A Remark on a Conversation Between Daniel Haqiqatjou and Mohammed Hijab

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First, I wish to refer to a conversation between two preachers and recent disputes in the English-speaking world that were also addressed therein.

It concerns an interview that Daniel Haqiqatjou conducted with Mohammed Hijab. The conversation lasted five hours, and I have only seen some excerpts of it. In particular, I became attentive to a few minutes (beginning at hour 3:32) in which it was discussed that the early Hanbalites showed harshness towards the movement of the Ash'ariyyah. In doing so, the following claims were put forward by Daniel Haqiqatjou:

• This harshness had allegedly originated solely from the Hanbalites, specifically because they had just endured the persecution during the Mihnah². Their harshness against the movements of the Mutakallimin³, which were heavily influenced by philosophy, was thus merely a reaction to the oppression that the Hanbalites had previously suffered at the hands of the Mu'tazilah and Jahmiyyah.
• The early Hanbalites, who represented the Ahlu l-Hadith, certainly made – so the claim – Takfir upon Muhammad ibnu Isma'il al-Bukhari and Muslim ibnu l-Hajjaj.
• If one were to actually apply this standard of the Hanbalites of that time, one would essentially have to declare everyone a Kafir. Why, then, should one adopt and apply this standard?
• Mohammed Hijab added to this that the early Hanbalites vehemently rejected the claim that the Qur'an is created. In this statement as well, it appeared as though the early Hanbalites were the first from whom this position was known.

All of these statements were made within approximately two minutes, which is indeed remarkable, since none of them were substantiated in any way. This is all the more remarkable because we are speaking here of two individuals who essentially represent the highest level of academic education available in the Western world. Both are graduates of the most renowned Western elite universities. One should bear in mind that these very universities praise themselves and Western methods of academic scholarship in the highest terms and claim to have reached the pinnacle of academic rigour in the entire history of humanity.

However, anyone who considers these statements wonders how such academic rigour could be entirely absent from such a discussion. Therefore, the following points shall be briefly addressed here:

The claims made above are entirely at odds with the historical facts and the actual course of historical events. For this reason, they could not be substantiated at all, since none of it aligns with Islamic history.

Anyone who possesses even a basic understanding of these subjects knows without any doubt that all of these issues existed before Ahmad ibnu Hanbal was confronted with them. One should bear in mind that it is always about the assessment of individual theological questions and not about specific names of groups or movements. The various innovations were all well known and were unanimously rejected by all early Imams of Islam, with equally pronounced harshness.

One should consider the book as-Sunnah by 'Abdullah, the son of Ahmad ibnu Hanbal, in which he transmits, through his father and other individuals, very numerous statements from earlier scholars addressing these very topics with the same harshness mentioned above.

Al-Bukhari likewise did so in his book Khalqu Af'ali l-'Ibad. Anyone who is even slightly familiar with the books of the early Muslims could never make such a claim, since all of these statements were narrated much earlier by individuals such as Muhammad ibnu Idris ash-Shafi'i, Malik ibnu Anas, Sufyan ath-Thauri, Abu 'Amr al-Auza'i, and many others.

Thus, 'Abdullah transmits in as-Sunnah:

كَانَ ابْنُ الْمُبَارَكِ يَقُولُ: «الْجَهْمِيَّةُ كُفَّارٌ»

The statement of 'Abdullah ibnu l-Mubarak was: “The Jahmiyyah are Kuffar.”

قَالَ السُّوَيْدِيُّ: وَسَأَلْتُ وَكِيعًا عَنِ الصَّلَاةِ خَلْفَ الْجَهْمِيَّةِ، فَقَالَ: «لَا يُصَلَّى خَلْفَهُمْ»

As-Suwaidi said: “And I asked Waki' about the prayer behind the Jahmiyyah. He said: ‘One does not pray behind them.’”

سَمِعْتُ الْحَسَنَ بْنَ عِيسَى، يَقُولُ: «الْجَهْمِيَّةُ وَمَنْ يَشُكُّ فِي كُفْرِ الْجَهْمِيَّةِ؟»

I heard al-Hasan ibnu 'Isa say: “The Jahmiyyah – and who doubts the kufr of the Jahmiyyah?”

قِيلَ لِوَكِيعٍ فِي ذَبَائِحِ الْجَهْمِيَّةِ، قَالَ: «لَا تُؤْكَلُ هُمْ مُرْتَدُّونَ»

Waki' was asked regarding the slaughtered animals of the Jahmiyyah. He said: “Their slaughtered animals are not to be eaten. They are Murtaddun (apostates).”

The scholars mentioned here rank among the greatest Imams of Islam. They and their peers transmitted the Islamic source texts, not only the Hadith, but also the Qur'an, the recitations of the Qur'an (Qira'at), Islamic jurisprudence and its practical application, Islamic conduct (Adab, Akhlaq, Zuhd), the Sirah and all other Islamic fields of knowledge.

'Abdullah ibnul Mubarak passed away in 181 AH, Waki' ibnul Jarrah 197 AH, and al-Hasan ibnu 'Isa in 239 or 240 AH. They all, therefore, passed away before Ahmad ibnu Hanbal, who died in 241 AH. Such citations could be continued at great length, for the simple reason that the scholars across multiple epochs rejected nothing as vehemently as the ideology of the Jahmiyyah and their philosophical denial of the attributes of Allah. There is hardly anything in early Islamic history that is as well and abundantly documented as this. Whoever believes he can invalidate one book or another of the Salaf and thereby bring down this vast body of narrations, books, and writings is gravely mistaken. Furthermore, anyone who holds this mere assumption thereby demonstrates that he has no insight into the early literature of Islam.

