Then the author—may Allah have mercy on him—cites the hadith of Jarīr ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Bajalī (may Allah be pleased with him). During the Farewell Pilgrimage the Prophet ﷺ said to him, “Ask the people to keep silent,” that is, quiet them so that they can listen to what the Prophet ﷺ is about to say.

He ﷺ then declared, “Do not turn back after I am gone as unbelievers, striking one another’s necks.” The verb “yaḍrib” (striking) is parsed in the nominative; it may not be read in the jussive as though it were the consequence of the preceding prohibition. Rather, it is nominative because it functions as a circumstantial clause: “Do not revert after me as unbelievers while you are striking one another’s necks.” From this we learn that believers fighting one another is an act of disbelief. The same meaning is confirmed by his ﷺ statement, “Reviling a Muslim is outrageous sin, and fighting him is disbelief.” Yet this is a form of disbelief that does not expel a person from the religion. The proof that it does not remove one from the fold of Islam is Allah’s saying: “If two groups of the believers fight one another, make peace between them… Believers are but brothers, so reconcile between your brothers” (49:9–10).