Punishment of Apostacy in Islam — Page 71
71 inclined to put his emissary to death. In the end, they declared that whoever differed from their doctrine was a disbeliever and that it was lawful to kill him and the members of his family and to take possession of his property. They began to act in accordance with their declarations and stopped people who passed near them and put them to death. It so happened that Abdullah bin Khabab, who was Hazrat Ali’s governor in their region, who was accompanied by a female slave who was pregnant, came upon them. They killed both of them. When Hazrat Ali was apprised of this atrocity, he advanced upon them in force and attacked them at Nahrawan (Fatehal Bari, Vol. XII, p. 251). Another account says: The Khawaraj made Abdullah bin Khabab lie down and slaughtered him, and his blood flowed into the water. Then they turned to the woman who accompanied him, and she said to them: I am but a woman. Will you not fear God? Yet they cut her open and also killed three women of Bani Tai. They also killed Umm Sanan Saidaviah. When Hazrat Ali heard that they had killed Abdullah bin Khabab and that they stopped people and killed them, he sent Alharath bin Marrah Abadi to them to investigate and report back to him how far the report that had reached him was true. But they killed him also. When Hazrat Ali arrived at the head of his forces he demanded that they should surrender to him those who had been guilty of killing his people, but they refused and said they had all been guilty of their slaughter and that they considered it lawful to kill them and to kill Hazrat Ali and those who supported him (Tarikhal Kamel, Vol. l11, p. 148). These accounts leave no doubt that Hazrat Ali did not fight