“Islamist” = Khawarij
Posted on November 16th, 2006 by Tariq Nelson
Baybers of Austrolabe talks about the failures of the “Islamist” movement. I can sum it up as being too based in canned slogans with no substance.
Meanwhile, The Combating Terrorism Center says that
Filed under: Sloganism over Reality
MEMRI? How relible of a site is that? I’d heard some say that it is not relible, or that it might be biased, though I don’t know.
Have you read the report? It is here in PDF form if you want to:
http://www.ctc.usma.edu/atlas/Atlas-ResearchCompendium.pdf
It should be most interesting to note that George Bush is cited more often than any other person, including Mohammed and Qutb.
The idea that the other saudi salafi scholars can somehow dissuade these SalafiJihadis and convince them that they are wrong is wishful thinking. Anyone who knows these people and their scholars (meaning the so called scholars of the SJs), knows that they save their refined hatred for those saudi salafi scholars. If you go to the website that is the official al-Maqdisi site, look at the section about sects and groups. The largest amount of written material is against the saudi salafis, be they Madkhali (Rabi’ al-Madkhali, Jabiri, Ubaykan, etc), or Sahwi (Salman al-Awdah, Hawali, etc).
These salafis are hated with a passion in the SJ circles. And the reality of the SJs points to the flaws of the salafi da’wah. This is because the SJs are a product of their open call to abandon adherance to one of the four Sunni Madhhabs, and to eschew Taqlid-giving way for independent reasearch and finding out what is the “most correct according to the dalil”, according to a mixed bag of Usul that fits none of the four.
I have found that the best way to give da’wah to the SJs is to focus on Taqlid and Ijtihad, showing the rigorous conditons of being a Mujtahid, especially in the Nawazil (new events).
Once they see that most of their positions are without any precedent, and that unlike what they are told, they are not following the salaf, they will start to see the bankrupcy of their movement.
They are keen to speak of rejecting the Taghut (false deities), of which includes the man made laws that contradict the Shari’ah, but they fail to realize that many of their views are without any precedent, hence becoming Taghuts themselves by adding to the Din of Allah.
The Taliban had such a government, and you are right in your assessent of what would happen.
So, not following a madhhab leads to jihadism? Interesting…
[...] Tariq Nelson Verily, the Reality Broker « “Islamist” = Khawarij [...]
I would suppose you put the words “Islamist” in quotations for a reason, the label is a total oxymoron. We should not endorse that term as it requires that anyone that believes the Sharia should be the law of the land then this person would be an Islamist, as opposed to what…? A “Muslim” who doesn’t believe the Sharia should be the law of the land…? Some people need to go back to Aqeedah 101
I did put the word “Islamist” in quotes for a reason. I saw no need to imply I am calling for complete secularism. Just because one is opposed to the Khawarij does not mean that they are opposed to Islam
Shaikh Muhammad b. Ibraheem (the late Mufti of Saudi Arabia who is succeeded by Shaikh Bin Baz) asserted: “As for that which is described as lesser infidelity, it is when he refers the dispute to other than the Book of Allaah knowing that he is disobeying Allaah by doing so, and that the ruling of Allaah is the truth, and He does it once. Such a person would not be committing major infidelity. As for those who legislate laws and make others obey them, this constitutes infidelity, even if they claim that they made a mistake, and that the laws of Allaah are more just; such is considered as an infidelity which entails apostasy.” [Fatawa ash-Sheik Muhammad b. Ibreheem aal-Ash-Sheik]
By asserting this Sheik Muhammad b. Ibraheem, may Allaah grant him His Mercy, made distinction between the partial ruling of no recurrence, and between the general ruling which is used as reference to all judgments or most of them, and he decided that such infidelity constitutes absolute apostasy. That is because he who discards the Islamic Shar’iah and replaces it with man-made laws, this is a proof that he considers the man-made laws as more appropriate and better than the Shar’iah, which is beyond doubt a major infidelity which constitutes apostasy and contradicts Tawheed (the belief in the Oneness of Allaah).
