بسم الله الرحمن
الرحيم
وصلى الله على
نبينا محمد
وعلى اهل بيته
الطيبين الطاهرين المظلومين
The contemporary
Ibadiya swindle ordinary Muslims who encounter them by claiming they are not
Kharijites or extremists and that they respect the Prophet’s companions and his
ahl al-Bayt peace be upon them. I previously exposed the reality of the Ibadis from
their own literature where they have audaciously defended the Kharijites who
seceded from the camp of Amir ul-Mu’minin Ali b. Abi Talib [karram Allahu
wajhahu] and declared him an unbeliever – God forbid! The Ibadiya insist they
are not Kharijites but a moderate sect of Islam. Ali Yahya Mu’ammar, an Ibadi
apologist, writes: “Judging by the sequence of events, it seems that these
hadiths that talk about ‘secession’ [khuruj] were not known at the time
of the earliest revolts; otherwise, how could it be that they were not being
narrated and that they were not used with reference to the rebels at the time
of the caliphates of Abu Bakr, Uthman and Ali? Or with reference to the
apostates at the time of al-Siddiq? Why should they lie dormant, with neither
the supporters nor the opponents of the caliphate, during four defiant revolts
in which many Muslim heroes lost their lives, making use of them? This
indicates strongly that such hadiths were not known at the time of these
revolts, but were composed later in order to denigrate the people of
Nahrawan and encourage ‘Ali to right and eradicate them without concern for
their lives, and without second thoughts about killing them, without stopping
to reason and consider whether they might have a just cause. ‘Ali was very
severe on himself when he reckoned his deeds, giving lots of thought to his
actions and weighing up the events that confronted him. There is evidence for
this in Abu al-‘Abbas’s important book, al-Siyar, where he wrote: ‘Al-Ash’ath
said: He struggled against the people, but every time they spoke to people they
would turn them against us’. The Shi’a who surrounded ‘Ali were anxious, in
their efforts to create their state, lest the people of Nahrawan should
establish relations with the rest of the people and convince them with
arguments and proof that the acceptance of arbitration had been a political
mistake, that ‘Ali’s caliphacy [after the arbitration and his removal from
office] was no longer valid, that the oath of allegiance to him was no longer
binding, and that the real caliph was ‘Abd Allah b. Wahb al-Rasibi, who was
given the oath of allegiance by a good number of Muslims. The Shi’a feared that
those at Nahrawan would establish contact with the people, and it was for this
reason that they wanted to eradicate their opinions, lest they be disseminated
among people, who might then understand them and become convinced of their
validity. It was only possible to eradicate these opinions by eradicating the
people who held them. Had ‘Ali hesitated in this matter and avoided bloodshed,
everything would have been lost. Thus, he had to be pushed to take this
decisive and crucial step by any means possible. They were able to convince him
through al-Ash’ath. He took the step, initiated the fight and eradicated the
people of Nahrawan. But he was not able to eradicate the idea that they
proclaimed, that idea which has filtered through with its truth and reality
into the minds of many, until it became a principle that its upholders defend
with patience, courage and resilience.” [Ibadism in History Volume I: The
Emergence of the Ibadi School pp.24-25]:
So the cat is out
of the bag! The Ibadi intellectuals truly defend, praise and admire the first
Kharijite renegades that seceded from the camp of sayyidina Ali b. Abi Talib
[radi Allahu anhu]. Mr. Mu’ammar has clearly written that the Ahadith which
condemn the Kharijites were invented in order to persuade sayyidina Ali [radi
Allahu anhu] to fight the Haruriya or Muhakkima, and that the latter were
justified in withdrawing their allegiance to sayyidina Ali [radi Allahu anhu]
and that it was the Kharijite Ibn Wahb al-Rasibi who was the “real” and
legitimate caliph! Of course, Mr. Mu’ammar’s narrative has grossly twisted history.
For instance, he glaringly omits the fact that it was the Khawarij who drew
first blood when they mercilessly killed Abd Allah b. Khabbab, his wife and her
unborn child. Hitherto sayyidina Ali [radi Allahu anhu] was content to leave
the Kharijites alone, despite the fact that they had declared him an unbeliever
and apostate from Islam and were fomenting mutiny against him. Sayyidina Ali
[radi Allahu anhu] was reluctant to engage a party that claimed to be Muslims,
but when they started killing innocent people, he had no choice but to fight
them in the Battle of Nahrawan, in which he was aided by Allah Most High and
granted a glorious victory. It is absolutely not true that the Ahadith about
the Khawarij were fabricated and then sayyidina Ali was deceived by such
narrations to fight the Haruriya. The Prophet [sall Allahu alayhi wa-aalihi
wasallam] had prophesied that among them would be an extremely evil black man
with an arm that resembles a woman’s breast. In the aftermath of Nahrawan, sayyidina
Ali [radi Allahu anhu] ordered that the corpses of the slain Kharijites be
searched, and after repeated searches he was discovered and matched precisely
the description the Prophet [alayhis-salam] had foretold.
