For the Islamist extremist group see Takfir wal-Hijra

Takfir wal-Hijra

Jama'at al-Muslimin , popularly known as Takfir wal-Hijra , was a radical Islamist group led by Shukri Mustafa, which emerged in Egypt in the 1960s as an offshoot of Muslim Brotherhood, inspired by Sayyid Qutb.The group was...

In Islamic law, takfir or takfeer (تكفير) refers to the practice of one Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 declaring another Muslim an unbeliever or kafir

Kafir

Kafir is an Arabic term used in a Islamic doctrinal sense, usually translated as "unbeliever" or "disbeliever"...

 (pl. kuffār). The act which precipitates takfir is termed the mukaffir.

Conditions

This declaration may be made if the alleged Muslim declares himself a kafir, but more typically applies to a judgement that an action or statement by the alleged Muslim indicates his knowing abandonment of Islam. The sentence for apostasy

Apostasy

Apostasy , 'a defection or revolt', from ἀπό, apo, 'away, apart', στάσις, stasis, 'stand, 'standing') is the formal disaffiliation from or abandonment or renunciation of a religion by a person. One who commits apostasy is known as an apostate. These terms have a pejorative implication in everyday...

 (irtidad) under Sharia

Sharia

Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

 is traditionally interpreted is execution but alternately might be amputation or expulsion.

For this reason orthodox Islamic law normally requires extremely stringent evidence for such accusations. In many cases an Islamic court or a religious leader, an alim

Alim

-Given name:* Amat Al Alim Alsoswa, Yemeni politician* Alim Ashirov, Soviet footballer* AFM Alim Chowdhury, Bangladeshi physician*Aleem Dar , Pakistani cricketer* Alim Karkayev, Russian footballer* Mohammed Alim Khan, last emir of the Manghit dynasty...

 must pronounce a fatwa

Fatwa

A fatwā in the Islamic faith is a juristic ruling concerning Islamic law issued by an Islamic scholar. In Sunni Islam any fatwā is non-binding, whereas in Shia Islam it could be considered by an individual as binding, depending on his or her relation to the scholar. The person who issues a fatwā...

 (legal judgement) of takfir against an individual or group.

There are disputes among different schools of religious thought as to what constitutes sufficient justification for declaring takfir. The orthodox Sunni position is that sins generally do not prove that someone is not a Muslim, but denials of fundamental religious principles do. Thus a murderer, for instance, may still be a Muslim, but someone who denies that murder is a sin is a kafir if he is aware that murder is considered a sin in Islam.

An extreme case is exemplified by the early Kharijites some of whom concluded that any Muslim who sinned ceased to be a Muslim, while others concluded that any major sin could cause that. The opposite extreme was taken by the Murjites, who argued that anyone who called themselves Muslim should be considered Muslim.

The Mu'tazilites (followed by the Zaydis) advocated what they saw as a middle way whereby grave sinners were categorized neither as believers nor as kafir

Kafir

Kafir is an Arabic term used in a Islamic doctrinal sense, usually translated as "unbeliever" or "disbeliever"...

s.

Some Muslims consider takfir (declaring someone a kafir) to be a prerogative of either the Prophet—who does that through Divine revelation—or the State which represents the collectivity of the Ummah

Ummah

Ummah is an Arabic word meaning "community" or "nation." It is commonly used to mean either the collective nation of states, or the whole Arab world...

 (the whole Muslim community).

Extremist movements that practice takfir—both the early medieval Kharijites and modern groups such as Takfir wal-Hijra

Takfir wal-Hijra

Jama'at al-Muslimin , popularly known as Takfir wal-Hijra , was a radical Islamist group led by Shukri Mustafa, which emerged in Egypt in the 1960s as an offshoot of Muslim Brotherhood, inspired by Sayyid Qutb.The group was...

 and GIA

Armed Islamic Group

The Armed Islamic Group is an Islamist organisation that wants to overthrow the Algerian government and replace it with an Islamic state...

— usually regard virtually all self-styled Muslims as kafirs. As such their blood may legitimately be shed. These groups have been condemned by more mainstream Muslims.

History

One of the earliest examples of takfir was practiced by the first Caliph

Caliph

The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word   which means "successor" or "representative"...

, Abu Bakr

Abu Bakr

Abu Bakr was a senior companion and the father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He ruled over the Rashidun Caliphate from 632-634 CE when he became the first Muslim Caliph following Muhammad's death...

. In response to the refusal of certain Arab tribes to pay the alms-tax (zakat

Zakat

Zakāt , one of the Five Pillars of Islam, is the giving of a fixed portion of one's wealth to charity, generally to the poor and needy.-History:Zakat, a practice initiated by Muhammed himself, has played an important role throughout Islamic history...

), he declared that "By God, I will fight anyone who differentiates between the prayer and the zakat."

It also should be mentioned that Abu Bakr

Abu Bakr

Abu Bakr was a senior companion and the father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He ruled over the Rashidun Caliphate from 632-634 CE when he became the first Muslim Caliph following Muhammad's death...

 said these words at the time when people were trying to add new practices to Islam. In order to prevent this he laid down very strict rules and ordered people to follow the original Sharia, which was completed at the time.

Abu Bakr

Abu Bakr

Abu Bakr was a senior companion and the father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He ruled over the Rashidun Caliphate from 632-634 CE when he became the first Muslim Caliph following Muhammad's death...

 asserted: 'Revelation has been discontinued, the Shari'ah has been completed: will the religion be curtailed while I am alive.’ And then he added, "I will fight these tribes even if they refuse to give a halter. Poor-due (zakat

Zakat

Zakāt , one of the Five Pillars of Islam, is the giving of a fixed portion of one's wealth to charity, generally to the poor and needy.-History:Zakat, a practice initiated by Muhammed himself, has played an important role throughout Islamic history...

