In The Name of Allaah, The Most Merciful, The Bestower of Mercy.

The Tyrants of Aad

Allaah [The Exalted] stated that Prophet Hud [peace be upon him] said to his people: [وَإِذَا بَطَشۡتُم بَطَشۡتُمۡ جَبَّارِينَ – And when you seize, seize you as tyrants]– Meaning, when you want to attack with a whip or sword, you attack like tyrants, completely overpowering and being savagely violent – neither compassionate nor aim to discipline (within justice as commanded by Allaah), nor contemplating on the consequences. (1) Allaah gave them great strength and it was obligated on them to use this strength in obedience to Allaah, but they became boastful and haughty, and they said: [مَنۡ أَشَدُّ مِنَّا قُوَّةً‌ۖ – Who is mightier than us in strength? (Surah Fussilat. Verse 15]; and they utilized their strength in disobedience to Allaah, fruitlessly and foolishly, so their Prophet forbade them from that. (2) Their Prophet forbade them from that because it was done out of oppression. (3)

Fir’awn and His Blind Followers Murdered The Sons of Banee Israa’eel

Allaah [The Exalted] said:

إِنَّ فِرۡعَوۡنَ عَلَا فِى ٱلۡأَرۡضِ وَجَعَلَ أَهۡلَهَا شِيَعً۬ا يَسۡتَضۡعِفُ طَآٮِٕفَةً۬ مِّنۡہُمۡ يُذَبِّحُ أَبۡنَآءَهُمۡ وَيَسۡتَحۡىِۦ نِسَآءَهُمۡ‌ۚ إِنَّهُ ۥ كَانَ مِنَ ٱلۡمُفۡسِدِينَ

Verily, Fir’aun (Pharaoh) exalted himself in the land and made its people sects, weakening (oppressing) a group (i.e. Children of Israel) among them, killing their sons, and letting their females live. Verily, he was of the Mufsideen [i.e. those who commit great sins and crimes, oppressors, tyrants, etc.] [Surah Al-Qasas. Aayah 4]

The Believers Mentioned In Surah Al-Burooj Tortured By The Disbelievers and Their Tyrant King

Allaah [The Exalted] said:

قُتِلَ أَصۡحَـٰبُ ٱلۡأُخۡدُودِ
ٱلنَّارِ ذَاتِ ٱلۡوَقُودِ
إِذۡ هُمۡ عَلَيۡہَا قُعُودٌ۬
وَهُمۡ عَلَىٰ مَا يَفۡعَلُونَ بِٱلۡمُؤۡمِنِينَ شُہُودٌ۬
وَمَا نَقَمُواْ مِنۡہُمۡ إِلَّآ أَن يُؤۡمِنُواْ بِٱللَّهِ ٱلۡعَزِيزِ ٱلۡحَمِيدِ
ٱلَّذِى لَهُ ۥ مُلۡكُ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٲتِ وَٱلۡأَرۡضِ‌ۚ وَٱللَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىۡءٍ۬ شَہِيدٌ

Cursed were the makers of the Ditch- the large ditch with the fire, given fuel (in abundance); when they sat around it, watching what they had (ordered to be done) to the believers, who they resented for no reason other than belief in Allah- The Almighty, the Praiseworthy, the One to Whom belongs the kingdom of the heavens and earth. And Allah is a Witness over all things. [Surah Al-Burooj. Aayaat 4-9]

[قُتِلَ أَصۡحَـٰبُ ٱلۡأُخۡدُودِ – Cursed were the makers of the Ditch]: This is an invocation against them to be destroyed. The makers of the ditch were disbelievers and there lived amongst them believers, so they wanted to force the believers to accept their religion, but the believers refused. They dug a ditch in the ground, kindled fire in it, sat around it, oppressed the believers and exposed them to the fire; so whoever responded to their orders was released and whoever held onto their faith was casted in the fire. This is an intense act of waging war against Allaah and the believers, so Allah cursed, destroyed and promised them punishment, saying: [قُتِلَ أَصۡحَـٰبُ ٱلۡأُخۡدُودِ – Cursed were the makers of the ditch].

