Misreading Disbelief

MISREADING DISBELIEF T here is a verse in the Quran that says: “Those who do not judge by what God has sent down are deniers of the truth.” (5:44) Similarly, some hadiths contain warnings in which certain actions are described as “disbelief.” For example, a narration in Sahih al-Bukhari reports that the Prophet of Islam said: Abusing a Muslim is sinful conduct, and fighting him is an act of unbelief (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith No. 47). At first glance, such texts may appear to suggest that any deviation from divine law immediately expels a person from the fold of Islam. On the basis of these verses and hadiths, some individuals declare other Muslims to be disbelievers if, in their view, they are not acting in accordance with what God has revealed. Under this interpretation, they label many Muslim rulers as apostates and disbelievers, and even consider their killing to be permissible. This line of thinking is a serious deviation. It has revived, in a more intense form, the phenomenon of Kharijism in the Muslim world. As a result, not only are Muslims