Khutba on ISIS and the Jawariŷ.

We are all shocked and terrified by the images and news coming out of Gaza showing the burned and mutilated bodies of our Muslim brothers and sisters, men, women and children, trapped with nowhere to flee or hide, killed in their own homes with lethal bombs and missiles.
The images break our hearts; and how could they not when it comes to our brothers and sisters in Din.
The Prophet, sallallâhu ‘alaihi wa sallam, said, “The believers are like a body in their mercy, love and solicitude for one another: when one of the limbs suffers, the rest of the body reacts with fever and sleeplessness.”
Those in Gaza are part of ourselves, they are part of our Ummah, and their suffering affects us greatly.
Accordingly, we ask Allah to alleviate their sufferings, give them a way out and protect them from their enemies.
And may He give the best outcome to this situation, an outcome that pleases Him and strengthens them and the Muslim Ummah.
The situation facing the Palestinian people has been going on for months, actually years, but we must be careful that it does not distract us from the other things that are happening.
The fact is that there is another situation that dwarfs it in significance and scope, a situation that threatens the stability and well-being of the entire region and is more difficult to understand because all sides involved claim to be Muslim.
This other situation, this other conflict, has caused the deaths, not only of thousands of Muslims, but even hundreds of thousands, many of whom are, once again, women and children.
The epicenter of this conflict is Syria, but it has since spread to Iraq.
On one side we have Bashar al-Assad and the Shi’a leadership of Iraq and, on the other, the group that is known as the Islamic State, or ISIS.
We all know the brutality and excesses of Assad, a man who comes from the Nusayri, the Shi’a Alawi sect whose dogmas are far removed from Islam.
He and his soldiers have murdered, looted and used lethal gases against their own citizens.
And we also know the brutality and excesses of the Shi’a government of al-Maliki in Iraq who has used his time in office to unleash revenge and punishment against all those who seemed to be connected, in one way or another, to the previous regime.
This knowledge might tempt us to defend the ISIS side in the current conflict because they declare themselves Muslims and not Shi’a.
But this would be a grave mistake.
Instead of being a modern manifestation of the authentic caliphate and the correct forms of Islamic rule, they are actually a manifestation of the most secessionist and destructive groups that have ever appeared in the history of Islam: the jawariŷ.
The term ‘jawariŷ’is an Arabic word meaning “those who have gone out,” and was originally used to describe a group that had left the mainstream group of Muslims to adopt an extreme and deviant stance at the time of the Caliphate of Sayyidina Ali ibn abi Talib.
This took place after the battle of Siffin, in the conflict between Ali and Sayyidina Mu’awiya.
The conflict had been going on for some time with no possible solution in sight; consequently, the two groups agreed to an arbitration with Abu Musa al-Ash’ari representing Ali and Amr ibn al-As representing Mu’awiya. But a number of individuals who had allied with Ali for battle rejected this move, went to him and said, “No one can judge except Allah.”
And then they quoted Allah’s words, “Judgment belongs to Allah alone. He speaks the truth and He is the One Who decides best.”
Ali recalled that arbitration was a practice of the Prophet; it was he who appointed ibn Mu’adh to arbitrate between the Muslims and the Banu Quraydha of Madina.
But that group was not willing to listen; they called him a transgressor and kafir because, in their view, what is considered a major wrong action takes a person out of Islam.
Takfir is one of their defining characteristics, as is their stubbornness, since they only consider it right to rely on what they say, not even in the case of the Messenger of Allah himself.
In a hadith transmitted by Abu Said al-Khudri, he describes an occasion when the Prophet, sallallâhu ‘alaihi wa sallam, was distributing a spoil of war; suddenly a man named Dhul-Juwaysira, of the Banu Tamim, came up to him and said, ‘Be just!’ insinuating that the Messenger of Allah was being unjust.
This same individual became one of the leaders of the jawariŷ and one of their bitterest opponents.
They were fought and killed at Nahrawan by Ali ibn abi Talib.
But a small group survived and gathered in Kufa where they made a pact to assassinate Sayyidina Ali, Sayyidina Amr ibn al-As and Sayyidina Mu’awiya.
They succeeded in doing so in the case of Ali, but failed with the other two.
Thus, the original jawariŷ took as valid targets all Muslims who disagreed with their worldview.
This is based on their claim that every wrong action of significance makes a person leave Islam, and since they define as wrong action any action that they do not admit, it gives them free rein to label as kufr the entire human race that is not part of their group.
This is demonstrated by the remark made by Hurqus ibn Zuhayr, one of the leaders of the jawariŷ, to Sayyidina Ali, during the discussion on the subject of arbitrariness in Siffin.
