the community and then dies, dies a death of pre-Islamic ignorance; whoever fights under a banner of blind zealotry, becoming angry for partisanship or calling others to it, and is killed, is killed a death of pre-Islamic ignorance.¹ In another wording it states: “He is not of my community who rises against my community, striking its righteous and its wicked alike, showing no regard for its believers and not fulfilling² the pledge of the one with whom it has a covenant; he is not of me and I am not of him.”³

The first category is the person who withdraws from obedience to the ruler and secedes from the community.

The second is the one who fights for tribal bigotry and leadership, not in the path of Allah—like the partisan groups who follow their whims, such as the Qays and Yaman factions.

The third is like the highway robber who kills anyone he meets, whether Muslim or protected non-Muslim, in order to seize his wealth, and like the secessionist Ḥarūriyya whom ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib fought,⁴ concerning whom the Prophet (blessings and peace be upon him) said: “One of you would deem his own prayer insignificant beside their prayer, and his fasting beside…"