Shaykh Saleh al-Fouzan
Rasheed, I will also note that these people ironically borrow a large portion of their authortarian ideology from communism and facism. That is ironic because they say that there is no room for human interpretation, yet they borrow so heavily from these non-Muslim sources
adding to what tariq said, Many times they do so unknowingly, quoting from modern sources whose thoughts were formered before becoming “islamist” and carried over into Islam.
Actually it is the the blind following of the madhabs that led to the stagnation of the ummah which in turn has bred these kharijee types. Jihad is part of the deen, not an ideology per se.
The only way that blind following of the madhhabs lead to khariji-types is by the scholars promoting the end of ijtihad being so stagnant in their positions that they ported these positions to real-life decisions such as defending against attacking/colonizing forces, etc. basically becoming complacent. this however was not the case in all lands and at all times. The Sokoto empire is a good example of how this was not the case.
The khariji methodology though has no excuse in the actions of some of these Ulama. Just as their ideological forefathers thought themselves more pious and knowledgable than the Sahabah, they too thought themselves more pious and knowledgble than the entire Ummah, and instead of weighing the Masalih and Mafasid of their actions they took the “ends justify the means” approach to social change. one that dictates for them the permissibility of killing civilians and destroying infrastructure.
Had they consulted the scholars of their time, or at least referred back to the traditionalist texts that they give lip-service to, they would have taken a more holistic view of themselves and the ummah, and applied the principles of Jihad properly.
Instead of viewing themselves as the vanguard and saviors of Islam, who must march the masses to resistance and death, they would have worked for the salvation of the masses and their God-consciousness through guidance and advice, instead of the marxist-esque revolution they envisioned, one that neither has precedence in the sunnah nor any practical benefits to date.
I disagree. The casual disposal of our heritage of following qualified scholarship from within the four madhhabs, and the free for all buffet that the shariah has been exposed to-in the name of following the dalil, has caused not only the appearance of these types of people known as salafi jihadis, but also the modernist movement. They are two sides of the same coin.
Have you ever heard of a Maliki Mufti blowing himself up in a cafe? What about him making a cameo appearance in a beheading video? I think its unlikely.
What im saying is that the salafis are not the best suited to sway their brethren away from this stuff. That is because they all share the same Usul regarding how to take proof and understand taqlid/ijtihad even if their conclusions are different.
I submitted my comment before seeing yours brother Hood. I was disagreeing with what brother Rasheed said.
I agree that many of the salafis dont support these actions we are speaking about, however, according to the Usul of the salafis in general that speaks of independent reasearch reaching ones own conclusions in the name of following the “strongest dalil”, I can prove that their way is correct.
As for the isse of Masalih and Mafasid, they have devoted some research to that topic as well, and attempted to prove their actions through the work of Imam ash-Shatibi and other Usulis (and modernists do the same-sound familiar?).
There research is flawed, but flawed in a subtle way that most common people wouldnt see. So to a common salafi who hears their arguements, the way i see it they either have to:
a. Agree with the texts they bring and smell of ”Ilm” it excudes.
b. Disagree. And since they are just common people, they have no recourse but to do what they blame others for-Taqlid of their scholars. And despite my differences with salafis, I would much rather them make taqlid of Uthaymin, bin baz, etc instead of the trinity of the SJ movement: Abu Qatadah, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, and Abdul Qadir Abdul Aziz.
As-Salaamu ‘alaikum,
I find the denunciations of Osama bin Laden et al by the pro-Saudi “salafis” hypocritical in the extreme, because they all come from the same Wahhabi sect and that sect relied on the Saudis to gain power in the Arabian peninsula, and they did more than their fair share of mass murder when they were invading the Hijaz and other parts of the Peninsula. This is well-documented: the slaughtering was done in the 1920s so that today’s petty activists, the riff-raff who go round London and other western cities calling everything bid’ah and slandering great scholars of Islam, didn’t have to get their hands dirty.
