Punishment of Apostacy in Islam — Page 63
63 Holy Prophet, he became stronger and Ghatafan, Hawazan and Tai rallied to his cause. After Abs and Zeeban had been vanquished by Hazrat Abu Bakr, they too joined Tulaiha. All these people persecuted the Muslims, tortured them, mutilated them and burned some of them alive (Tareekhal Kamel, V 01. II, p. 149). When Ukasha bin Mohsin and Thabit bin Aqram Ansari were out on a reconnaissance, they were overtaken by Tulaiha and his brother and were put to death. The Muslims subsequently discovered their dead bodies which had apparently been trampled underfoot. It will thus be seen that Tulaiha was not only an apostate, he was a rebel and gave shelter to other rebels. He himself and his people slaughtered Muslims and it had become necessary to put him down. Khalid bin Waleed was sent against him, but before starting action, he sent an emissary to try to persuade him to come to terms so that bloodshed could be avoided. But he proved obdurate and there was no choice left to Khalid except to start fighting. Musailamah and Tulaiha were not the only ones who made a false claim of prophethood towards the latter part of the life of the Holy Prophet, peace be on him. There were several other such claimants and all of them aimed at acquiring political authority over some part of Arabia. One of them was Aswad Ansi who raised the standard of rebellion simultaneously with his apostacy. He commanded the functionaries of the Holy Prophet in the Yemen to restore to him the taxes which they had collected. They put him off and he proceeded to subdue the Yemen with the help