A Treasury of Ibn Taymiyyah by Mustapha Sheikh

Author:Mustapha Sheikh [Sheikh, Mustapha]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781847741035
Google: 3ZEtvgAACAAJ
Publisher: Kube Publishing Limited
Published: 2017-03-30T23:25:33.168950+00:00

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30. Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 28: 63.

18

Takfir

It is not permissible to call a Muslim an ‘unbeliever’, neither for a sin which he has committed nor for anything about which he was in error, such as questions about which the People of the Qiblah dispute.31

Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah, in contradistinction to claims made by his detractors, was vehemently against excommunication, takfīr, of co-religionists. In this statement, he expressly mentions the impermissibility of excommunicating someone for a sin—here he refutes the judgementalism of the Khawārij. Notwithstanding that, Shaykh al-Islām, like generations of theologians before him, was cognisant of the inextricable relationship between excommunication and orthodoxy. But what is abundantly clear from his many fatwas and epistles is that he had a systematic approach to takfīr, whether it be for a major issue such as disbelief (kufr) or a minor issue such as a sin (fisq). He would also regularly substantiate the canons of excommunication with legal maxims, such as the rule, ‘No one has the right to excommunicate any Muslim until proof can be verified against him; if a person’s Islam has been established with certainty, then it should not be disclaimed for mere doubt’ (Majamūʿ al-fatāwā, 2: 466).

Shaykh al-Islām arguably articulated those issues which guard against excommunication more succinctly than many other theologians. Among the things which present a barrier to excommunication, according to him, are: recent conversion; having access only to heterodox scholars and hence following them; having bouts of madness or intellectual deficiency; lacking access to the statutes backed by the Book and the Sunnah; and coercion. In this respect, Shaykh al-Islām sets out grades of heterodoxy: ‘The many factions associating themselves with speculative theology (uṣūl al-dīn wa al-kalām) are of varying categories. Some of them may have contravened orthodoxy in major issues, whilst others on subtle issues’ (Majamūʿ al-fatāwā, 3: 348). Shaykh al-Islām argues that Imam Aḥmad supplicated and sought forgiveness for the caliphs al-Ma’mūn and al-Muʿtaṣim, both of whom subscribed to the doctrine of the ‘created Qur’an’, which in generic terms was declared a statement of unbelief by the Pious Predecessors. According to Shaykh al-Islām, if they were disbelievers or apostates then it would not have been permissible for Imam Aḥmad to seek forgiveness on their behalf (Majamūʿ al-fatāwā, 12: 389-488).

To regulate open-ended takfirism, Shaykh al-Islām limited the social exclusion of heterodox believers to polemical refutations, transmission of knowledge, and boycotting (hajr). Regarding polemical refutations, even though Shaykh al-Islām refuted the Ashʿarīs, he argued that ‘they are the closest of the heterodox sects to orthodoxy.’ As for taking knowledge from non-Sunnis, Shaykh al-Islām maintained that every faction possesses truth and falsehood—it is obligatory to follow the truth that they speak and reject the falsehood thereof. Boycotting a believer, according to the Shaykh, can be done as a punitive measure as the Prophet Muhammad did with the three Companions who remained behind in the Battle of Tabūk: ‘God turned in mercy also to the three who were left behind; they felt guilty to such a degree that the earth seemed constrained to them, for all its spaciousness, and their very souls seemed straitened to them.

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