Apostasy of Gaddafi and His Heresies

 بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

والصلاة والسلام على رسوله الكريم

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

Concerning the religious beliefs of the disgraced dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Ronald Bruce St. John wrote: “He rejects formal interpretation of the Koran (except his own) as blasphemy and sin, contending that the Koran was written in Arabic so that every Arab could read it and apply it without the help of others. In a similar vein, Qadhdhafi has specifically criticized the hadith, the collected traditions or ‘sayings’ of the Prophet Muhammad as received through oral transmission, on the grounds that the Koran is the only real source of God’s word. He has also been very critical of the various schools of Islamic jurisprudence, such as the Hanafi, Maliki, and Hanbali, charging that they are the product of a struggle for political power and unconnected with either Islam or the Koran. The reformist elements of Qadhdhafi’s approach—such as a progressive role for Islam, the rejection of hadith, the transcendence of God, and the purely human role of the Prophet—are a deliberate attempt to reduce the role of the ulama and to bring Islam under the control of the revolution. When Libya's religious leadership increasingly criticized his policies, Qadhdhafi purged them in mid-1978, emphasizing that mosques were meant to be places of worship and not arenas to discuss economic, social, or political questions. As in the case of Nasir, Qadhdhafi's denial of political influence to the ulama is not really secularism because this denial extends to every elite or popular body that might reduce the regime's power. Moreover, the ulama and religious bodies are denied not only political influence but even autonomy in religion itself. Secularism means the separation of church and state with the latter being supreme, but it does not call for the state's control of the details of religious teaching or the harnessing of religion to the purpose of the state. In Libya, Qadhdhafi has sought to make Islam a domestic and international instrument in support of the revolution.” (St John, R. B. (1983). The Ideology of Muammar al-Qadhdhafi: Theory and Practice. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 15(4), 471–490)

Now there is no question that Gaddafi was an apostate from Islam and he justly deserved the fate that befell him in October 2011. He was apparently sodomized by a sharp weapon then his half naked body put in an ambulance and carried off to Misrata where he was pronounced dead.

The heresies of that murtad, taghut are too numerous and extreme. Perhaps his worst kufr was his deliberate attempt to diminish the status and rank of the Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. He in fact rejected the invocation of Salat and Salam upon the Prophet, sall Allahu alaihi wasallam, and negated belief in his role as the Intercessor on Judgment Day (the doctrine of Shafa’h). Gaddafi taught that the institution of Khilafah has no connection to Islam, as it is something that appeared after the Prophet, peace be upon him, and anything that came after him is necessarily separate from the Religion. He also apparently criticized the practices of polygamy and veiling.

Now these matters are typical for Hadith—rejecters like Gaddafi. They consider orthodox Sunni Muslims guilty of idolizing the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him, because of our special reverence for him. They harshly attack the practices of polygamy and veiling, though ironically these matters are established quite clearly from the Text of the Holy Quran. Likewise, they bear extreme enmity to our Ulama, a sentiment which is shared by virtually all heretical individuals and sects that broke away from mainstream, Sunni Islam.

Gaddafi introduced his own variant of socialism, and one often finds that the socialists and other leftists in this Ummah are strongly inclined to radically reform Islam. They are extremely critical of the conservative Ulama and those who are attached to them, whom they dub “reactionary”. By Allah, socialism is a dangerous fitnah that appeared in this Ummah in the previous century, which caused nothing but mayhem, fragmentation and turning away from the Religion. Along with ethnic nationalism and liberalism it forms part of a trinity of evil that continues to be a sickness in this Ummah, and indeed the world at large.