Takfir

Authority and conditions

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 (the whole Muslim community).

The declaration of takfir 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.

Orthodox Islamic law normally requires stringent evidence for such accusations. In many cases an Islamic court or a religious leader, an alim must pronounce a fatwa (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:

Sunni Ashari

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.

Murjites

The Murjites argued that anyone who called themselves Muslim should be considered Muslim.

Mu'tazilites

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

Khawarij

Some of the early medieval Kharijites concluded that any Muslim who sinned ceased to be a Muslim, while others concluded that only major sin could cause that.

History

Some Muslims (such as Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, founder of Wahhabism) believe that one of the earliest examples of takfir was alleged to have been practiced by the first Caliph, Abu Bakr. In response to the refusal of certain Arab tribes to pay the alms-tax (zakat), he is reported to have said: "By God, I will fight anyone who differentiates between the prayer and the zakat. ... Revelation has been discontinued, the Shari'ah has been completed: will the religion be curtailed while I am alive. ... I will fight these tribes even if they refuse to give a halter. Poor-due (zakat) is a levy on wealth and, by God, I will fight him who differentiates between the prayer and poor-due."

Skeptics point out that Abu Bakr did not even use the word kafir, that he said these words at the time when people were trying to add new practices or innovations to Islam (Bidah), and that general statements (such as "those who don't believe in God are not Muslims") are statements of fact rather than judgements against individual Muslims.

In the wars between the Umayyad Caliphate and the Khawarijs, 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.

Ibn Taymiyyah, the 14th century scholar followed by many modern Salafi, ruled that though Mongol invaders professed to be Muslims their enforcement of the Yasa law in place of Islamic Shariah "reversed their conversion, rendering the Mongols apostate." 18th century revivalist Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab cited Ibn Taymiyyah in his preaching that many mainstream Muslim traditions (such as Sufism) as bid'a (innovation of the religion) caused self-professed Muslims to be unbelievers and his followers slew many Muslims for allegedly kufr practises.

After 1950

Takfir has become "a central ideology of militant groups" such as those in Egypt, "which reflect the ideas" of Sayyid Qutb, Abul A'la Maududi and others, according to the Oxford Islamic Studies Online website. It is rejected by Islamic scholars and leaders such as Hasan al-Hudaybi (d. 1977) and Yusuf al-Qaradawi and by mainstream Muslims and Islamist groups.

In Pakistan

Takfir has been used against the Ahmadiyya, who describe themselves as Muslims but who many Muslims and Islamic scholars believe reject the doctrine of Khatam an-Nabiyyin, i.e. the belief that Muhammad was the last and final Prophet and Messenger of God, after whom there can be no other Prophet or Messenger. This has sometimes been used to legitimize capital punishment (by stoning) of Ahmadis. In 1974 Pakistan amended its constitution to declare Ahmadis as non-Muslims. In 1984, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the then military ruler of Pakistan, issued Ordinance XX, forbidding Ahmadis to call themselves Muslim. As a result, they are not allowed to profess the Islamic creed publicly or to call their places of worship mosques, to worship in non-Ahmadi mosques or public prayer-rooms, to perform the Muslim call to prayer, to use the traditional Islamic greeting in public, to publicly quote from the Quran, to preach in public, to seek converts, or to produce, publish, and disseminate their religious materials.

Local ulama (Islamic scholars) have declared takfir on another group in Pakistan, the Zikri of Makran in Balochistan. The Zikri believe that Syed Muhammad Jaunpuri (born in 1443) was the Mahdi (redeemer) of Islam. In 1978 the ulama founded a movement (Tehrik Khatm-e-Nabuat) to have the Pakistan state declare the Zikris as non-Muslims, like the Ahmadis.

Salman Rushdie

The case of Salman Rushdie provides an example of takfir that featured prominently in Western media. Rushdie went into hiding after Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa in 1989, officially declaring him a kafir who should be executed for his book The Satanic Verses, which is perceived to contain passages that draw into question the basis of Islam. Similar cases have occurred in Egypt: for example, Nasr Abu Zayd was accused of apostasy following his work on Islamic sources, describing the Qur'an as a historical document.

GIA in Algeria

During the Algerian Civil War of 1991-2002 the Islamist insurgent group the GIA (Armed Islamic Group of Algeria) under amir Antar Zouabri issued a manifesto in 1996 entitled The Sharp Sword, presenting Algerian society as resistant to jihad and lamented that the majority of Algerians had "forsaken religion and renounced the battle against its enemies". Zouabri at first took care to deny that the GIA had ever declared takfir on Algerian society itself. But during the month of Ramadan (January–February 1997) hundreds of civilians were killed in massacres, some with their throats cut. The massacres continued for months and culminated in August and September when hundreds of men women and children were killed in the villages of Rais, Bentalha and Beni Messous. Pregnant women were sliced open, children were hacked to pieces or dashed against walls, men's limbs were hacked off one by one, and, as the attackers retreated, they would kidnap young women to keep as sex slaves. The GIA issued a communiqué signed by Zouabri claiming responsibility for the massacres and justifying them—in contradiction to his manifesto—by declaring impious (takfir) all those Algerians who had not joined its ranks. While the GIA had been the "undisputed principal Islamist force" in Algeria two years earlier, the slaughters drained it of popular support and led to the end of "organized jihad" in Algeria. (The issue became complicated by evidence that security forces cooperated with the killers in preventing civilians from escaping, and may even have controlled the GIA.)

Tunisia

The constitution of Tunisia (passed after the Tunisian Revolution of 2011), criminalized takfir by placing a ban on fatwas that promote takfir.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

The Islamic State (aka Daesh) has been heavily criticized for applying takfir to Muslims who oppose its rule. According to journalist Graeme Wood in mid-2015,

Following takfiri doctrine, the Islamic State is committed to purifying the world by killing vast numbers of people. The lack of objective reporting from its territory makes the true extent of the slaughter unknowable, but social-media posts from the region suggest that individual executions happen more or less continually, and mass executions every few weeks.

The tendency of the group to target Shia Muslims with suicide bombings has been credited to the fact that the group considers them apostates.