Archive for October, 2008

Az-Zanji: Muslim Ibn Khalid مسلم بن خالد الزنجي the Faqih of Mecca & Imam Ash-Shafi’i

Compiled by Abul Layth

 

Muslim ibn Khālid Al-Makhzūmī Al- Makkī is well known amongst the scholars as Imām Az-Zanjī.  There are several reasons reported as to why he was called “Az-Zanjī”. Az-Zanjī literally means black and is used in modern Arabic to refer to one who is negro¹. Abdullah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal asked Suwayd ibn Sa’id, “Why was he called ‘Az-Zanjī’?” He said, “Because he was extremely black!” Al-Hāfith Ibn Hajr also mentions that he was called Az-Zanjī because he intensely loved dates. A slave girl once said to him, ‘You are nothing but a Zanjī because of your love for dates!’ And so the nickname stuck with him.

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Footnotes (Click ↩ at the end of the note to Go Back to Original Place in the article) :

1. See Hans Wehr’s Dictionary [↩]

 

 

A neo-Muqatili Hanbali claimant recently wrote:

However, if a person says, ‘I don’t like the madhab of Ahmad and I am free of it’ as many of Jahmis like Abul-Layth do in terms of theology, then surely this would be heresy, sin and lack of respect, etc, but I don’t know if it would amount to apostasy…

This individual wrote these words in response to the recent article posted here that quotes Shaykh ul Islam Ibn Kamal as stating,

ولو قال إني بريء من ومذهب أبي حنيفة رحمه الله عنه أو قال: أنا بريء من مذهب الشافعي يكفر  . ومن استحل حراما علم حرمته في دين الإسلام كشرب الخمر فهو كافر    

And if someone were to say, ‘Verily I declare myself free from (بريء - disavowal) the madh-hab of Abu Hanifah or the Madh-hab of Imam Ash-Shafi’i then he has disbelieved…

So this neo-Muqatili self-professed-Hanbali claims that Imam Ahmad’s school is the school that he is upon; the belief that the attributes are to be taken literally, that tafwid is heresy, that any ta’wil is heresy, and that the asha’ris are deviant “Jahmis“. Unfortunately for this individual, the scholars have squelched his creed throughout the ages, branded it heresy, and filled the libraries of the Muslims with thousands of pages of refutations. Some have been translated into English, for the benefit of the western Muslims who may have been bamboozled by the pseudo-salafi propoganda machine. Some of those works include:

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By Abul Layth

I recently stumbled upon a short treatise called, “Risalah fi takfir ar-rawafid” or ‘Treatise (or letter) regarding the declaration of disbelief upon those who revile the Sahabah’ written by Shaykh ul Islam Ahmad ibn Sulayman Ibn Kamaal Basha (Pasha in Turkish), well known as Ibn Kamaal  (d. 940 A.H.). I am not certain, but I think that Ibn Kamaal Basha was the teacher of the famous grand Shaykh of the Ottomans, Abu Su’ud (spelled Ebu Su’ud by some). It is interesting to note that the Ottomans referred to these rawafid as “Qizilbaash” - or those having a ‘red-head’, a term used to refer to the Safawid sect of raafidis who were prevalent in the times of the Turkish Ottomans. The following is a rough translation of an interesting excerpt from the treatise that I would like to share with the readers of Seekingilm. I would like to clearly state that this fatwa was revelant at the time of the Ottomans some 500 years ago, and may not be applicable in todays time for legal reasons one needn’t delve into within this medium. I have chosen to translate and upload this fatwa because I believe it holds historical, as well as academic relevance in the circles of the Sunnis or Muslim Traditionalists. Again, this fatwa must be taken in context and must be understood in the political sphere of 900 A.H. Now to the excerpt:

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