Since releasing my article on Ikrima the Liar and Kharijite, I have received a lot of positive feedback from readers who were either blissfully unaware of the genocidal propensities of some of the people that groups such as Deobandis and Salafis expect them to ‘respect’ as ‘Imams’ or had already heard about Ikrima (who narrates some of Salafis favourite hadiths, such as those about burning apostates and gays) and his ‘tendencies’ and had their faith shaken, as they mistakenly believed that such individuals who sanction the murder of senior Sahahbah were somehow nonetheless indispensable to Islam. I also received a few sincere emails with requests of clarification of some issues.

On the other hand, I was bestowed with an emotional and hysterical reaction from modern ‘Hanafis’ and their Salafi colleagues. For my part, I honestly really do excuse their ignorance of the academic issues related to Arabic and English reading comprehension, history, biography, hadeeth and other subjects – because they have no one who would teach them that. That’s why they apparently have no clue of the basics of any of the Islamic fields. It is not meant to disparage but to excuse such people their egregious errors, which extend but are not limited to justifying killing in the name of Islam based on shoddy sources. But of course for the layman and non-Muslims I have to clarify, because these peoples’ feelings and ‘right’ to display academic incompetence are not more important than the reputation of Islam.

In this article I want to clarify few issues in which these modern ‘Hanasalafis’ and in particular the crypto Salafi Deobandi sect/cult from the Indian Subcontinent are mired. What is sad is that despite endangering the faith and reputation of Muslims whilst ‘responding’ to my article and insisting that someone who takes money from tyrannical governments that kill sahabah, calls Ali and Uthmaan, senior companions of the Prophet, apostates who will burn in Hell forever, is a ‘reliable Imam’ that is ‘accepted by everyone’, these people never explain how this is the case: they in no place denied that he is a Kharijite (and a Safari and Ibadi i.e worst type at that) nor his attacks on the Sahabah nor his genocidal tendencies: they merely keep repeating that he was ‘accepted’ by Abu Hanifa because he (they claim) quoted from him (as if everyone who quotes from George Bush for any reason is automatically a Republican). They never, you will note, stop to explain how you can be reliable if you have such beliefs and practices nor will they ever once even condemn him for holding these beliefs. It is entirely lost on these people that by prostituting the reputations of Imams Abu Hanifa and Bukhari to rescue that of Ikrima all they do is cast doubt on the latter two real imams for ‘accepting’ such a vile and deranged individual in the first place.

This behaviour of sacrificing the reputation of Islam and Islamic senior authorities for ones’ own sectarian obsessions and preoccupations (in this case burning ‘apostates’ and gays, which is ironic since as far as I can see, these groups own behaviour is the main ‘driver’ for both apostasy and homosexuality in Muslim communities) on spurious grounds is exactly what is precipitating the wave of apostasy amongst Muslims. These groups are too navel gazing and happy with their piece of the financial and fan-base ‘pie’ to care about the appalled reaction of everyone outside their brainwashed and cult like circle.

Even more banally, some Salafis have tied to make a way out of their self inflcited Ikrima conundrum by saying the only condition for a narrator of hadith is that he must not be a liar – even if he calls Ali and Uthmaan apostates, then that’s fine. What is really absurd about this is that these people were not formerly claiming that Ikrima was merely ‘not a liar’ but rather ‘pious’, ‘righteous’ and ‘Imam of the Muslims’. In any case, no hadith scholar anywhere says that the only condition to narrate hadith is to be ‘truthful’.

Finally, if Ikrima is ‘truthful’ and ‘doesn’t lie’ then is he being truthful and accurate when he says that the Sahabah are kaafir and should be killed? Of course, it is for the benefit of readers only: I am sorry to say that logical argumentation is lost on these dishonest and academically bankrupt cultists.

Here then, in summary, are the topics of this article;

1. Importance of the authenticity of the statement of al-Harithi narrated by Kharazmi, upon which alone these individuals rely for evidence that Abu Hanifa narrated from Ikrima. Unfortunately for them, as was abundantly clear last time, no one regards this Al-Harithi guy as authentic at all. But they don’t care – authentic, inauthentic, extracted from comic books – all of that is fine as long as it gives them some excuse for their ‘killing fatwas’.
2. Abu Hanifa never said that Ikrima is not reliable, therefore according to these people he must thus in fact be reliable.
3. Abu Hanifa narrating from someone proves that he is reliable according to Abu Hanifa. I spent ages addressing this here but it had no effect as these people seem to believe that repeating a lie ad nauseum makes it truer each time.
4. Why did I use Shafei scholars such as Imam Dhahabi to prove that al-Harithi is liar?