Ibn Kazir conveys that Hurqus said, “This is a wrong action that requires you to do tawba.”
But they are the ones who must make tawba for going out of the Muslim Ummah and rebelling against the ŷama’a.
Any group that adopts their ideology can never be considered a caliphate because their ethos is the antithesis of it being a rejection of the ŷama’a and a rejection of the rest of the Muslim Ummah.
We ask Allah to unify the Muslim Ummah and to protect us from all that signifies a threat to our welfare and union.
Speaking of the man who had told him to be righteous and then became part of the jawariŷ, the Prophet, sallallâhu ‘alaihi wa sallam, said, “He has companions whose prayers and fasts, compared to yours, would make you think that yours are insignificant. They recite the Qur’an, but it does not pass beyond their collarbones. They pass through the Din as the arrow passes through the prey. If someone wanted to find the tip of the arrow, its binding, its shaft or its feathers, they would find nothing attached to it, no trace of blood or excrement of the animal”.
In other words, they do not get anything from the Din, not even the slightest trace. And in another version he said that their recitation of the Qur’an would make ours seem somewhat insignificant.
There is no doubt that these jawariŷ can be very seductive and convincing because, to the unwary, they can appear to be very pious people with great knowledge of the Din.
The original jawariŷ were able to persuade many Muslims to come over to their side, although later most of them abandoned it when Ali addressed the group and showed that the stand they had taken was false.
But this knowledge they seem to have is, in reality, empty and unsubstantiated.
The truth is, as the Prophet, sallallâhu ‘alaihi wa sallam, said, there is not the slightest trace of Din in what they do.
It is an absolute misguidance and their efforts never produce a positive result.
This has been proven every time they have appeared in history, something that has happened many hundreds of times.
They have never created anything good, positive or lasting.
All they have produced is death, chaos and destruction.
A recent example was the GIA in Algeria in the 1990s.
Pretending to be in the truth, they murdered and massacred thousands of Algerian civilians whom they considered valid targets and accomplices of the state because they did not fight on their side.
And then, when they quenched that thirst for slaughter, they turned on each other until they completely annihilated each other.
And now this group called ISIS proves to have many similar traits.
They call all Muslims who disagree with them kafir and consider their blood lawful.
They will not stop killing, and the ones they kill and will continue to kill more than any other, are Muslims.
And they will continue to justify their killing, to themselves and to all who will listen to them, until only they are left.
Ibn Umar said, “They take ayats that were revealed on the purpose of the non-Muslims and apply them against the Muslims.”
And then, when they have finished slaughtering Muslims, they will inevitably turn against themselves.
There is nothing Islamic in their state and their barbaric behavior goes against all the precepts and parameters of the Din.
They have not created, nor will they create, anything good or lasting, unless Allah guides them and their hearts are opened to the true light of the Deen.
People of their kind have never created anything positive.
They are a plague that plagues the Muslims.
Allah says: “They say that they are the ones who are setting things right but in reality they are the ones who spread corruption, even though they do not know it.”
When Sayyidina Ali was talking to Hurqus, he said to him, “Those who are like you, Hurqus, are the ones Allah mentions in the Qur’an when He says, “Say: ‘Do you want me to tell you who are the biggest losers in their deeds? Those whose efforts in this world are misguided but who think they are doing good.'”
And you, Hurqus, and this I swear by the name of the Lord of the Ka’ba, you will be among them.”
So, I advise to reflect again anyone who has been attracted to ISIS or has rejoiced at its appearance.
Pay no attention to their propaganda, do not believe that they are strengthening Islam. And, of course, do not think of joining them because all you will do is kill Muslims and think that all your brothers and sisters, people who had been your closest companions and friends, are out of the Din.
You will end up having a heart devoid of mercy and compassion and, as we well know, he who has no mercy cannot receive mercy, not even from his Lord.
We ask Allah to give success to His Din, to help those who help His Din and to hinder those who hinder His Din.
We ask Allah to give our Muslim brothers, especially those who are vulnerable to the propaganda of groups like ISIS, discrimination and wisdom, and to enable them to discern the truth in order to follow it, and to see what is false and dangerous in order to avoid it.
We ask Allah to keep us always on the straight path and protect us from going astray.
We ask Allah to give victory to His Din and to help those who strive and fight sincerely in His name, and to make them defeat their enemies.
And we ask Him to re-establish in our time the true emirate, the emirate that follows the Sunnah of the Prophet, sallallâhu ‘alaihi wa sallam, and the sunnah of the Khulafa ar-Rashidun, radhi’llahu ‘anhum. Imam Habib Bewley Jumua Mosque of Cape Town