Yahya ibn Bukayr said, “Ikrimah came to Egypt, lodged in this very house, and then departed for the Maghrib; the Kharijites of the Maghrib took their doctrine from him.”
ʿAli ibn al-Madini remarked, “Ikrimah espoused the views of Najdah al-Haruri.”
Ahmad ibn Zuhayr related: “I heard Yahya ibn Maʿin say, ‘The reason Malik did not mention Ikrimah—in the Muwattaʾ, that is—was because Ikrimah adhered to the doctrine of the Sufriyyah.’”
ʿUmar ibn Qays al-Makki narrated from ʿAtaʾ: “Ikrimah was an Ibadi.” (1)
Abu Maryam likewise reported: “Ikrimah was a Bayhasi.” (2)
Ibrahim al-Jawzajani said, “I asked Ahmad ibn Hanbal about Ikrimah: ‘Did he hold the creed of the Ibadis?’ He replied, ‘People say he was a Sufri.’”
I said, “Did he go to the Berbers?” He answered, “Yes, and he also travelled to Khurasan, going round to the governors and taking from them.” (3)
ʿAli ibn al-Madini also said: “It was related from Yaʿqub al-Hadrami, from his grandfather, who said…”
(1) The Ibadis, the principal surviving branch of the early Kharijites.
(2) The Bayhasiyyah, another offshoot of the Kharijite movement.
(3) I.e., receiving gifts or stipends from the provincial rulers.
= According to the sharia, the person who commits such an act is not called a mushrik (polytheist) or a kafir (unbeliever); he is designated by a term derived from his crime—thief, murderer, or slanderer. For every sin that carries no prescribed hadd penalty, such as abandoning the prayer, its perpetrator is judged a kafir. In either case, they never describe the offender as a believer.
See: Abu al-Hasan al-Ashari, Maqalat al-Islamiyyin, pp. 182-183; al-Baghdadi, al-Farq bayn al-Firaq, p. 70; al-Isfarayini, al-Tabsir fi al-Din, p. 52; al-Shahrastani, al-Milal wa-l-Nihal, 1/137.
(1) They are the followers of Abd Allah b. Ibad, from Banu Murra b. Ubayd b. Tamim, who emerged during the Umayyad period. Al-Shahrastani states in al-Milal wa-l-Nihal, 1/134: “Our opponents among the People of the Qibla are kafirs but not mushriks; marrying them and inheriting from them is lawful, and their property captured in battle is lawful, whereas everything else is forbidden. Killing or enslaving them covertly in peacetime is unlawful, except after open combat and the establishment of proof.” A remnant of this group still exists in Algeria. Al-Zirikli gives an extended biography of Abd Allah b. Ibad in his al-A‛lam; see it.
(2) A faction of the Sufriyya, followers of Abu Bayhas, Haytham b. Jabir al-Dab‘i, leader of the Bayhasiyya branch of the Khawarij. Al-Hajjaj pursued him during the reign of al-Walid; he fled to Medina, where ‛Uthman b. Hayyan al-Murri apprehended and imprisoned him, then executed him on al-Walid’s orders in 94 AH/713 CE. On the Ibadis, Sufriyya, Bayhasiyya, and Azariqa, see al-Milal wa-l-Nihal, 1/125, 127.
(3) Acceptance of stipends from rulers (jawā’iz al-umara’) does not disqualify a narrator. Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri was even more noted for this than ‛Ikrima, yet no one rejected his narrations on that account.