 

1. Importance of the authenticity of the statement of al-Harithi as narrated by Kharazmi.

In my article about Ikrima, I mentioned only two main points about the statement of Harithi where Abu Hanifa was allegedly asked about his ”great teachers” so he listed them, including Ikrima. I clearly said that there are many more problems with this narration of Harithy, so I only mentioned two;

1. This statement of Harithi is narrated by Qadhi Abu Muayyad al-Kharazmi who died at 665 Hijri, and Qadhi Sadriddin al-Sa’idi who died 650 Hijri. I said; ”The problem with these narrations is that there is a very large number of people within the chain between both of the authors to Bukhari who are missing. What I mean is that between Sa’idi and Bukhari there is 310 years of ‘chain’ which is missing, and between Kharazmi and Bukhari there is 325 years of narrators who are missing from the chain.”
2. The second slight problem with this statement is that Harithi is classed as ”weak” and ”liar” because he ”used to fabricate”, which is confirmed by list of authoritative scholars such as; Rawwas, Sulaimani, Khalili, Khateeb, Hakim, ibn Jawzi, Dhahabi and many others.

These points are easy enough for anyone even without knowledge of Islam to apprehend, and I supplied ample references. However, I did not account for the disturbing effect that an academic presentation would have on ‘drama queens’ who have no clue of the field of historical research. They seemed to have had a strange vision or trance/hallucination while reading my article. In their hallucination, they appeared to have received a message saying: Why is he asking for a chain between Kharazmi, Sa’idi and Harithi? Isn’t it the same as someone who claims that Saeed bin Musayyab classed Ikrima as liar, but then he doesn’t give us a chain between him to Ibn Musayyab?

Well, I excuse their ignorance once again because even their ”greatest teachers”, and ”muftis” and ”shuyukh” have no clue of the basics of Islam but yet still wish to opine on matters of war, killing and government. That’s why they won’t know this issue which is known to junior students of hadeeth, science of rijal (biography of the narrators) and usul al-fiqh (principles or foundations of legal theory).

I want to explain it to the “top shuyukh” of the modern Islam who have sent this ‘message’ to these guys while they were apparently in some kind of trance like state and open to any suggestion, no matter how absurd: For any claim that anyone states we need a proof. And the proof in the field of Rijaal is one of two;

1. Either you refer us to the book from which you are quoting so we can further investigate that statement in that book
2. Or, if you are narrating the statement of some scholar which is not mentioned in his book then show us where did you get it from

For example; If Tirmidhi mentions some hadeeth which is narrated by Malik in his book ‘Muwatta’, then Tirmidhi says; ‘Narrated by Malik in ‘Muwatta’’, that will be perfectly fine, because anyone can go and see if this narration of Malik is authentic or not. And we don’t need a chain between Tirmidhi and Malik. But if Tirmidhi mentions some hadeeth of Malik which is not in his ‘Muwatta’ then definitely he has to mention his chain to Malik too, otherwise hadeeth will be disconnected and weak.

Coming back to our issue, both of Sa’di and Kharazmi mentioned that al-Harithi, the author of ‘Musnad’ of Abu Hanifa (itself three hundred years between them) classed Ikrima as his ”great teacher”. But neither of them mentioned their chain to al-Harithi. And the gap between them to Harithi is over 300 years. Also, this statement of Harithi is not in the ‘Musnad’ anyway. Here is the ‘Musnad’ of Harithi;  https://archive.org/details/Musnad_abiHanifaHarthi – you can check it yourself.

So, how we ever can be sure about the source of Sa’idi and Kharazmi?

Or is it that anyone who writes a book in any of Islamic fields can write whatever he wants and no proof or authenticity whatsoever is needed? Look guys, non-Muslim academics will just laugh at us. Please, even if just for the sake of keeping up appearances, maintain some standards, otherwise the enemies of religion just get emboldened.

But again, these modern ‘Hanafis’ have no clue of these things that’s why I personally excuse them. Also, I am 100% sure that the laymen who are mentioning these types of comments about my article take them from the same molanas who prefer to remain hidden because they are afraid that I will respond to their ‘insights’ and ‘teachings’.

