"A Sword That Allah Unsheathed"

But pay attention to what Ibn Kathīr has to say after he mentions this incident. He said: fa-qatala ṭāʾifatan kathīratan minhum wa qatala akthara al-asrā ayḍan — he killed, meaning Khālid ibn al-Walīd; he killed many of them, and he killed most of the prisoners too. Wa maʿa hādhā lam yaʿzilhu Rasūlu Allāh — nevertheless, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) did not remove him from his position; bal istamarra bihi amīran — rather, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) kept on appointing Khālid to positions of responsibility as an amīr; wa in kāna tabarraʾa minhu fī ṣanīʿihi dhālik — even though the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) announced and declared that he was free and innocent of what Khālid had done; wa wadā mā kāna janāhu khaṭaʾan fī damin aw māl — and the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) paid compensation for the mistakes Khālid had made in blood or wealth. Fa-fīhi dalīlun li-aḥadi al-qawlayni min al-ʿulamāʾ fī anna khaṭaʾa al-imāmi yakūnu fī bayt al-māl — in this there is evidence for one of the two opinions of the scholars: that when the imām commits a mistake, the money is paid not from his own money but from the treasury of the Muslims. Wa-llāhu aʿlam.

And then he says: wa li-hādhā lam yaʿzilhu al-Ṣiddīqu ḥīna qatala Mālika bna Nuwayrah ayyāma al-riddah, wa taʾawwala ʿalayhi mā taʾawwala ḥīna ḍaraba ʿunuqahu wa-ṣṭafā imraʾatahu Umma Tamīm. And that is why Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq (may Allah be pleased with him) did not replace him — did not remove him — in the time of the riddah, the days of apostasy; and Abū Bakr excused him when he killed Mālik ibn Nuwayrah, who was supposedly Muslim, and took his wife, Umm Tamīm. This was discussed in the series on Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq (may Allah be pleased with him): Khālid ibn al-Walīd killed Mālik ibn Nuwayrah, and then he took his wife, Umm Tamīm. ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb was angered by the actions of Khālid ibn al-Walīd, and said: iʿzilhu, fa-inna fī sayfihi rahaqan — remove him, replace him, for his sword is severe. Fa-qāla al-Ṣiddīq: lā aghmidu sayfan sallahu Allāhu ʿalā al-mushrikīn — I will not sheathe a sword that Allah (ʿazza wa jall) has unsheathed against the mushrikūn, the polytheists. This was a sword drawn by Allah (ʿazza wa jall) against the kuffār; I am not going to put it down.

Therefore one can learn from this al-hady al-nabawī, the sunnah in dealing with the mistakes of the Muslims in battle. These were Muslims, and they were compensated; they were Muslim, and they were compensated for the mistake of Khālid ibn al-Walīd. Khālid ibn al-Walīd was not imprisoned; he was not removed from his position. Why? Because there was taʾwīl: he did not take them to be Muslim. But if a leader kills Muslims and he knows that they are Muslim, then this is a different situation; here the ḥukm would be different. The situation being spoken of is one where the matter was clear to people like ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUmar and those with him — that these were Muslims — but Khālid ibn al-Walīd definitely did not consider them Muslim. No one should assume that Khālid ibn al-Walīd ordered Muslims to be executed; that is impossible; that is not the case. Khālid ibn al-Walīd considered them to be kuffār.

A Muslim is never handed over to the kuffār, and a Muslim is never betrayed, because the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says: al-muslimu akhū al-muslim, lā yakhdhuluhu wa lā yuslimuhu wa lā yaẓlimuh — the Muslim is the brother of the Muslim: he does not give him up, he does not betray him, and he does not oppress him. So the way the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) dealt with this situation was that he made it clear that he disagreed with it, but he did not punish Khālid ibn al-Walīd for it; but he paid the blood money to the families of the dead. And again, the reason the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) paid them is that the dead were Muslim — they were not even kāfir.

And this ruling is worth clarifying, because there is a lot of confusion surrounding it. Unfortunately, some Muslims value the blood of al-kuffār more than the blood of the Muslims, and they are willing to hand over their Muslim brothers to the kuffār — and they are willing to fight: in fact, not only to hand them over to the kuffār, but to fight their Muslim brothers. And this is because the understanding of walāʾ and barāʾ in this time is very weak. This is one aspect of ʿaqīdah on which the Muslims need to concentrate: they should know to whom loyalty belongs, and from whom the Muslims should be free.