) is a levy on wealth and, by God, I will fight him who differentiates between the prayer and poor-due."http://muslim-canada.org/ali_abubakr.html

It should be noted, however, that these statements of the first Caliph

Abu Bakr

Abu Bakr was a senior companion and the father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He ruled over the Rashidun Caliphate from 632-634 CE when he became the first Muslim Caliph following Muhammad's death...

 don't qualify for takfir, because they don't fit in the definition of 'takfir'. General statements, such as "those who don`t believe in God are not Muslims", cannot be takfir, they are declaration of a fact. In fact, he even didn't use the word kafir.

In the wars between the Umayyad

Umayyad

The Umayyad Caliphate was the second of the four major Arab caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. It was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty, whose name derives from Umayya ibn Abd Shams, the great-grandfather of the first Umayyad caliph. Although the Umayyad family originally came from the...

 Caliphate

Caliphate

The term caliphate, "dominion of a caliph " , refers to the first system of government established in Islam and represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah...

 and the Kharijites, the latter's practice of takfir became the justification for their indiscriminate attacks on civilian Muslims; the more moderate Sunni view of takfir developed partly in response to this conflict.

In more recent times, takfir has been used against the Ahmadiyya

Ahmadiyya

Ahmadiyya is an Islamic religious revivalist movement founded in India near the end of the 19th century, originating with the life and teachings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad , who claimed to have fulfilled the prophecies about the world reformer of the end times, who was to herald the Eschaton as...

 who describe themselves as Muslims but are considered by mainstream Muslims and Islamic scholars to be non-Muslims due to their rejection of the fundamental Islamic belief that Muhammad was the last and final Prophet and Messenger of Allah, after whom there can be no Prophet or Messenger.

In this case, however, Muslim jurists have brought forth reasoning from Islamic Shariah to declare the two groups Kaffir, whereas takfir practiced by extremists is not justified by Shariah law, but rather by personal beliefs.

Takfir has also been used on Shias, whose beliefs are questioned by many mainstream Sunni Muslims. This has sometimes been used to legitimize physical attacks on such groupshttp://www.thepersecution.org/archive/munir/p17.html. In the case of groups such as the GIA

Armed Islamic Group

The Armed Islamic Group is an Islamist organisation that wants to overthrow the Algerian government and replace it with an Islamic state...

 (as mentioned above), it has been used to legitimize attacks on any Muslim who is not actively fighting against their governments.

An example of takfir that has featured prominently in Western media is the case of Salman Rushdie, who was forced into hiding after Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa

Fatwa

A fatwā in the Islamic faith is a juristic ruling concerning Islamic law issued by an Islamic scholar. In Sunni Islam any fatwā is non-binding, whereas in Shia Islam it could be considered by an individual as binding, depending on his or her relation to the scholar. The person who issues a fatwā...

 officially declaring him to be a kafir who should be executed.
Some contemporary cases in Egypt are also found, for example Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd was accused of apostasy following his work on Islamic sources, describing the Qur'an as a historical document.

In the Qur'an and Hadith

The verse

And whoever contradicts and opposes the Messenger (Muhammad) after the right path has been shown clearly to him, and follows other than the believers' way, We shall keep him in the path he has chosen, and burn him in Hell – what an evil destination!

This verse is interpreted as indicating that before practising takfir, one must first provide guidance to the person in question, explaining that what they are doing is wrong.

The Qur'an emphasises that accusations of unbelief are not to be made lightly:

O you who believe! When you go (to fight) in the Cause of God, verify (the truth), and say not to anyone who greets you (by embracing Islam): "You are not a believer"; seeking the perishable goods of the worldly life. There are much more profits and booties with God. Even as he is now, so were you yourselves before till God conferred on you His Favours (i.e. guided you to Islam), therefore, be cautious in discrimination. God is Ever Well-Acquainted with what you do.

while Muhammad

Muhammad

Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

 is recorded in a hadith

Hadith

The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....

as saying that:

If a man (in a battle) is attacking a kafir with a spear, and it has reached his throat, and at that moment he says ‘There is no god but God’, the Muslim must immediately withdraw his spear.http://www.muslim.org/movement/maudoodi/art-takfir.htm

This is taken as emphasizing that the state of being kafir

Kafir

Kafir is an Arabic term used in a Islamic doctrinal sense, usually translated as "unbeliever" or "disbeliever"...

 is rejection of Islam itself, and that a return to Islam is sufficient to end the status. (See repentance

Repentance

Repentance is a change of thought to correct a wrong and gain forgiveness from a person who is wronged. In religious contexts it usually refers to confession to God, ceasing sin against God, and resolving to live according to religious law...

.)

External links

• The Amman Message (Declaration forbidding takfir (declarations of apostasy) between Muslims unanimously agreed upon by 200 of the world's leading Islamic scholars 'Ulama from 50 countries.)
• The Clear Proofs in Refuting the Doubts of the People of Takfeer and Bombing!
• Extremism in Takfir
• The Ideology of Terrorism and Violence in Saudi Arabia: Origins, Reasons and Solution
• Religious denunciations and Takfir: Isn't there enough to go around? (by Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq)
• Maudoodi's article on takfir (by Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi)
• Takfeer according to Imam Ibn Uthaimeen
• Be Careful who you call non-Muslim
• Islamic theology and Takfir Article exploring the classical view of takfir
• Hermeneutics of takfir