and their property, except by due right, and their reckoning rests with Allah”?’

Abū Bakr replied: ‘Did he not say, “except by due right”? Zakat is among those rights. By Allah, if they withheld from me even a young she-goat that they used to give to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, I would fight them for withholding it.’

ʿUmar said: ‘By Allah, as soon as I saw that Allah had opened Abū Bakr’s heart to fighting, I knew that it was right.’”

Thus, the Companions of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, agreed to fight people who prayed and fasted if they refused to fulfil some of what Allah had obligated them to pay as zakat on their wealth. This inference drawn by the truthful one of this community is also stated explicitly in hadith.

In the two Sahih collections, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar, may Allah be pleased with them both, reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“I have been commanded to fight the people until they testify that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, establish prayer, and pay zakat. When they do so, they render inviolable to me their lives and their property, except by due right.”

He thus stated, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, that he had been commanded to fight them until they fulfilled these obligations. This accords with the Book of Allah.

Reports from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, have also been mass-transmitted through numerous chains. The compilers of the Sahih collections included ten of these chains: Muslim recorded them in his Sahih, and al-Bukhārī recorded several of them. Imam Ahmad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: “The hadith concerning the Khawārij is authentically established through ten chains.”

He said, may Allah bless him and grant him peace: “Any one of you would consider his own prayer insignificant compared with theirs, and his fasting