Among Abū Bakr’s greatest merits in the eyes of the Muslim community, from its earliest generations to its latest, is that he fought the apostates. Banū Hanīfah were the most extreme in their apostasy. He did not fight them for withholding zakat; rather, he fought them because they believed in Musaylimah the Liar. They reportedly numbered about a hundred thousand.

Al-Hanafiyyah, the mother of Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah and Alī’s concubine, was from Banū Hanīfah. Those who permit taking apostate women captive when the apostates are at war cite this as evidence. If they were Muslims entitled to protection, how could Alī have considered it lawful to take their women captive and have intercourse with women among those captives?

As for those whom he fought for withholding zakat, they were a different group. They were not paying it and said, “We will not pay it to you.” Rather, they refused to pay it altogether, and he fought them for that reason—not to make them pay it to him. Those who follow al-Siddīq, such as Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Abū Hanīfah and others, say that if they declare, “We pay it (1), but we do not hand it over to the ruler,” it is not permissible to fight them. For they know that al-Siddīq fought only those who refused to pay it altogether, not those who said, “I distribute it myself.”

Had this Rāfidī (rejectionist) fabricator counted the Magians, Jews and Christians among those who withheld their pledge of allegiance to Abū Bakr, that would have been of the same kind as his counting Banū Hanīfah among them. Indeed, in some respects, the unbelief of Banū Hanīfah was greater than that of the Jews, Christians and Magians: the latter are unbelievers belonging to established religious communities (2), whereas the former are apostates, and the latter are allowed to remain