to the pulpit from which he gave the Friday sermon. He arrived one day and read one of these, and then spoke to those present in an impassioned voice, saying:
This piece of paper says that my son does such and such. If it is true, he is but a youth and I hope he will repent. It also says that my wife does such and such. If it is true, she is a faithless woman. And it says that my servant does such and such. Servants are wont to commit every wrong, except for those Allah protects. But on none of these scraps of paper — and may Allah be praised! — is it written that my son says Allah is a corporeal body, or that he likens Him to created things, or that my wife believes that, or my servant — So which of the two groups is closer to guidance?”[28]
The following two doctrines are also related from the Hashwiyya:
(a) According to some of the Hashwiyya, the Prophet was a disbeliever (kafir) before his prophethood on the basis of the verses: “Did He not find you wandering and direct you?” (93:7), “Before this, you were among the heedless” (12:3), and “You knew not what the Scripture was, nor what was the Faith” (42:52). This is stated in Fakhr al-Din al-Razi’s al-Tafsir al-Kabir under the verses cited. Their claim was rejected by the scholars as there is consensus, apart from the Hashwiyya, whereby the Prophet was made immune to sin (ma`sum) both before and after prophethood in the light of the verse “Your companion errs not, nor is deceived” (53:2).[29] Note that this belief of the Hashwiyya remains a staple of diehard Orientalist historians to the present day.[30]
(b) The Hashwiyya hold, like Jews and Christians, that it is possible for Prophets to intentionally commit all sorts of major and minor sins after prophethood. Some of them specified “openly,” others, “secretly.”[31] This claim was also rejected by the vast majority of the scholars (al-jumhur) on the basis of the consensus of the Predecessors (ijma` al-salaf) whereby it is impossible for Prophets to deliberately commit major sins or contemptible minor ones (al-saghuEEra al-khasuEEsa).[32]
The Jahmiyya are the followers of Jahm ibn Safwan Abu Muhriz al-Rasibi al-Samarqandi or al-Khazari or al-Tirmidhi (d. 128). Bukhari narrated in the first chapter of his “Khalq Af`al al-`Ibad” that Jahm once came out of his house saying: “Allah is the wind and everything else.” Ibn Hajar in the introduction of “Fath al-Bari” defined his sect as: “Those who deny Allah’s attributes which the Book and the Sunna affirm, and who say that the Qur’an is created.” Ibn Kathir states that Jahm’s teacher in Kufa was al-Ja`d ibn Dirham, who was the first to say that the Qur’an was created, and that Jahm’s student was Bishr al-Marisi: “To him [Jahm] are ascribed the Jahmis, who claim that Allah is in every place in His Essence.” Ibn `Asakir and others traced the genealogy of Jahm’s doctrine thus: Jahm ibn Safwan < Ja`d ibn Dirham < Bayan ibn Sam`an < Talut – the nephew and son-in-law of Labid ibn A`sam, who once cast a spell on the Prophet (saw). [19]
Al-Ash`ari described them as follows:
The Jahmiyya claimed that disbelief in Allah (al-kufr billah) is but ignorance of Allah. This doctrine is attributed to Jahm ibn Safwan. The Jahmiyya claimed that if a person receives knowledge, then disavows it with his tongue, he does not commit disbelief with such a disavowal. They claim that belief (eeman) is indivisible and that its subscribers are all in one-and-the-same category. They claim that belief and disbelief can only be in the heart at the exclusion of any other member of the body … What Jahm alone said is that Paradise and the Fire shall pass away and become extinct; that belief is only knowledge of Allah and nothing else; that disbelief is but ignorance of Allah and nothing else; that no act is anyone’s doing in reality, other than Allah’s alone, and that it is His doing. [This is the core of the belief of the Jabriyya] … Jahm used to profess the ordering of good and the forbidding of indecency … He used to say that Allah’s knowledge is brought to be (muhdath). This is what they related from him. He also used to say that theQur’an is created and that it must not be said that Allah has always been cognizant of things before they take place. [This is also what the Qadariyya and Mu`tazila professed.] [20]
The Jahmiyya were considered to be disbelievers, and it is related that al-Bukhari said: “I hold as ignorant whoever does not declare the Jahmiyya to be disbelievers.” This was also the Hanbali position as shown in many places of Ibn Abi Ya`la’s “Tabaqat al-Hanabila” and the books of `Abd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Abu Bakr al-Khallal, and `Uthman Abu Sa`id al-Darimi. Ibn Abi Ya`la relates from the Hanbali Abu Muhammad al-Barbahari:
1. Some of the scholars, among them Ahmad ibn Hanbal, said that the Jahmi is a disbeliever (al-Jahmee kafir), he is not of the People of the Qibla, and his blood is licit to shed. He neither inherits nor is inherited-from. This is because they say that there is no jum`a prayer, nor congregational (jama`a) prayer, nor `Eid prayer; they say that whoever does not say that the Qur’an is created is a disbeliever; they consider licit the use of the sword against the Community of the Prophet (saw); they contravene all those who came before them; they investigate people with something which the Prophet (saw) never said, nor any of his Companions (ra); they try to close down mosques, humiliate Islam, and get rid of jihad; they strive toward disunity; they contradict the narrations of the Prophet (saw) and the Companions (ra); they speak on the basis of abrogated (mansukh) texts; they use ambiguous (mutashabih) texts as proofs; they instill doubt in the people concerning their Religion; they argue concerning their Lord [i.e., they deny His Attributes]; they say that there is no punishment in the grave, nor Basin (hawd), nor intercession, and that neither Paradise nor the Fire are yet created; and they deny much of what the Prophet (saw) said. [21]
NOTES
[1] Narrated from `Umar (ra) by al-Tabarani in “al-Kabir” with a sound (sahih) chain as indicated by al-Haythami in “Majma` al-Zawa’id.” Muslim narrates it from Jabir ibn `Abd Allah thus: “There shall not cease to be a group in my Community who shall fight, standing for truth, and have the upperhand until the end of time.”