2. Why did I use the Shafei scholars such as Dhahabi to prove that al-Harithi is a liar?

My second catch on the narration of Harithi was that he is a liar who used to fabricate hadeeths. I’ve been sent a comment from one of the secret ‘whatsapp’ forums where one of the ”top” molanas from the ”Modern Hanafi” sect tried to ”refute” my argument (in secret to reassure his cultist followers, as they have to do as cult members are easily swayed, which is how they got these vulnerable individuals to follow their particular sect in the first place):

He said; ”How come he is using Shafeis such as Dhahabi to prove that Harithi is liar?  If he follows Dhahabi about Harithi, why doesn’t he take the opinion of Dhahabi about Ikrima being trustable?” Then he insulted me by saying; ”Jahl fawq al-Jahl!” (Means ‘ignorance on top of ignorance’). But of course, if you call them out on their lies and foolhardy willingness to kill people on baseless grounds they say you are ‘insulting’ them, not worthy of a response, fear Allah etc. So Allah is there just to enforce their particular idiosyncratic view of etiquettes but inciting people to kill etc. is no big deal. Okay then.

So he made three ‘points’;

1. Why do I take the opinion of Shafeis about reliability of Harithi who is Hanafi?
2. Why don’t I take the opinion of the same Shafeis about the reliability of Ikrima?
3. What I did is ‘ignorance on top of ignorance’

As for the first point, it regrettably demonstrates how galactically uninformed this ”Top Modern Hanafi Molana” is. That is because the field of History is different to the field of Fiqh or ‘Law’.  I mean, if I am Hanafi in fiqh it doesn’t mean that I have to learn history only from Hanafis! Or Uzbeks. Or even Muslims. Each field has its own experts. So, if I want to research about Hanafi fiqh then I look at the opinions of Hanafi scholars. If I am interested in the field of Aqeedah (dogmatics or theology) I look at the opinions of Maturidis, and not even Hanafis. That’s because some of the Hanafis are mujassims (anthropomorphists or corporealists), some are Ash’aris, some are Mu’tazila etc… Thus, if I am researching about Rijaal I will look at the opinions of experts of Rijaal regardless if they are Mu’tazila, Shafeis, or even mujassims. This ‘counterpoint’ is as ridiculous as saying ‘He believes Einstein about Relativity but he isn’t a Jew! What a hypocrite!’

Also, if you have to believe everything that an authority you quote believes, then do these guys, who so vociferously quote Ikrima, believe that Ali and the senior Sahabah were apostates and should be killed? Please clarify, especially as they refused to even once condemn Ikrima’s deviant beliefs, presumably because they fear for Ikrima’s reputation more than that of the Sahabah.

But modern ‘Hanafis’ have no clue at all it seems. They do it exactly the other way round; so for the Hanafi fiqh they look at the opinions of Ibn Taimia, Ikrima and Ahmad bin Hanbal (i.e non-Hanafis or those antagonistic to Hanifism). And for the Maturidi aqeedah they look at the opinions of Dhahabi and Ibn Hajar etc (i.e non-Maturidis or those antagonistic to Maturidism)… I guess if they wanted to find the official Christian position on Evolution they would look in the books of Darwin, but take it only if it is supported by Mozart and clarified by Nostradamus. Silly guys!

Also, worst of all, I didn’t only narrate from Dhahabi, but from big list of experts of rijal from different juristic and theological backgrounds. So the whole ‘objection’ was facile and misleading from the outset.

As for his second point about me following Dhahabi on the issue of Harithi and not following him on the issue of Ikrima. First of all I didn’t follow Dhahabi, rather I gave a big list of other experts of rijaal too and based my proof on their agreement. According to Hanafi principles, if experts of rijaal criticise some narrator and explain the reason then we accept it. That is exactly what happened in our case with Harithi. All of them agreed that Harithi is liar, then they explained the reason by saying; ‘He used to lie, he used to fabricate, he used to confuse the chains of the narrations deliberately’, etc…

Again I am aware that modern Hanafis don’t have clue of these issues, that’s why we should excuse them, just as we excuse a colour blind person for not distinguishing red from blue.

As for the third point. Yes, I have no choice but to agree that they do indeed have this problem of ‘ignorance on top of their ignorance’. I mean they are ignorant about the issues, and on top of that they love to get engaged in them nonetheless, and to debate about them with the people who have really good knowledge of them!

I ask the members of these secret forums (if any of them is genuine) to disclose the name of this ”top moulana”, so people will be aware of him. Just as if you would know of a doctor who is not qualified but yet operating on patients, then it would be compulsory on you to warn the people and inform the authorities about him to ban him. Unfortunately in the Islamic field we don’t have a governing body which would disqualify these type of ”top molanas” that’s why we can only warn the people about them. And their errors are yet more serious, since they ask for killing and violence but have no Islamic evidences to back it up apart from weak insults and reasoning so faulty that no Islamic knowledge is required to falsify it. Strange!

