Takfir and its critics
Family: Unity, division and dissent · 4 entries
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Event
Al-Qadir's recantation decree against the innovators (408 AH)
1017 CE · 408 AH408: al-Qadir bi'llah made the Hanafi Mu'tazili faqihs recant — they 'showed return and disavowed i'tizal' — and bound them in writing never to teach or debate i'tizal, rafd or 'doctrines contrary to Islam' on pain of exemplary punishment; Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna emulated the decree in Khurasan with killing, crucifixion, burning, minbar-curses and expulsion of Mu'tazilis, Rafidis, Ismailis, Qarmatis, Jahmis and Mushabbihas — 'and it became a sunna in Islam'.Mahmud of Ghazna Enters Rayy, 420
c. April 1029 CE · Jumada I 420 AHA letter from Mahmud ibn Sabuktakin reached the caliph in Baghdad, dated the first of Jumada II 420 from his camp in the Rayy countryside. In it he describes leaving Isfahan in Muharram and entering Rayy on the morning of Monday, the sixteenth of Jumada I, with a dense army. He mentions that the people of Rayy had been tormented by the injustice of the Daylam and had called on him for aid, and that he gave them his protection. Abu Talib Rustam ibn Ali ibn Fakhr al-Dawla surrendered on terms of reconciliation. The leaders of the Batiniyya were seized; the Daylam testified to what they held; the jurists ruled their blood forfeit, and they were crucified on the roadside. Their property was divided, and their books were brought out: from one city alone fifty camel-loads of books of the Mu'tazila, the philosophers and the Rafida were burned beneath the afflicted. The valuables taken came to nearly five hundred thousand dinars and two hundred and sixty thousand dirhams. Abu Talib, his son and the senior amirs set out for Khurasan. The letter contains his prayer: 'May God remove from this land the hands of the wrongdoers and purify it of the call of the Batiniyya.' This is the conqueror's own account of himself and his reasons.
Concept
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