The Sermons of Abu Hamza A'Shari

The following selections are the sermons of Abu Hamza A’Shari (al-Mukhtar ibn Awf al-Sulaimi), an lbadi rebel in 747 C.E. briefly took Mecca and Medina from the Umawi dynasty on behalf of Talib al-Haqq (Abdullah ibn Yahya al-Kindi), an Ibadi Imam in the Yemen. Abu Hamza was one of the Ibadi pietists and preachers. His sermons have been preserved in collections of early Arabic rhetoric and were admired for their eloquence and moral fervor. In them one finds the Ibadis view of early Muslim history and what had gone awry in the Muslim Community as well as their religious opinion about their opponents.

It is recorded in the Book of Songs (kitab al-Aghani) by Abul-Faraj al-Isfahani the Historian that Abu Hamza entered Medina in the year 130 [747 C.E.]. He mounted the minbar of the Mosque of the Prophet and preached as follows:

     People of Medina, we have asked you about these rulers of yours, and, as God lives, what you had to say of them was bad. We asked you, “Did they put people to death on suspicion?” You told us, “Yes.” We asked you, “Did they take as lawful wealth and women forbidden to them?” You answered, “Yes.” So we said to you, “Come, let us go together and ask them in God’s name to turn away from you and from us.” You said, “They will not do it.” We said, “Then come, let us go and fight them together, and if we prevail, we shall bring you rulers who will establish the Book of God among us and the practice of His prophet Muhammad, God’s blessing and peace be upon him.” You said, “We are not strong." So we told you, “Then leave us and them to ourselves. If we are victorious, we shall judge you fairly, relying with you on the practice of our Prophet, and divide the revenue of properties taken in conquest fairly with you.” Yet you refused, and fought us without them [at the Battle of Qudayd]. May God keep you from good and from prosperity!

     We did not came forth from our homes insolently or frivolously, in license or for play, or to overthrow the empire wishing to immerse ourselves in government, or in revenge for what had been taken from us. We did it when we saw that the earth had been darkened and the markers of tyranny had appeared, and propagandists in religion increased, but people did as they pleased, laws were neglected, the just were slain, and the speaker for truth was treated violently.

     Then we heard a herald, calling us to Truth and to the Straight Path. We answered the summoner of God, we came forward from scattered tribes, few, and oppressed in the land. And God received us and aided us by His succor, so that by His grace we became brothers and assistants of religion.

     O people of Medina, people are from among us and we are from among them except for a polytheist idolater, or a disbeliever from the People of the Scripture, or an oppressive imam.

Abu Hamza entered Medina. He went up into the pulpit there and supported himself on his Arab bow. He praised and lauded God, and said:

     O people, the blessing of God and peace be upon our Prophet, who neither delayed nor hastened save by God’s leave, command, and revelation. God sent down on him a book, revealing to him in it what is to come and what is to be feared, and there was no doubt about His religion, no ambiguity about His command. Then God took him after he had taught the Muslims the waymarks of their religion and entrusted Abu Bakr with their prayers. The Muslims entrusted Abu Bakr with the rule of their world, since the Messenger of God had entrusted him with the matter of their religion. He fought the people of apostasy and acted in accord with the Book and the sunna, and he passed his way: God have mercy on him!

     Then ‘Umar b. al-Khattab ruled, and he walked in the path of his friend and acted in accord with the Book and the sunna. He collected the tribute of the conquests and distributed the Muslims’ allowances, gathered the people in the month of Ramadan, gave eighty lashes for drinking wine, and raided the enemy in their homelands. Then he passed his way: God have mercy on him!

     Then ‘Uthman b. ‘Affan ruled. For six years he followed the way of his two friends, but he was less than they. In his last six years he rendered to no avail what he had done in the first six, and then he passed his way.

     Then ‘Ali b. Abi Talib ruled. He did not attain the goal in truth, and no beacon was raised for his guidance, and he passed his way.

    Then ruled Mu‘awiya, son of Abu Sufyan, cursed by God’s messenger and son of one accursed. He made gardeners of God’s servants, possessions of God’s property, and a briar patch of God's religion, so curse him with God's curse!

     Then Yazid b. Mu‘awiya ruled: yazid (increasing) the number of wines, yazid (increasing) the number of apes, yazid (increasing) the number of hunting-panthers! God and his angels curse him!

