yet many people take only a portion of Jahm’s teaching, and among them are those who do not declare the ummah unbelievers for differing with them, nor do they deem the sword lawful, (1) while others are people who have not had the proof clearly presented to them; they are ignorant of the root of the doctrine and of the statement (2) of those who call to the Book and the Sunnah and of its manifest clarity. For this reason, the condition of the offshoots of the Jahmites can be lighter than that of the Kharijites, although their doctrine in itself is far more depraved (3) than that of the Kharijites by a wide margin. When Yunus ibn ʿUbayd (4) said of the Muʿtazilites that their trial is more harmful to the ummah than the trial of the Azariqah, (5) and the Muʿtazilites are Jahmites, it is clear that the early scholars understood that the Jahmites are worse than the Kharijites.
Al-Tabarani (6) said in his book al-Sunnah: “Al-Hasan ibn ʿAli narrated to us …”
(1) In the original manuscript, the reading in “s” is yastahīl (it is impossible); here I have adopted the reading from “ṭ” that I judged most appropriate to the context.
(2) In the original manuscript, the reading in “s” is qul (say); here I have adopted the reading from “ṭ” that best preserves the coherence of the text.
(3) In “ṭ” it reads aḥnuth, which is a scribal error.
(4) He is Abū ʿAbd Allāh Yūnus b. ʿUbayd b. Dīnār al-ʿAbdī, one of the eminent Tābiʿīn. al-Ḥammādān (the two Hammads), al-Sufyānān (the two Sufyāns) and others narrated from him. Ibn Saʿd remarks that he was trustworthy and narrated extensively. He died in 139 AH. See: Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā, vol. 7, p. 260; al-Ḏhahabī, Tadhkira-t al-Ḥuffāẓ, vol. 1, pp. 145–146; Ibn Ḥajar, Taḥdhīb al-Tahdhīb, vol. 11, pp. 442–445.
(5) They were the followers of Nāfiʿ b. al-Azraq al-Ḥanafī—who led their first revolt in Basra during the caliphate of ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr. No Kharijite faction was more numerous or more formidable. They held views that even other Kharijites rejected, such as declaring anyone of the Muslim community who disagreed with them an unbeliever, regarding all opposing territories as lands of disbelief, and permitting the killing of women and children, among other deviations. See: Ibn Qutayba, al-Maʿārif, p. 622; al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn, vol. 1, pp. 168–174; al-Isfarāʾīnī, al-Tabsīr fī al-Dīn, pp. 49–51; al-Baghdādī, al-Firaq bayna al-Firaq, pp. 82–87.
(6) The discussion of al-Ṭabarānī and his Kitāb al-Sunnah appears above, p. 365. Yūnus b. ʿUbayd’s statement is recorded by Abū Naʿīm in al-Ḥilya, vol. 3, p. 21, with the chain of transmission cited by the Shaykh (may Allah have mercy on him). Its full text reads: “... It is incumbent upon the imām to summon them to repentance; if they repent, [their former state is restored]; otherwise he banishes them from the Muslim lands.”