Then Allaah explained about the ditch and its makers, saying:

ٱلنَّارِ ذَاتِ ٱلۡوَقُودِ
إِذۡ هُمۡ عَلَيۡہَا قُعُودٌ۬
وَهُمۡ عَلَىٰ مَا يَفۡعَلُونَ بِٱلۡمُؤۡمِنِينَ شُہُودٌ۬

The large ditch with the fire, given fuel (in abundance); when they sat around it, watching what they had (ordered to be done) to the believers

This is one of the greatest types of despotism and hardheartedness, because they combined between their disbelief in Allaah’s signs and willfully denied them, waging war against the believers, tortured them with this agonising torture and were present to witness the believers being casted in the fire. And reality is that they resented the believers for no reason other than a characteristic for which they are to be praised and through which depended their happiness (in this life and the next), which is that they were believers in Allaah -The Almighty, The Praiseworthy. (4)

Hajjaaj Bin Yusuf Ath-Thaqafee

After Abdullah Bin Zubayr [may allaah be pleased with him and his father] was murdered, Al-Hajjaaj sent someone to Asma [bint Abu Bakr (may Allaah be pleased with her), Abdullah’s mother] to come to him, but she refused to come. He again sent the messenger to her with the message that she must come, otherwise he would bring her forcibly by dragging her by her hair, but she again refused and said: By Allah, I will not come to you until you send one to me who would drag me by pulling my hair. So, he said: Bring me my shoes. He put on his shoes and walked on quickly puffed up with vanity and pride until he came to her and said: How do you find what I have done with the enemy of Allah? She said: I find that you wronged him in this world, whereas he has ruined your afterlife. It has been conveyed to me that you used to call him (Abdullah B. Zubair) as the son of one having two belts. By Allah, I am indeed (a woman) of two belts. One is that with the help of which I used to suspend high the food of Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) and that of Abu Bakr (making it out of the reach) of animals and, so far as the second belt is concerned, that is the belt which no woman can dispense with. Verily Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) told us that in Thaqif, there would be born a great liar and great murderer. The liar we have seen, and as far as the murderer is concerned, I do not find anyone else besides you. He (Hajjaj) stood up and did not give any reply to her. [Saheeh Muslim 2545]

The Mongols Committed Genocide Against The Muslims

In the year 656 AH/1258 CE, Artughal’s son, Uthman, was born and it is to whom the Ottoman Empire was attributed. It was the year in which the Mongols, led by Hulagu, carried out a military expedition against Baghdad – the capital of the Ottoman Caliphate – which led to catastrophic events and great calamities. Imaam Ibn Katheer [may Allaah have mercy upon him] stated, “They (i.e. the Mongols) killed everyone they were able to kill, including men, women, boys, Shaikhs, the elderly and the young men. Many people entered the wells, the habitats of wild animals and the gutters, and they hid for days without appearing. A group of people would gather in the inns and shut the doors, but the Tartars either opened the doors by breaking them or setting them on fire; then they pursued the people who fled to the highest places and killed them on the rooftops until blood flowed in the alleys. Indeed to Allaah we belong and to Him we shall return! Likewise, in the local mosques and the big central mosques, no one escaped from them except the Jewish and Christian citizens of the Muslim land, and those who sought refuge with them”. (5)

Native Americans and Africans at The Hands of Colonialists

The 13 American colonies’ population grew from about 2,000 to 2.4 million between 1625 and 1775 while displacing Native Americans from eastern North America. After the colonies declared independence in 1776 from Great Britain and formed the US, the settlers started to move west, clashing with and eradicating the Apache, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Chinook, Navajo and Sioux tribes. Some of the names today are sadly used for American warfare helicopters and ubiquitous sport utility vehicles. The national holiday, Thanksgiving, celebrated in November, is traced to the 1620s when European settlers invited Native Americans to a feast. The settlers later killed the population and gave thanks to God for allowing them to slaughter the “savages.” The surviving descendants of Native American tribes live in poverty on federally recognized Indian reservations across the US. Almost 100 million indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere have been killed or died prematurely because of the Europeans and their descendants in five centuries, according to David E. Stannard in his book, American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World. Around 12 million indigenous people died within present US geographical boundaries between 1492 and 1900, according to Russell Thornton in American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History since 1492. Despite having unalienable rights — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – as enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence, not all in the new colonies were considered equal. The colonies had a system of slavery, which European settlers carried as a practice into the Americas from the Old World, despite English Protestants praising themselves as Puritans. A conservative estimate of 35 million men, women and children were brought from Africa to the New World between the 16th and 19th centuries. Around 12.5 million of those brought to North America were used as free labor in fields and worked under grueling conditions, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. The systematic repression of Africans continues to the present day in the US government application of laws, health and education.