3.Abu Hanifa never said that Ikrima is not reliable

It is again another hallucination of modern Hanafis and their Salafi handlers and financiers. There are hundreds of thousands of narrators. And there is no scholar who commented on each single one of these narrators or about their reliability. For example, Yahya bin Ma’een is classed as a top expert of Rijaal. He commented on many of the narrators, but even he did not comment on each and every narrator. Even Ibn Hajar who collected the opinions of the experts about the narrators, didn’t include everyone ‘100%’ in his books. In fact, some of them didn’t even ‘recognise’ or mention some of the senior Bardi sahabah, let alone lesser authorities.

If that is the experts of this very field, then what do you expect from Abu Hanifa who is not classed as one of the top narrators nor one who dedicated their life to researching about narrators – and that by these very people (i.e Salafists) who regard him as ‘unreliable’ and ‘weak’ in hadith – a claim repeated by Imam Bukhari himself. Based on that, no one can say; Abu Hanifa not criticising Ikrima means he is accepted by Abu Hanifa. (I am just saying this in addition to the common sense position, which is not a proof for these guys, that it is incredibly stupid to assert that unless you have a written and surviving critique of someone, you automatically consider him ‘reliable’. Therefore, according to that logic, I consider Mao and Stalin to be ‘reliable’ as I am not on record as saying they are not reliable, and Abu Hanifa must consider Hajjaj and Yazid to be reliable as he is not on record as saying they are not. Also, maybe these people can show me where in their books this ‘presumption of reliability’ for narrators, i.e narrators are all reliable even if they takfir or anathematise the Sahabha or call for mass genocide, unless specifically mentioned otherwise, is found?

So once again, the ‘objection’ or ‘rebuttal’ is so redundantly bad that it requires no specialist knowledge to falsify it.

But, just to underline the dishonesty and poor level of Islamic knowledge on display, Abu Hanifa said; ”Take the knowledge from everyone except the following” and he listed the ones who are around the royals and rulers (as Ikrima most certainly was and as his erstwhile interlocutors accept). He said; ”But don’t take from the ones who are around the royals! I don’t say they lie, but they don’t say the truth as it is!”

I did speak about it comprehensively in my article. This general statement of Abu Hanifa includes Ikrima and any other people around the Umayyads and Abbasids. There is no doubt that Ikrima was highly rewarded by Umayyads in the time of Hajjaj when all of the genuine scholars were getting some type of punishment such as death, jail, lashing, deporting, exile or hiding etc from the very same people.

So is Abu Hanifa going against his own principles by ‘accepting’ Ikrima?

Obviously, we don’t want to give these ‘Hanafis’ a chance to answer, as the reputation of Abu Hanifa (and Islam) is nothing to them as we saw, they will gladly say ‘Yes!’

Ironically the top two sects which are known in our time to insult the scholars by calling them ‘government puppets’, ‘stooges’, ‘sell outs’ or ”Ulema of the Sultan” are Salafis and Hizb ut Tahreer. And it is exactly these two sects who are trying their best to love and defend Ikrima and his bloody narrations and the rest of the scholars of the most oppressive kings – the Umayyads (*unless it is their favourite scholars working for the Saudi Ministry of Religious Affairs etc in which case it is fine). So being a stooge or funded by governments (even those that kill sahabah) is fine for HT and Salafis, just as long as they give you the fatwas you want (burning people you don’t personally like). So the overriding principle in their ‘legal theory’ seems to be ego and violence. No problem – but please just admit it.

‘Sacred’ inconsistency perhaps?

4.Abu Hanifa narrating from someone proves that he is reliable according to Abu Hanifa

I did already explain it in my article at length, and I mentioned the example of Jabir al-Ju’fi. But I have to once again excuse the intellectually blind modern Hanafis who don’t see what they ‘read’. And I don’t think I need to talk about it as someone called Sheikha Nikkita has explained that in her article here; https://asharisassemble.com/2016/06/19/muslims-proudly-display-academic-standards-yet-again-sometimes-they-come-back/

Just to add to that, it is common knowledge among even the beginner students that scholars are of two types;

1. Those scholars who only narrate from reliable people
2. Those scholars who narrate from anyone and everyone

And there is a third type, where we don’t know their ‘habit’ in narration. Meaning, we don’t know if their habit is to narrate from only reliable people or whatever.