[2] Narrated from Mu`awiya (ra) by Bukhari and Muslim. The complete narration states: “He for whom Allah desires great good, He grants him the understanding of Religion. I only distribute and it is Allah Who gives. That group shall remain in charge of Allah’s Order, unharmed by those who oppose them, until the coming of Allah’s order.” The scholars have explained that the first order in the hadith is “Allah’s Law and Religion,” while the
second is the “Day of Resurrection and Judgment.”
[3] A sound (sahih) hadith related with various wordings by al-Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud, Ibn Majah, Ibn Hibban, al-
Hakim, al-Darimi, and others.
[4] As related from al-Qasim ibn Muhammad and `Umar ibn `Abd al-`Aziz (ra) by Bayhaqi in “al-Madkhal,” and
from Malik (ra) by Ibn al-Athir in the introduction to his “Jami` al-Usul.”
[5] Narrated from Abu Hurayra (ra) by Abu Nu`aym in “Hilya al-Awliya'” (10:434) and Ibn `Asakir in the “Tabyin” (pp. 104-105). Al-`Ajluni cites it in the introduction of “Kashf al-Khafa’” and al-Suyuti indicated that it was a sound (sahih) narration in “al-Jami` al-Saghir.” The rest of the hadith states: “Therefore, take advantage of these
gatherings in defending the weak, and rely on Allah, and Allah is enough to rely upon.”
[6] See the description of the Khawarij in the biographical notice on `Ali ibn Abi Talib (ra).
[7] A weak narration from Ibn `Abbas (ra) by Tirmidhi (hasan ghareeb; in some copies ghareeb) and Ibn Majah; from Jabir (ra) by Ibn Majah; from Ibn `Umar (ra) by al-Khatib; and from Abu Sa`id (ra) by Tabarani in “al-Awsat. Al-Munawi” said in “Fayd al-Qadir” that al-`Ala’i said: “The truth is that this narration is weak (da`eef) but not forged (mawdu`).” There is also a hadith from Ibn `Abbas (ra) mentioned by al-Rafi`i; see Ibn Hajar’s “Talkhis al-Habir” whereby the Prophet (saw) said: “The Jews of my Community are the Murji’a,” then he recited: “But those who did wrong changed the word which had been told them for another saying.” (2:59, 7:162) Al-Silafi mentions part of it within a longer narration in “Intikhab Hadith al-Qurra.’”
[8] In Tadrib al-Rawi (1:389).
[9] In Tabaqat al-Hanabila (1:32) in the entry of Ahmad ibn Ja`far al-Istakhri.
[10] Siyar A`lam al-Nubala’ (6:330 #858).
[11] Tabaqat al-Shafi`iyya al-Kubra (2:277).
[12] In Mizan al-I`tidal (3:280).
[13] See Ibn Abi `Asim, al-Sunna (p. 87-88 #197-199) and al-Dhahabi, Siyar (7:415).
[14] Narrated from Ibn `Abbas and Abu Hurayra by Bukhari and Muslim: “None perishes with Allah except he who is bound for destruction.” Ibn Hajar said in Fath al-Bari (book of Riqaq, Chapter 31 #6491): “That is, he who is adamant in clinging to evil in his resolve, his speech, and his deed, and avoids good by design, speech, and deed.”
[15] The following hadiths are related from the Prophet: “In truth, charity (al-sadaqa) certainly extinguishes the Lord’s anger and repels a bad death.” Narrated from Anas with a weak chain by Tirmidhi, who said it is a single-narrated (gharEEb) hadith as he related it. Also: “Verily, because of charity and keeping uterine family ties Allah increases life, repels a bad death, and repels all kinds of evils.” Narrated from by Abu Ya`la al-Musili in his Musnad. Also: “Keeping family ties and good manners builds up one’s house and increases life.” Narrated from `A’isha by Ahmad in his Musnad.
