Similarity Between Kharijites and Jewish Zealots

 بِسۡمِ اللّٰہِ الرَّحۡمٰنِ الرَّحِیۡمِ

‌قُدُّوسٌ ‌قُدُّوسٌ ‌قُدُّوسٌ

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

Holy, Holy, Holy

Allah, Holy and Exalted is He, says:

اَلَّذِیۡنَ اٰمَنُوۡا یُقَاتِلُوۡنَ فِیۡ سَبِیۡلِ اللّٰہِ ۚ وَالَّذِیۡنَ کَفَرُوۡا یُقَاتِلُوۡنَ فِیۡ سَبِیۡلِ الطَّاغُوۡتِ فَقَاتِلُوۡۤا اَوۡلِیَآءَ الشَّیۡطٰنِ

Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah and those who disbelieve fight in the cause of the Taghut. So fight the friends of Satan

(Surah 4, Ayah 76)

The doctrine of Jihad, fighting in the cause of Allah against the Taghut and the friends of Satan, is an integral part of Islam, though it has been subject to Ifrat (exaggeration) and Tafrit (negligence) among certain sections of the Ummah. Some of those who exaggerate in this matter, such as the Kharijites, have wrongly declared Jihad the “Sixth Pillar” of Islam, whereas orthodox Sunni Islam teaches that Islam has only Five Pillars, as the Prophet, peace be upon him, said:

بُنِيَ الإِسْلاَمُ عَلَى خَمْسٍ شَهَادَةِ أَنْ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ اللَّهُ وَأَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ وَإِقَامِ الصَّلاَةِ، وَإِيتَاءِ الزَّكَاةِ، وَالْحَجِّ وَصَوْمِ رَمَضَانَ

Islam is based on five: 1. testifying there is none worthy of worship except Allah and Muhammad is the Apostle of Allah, 2. establishing the Salah, 3. giving the Zakah, 4. the Hajj and 5. fasting in Ramadan (Sahih al-Bukhari & Sahih Muslim)

Therefore, Jihad is not the Sixth Pillar. Others who exaggerate in this matter have declared Jihad, as in armed combat against the Unbelievers, Fard Ayn, meaning a religious duty upon each and every individual Muslim. This too is an extreme exaggeration that has no basis in the Shari’ah. It is a false teaching of some of the so-called Jihadists like the Egyptian extremist, Qutbist, neo-Kharijite Abd us-Salam Farag, but also the more moderate Palestinian Abdullah Azzam, may Allah pardon him. The latter courageously participated in the Jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and was a charismatic preacher of Jihad. Although he was regrettably affected by the misguided ideology of the Ikhwanis (Muslim Brotherhood), he was not a Takfiri or a Kharijite, he did not make Takfir of the Muslim governments or call for an armed uprising to topple the regimes. With regard to those who fell prey to Tafrit or negligence in the matter of Jihad, it is first and foremost the heretical sects like the Qadianis and others who declare Jihad abolished or say it is purely a defensive means to repel an aggressor or invader, or say it is restricted in meaning to the inner struggle against one’s own soul. The Holy Prophet, peace be upon him, warned the Ummah saying that among the reasons Allah shall impose disgrace upon it is that:

وَتَرَكْتُمُ الْجِهَادَ

You will abandon Jihad (Sunan Abi Dawud)