Colonialists and The Atlantic Slave Trade: By Shaikh Abu Khadeejah [may Allaah preserve him]: https://video.link/w/Qbaub   https://video.link/w/lUZtb

Atomic bomb and Cold War coups: The US, along with allies in the UK and France, won World War II with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany. But it was the end of the war that marked the American massacre against Imperial Japan in the Pacific and the advent of the atomic bomb. Japanese casualties were around 110,000 in the battle for Okinawa, the largest and bloodiest battle of the war. To end it all, the US dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945 that killed an estimated 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 74,000 in Nagasaki, according to the global civil society coalition International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. (6)

Colonialists In Australia: Professor Lyndall Ryan and her research team has found that there were at least 270 frontier massacres over 140 years of Australian history, as part of a state-sanctioned and organised attempts to eradicate First Nations people (3). For Ryan’s work, a massacre is defined as the deliberate killing of six or more defenceless people in one operation. If you investigate some of these massacres in depth you can see how systematic they were. Ryan’s work is in no means comprehensive as many massacres were not documented and many others covered up. Because of colonial genocidal actions like state-sanctioned massacres, the First Nations population went from an estimated 1-1.5 million before invasion to less than 100,000 by the early 1900s. (7)

The Grave Consequences of Bloodshed In The Afterlife

Allaah [The Exalted] said:

وَالَّذِينَ لَا يَدْعُونَ مَعَ اللَّهِ إِلَهًا آخَرَ وَلَا يَقْتُلُونَ النَّفْسَ الَّتِي حَرَّمَ اللَّهُ إِلَّا بِالْحَقِّ وَلَا يَزْنُونَ وَمَنْ يَفْعَلْ ذَلِكَ يَلْقَ أَثَامًا * يُضَاعَفْ لَهُ الْعَذَابُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ وَيَخْلُدْ فِيهِ مُهَانًا * إِلَّا مَنْ تَابَ وَآمَنَ وَعَمِلَ عَمَلًا صَالِحًا فَأُولَئِكَ يُبَدِّلُ اللَّهُ سَيِّئَاتِهِمْ حَسَنَاتٍ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَفُورًا رَحِيمًا

And those who invoke not any other ilah (god) along with Allah, nor kill such life as Allah has forbidden, except for just cause, nor commit illegal sexual intercourse and whoever does this shall receive the punishment. The torment will be doubled to him on the Day of Resurrection, and he will abide therein in disgrace; Except those who repent and believe (in Islamic Monotheism), and do righteous deeds, for those, Allah will change their sins into good deeds, and Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful. [Surah Al-Furqaan. Aayaat 68-70]

Allaah [The Most High] said:

وَمَنْ يَقْتُلْ مُؤْمِنًا مُتَعَمِّدًا فَجَزَاؤُهُ جَهَنَّمُ خَالِدًا فِيهَا وَغَضِبَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَلَعَنَهُ وَأَعَدَّ لَهُ عَذَابًا عَظِيمًا

And whoever kills a believer intentionally, his recompense is Hell to abide therein, and the Wrath and the Curse of Allah are upon him, and a great punishment is prepared for him. [Surah An-Nisaa. Aayah 93]

Ibn Abbaas [may Allaah be pleased with him and his father] reported that the Prophet [peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him] said, “The one who was murdered will come with the scalp and head of his killer in his hand on the Day of Resurrection, his jugular vein flowing with blood and saying, ‘O Lord! This one killed me!’ And he will draw near to the Throne.” They (i.e. the people) mentioned repentance to Ibn Abbaas, so he recited the Aayah, [وَمَنْ يَقْتُلْ مُؤْمِنًا مُتَعَمِّدًا فَجَزَاؤُهُ جَهَنَّمُ – Whoever kills a believer intentionally, his recompense is Hell]; then he said, “This Aayah has not been abrogated or replaced, so where is his repentance?” [Saheeh Sunan At-Tirmidhee 3029]

Imaam Ibnul Qayyim [may Allaah have mercy upon him] said, “And that which is established with fact regarding this matter is that murder is attached to (violation) of three rights: the right of Allaah, the right of the victim and the right of the heir. If the muderer voluntarily hands over himself to the heir, shows remorse for what he has done out of fear of Allaah and repents sincerely, then Allaah’s right is waivered through repentance. And heir’s right is that he can seek retaliation (i.e. via the Islamic sharee’ah), reconciliation or he (or she) can pardon. Then what remains is the victim’s right, (which) Allaah will recompense for him on the Day of Judgement from His servant who is a repentant person and a good-doer, and rectify affairs between them, so neither the right of the victim nor the repentance of the murderer is nullified”. [Jawaab Al-Kaafee. page 102]

Allaah [The Exalted] said:

مَنْ قَتَلَ نَفْسًا بِغَيْرِ نَفْسٍ أَوْ فَسَادٍ فِي الْأَرْضِ فَكَأَنَّمَا قَتَلَ النَّاسَ جَمِيعًا وَمَنْ أَحْيَاهَا فَكَأَنَّمَا أَحْيَا النَّاسَ جَمِيعًا

If anyone killed a person not in retaliation of murder, or (and) to spread mischief in the land – it would be as if he killed all mankind, and if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all mankind. [Surah Al-Maa’idah. Aayah 32]

Imaam As-Sadi [may Allaah have mercy upon him] said: This means that the killer has no justification to kill, and none should kill another person unless he has a justified reason (i.e. based on the law of the land) to do so. If a person is bold enough to kill someone who does not deserve to be killed, then this implies that he does make a distinction between the one He killed and other than him; rather he would commit this act whenever his evil calls him to that. Therefore, his bold attitude that led him to kill is as if he has killed all humankind. On the other hand, if a person saves a life and does not kill – whilst his soul calls him to do so – due to fear of Allaah, then this is as if he has saved the lives of all humankind, because the fear of Allaah he possesses stops him killing one who does not deserve to be killed.