Abu Hanifa belongs to the second category. I have explained that in my article. And everyone who has studied in any system education knows that quoting someone as evidence is not an endorsement. It is obvious. Self-evident. Common sense. Etc.

Also, I saw the hilarious ‘argument’ being proffered on these secret forums that if we criticise Ikrima for accepting money and being in thrall of genocidal maniacs such as the rulers of his time, then we must likewise criticise Imam Abu Yusuf, the student of Imam Abu Hanifa, because he was in the employ of Harun Al Rashid. Obviously, this is not even an argument at all and barely even qualifies as emotional blackmail – it is merely saying that ignore the bad stuff that one person did because other people perhaps did it too. So I eagerly await the canonisation of this ‘principle’ which can excuse anything and everything which more than one famous person does. Thus the Iraq War mist have been good, because if you criticise the West for doing it you would have to criticise Saudi and Muslim countries for supporting it too. So you shouldn’t criticise anyone. Excellent moral ‘principles’!

I am however glad that top Deobandi scholars are so abundantly clearly demonstrating their total incapability and bankruptcy in each single Islamic field including fiqh, hadeeth, science of rijal and also their full and vociferous support for Ibn Taimia.  It makes our life easier to see their level so we won’t be confused by their false claims about “following” Hanafi fiqh and Ash’ari aqeedah.

 

 

Update;

As a usual Deomullas play alot of deceptive games and lie in order to win the debate.

The new lies are as following;

Ironically, Atabek adopts a late Ḥanafī/Shāfi‘ī stance when it comes to the issue of an imām from the salaf narrating from a ḥadīth-transmitter:

a) According to the early Ḥanafī scholars, if an imām from the salaf, e.g. Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, narrates from an individual, then this automatically entails that the imām believes him to be trustworthy, unless the imām explicitly clarifies that the individual he is narrating from is unreliable according to him.

b) However, according to a later Ḥanafī view (and the view of many of the muḥaddithīn), it will only entail that the narrator is reliable according to the imām, if it is known from the imām’s normal practice to narrate only from those he believes to be reliable.

Atabek adopts the latter view while discarding the principle of the early Ḥanafī school, although he castigates others for doing the same!

So, the new lie says;

• if an imām from the salaf, e.g. Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, narrates from an individual, then this automatically entails that the imām believes him to be trustworthy
• according to a later Ḥanafī view (and the view of many of the muḥaddithīn), it will only entail that the narrator is reliable according to the imām, if it is known from the imām’s normal practice to narrate only from those he believes to be reliable
•  ‘Atabek adopts the latter view while discarding the principle of the early Ḥanafī school, although he castigates others for doing the same!’

I am not really surprised for this open lies and deceptions, as I had over 25 years of experience of dealing with these ‘ulema’.

In the very first article I’ve quoted that Abu Hanfia narrated from Jabir al-Ju’fi. I quoted few narrations of Abu Hanifa from Jabir. After that I’ve narrated the statement of Abu Hanifa where he says ‘I’ve never seen anyone more lying than Jabir al-Ju’fi’. That proves that Abu Hanifa’s narration from someone doesn’t prove that this ‘someone’ is reliable according to Abu Hanifa. So , position of Abu Hanifa is exactly opposite to what this mulla claimed. Based on that, Abu Hanifa narrated from the people who are the biggest liars according to him. Therefore if we find him narrating from someone we shouldn’t think that he is reliable according to Abu Hanifa. This deomulla in order to protect himself he added ‘ unless the imām explicitly clarifies that the individual he is narrating from is unreliable according to him‘. Now question where did he get this principle from? Did Abu Hanifa say it only to deobandi cult so no one else knows it? Or is it another Satanic verses relieved to one of their elite? Let him show us where did he get this lie from?! They all love to make up a principles as they go then pretend that it is well known issue!

Dear deomullas, show us where Abu Hanifa said; I narrate only from reliable narrators, and clarify if non-reliable!

All of that was in the same article, but this deomulla only was intending to win, that’s why he openly lied hoping that readers won’t come back to read my article.

Just for you information, I disagree with Abu Hanifa in the satatement that Jabir al-Ju’fi is the biggest liar. I say; If he would see these doemullas, timawites and taimahanafites he would change his mind, and this update is strong proof of that!

My advice to Deo-mullas and their colleagues : Don’t play your games with me, as I am aware of its principles!