the Muslims as entitled to obedience, whether just or sinful, except for someone who does not exist.

They fight out of a partisan loyalty worse than loyalty based on lineage: loyalty to a corrupt religion. Their hearts harbour unparalleled rancour and rage against Muslims, great and small, righteous and otherwise. What they regard as their greatest act of worship is cursing Muslims who are allies of Allah, from earlier and later generations alike. The best among them, in their estimation, is the one who neither curses them nor seeks forgiveness for them.

As for rising up and killing believers and those protected by covenants, this too describes their conduct, despite their claim that they alone are believers and that the rest of the ummah are unbelievers.

Muslim narrated in his Sahīh from Muhammad ibn Shurayh, who said: The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“There will be troubles upon troubles. Whoever seeks to divide this ummah while it is united, strike him with the sword, whoever he may be.” In another wording: “Kill him.”

Another wording reads:

“Whoever comes to you while you are united under one man, seeking to break your unity and divide your community, kill him.”

These people are the most eager of all to divide the Muslim community. They acknowledge no ruler’s right to obedience, whether he is just or sinful, and they do not obey him in matters of obedience to Allah or in anything else. Rather, what they regard as their greatest foundational principle is declaring the finest leaders of the Muslims to be unbelievers, cursing them and reviling them—such as the Rightly Guided Caliphs, Muslim scholars and their shaykhs. For they believe that anyone who does not believe in the infallible imam, who does not exist, has not believed