Murder in the Name of Allah — Page 71
Recantation under Islam. Prophets himself defined a Muslim as one who declares faith in the. Unity of Allah and the prophethood of Muhammadsa 36 This is the only definition by which a Muslim can be judged. Discussing the subject of takfir, Bernard Lewis says:. Even open rebellion did not automatically involve takfir. In 923 the chief Qadi ibn Buhal refused to denounce the Carmathian rebels as unbelievers since they began their letters with invocations to God and the Prophet and were therefore, on the face of it, Muslims. The Shafi'i law insists that the sectarian, even in revolt, is entitled to be treated as a Muslim; that is to say, his family and property are respected, and that he cannot be summarily despatched or sold into slavery once he becomes a prisoner. ³ 37. Takfir³8 was, however, founded by jurists. As we saw earlier, it was a Kharijite excuse for denouncing Ali. But having adopted this. Kharijite innovation, the jurists could not arrive at an agreed definition of a Muslim. . To comb 1300 years of Islamic history to find the number of Muslims executed because of their conversion from Islam would prove futile. . There were unsuccessful attempts to execute Maimonides in Cairo,39 the. Maronite Amir Yunis in Lebanon, 40 and to persecute Rashid-ud-Din in. Tabriz,41 but such instances were very rare. In Mughal India, there is only one recorded case. A Portuguese friar had embraced Islam and then reverted to his former faith. He was executed at Aurangabad. 42 The reasons for his execution were political, not religious. The friar was under strong suspicion of spying for the Portuguese under the cover of Islam. . Jadd ibn Dirham was put to death on the orders of Hisham b. Abd alMalik in Kufa or Wasit in 124 or 125AH/AD746 or 747. He was accused of having advanced the Mutazili doctrines of the created Quran and of freewill. In 167 or 168AH/AD788 the Iraqi poet Bashir b. Burd was accused of zandaqah, beaten and thrown into a swamp in Batiha. AlHusain b. Mansur al-Hallaj was executed in 309AH/AD930 for blasphemy because he claimed to have substantial union with God (hulul). . Shihab-ul-Din Yahya al-Suhrawardi was put to death on the orders of. Al-Malik al-Zahir (578AH/AD1199). His crime was to regard all that lives, moves or has its being as truth and he even based his proof of God upon the symbol of light. . The seventeenth-century martyr was Muhammad Said Sarmad. Born of Jewish parents at Kashan, Sarmad was a rabbi before embracing. Islam. A great Persian poet, he was a monist and denied the existence of 71