By IMAM MOHAMED MAGID
The world has become all too familiar with Daesh’s brutal ways. The most shocking, however, is their senseless violence toward their fellow Muslims. Using a distorted understanding of the Islamic concept known as takfir, they have declared that any fellow Muslim who rejects their twisted ideology is a kafir(unbeliever). In doing so, they have illegitimately justified the slaughter of countless innocent, peaceful Muslims around the world. However, the inherent violence and danger takfir poses to the worldwide Muslim community have made it a forbidden act in Islam and it has received widespread condemnations from Muslim states and leaders. In 2011, Tunisia even went so far as to place a constitutional ban on fatwas(Islamic legal rulings) that call for takfir against fellow Muslims.
The act of takfir, or accusing a fellow Muslim of apostasy (riddah) and unbelief (kufr), has been almost universally rejected throughout Islamic history. For one, claiming to possess the authority to judge an individual’s faith and submission to God is to essentially undermine the ultimate authority and knowledge of God. This is because the Qur’an teaches that only God has the knowledge and authority to judge on the basis of one’s faith: “Say, ‘Indeed I stand on a manifest proof from my Lord and you have denied it. What you hasten is not up to me. Judgment belongs only to God; He expounds the truth and He is the best of judges’ †(6:57), and “Indeed your Lord knows best those who stray from His way; and He knows best those who are guided†(6:117). Moreover, the Prophet Muhammad condemned those who accused their fellow Muslims of apostasy, saying, “Whoever says to his brother ‘disbeliever’ then it will have settled upon one of them†(at-Tirmidhi).
In addition to takfir being a forbidden practice in Islam, it has been the source of great social unrest (fitnahor “seditionâ€) throughout Islamic history, as it casts doubt among believers and leads one to question his/her own faith. This is best seen with the group the Khawarij, who are often regarded as the first violent extremist group. In an attempt to delegitimize the authority of Caliph Ali and secure their own leader, the Khawarij claimed that they were the “true Muslims†and treated all others with violence and hostility. To them, any Muslim who “sinned†could no longer be considered a pure Muslim—“sin†as defined by them, of course. Similarly, the Khawarij used takfiras a political weapon—a method employed by Daesh to justify slaughter.
Daesh and similar extremist groups aggressively practice takfir as a political weapon to denounce any Muslim head of state or religious leader who poses a threat to the group’s authority by labeling them murtadd (apostate). This was first seen in Ibn Taymiyyah’s fatwa against the Mongol convert invaders due to the fact that they enforced their own laws in place of Shari’ah. Similarly, Daesh has made it clear that Muslim rulers who do not fully implement Shari’ah as understood by Daesh are apostate sinners who place the laws of man above the laws of God, thus breaking their shahadah. They cherry-pick and distort the Qur’anic verse that says:
We sent down the Torah containing guidance and light. The prophets, who had submitted, judged by it for the Jews, and so did the rabbis and the scribes, as they were charged to preserve the Book of Allah and were witnesses to it. So do not fear the people, but fear Me, and do not sell My signs for a paltry gain. Those who do not judge by what Allah has sent down—it is they who are faithless (5:44).
More specifically, Daesh sees Muslim leaders in the West as actively siding with the disbelievers and “enemies of Islam†in a battle against the “true believers.†Thus, using the practice of takfir, Daesh falsely justifies and encourages the violent overthrow and assassination of these leaders in order to further protect their authority.
Takfir is just another deadly extension of the extremists’ distorted ideology and understanding of the doctrine of Al-Wala’ wal Bara’. It is being used as a psychological tool to manipulate disenfranchised individuals and fuel their violent “us versus them†mind-set, where one is either “with them†or “against them.†And, according to their distorted doctrine of Al-Wala’ wal Bara’, if one is against them, then he/she is a non-believer who should be killed according to the violent rules of takfir.
Yet, the world’s 1.6 billion peaceful Muslims know that this is not a sanctioned practice in Islam, as one of the most important tenets in Islam is, “There is no compulsion in religion†(2:256). The truth remains that Daesh will never possess the authority to declare takfir and accuse a fellow Muslim of non-belief—nor will they ever be justified in practicing takfir that results in such a devastating loss of life.