Today we see that virtually all the Muslim governments have abandoned Jihad. They fail even to fight in defense of our brothers who are oppressed by the unbelievers in Palestine, Kashmir, East Turkestan, Burma and other places. This is why the Ummah, and particularly the Arabs, is currently in a state of humiliation. Yet some misguided and emotionally driven Muslims have taken it upon themselves, in a private capacity or without authority of a legitimate Imam or government, to declare and engage in Jihad against Unbelievers. While their intentions may be praiseworthy, they are acting contrary to the Shari’ah in engaging in Jihad without the authorization of a legitimate Imam or Muslim ruler. In the early 19^th century, Sayyid Ahmad Barelawi and his lieutenant Shah Isma’il of Delhi, without possessing any authority, organized a sort of private Jihad and recruited men to go and fight the tyrannical Sikhs who were oppressing the Muslims of Punjab. While Sayyid Ahmad was declared the Imam, and the effort was properly organized behind him so as to avoid dissent and chaos as per the spirit of the Shari’ah, I believe this effort with good intentions nevertheless failed because declaring and organizing a Jihad is the domain of an actual Muslim government that practically has power in the land. Perhaps another reason this effort failed was because it was strongly influenced by Wahhabism, which has the tendency of separating Muslims from the main body of the Ummah, the Jama’ah. Even in its mildest form, Wahhabism considers the main body of the Ummah astray, accusing it of polytheism and major innovations. No Jihad can truly be successful if it is not inclusive of the main body of the Muslims, meaning, Ahl us-Sunnati wal-Jama’ah or the Sunnis, who comprise the overwhelming majority of the Ummah. So while “private Jihads” without authorization of a legitimate Imam or Muslim government are contrary to the Shari’ah and doomed to failure, it is not necessary that Mujahidin be uniformed soldiers of an established Muslim state as long as they have authorization and especially material support of a Muslim state to wage Jihad against the Unbelievers. A good example of this latter phenomenon is the Jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s, which had wide backing from many of the Muslim states, especially the Saudis and Pakistanis. In such a Jihad, foreign volunteers were justified in going to Afghanistan to pick up arms against the atheist and communist invaders. Such a blessed effort was successful. Likewise, the recent Jihad in Syria was successful in liberating the Sunni Muslims of that country from the evil of the anti-Islamic Ba’thist and Alawite regime, as this Jihad too had the material backing and authorization of an established Muslim state, namely, Turkey. A true Jihad faught upon the principles of the Shari’ah is destined for triumph, as Allah, Holy and Exalted is He, says:

اُذِنَ لِلَّذِیۡنَ یُقٰتَلُوۡنَ بِاَنَّہُمۡ ظُلِمُوۡا ؕ وَاِنَّ اللّٰہَ عَلٰی نَصۡرِہِمۡ لَقَدِیۡرُ

Permission is given to those who are being faught because they have been wronged. And surely Allah has power to help them

(Surah 22, Ayah 39)

So we believe Allah will help those who are oppressed and justified in fighting the enemy, and we have witnessed this divine aid and triumph granted to the Taliban in Afghanistan and most recently to the Mujahidin in Syria. And praise Allah for that!

But as for civil wars among the Muslims, or wars between different Muslim states, it is best for the Believers to avoid any participation in these. If there is clearly a side in such a war that is upon the truth, and a side that is upon falsehood, only in such a clear scenario can Believers participate in fighting upon the right side, as when Mawla Ali, may Allah honor his face, did Jihad against the wrongdoers in the Battle of Siffin, and against the Kharijite renegades in the Battle of Nahrawan. Many great Companions and Saints participated and were martyred in these holy wars, like Ammar bin Yasir and Uwais al-Qarani, may Allah be pleased with them. Now concerning the Kharijites, consider the following Hadith:

تَتَّبِعُنَّ سَنَنَ مَنْ قَبْلَكُمْ شِبْرًا بِشِبْرٍ وَذِرَاعًا بِذِرَاعٍ حَتَّى لَوْ سَلَكُوا جُحْرَ ضَبٍّ لَسَلَكْتُمُوهُ

You will follow the ways of those before you, cubit by cubit, span by span, until if they went into a lizard’s hole you would follow them into it (Sahih al-Bukhari)