Whatever any other opinions one has on the matter, I haven’t seen anyone object to Irving’s assertion that the Taliban were not followers of the Madhab. It’s well-documented that the Taliban were followers of Hanafi fiqh, if only their own brand.
It’s interesting that darqawi brings up manmade laws that contradict shariah though, since the madhabis seem to have produced or supported any number of these themselves….
The Taliban were just that, students. They were adherants of the hardcore fringe of the Deobandis who were hanafis. That does not mean that the mistakes they made were part of the Hanafi school. In fact, there are many instances where the Deobandis go agaisnt the relied upon positions in the Hanafi madhhad.
As for the man made laws allegedly produced by madhhabis, care to mention any examples?
Its fascinating that some people say that this violent phenomenon results from not following a school, some say it is because of following a school, others say its from modernity. The Prophet said, “ad-deen yusr” and we have verses in the Quran about Allah not burdedning souls. However, almost every example we have of conptemporary Islamist governments are bad examples: sin is only pushed underground and sometimes even increases; people rebel outwardly and inwardly; the governments achieve very little other than enforcing the most superficial aspects of being Muslim such as clothing and other public and even in-home behaviors. In short, contemporary Islamist governments do not seem to be good for either the people or for the worship of Allah (I would say “Islam” but people have a tendency these days for saying such things as “Islam says…” as if Islam were the object of worship). In short, they have not achieved “adl” and “ihsan”.
Allow me to propose that there is something quite wrong here. Perhaps the problem is that religion has become coercion. The state now enforces prayer, fasting and other things that the worshipper must do voluntarily. The state invades homes and controls almost every aspect of behavior, something both Islamist governments and the nationalist regimes do.
People beleive that Islamic government is the norm, but it has not been. Exactly how were the Umayyads Islamic? The Abbasids? The Seljuks, the Ottomans, the Jawi sultanates, the Sokoto Empire? These were ruled by secular sultans who were not Islamic scholars and the mode of government largely followed the people’s cultural models. **The scholars were largely critics and confirmers of the sultans’ and peoples’ actions, not the originators of those actions!** So, this whole idea that the state should strictly enforce shariah is something that does not seem to have ever been successfully accomplished by people other than the Prophet.
DA you took the words right out of my mouth the Taliban are strict hanifis yet they too are now participating in “marterdom operations”, and no one here is saying we should disregard the madhahib what we are saying is that TAQLEED led to stagnation. No one is saying there should be unrestricted Ijtihad what we are saying is there needs to be a return for people to get to the leve of Ijtihad so the ummah can deal with the new challenges of a changing world.
Yusuf it is time we as Muslims bury the hatchet and start moving forward and getting rid of partisan politics.
It’s not taqleed of the madhabs that is the problem, but a pervasive ignorance of fiqh (particularly within some contemporary Salafi groups that have traditionally exalted the muhaditheen over the fuqaha). This goes to the heart of both extremes of contemporary Salafiism — the super-salafi bi’da police that Yusuf alludes to and the extremist takfiri/jihadi strains. Whereas the former’s ignorance of fiqh led them into an ideological cul de sac where they ended up cannibalising their own movement, the latter’s ignorance led them to all sorts of strange positions such as permitting the murder of children or advancing the idea of ‘istihlal al-furuj’ (don’t ask if you don’t know) in Western societies.
Perhaps the discarding of traditional jurists occured because the conquest of almost the entire Muslim world by Europe occured under the jurists’ era, and they showed an almost total inability to succeed in stopping it. So, people looked for other things and discarded what showed itself to be unsustainable when it was put under real pressure by outsiders. Its too bad for Muslim countries that in the post-colonial era, the Salafi-Jihadists have brought Western military forces back after they left…
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