Takfir


Takfir is an Arabic and Islamic term which denotes excommunication from Islam of one Muslim by another, i.e. accusing another Muslim of being an apostate. The word is found neither in the Quran nor in the ḥadīth literature; instead, kufr and kāfir and other terms employing the same triliteral root K-F-R appear.
Since according to the traditional interpretations of Islamic law the punishment for apostasy is the death penalty, and potentially a cause of strife and violence within the Muslim community, an ill-founded takfir accusation was a major forbidden act in Islamic jurisprudence, with one hadith declaring that one who wrongly declares a Muslim an unbeliever is himself not an apostate but rather committed minor shirk. In the history of Islam, a sect originating in the 7th century CE known as the Kharijites carried out takfīr against both Sunnī and Shīʿa Muslims, and became the main source of insurrection against the early caliphates for centuries. Traditionally, the only group authorized to declare another Muslim a kāfir are the scholars of Islam, which affirm that all the prescribed legal precautions should be taken before declaring takfīr, and that those who profess the Islamic faith should be exempt.
Starting in the mid-to-late 20th century, some individuals and organizations in the Muslim world began to apply takfīr accusations not only against those that they perceived as stray deviant and lapsed Muslims, but also governments and in some cases, societies as well. In his widely influential book Milestones, Egyptian Islamist ideologue Sayyid Qutb preached that governments ruling the Muslim world had fallen into a state of collective apostasy or jahiliyyah several centuries ago, having abandoned the use of sharīʿa law, without which Islam cannot exist. Qutb affirmed that since Muslim government leaders were actually not Muslims but apostates preventing the revival of Islam, the use of "physical force" should be used to remove them. This radical Islamist ideology, called "takfirism", has been widely held and applied by numerous Islamic extremists, terrorists, and jihadist organizations in the late 20th and early 21st-centuries, to varying degrees.
Since the latter half of the 20th century, takfīr has also been used for "sanctioning violence against leaders of Islamic states" who do not enforce sharia or are otherwise "deemed insufficiently religious". Politically motivated arbitrary declarations of takfīr became a "central ideology" of Egyptian-based Jihadist organizations, which were inspired by the ideas of the medieval Islamic scholars Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Kathir, and those of the modern Islamist ideologues Sayyid Qutb and Abul A'la Maududi. Some Salafi jihadist insurgent organizations such as Takfir wal-Hijra, GIA, Boko Haram, and the Islamic State, have been engaged in radical Takfiri discourse. Their practice of takfīr has been denounced as deviant by the mainstream schools of Islam and various leaders such as Hasan al-Hudaybi and Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

Etymology and terminology

The Arabic terms kufr and kāfir, alongside other terms employing the same triliteral root k-f-r, are found both in the Quran and the ḥadīth literature, but the term takfīr used to declare another Muslim as kāfir is found in neither. "The word takfīr was introduced in the post-Quranic period and was first done by the Khawarij," according to J. E. Campo.
The act which precipitates takfīr is termed mukaffir. A Muslim who declares another Muslim to be an unbeliever or apostate is a takfīri.
It is prohibited to do without court and 12 years of Islamic studies.

Authority and conditions

Legitimate authority and conditions that permit the issuance of takfīr are major points of contention among Muslim scholars. The declaration of takfīr typically applies to a judgement that an action or statement by the accused Muslim indicates his/her knowing abandonment of Islam. In many cases an Islamic court or a religious leader, an ʿālim must pronounce a fatwa of takfīr against an individual or group.
The medieval Islamic scholar al-Ghazali "is often credited with having persuaded theologians, in his Faysalal-Tafriqa that takfīr is not a fruitful path and that utmost caution is to be taken in applying it." In general, the official Muslim clergy considers that Islam does not sanction excommunication of Muslims who profess their Islamic faith and perform the ritual pillars of Islam. This is due to the fact that takfir that successfully convinces the judges of the accused being an apostate, traditionally leads to punishments of killing, confiscation of their property, and denial of Islamic burial. Ulamas often raise objections by asking rhetorical questions of who holds the right to excommunicate others, on what religious criteria it should be based, and what level of specialized knowledge in Islamic jurisprudence is required for the qualification of authority.
Some Muslims consider takfīr to be a prerogative only of either Muhammad — who does that through divine revelation and is no longer alive to do it — or of a state which represents the collectivity of the Ummah.
An example given of the reluctance of Muslims to takfir is the refusal of authorities at Al-Azhar University to takfir ISIL/ISIS/Daesh in 2015 despite that groups notorious takfir atrocities; and the refusal of "many mainstream Muslims" to takfir the Kharijites, despite this sects being "unanimously regarded as the arch-takfiris" by scholars.
;Examples of takfir
Examples of takfir spreading once takfir is accepted in a Muslim community include:
  • The Saudi Arabian fatwa website IslamQA.info gave as an example of over-zealous takfir "deviants" a group who "kept away from Jumu'ah and Salah al jamaa'ah and regarded the Muslims in that land"—the 19th century community on the Arabian peninsula who followed the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab – "as disbelievers". Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhaab himself was noted for teachings whose "pivotal idea" was that "Muslims who disagreed with his definition of monotheism were not heretics, that is to say, misguided Muslims, but outside the pale of Islam altogether."
  • Islamist youth incarcerated for alleged extremism in Egypt in the mid-1960s agreed with the theory set forth in Sayyid Qutb's book Milestones that Islam was extinct since sharia law not being enforced in the "Muslim" world, and that the right response was to withdraw from "Muslim" society in preparation for the overthrow of the secular regime. However they disagreed over whether their detachment should be "total" or "spiritual". The groups mutually takfired each other and "refused to greet one another, and sometimes even came to blows".

