Ahmad Al-Tayyeb1
All praise is due to Allah. May Allah’s peace and blessings be upon the seal of all the Prophets and Messengers, our master Muhammad, his family, Companions and upon those who follow in his guidance to the Day of Judgment.
The issues of Takfir (declaring Muslims disbelievers) and issuing fatwas on the permissibility of killing Muslims and fighting them are undoubtedly from among the most dangerous problems which our Islamic and Arabic Nation suffers from nowadays. In fact, our communities suffer terribly from such dreadful ordeal. We actually thought that those mukaffirun (those who give themselves the right to declare Muslims disbelievers) had actually got rid of such affliction and its destructive consequences since the 1990s of the last century, in Egypt and the other Muslim countries, by getting the true understanding of their religion. But, we were in surprise to see such affliction severely affects our country and disturbs all the Arab and Islamic countries, in Asia and Africa alike, by killing, destructing, bombing, assassinating the innocent and making the life of the people unbearable.
It is of deep grief, however, that these crimes are committed under the name of Islam and its pure Shari’ah, and that their destructive crimes are carried out with cries of tahlil (saying “la ilah ill Allah” or there is no God but Allah), takbir (saying “Allah Akbar” or Allah is great) and under the claim of practicing jihad and seeking martyrdom in the Cause of Allah; a matter that has been fully exploited by the Western Media to defame the image of Islam and present it to the World in the form a barbarous religion that is always thirst to shed bloods, kill the innocent and provoke violence, hatred and grudge among the different classes of its followers.
As a matter of fact, the phenomenon of declaring Muslims disbelievers and its consequent results including the legitimization of the sacred bloods are not new for the Islamic societies and so is its jurisprudence. All of us had actually studied the history of the Kharijites and its early emergence in the beginning of the Islamic State. We are also fully aware of how it slipped into this disaster as a result of its previous deviation in understanding the conceptions of theology and jurisprudence, that is, their confusion between the concept of belief in Allah as origin, and the concept of deeds as a branch; all of us are also fully aware of how this group i.e. the Kharijites had deviated the way when adhering to some phenomena, while turning away from other phenomena which are in contradiction to their own understanding of some Qur’anic texts.
We, as a matter of fact, cannot shed light on all the details of this topic as to its origin, reasons, development, theology, jurisprudence and content, however, it may be suitable to talk in brief about the re-emergence of the issue of Takfir, highlighting the deepest reason that offered the means for its re-emergence and the continuity of its destructive activity once again.
Examining the history of the issue of Takfir, we reached the conclusion that our communities, in Egypt and in the Arab and the Islamic World, did not know about the emergence of such groups legitimatizing the Takfir of the society, declaring it ignorant of the Divine guidance, and the necessity of emotional disunion among the members of one and the same society. This happened before the year 1967 of the last century. As well, we reached the conclusion that the new group of Takfir was originated in jails as a result to the policy of violence and severe torture adopted in punishing the youths of the Muslim Movements to the effect that when they i.e. youths were asked, at that time, to declare their support to the leader, the majority of them hastened to do that. As for the minority, they rejected this offer and considered the stance of their colleagues a failure on the side of religion and thus firmly adhered to their previous rejection to the extent that they used to perform prayers alone and declared their colleagues disbelievers because they gave support to a disbelieving ruler. In addition, they declared the whole members of the society disbelievers due to their loyalty to a disbelieving ruler. Furthermore, they held the position that the prayers and fasting offered by the members of the society are of no avail to the extent that they declared that those disbelievers, if they want to become believers once again, must join their group and give oath of allegiance to their Imam.2
This incident represents the first emergence of Jama’t al-Takfir in 1967 C.E. after the Kharijites and the other esoteric sects became of the past. As such, the phenomenon of Takfir re-emerged at the hands of those youths who were not qualified either educationally or culturally to get the profound knowledge of Islam. In fact, their only tools were just enthusiasm and the extreme and sharp reactions. Accordingly, Takfir was the ideal and fastest means t