One by one he spoke of the caliphs, but when he came to ‘Umar, the righteous son of ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, he passed over him without mentioning him. He went on:

     Then Yazid, the son of ‘Abd al-Malik, ruled, a libertine in religion and unmanly in behavior, in whom was never perceived right guidance. God has said about the property of orphans, “If you perceive in them sound judgement, release their property to them." [Qur’an 4:6], and the rule of Muhammad’s Community was greater than a property! He would eat forbidden food and drink wine and wear a robe worth a thousand gold-pieces, through which you could see his flesh, so that the veil of modesty was torn: an unpardonable disrobe. With Hababa the singing-girl on his right, and Sallama the singing-girl on his left, and if you had taken drink from him, he would have rent his garments! He turned to one of them, and said, “Will I not fly? Will I not fly?” Aye, he flew: to God’s damnation and burning fire and painful torment!

     The Sons of Umayya [the ruling dynasty] are a party of error, and their strength is the strength of tyrants. They seize people on suspicion, judge by caprice, and put them to death in anger. They rule by mediation, take the Law out of its context, and give the zakat money to those who are not entitled to it. God has made clear those who are entitled to it, and they are eight classes of people, for He says, “Zakah expenditures are only for the poor and for the needy and for those employed to collect [zakah] and for bringing hearts together [for Islam] and for freeing captives [or slaves] and for those in debt and for the cause of Allah and for the [stranded] traveler” [Qur’an 9:60]. They make themselves the ninth, and take it all! Such are a party ruling by other than God's revelation.

     People of Medina, it has reached me that you belittle my comrades. You say they are callow young men, barefoot Bedouins. What were the followers of the Messenger of God, God bless him and give him peace, but callow young men? Youths, by God, who were fully mature in their youth: youths whose eyes were closed to evil and whose feet were slow to approach wrongdoing, trading God the life that dies for the life that dies not. They mingled all they had with their fatigue and rose at night to watch and pray, after fasting all the day. They bent their backs over portions of the Qur’an, and so oft as they came upon a verse of fear, they were racked with terror of the Fire, and when they came upon a verse of desire, they were racked with longing for Paradise. When they looked to swords drawn against them, lances pointed at them, arrows notched for them, when a detachment of cavalry thundered at them with bolts of death, they made little account of the threat of that detachment beside the threat of God. They did not take God’s threat lightly in the threat of a detachment; so blessed were they, and fair the place where they returned! And how many an eye which had overflowed long in the depth of night from fear of God met the beak of a bird! How many a hand left its wrist whereon its owner had supported himself long in prostration to God! How many an excellent cheek and fine forehead was cleft by maces of iron! God have mercy on those bodies and make their souls to enter His gardens! I have said my say, and I ask God to forgive our deficiencies, for there is no success for me but in God; in Him have I put my trust, and unto Him I shall repair.

Ibn abd-Rubbu the Historian, mentioned in his book (al-Aqd al-Farid) that Malik b. Anas the jurist said: Abu Hamza preached us a sermon that would have thrown doubt into the most perceptive and refuted a skeptic. He said:

     I counsel you in fear of God and obedience to Him; to act according to His Book and the sunna of His Prophet, to observe the ties of kinship, and to magnify the truth which tyrants have diminished, and to diminish the falsehood that they have magnified, to put to death the injustice they have brought to life, and to revivify the just laws they have let die: to obey God. Those who obey Him disobey others in obedience to Him, for there is no obedience to a creature who disobeys its Creator.

     We call you to the Book of God and the sunna of His Prophet, to equal sharing, to justice for the subject peoples, and to putting the fifths of the booty of battle where God ordained.

     O people of Medina, your beginning was the best of beginnings, and your end is the worst of endings, for you hearkened to your reciters and your jurists, and they severed you from the Book that has no crookedness with the exegesis of ignorant people and the pretension of triflers, so that you became strayers from the Truth, dead, not alive, and unfeeling.

     O people of Medina, children of the Muhajirin and the Ansar and those who followed them in goodness! How sound were your roots, and how rotten are your branches! Your forefathers were people of certainty and knowledge in religion, with minds effective and hearts aware, but you are people of error and ignorance. God opened the door of religion for you, and you corrupted it; He closed the door of this world for you, and you forced it open; hasters to temptation and laggards in the sunna of the Prophet; blind to demonstrations of truth and deaf to religious knowledge; slaves of greed and allies of affliction!

     How excellent was the legacy your forefathers left you, had you preserved it, and how miserable will be that of your children, if you cling to it! Them God aided to the Truth; you He abandons to vanity. They were few and pious; you are many and pernicious. The preachings of the Qur’an chide you, and you are not abashed; they warn you, and you do not ponder!

Reference:

Imam Abu Hamza A’Shari, Alife for the Sake of Truth, by Farahat Al-Ja’biri.