    Characteristics of apostasy in classical Islam

Traditionally, Islamic jurists did not formulate general rules for establishing unbelief, instead compiling sometimes lengthy lists of statements and actions which in their view were grounds for a takfir accusation. These could be wide-ranging and seemingly far removed from basic Islamic beliefs.
The manuals Reliance of the Traveller, a 14th-century manual of the Shafi'i school of jurisprudence, and Madjma' al-Anhur by Hanafi scholar Shaykhzadeh include
:
:
Other examples from legal treatises devoted exclusively to verbal expressions of disbelief included:
  • "Whoever recites the Quran to the sound of a drum is an unbeliever "
  • "Whoever says: 'I do not know why God mentioned this or that in the Quran' is an unbeliever "
  • "Whoever deliberately prays in a direction other than Mecca, is an unbeliever"
  • "When someone returns from a scholarly gathering and another one says: 'that man came back from church', that person is an unbeliever"
  • "If a woman curses a scholar husband, she is an unbeliever"
Al-Ghazali held that apostasy occurs when a Muslim denies the essential dogmas: monotheism, Muhammad's prophecy, and the Last Judgment. He devoted "chapters to dealing with takfir and the reasons for which one can be accused of unbelief," in his work Fayasl al-tafriqa bayn al-Islam wa-l-zandaqa.

Exemptions and extenuating circumstances

On the other hand, there are a number of ways a Muslim may avoid being found guilty of apostasy.
Giving pause to takfir accusations is the principle of fiqh that accusing or describing another devout Muslim of being an unbeliever is itself an act of apostasy, based on the hadith where Muhammad is reported to have said: "If a man says to his brother, 'You are an infidel,' then one of them is right."
In contrast to the manuals described above, Charles Adams and A. Kevin Reinhart state that some Islamic theologians maintain that Muslims may be guilty of error and wrongdoing without descending all the way to the level of kafir. For example, a Muslim denying a point of creed may be a hypocrite but not a kāfir; merely corrupt if their disobedience was not excessive; "errant Muslim sectarians... astray,"; those whose Qurʿānic interpretation are faulty are in error and not unbelievers because their "citation of Qurʿān, however mistaken, established their faith"; and "according to some", anyone who is "a person of qiblah" cannot be a kāfir.
;Before the accused can be found guilty
Compensating for the numerous and potentially fatal possible transgressions mentioned above that had to be avoided were the requirements for finding a Muslim guilty of apostasy. While not all Islamic scholars or schools of jurisprudence agree, some Shafi'i fiqh scholars—such as Nawawi and ibn Naqib al-Misri—state that to apply the apostasy code to a Muslim, the accused must:
Maliki scholars additionally require that the person in question has publicly engaged in the obligatory practices of the religion. In contrast, Hanafi, Hanbali and Ja'fari fiqh set no such screening requirements; a Muslim's history has no bearing on when and on whom to apply the sharia code for apostasy.
Still more requirements for convicting an alleged apostate are listed by other sources, including that the crime must be explained to them, and they must be given a chance to retract it, and that the accused must have been "aware of the "unilaterally and eternally binding nature" of accepting Islam", and been aware of the punishment for apostasy at the time of committing the crime of apostasy.
Judgement should be left to knowledgeable Muslims not lay Muslims.