Allaah [The Exalted] said:

وَلَا تَقْتُلُوا أَوْلَادَكُمْ مِنْ إِمْلَاقٍ نَحْنُ نَرْزُقُكُمْ وَإِيَّاهُمْ وَلَا تَقْرَبُوا الْفَوَاحِشَ مَا ظَهَرَ مِنْهَا وَمَا بَطَنَ وَلَا تَقْتُلُوا النَّفْسَ الَّتِي حَرَّمَ اللَّهُ إِلَّا بِالْحَقِّ ذَلِكُمْ وَصَّاكُمْ بِهِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ

kill not your children because of poverty – We provide sustenance for you and for them; come not near to Al-Fawahish (shameful sins, illegal sexual intercourse, etc.) whether committed openly or secretly, and kill not anyone whom Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause (according to Islamic law). This He has commanded you that you may understand. [Surah Al-An’aam. Aayah 151]

Abdullah Bin Mas’ood [may Allaah be pleased with him] said that Allah’s Messenger [peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him] said, “The first (thing) that will be decided among people on the Day of Judgment will pertain to bloodshed”. [Saheeh Muslim. Hadeeth Number 1678a]

Imaam An-Nawawi [may Allaah have mercy upon him] said, “This hadith shows the severity of bloodshed and that it will be the first thing that will be judged between people on the Day of Resurrection because of its greatness and extreme danger. This hadith does not contradict the well-known hadith in the Sunan that “The first thing a person will be questioned about is the prayer”, because this hadeeth is about an affair between Allaah and the person, whereas the first hadeeth (i.e. judgement in matters related to bloodshed) is an affair between the people”. [Sharh Saheeh Muslim. Vol 11. page 139]

The Messenger [peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him] said, “The termination of the world means less to Allah than the killing of a Muslim (i.e. without right)”. [Saheeh Al-Jaami 9208]

Amr Ibn Al-Hamiq [may Allaah be pleased with him] reported that Allaah’s Messenger [peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him] said, “Whenever a man promises safety for another man’s life and then kills him, I disavow myself from him even if the victim was an unbeliever”. [Saheeh Al-Jaami 6103]

Uqbah Ibn Aamir [may Allaah be pleased with him] reported that Allaah’s Messenger [peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him] said, “Whoever meets Allah whilst neither associating anything with Him nor spilling sacred blood will enter Paradise”. [Silsilah As-Saheehah 2923]

The people said to Jundub [may Allaah be pleased with him], “Advise us”. He said, “The first thing of the human body to putrefy is the abdomen, so he who can eat nothing but good food [halaal and earned lawfully] should do so, and he who does as much as he can that nothing intervenes between him and paradise by not shedding even a handful of blood [i.e. unlawful killing], should do so”. [Saheeh Al-Bukhaari 7152]

A man wrote to Ibn Umar [may Allaah be pleased with him and his father] and asked him to write down all knowledge for him; so he replied to him, saying, “Indeed, knowledge is plentiful, but if you are able to meet Allaah whilst not shedding people’s blood, not taking their wealth (unlawfully) and violating their honour, then do so”. [Siyar A’laam An-Nubulaa 3/222]

[1]:Roohul Ma’aanee by Imaam Vol 11. page 165. By Imaam al-Aloosee (may Allaah have mercy upon him)]

[2]: Tafseer As-Sadi. By Imaam As-Sadi (may Allaah have mercy upon him)]

[3]: Zaadul Maseer Fee Ilmit Tafseer. By Imaam Ibnul Jawzi (may allaah have mercy upon him)]

[4]: An Excerpt from Tafseer As-Sadi. Slightly paraphrased]

[5]:An Excerpt from Ad-Dawlah Al-Uthmaaniyyah Awaamil An-Nuhood Wa Asbaab As-Suqoot. 44-45. slightly paraphrased]

[6]: History records US genocide against Native Americans, Africans, massacres in Southeast Asia, Middle East – By Ovunc Kutlu 02.06.2021]

[7]: https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/genocide-in-australia/ ]