Part 2: Some Notes in Response to “Why I am not Salafī”

Regarding the Statement of ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUmar (May Allāh be pleased with them)

As for the statement of the noble Companion ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUmar (May Allāh be pleased with them): “They took ayāt concerning the Unbelievers and applied them upon the Believers.”

[01] — Then Ibn ʿUmar (May Allāh be pleased with them) was referring to the Khawārij who is why Imām Al-Bukhārī mentions in under the chapter heading: ‘Killing the Khawārij and the Apostates after establishing the proof upon them.’

Likewise Al-Hāfiz Ibn Hajr in ‘Fathul-Bārī’ mentions the full wording of the report, he said: “It is reported with a connected chain by At-Tabarī in ‘Musnad ʿAlī’ from ‘Tahdhīb-ul-Āthār’ by way of Bukayr ibn ʿAbdillāh ibn Al-Ashajj: that he asked Nāfiʿ: ‘What was the opinion of Ibn ʿUmar regarding the Harūriyyah?[1]’ So he said:

‘He used to regard them as being the worst of Allāh’s creation. They took the ayāt concerning the Unbelievers and applied them to the Believers.’”

Al-ʿAllāmah Badr-ud-Dīn Al-ʿAynī said in ‘ʿUmdat-ul-Qārī Sharh Sahīh-il-Bukhārī’, in explanation of this report:

“I say: They ‘Harūriyyah’ are the Khawārij. They were called ‘Harūriyyah’ because they settled at a place called Harūrā…”

[02] — As for clarification of who the Khawārij are, and the fact that the Salafīs are free of being from them, then Ibn Hazm defined them in his work on the secs ‘Al-Fisal fil-Milal wan-Nihal’ (1/370):

“Whoever agrees with the Khawārij in rejection of the arbitration¹I.e., between ʿAlī and Muʿāwiyyah (May Allāh be pleased with them)., and in declaring those guilty of major sins (Kabʾāir) to be Unbelievers, and upon the saying that oppressive rulers are to be rebelled against, and that those guilty of major sins will remain forever in the Fire, and that (overall) rulership is permissible for other than the Quraysh — then he is a Khārijī (one of the Khawārij), even if he disagrees with them in some other affairs about which the Muslims have differed. But if he disagrees with them in what we have mentioned, then he will not be a Khārijī.”

Translated by Abū Ṭalḥah Dāwud Burbank.

[1] I.e., the initial Khawārij.