In addition to the innumerable statements regarding the Jahmiyya and comparable groups in particular, there are equally many regarding the general theological questions. For instance, the question of whether the Qur'an is the word of Allah or created. This question was a significant point of contention, since the aforementioned sects denied that Allah speaks. The early scholars were unanimous that whoever claims the Qur'an is created, and thereby denies that Allah speaks, is not a Muslim.

Abu l-Qasim al-Lalaka'i transmits in his significant work on the creedal foundations of Ahlu s-Sunnah wa l-Jama'ah, from Muhammad ibnu Isma'il al-Bukhari alone, that the latter had personally heard several of these matters from “more than one thousand” scholars⁴.

Furthermore, al-Lalaka'i transmits, among other things:

عَنِ الرَّبِيعِ بْنِ سُلَيْمَانَ قَالَ: سَمِعْتُ الشَّافِعِيَّ يَقُولُ: مَنْ قَالَ الْقُرْآنُ مَخْلُوقٌ فَهُوَ كَافِرٌ

From Rabi' ibnu Sulaiman, that he said: I heard ash-Shafi'i say: Whoever says the Qur'an is created is a Kafir.

Ash-Shafi'i passed away in 204 AH, thus considerably earlier than Ahmad ibnu Hanbal. He can therefore clearly not have been a “Hanbalite” either; rather, he and many others had already held these positions before Ahmad, and it was Ahmad who followed them in this!

Harb al-Kirmani, who is today increasingly maligned as an extremist Hanbalite, likewise narrated the general consensus on the issues that he mentioned in his comprehensive 'Aqidah treatise. The two Razi Imams likewise did the same in their 'Aqidah.

This was narrated by Ibnu Abi Hatim ar-Razi. One could add innumerable books and writings to these. All of these scholars narrated these views not as their personal opinion, but from innumerable scholars before them.

If someone therefore claims that these above-mentioned positions were an innovation, essentially an invention of the Hanbalites after Ahmad ibnu Hanbal, and were not known in this manner before that, then the reality of Islamic history in this regard has evidently passed him by entirely.

In reality, Ahmad ibnu Hanbal and those who came after him did not introduce a single matter on their own; rather, they narrated everything from earlier scholars. And they did so in accordance with the scholarship of their time.

Their opponents in these matters were not Muslim scholars; rather, they were those completely deviant sectarians who were rejected by the generality of the scholars and regarded as non-Muslims, such as al-Ja'd ibnu Dirham, Jahm ibnu Safwan, and Bishr al-Marisi. Whoever believes he must reject the views of those “Hanbalites” will inevitably have to reject the position of early Islamic scholarship altogether and align himself with the views of a Bishr al-Marisi.

Likewise, the claim by Haqiqatjous that the early Hanbalites made Takfir upon al-Bukhari is remarkable, especially in its sweeping generality. Moreover, the statement was simply thrown out and strongly affirmed without citing any evidence for it. One truly wonders: Is this the highly praised academic rigour that one supposedly learns at Harvard and Oxford?!

Whoever makes such a claim should cite unambiguous sources that confirm it. What is meant here are explicit statements — not passages open to this or that interpretation, since such interpretations can be mistaken, especially when they come from people with no noteworthy knowledge of the subject. Furthermore, it should not merely involve the statement of one or two individuals, since such a thing can always occur, even if those individuals are themselves prominent scholars.

Abu 'Isa at-Tirmidhi, who is undoubtedly regarded as one of the greatest Imams of Islam and who was particularly known for his understanding of the Sunnah, that is, the Islamic 'Aqidah, and his knowledge of the views of the early scholars of the Salaf, was a student of al-Bukhari and narrated his statements in his work innumerable times. At-Tirmidhi without doubt held the same views as the prominent Imams of Islam before him. Where, then, can this sweeping Takfir be seen here?

Abu l-Qasim al-Lalaka'i transmits – as already stated above – significant 'Aqidah content from al-Bukhari. Al-Lalaka'i is widely recognised as one of the most renowned early Imams and authored one of the most comprehensive works on the creedal foundations of Ahlu s-Sunnah wa l-Jama'ah. Furthermore, he clearly mentions a narration in which al-Bukhari vehemently rejects certain claims made about him. How, then, could all of this be reconciled with the claim of Daniel Haqiqatjous?

Much more could be said on these topics, but that cannot be the objective of this brief text at hand. The aim of this writing is merely to point out that one should deal prudently with statements regarding Islamic subject matters and Muslim personalities.

Moreover, attention should be drawn to the significant problem that the vast majority of people who speak about such topics today, perhaps even in casual talk shows on the internet, have no knowledge of the books of the early Muslims. The very least one could do in such a situation would be to refrain from taking a clear public position on such important issues – which were generally held and narrated by consensus among the early Muslims – and to refrain from initiating public discussions about them.

On the other hand, there are also English-speaking preachers who strive to follow an authentic doctrine as it was upheld by the early scholars, such as Jake Brancatella – may Allah grant him Taufiq – who has made some efforts to counter some of the developments mentioned here.