One of the matters in which a section of this Ummah followed the way of the Jews who preceded us was in militancy and terrorism. During Antiquity, in the time of Jesus, peace be upon him, the Jews were divided into four main branches; the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes and the Zealots. The fourth of these, the Zealots, were not unlike the Kharijites of this Ummah. They were a political faction who in the name of Jewish independence rallied the people to wage an unauthorized holy war against the Roman occupation of Palestine. Like the Kharijites of today, they exploited emotional sentiments and legitimate political grievances of the ordinary people suffering under a brutal occupation to rally to their cause and join their ranks. Not only did they engage in violence and bloodshed without authorization of an established government or ruler, they did not restrict their violence to the Pagan Romans. The Zealots also targeted their political opponents and those who failed to cooperate with them among their fellow Jews. The Sicarii were feared Zealots who wielded curved daggers they used to assassinate rival Jewish leaders. They would stab their target then melt back into a crowd, causing confusion and chaos. Such methods of terrorism were copied by heretical schismatics in this Ummah, like the Nizari Order of Assassins founded by the terrorist Hasan al-Sabbah, and many neo-Kharijites of our time. The targets of the Nizari Assassins, like the neo-Kharijites of today, were usually mainstream Sunni political and religious leaders. Returning to the Zealots, they were a Jewish sect founded by Judas of Galilee, largely in response to the Census of Quirinius in 6 CE. The historian Josephus explained that they were essentially followers of Pharisaic Judaism “but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord” (Antiquities of the Jews; Book XVIII, ch.1, v.6). This mirrors the Kharijites whose slogan was “the rule is for none but Allah”, a strict theocratic formulation that is skeptical of all human authority and envisions an egalitarian society governed directly by God’s Law with minimum human mediation. The nearly anarchistic vision of the Kharijites was more pronounced in some of their subsects like the Najdat, or followers of Najdah bin Amir, who denied the necessity of the Imamate and even considered it preferable for a Muslim society to function without an Imam. Like the Kharijites and so-called “Islamists” of our time, the Jewish Zealots were unwilling to bear the burden of foreign occupation or domination. Their extremely patriotic sentiments led them to revolt against Rome in 66 CE, some three decades after Jesus’s ascension. Jesus, who with his Disciples represented the true and saved sect of the Jews, was not one to approve of any kind of armed uprising or even political agitation against Rome. Rather, in the spirit of the pre-exilic Prophets who prophesied doom at the hands of Babylon, Jesus prophesied calamity upon Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple: “Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Mark 13:2; Matthew 24:2; Luke 21:6, KJV), “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate” (Matthew 23:37-38; Luke 13:34-35, KJV), “And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke 21:20-24, KJV). Now in that time, leading up to the destruction of the Temple and the desolation of Jerusalem, some of the Jewish nation was governed directly by the Romans, and others by vassals or client kings, namely, the Herodian tetrarchy. That is not unlike the state of the Ummah today, largely governed by vassals and puppets of the Americans. The Gulf States in particular are quite reminiscent of the Herodian kings who were corrupt, enjoying a decadent lifestyle while remaining in submission to Caesar and doing little to restore the autonomy and dignity of their own people. Although the Gulf States represent only a tiny fraction of the Ummah, because they are the wealthiest and therefore most powerful Muslims today, and because the Saudis have custody over the Haramain, the rest of the Ummah defer to them for leadership. The poorer Muslim countries of Asia and Africa are dependent on the Gulf States for direction and survival, and so the one upon whom the Gulf States depend (the United States) is the de facto ruler of the Muslim World. The US has several military bases hosted by the Gulf States, the largest being an air base in Qatar, but also a permanent naval base in Bahrain, and even an air base in Saudi Arabia. This ensures the US hegemonic domination of the Muslims, and was the primary motivation for extremists like Al-Qaeda to declare war on both the Americans and the Saudis, rightly viewing American military presence in the Arabian Peninsula as a desecration. The Jews in first century Palestine were also rightly sensitive about the issue of idolatrous desecration. The Revolt against Rome in 66 CE was in fact sparked by Pagan Greeks sacrificing birds in front of a Synagogue on the Sabbath in Caesarea, outraging the religious sentiments of the Jews.