[16] Something similar is authentically related from the Prophet by the following: Ibn Majah in the introduction to his Sunan (Muqaddima #10, hadith on qadar from Thawban) and the book of Fitan (#66); Tirmidhi in his Sunan (Witr #21, Qadar #6); Ahmad, with three chains in the Musnad; and Ibn Hibban in his Sahih.
[17] A nearly-mass-narrated (mashhur) hadith narrated from eight Companions by Abu Dawud, Tabarani, al-Hakim in al-Mustadrak (1:85), Ahmad in the Musnad, Bayhaqi, al-Bazzar, Bukhari in his Tarikh, al-Lalika’i, Ibn `Asakir, and others. Also established as authentic is the longer version narrated from Ibn `Umar whereby the Prophet said: “Every Community has its Zoroastrians, and the Zoroastrians of my Community are those who say there is no Decree (qadar). If they fall sick do not visit them, and if they die do not pray over them.” Al-Qari cited five others hadiths against them in his commentary of Abu Hanifa’s Musnad.
[18] See al-Juwayni’s al-Irshad ila Qawati` al-Adilla fi Usul al-I`tiqad (“The Guidance to the Definitive Proofs Concerning the Foundations of Belief”), chapter entitled “The Blame of the Qadariyya” (p. 224-225).
[19] Ibn Kathir, “al-Bidaya wa al-Nihaya” (9:382, 10:21).
[20] Al-Ash`ari, “Maqalat al-Islamiyyin wa Ikhtilaf al-Musallin” (“The Discourses of the Proponents of Islam and the Differences Among the Worshippers”) (1:214, 338).
[21] Abu Muhammad al-Barbahari, “Sharh Kitab al-Sunna,” in Ibn Abi Ya`la’s “Tabaqat al-Hanabila” (2:30).
[22] As quoted in Hujjiyyat al-Sunna (p. 110).
[23] This is related with fair (hasan) or sound (sahuEEh) chains by Ibn Abi `Asim in his Kitab al-Sunna from `Ikrima (p. 299 #667), Mujahid (p. 300 #673-675), al-Hasan al-Basri (p. 301 #680), al-Sha`bi (p. 302 #682-683), Sa`id ibn Jubayr (p. 302 #685-686), al-Dahhak ibn Muzahim (p. 303 #688-689), and with weak chains from Ibn `Abbas (p. 299 # 665) and from the Prophet through Burayda in Tabarani.
[24] See the section entitled “Allah’s Speech” of al-Bayhaqi’s al-Asma’ wa al-Sifat, translation forthcoming.
[25] Al-Haythami in Majma` al-Zawa’id said: “Its chain contains Yahya ibn Sabiq who is weak.”
[26] In Tabaqat al-Shafi`iyya al-Kubra (3:421-422).
[27] Op. cit. (9:39).
[28] Op. cit. (8:89) as translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller in Reliance of the Traveller (p. 1046).
[29] Consensus is reported in Razi’s Muhsal Afkar al-Mutaqaddimin wa al-Muta’akhkhirin (p. 160-161) and al-Tafsir al-Kabir (7:506, 8:451-452), Abu Muhammad al-Bataliusi’s (d. 521) al-Insaf fi al-Tanbih `ala al-Asbab al-Lati Awjabat al-Ikhtilaf (“Equity in Signalling the Causes Which Necessitate Disagreement”) p. 71-74, Muhammad `Abduh’s Tafsir Juz’ `Amma (p. 110-112), and others such as al-Qadi `Iyad (d. 544) in al-Shifa’, al-Qastallani (d. 923) in al-Mawahib al-Laduniyya, and Shaykh Muhammad ibn `Alawi al-Maliki in Muhammad al-Insan al-Kamil (“Muhammad the Perfect Human Being”).
[30] Cf. F.E. Peters’ book on the Prophet and what he named “The Quest for the Historical Muhammad.”
[31] This is reported in al-Razi’s `Isma al-Anbiya’ (“The Immunity of Prophets” p. 27), al-Sharif al-Murtada’s Tanzih al-Anbiya’ (“The Sanctification of Prophets” p. 2-3) and in Sharh al-Maqasid (2:142).
[32] See al-Qadi `Iyad’s al-Shifa’ (2:137-139), al-Razi’s al-Muhassal (p. 161) and `Isma al-Anbiya’, al-Iji’s (d. 756) al-Mawaqif (p. 359), and Sharh al-Mawaqif (3:205).
Peace and Blessings upon the Prophet, his Family, and his Companions
