Our question is: if this killing was an unjust killing, then what was the reaction of the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) in this regard? The Companions were the highest example of enjoining good and forbidding evil. Did any Companion declare it an unlawful killing? Did any of them condemn it? Did any of them raise a word of truth against it? Not at all! If anything of the sort were established, you would never have held back from mentioning it. So what is the reason that the Companions did not oppose Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) in this matter? Whereas the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had specifically advised them that if, after him, they saw any evil in the rulers, they should oppose it as much as they could and try to stop it. Thus there is a hadith in Sahih Muslim:
عَنْ عَبْدِ اللهِ بْنِ مَسْعُودٍ، أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللهِ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَالَ: ”مَا مِنْ نَبِيٍّ بَعَثَهُ اللهُ فِي أُمَّةٍ قَبْلِي إِلَّا كَانَ لَهُ مِنْ أُمَّتِهِ حَوَارِيُّونَ وَأَصْحَابٌ، يَأْخُذُونَ بِسُنَّتِهِ، وَيَقْتَدُونَ بِأَمْرِهِ، ثُمَّ إِنَّهَا تَخْلُفُ مِنْ بَعْدِهِمْ خُلُوفٌ يَقُولُونَ مَا لَا يَفْعَلُونَ، وَيَفْعَلُونَ مَا لَا يُؤْمَرُونَ، فَمَنْ جَاهَدَهُمْ بِيَدِهِ فَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ، وَمَنْ جَاهَدَهُمْ بِلِسَانِهِ فَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ، وَمَنْ جَاهَدَهُمْ بِقَلْبِهِ فَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ، وَلَيْسَ وَرَاءَ ذَلِكَ مِنَ الْإِيمَانِ حَبَّةُ خَرْدَلٍ“۔
“It is narrated from Abdullah ibn Mas’ud (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: ‘Among all the nations in which Allah sent a prophet before me, those prophets had among their nation some disciples and companions who followed their sunnah and obeyed their command. Then after them there would come (unworthy) successors who said things they did not do, and did things they were not commanded to do. So (after me, from among you) whoever strives against them (such unworthy successors) with his hand is a believer, and whoever strives against them with his tongue is a believer, and whoever strives against them with his heart is a believer, but beyond that there is not even a mustard seed’s weight of faith (that is, whoever does not even dislike it in his heart).'”
Striving with the heart means disliking it in the heart, and in another hadith it is stated that this is the weakest level of faith.
And in another hadith:
عَنْ أُمِّ سَلَمَةَ زَوْجِ النَّبِيِّ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ، عَنِ النَّبِيِّ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ، أَنَّهُ قَالَ: ”إِنَّهُ يُسْتَعْمَلُ عَلَيْكُمْ أُمَرَاءُ، فَتَعْرِفُونَ وَتُنْكِرُونَ، فَمَنْ كَرِهَ فَقَدْ بَرِئَ، وَمَنْ أَنْكَرَ فَقَدْ سَلِمَ، وَلَكِنْ مَنْ رَضِيَ وَتَابَعَ“. قَالُوا: يَا رَسُولَ اللهِ، أَلَا نُقَاتِلُهُمْ؟ قَالَ: ”لَا، مَا صَلَّوْا“۔
“It is narrated from Umm Salamah (may Allah be pleased with her) that the Prophet ﷺ said: ‘Rulers will be appointed over you, in whom there will be both good and evil. So whoever disliked (any of their evil deeds) is free of blame, and whoever denied it is safe, but whoever was pleased (with their wrong deeds) and followed them (that is, for him there is a warning).’ The Companions said: ‘O Messenger of Allah ﷺ! Should we not fight them?’ He ﷺ said: ‘No, as long as they continue to pray.'”
Yet despite this, the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) did not oppose Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) in this matter, nor did they raise any objection of any kind. Neither did anyone stop him with the hand, nor did anyone condemn him with the tongue, nor did anyone even regard it in his heart as an unjust killing. Rather, all the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) were united upon the pledge of allegiance to Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him), and not a single one of them broke the pledge.
This makes it further clear that Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) did not shed any unlawful blood, nor did he commit any injustice; all this is merely a set of fabricated tales of the Rafidah and, in agreement with them, of Mirza Engineer, which have no reality.
Well, that was the matter of the other Companions (may Allah be pleased with them). It is quite possible that Engineer will offer this interpretation about those Companions, that they were of a passive nature, and so on. But tell us, what role did Sayyiduna Husayn (may Allah be pleased with him) play in this regard? According to Mirza, he was of a very active nature; thus he says in a video:
“Brother, if he is the grandson of the Messenger, will he just dislike it in his heart? Those who hold the highest rank of faith, in whose genes are the genes of the Prophet, whose blood is the blood of the Prophet, how can they compromise? They will come forward. And besides, the position of Sayyiduna Husayn was not that of an ordinary scholar; he was the grandson of the Messenger ﷺ! Now I will recite a verse of the Noble Quran, it will completely enlighten us. Verse number 63 of Surah al-Ma’idah. Allah the Exalted has addressed the elders of the Jews and Christians, their great high-ranking priests, their maulvis: لَوْلَا يَنْهَاهُمُ الرَّبَّانِيُّونَ وَالْأَحْبَارُ عَنْ قَوْلِهِمُ الْإِثْمَ وَأَكْلِهِمُ السُّحْتَ لَبِئْسَ مَا كَانُوا يَصْنَعُونَ Why did their elders not stop them? They go about posing as people of Allah! Why did their Rabbani people of Allah and their maulvis not stop them from speaking sinful words and from consuming what is unlawful? Why did their maulvis and their elders not stop them? How evil were the deeds they used to do! The maulvis kept compromising. What a great rebuke Allah gave to the Jews. Brother, the rebuke that the Jews and Christians are receiving, will we get it too? (Was) Sayyiduna Husayn not going to be asked on the Day of Resurrection: you were the grandson of the Messenger, the Shari’ah of Muhammad ﷺ was being torn to shreds in front of you, why did you not stop it? He was certainly going to be asked, and he, al-hamdu lillah, fulfilled his duty. By doing that he brought us to reform and also saved his own Hereafter.”
61- Mas’alah, HUSAINIAT our Yazeediat ka TAHQEEQI Jaizah -47:39
But if the government of Sayyiduna Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) was coercive and oppressive, and the killing of Hujr ibn ‘Adi was also unjust and impermissible, then tell us: after this killing, what duty did Sayyiduna Husayn (may Allah be pleased with him) fulfil? To what reform did he bring us? And how did he save his Hereafter? Did he break his pledge of allegiance to Sayyiduna Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) and the peace treaty, or raise the sword against him? Did he rebel against Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him)? Not at all! Muhammad Ali Mirza Engineer himself admits this, saying:
“Yes, yes! The prince of Paradise made peace; our peace is intact, al-hamdu lillah. I am a Husayni, you see, so in the 20 years of Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him), Husayn did not raise any sword against Mu’awiyah ibn Abi Sufyan (may Allah be pleased with him); we have peace. But……”
My 1st Interview to TLP’s Reporter Jibrar Khan [ 30-Questions ] 55:21
After this “but” comes the same web of “since”, “therefore”, “although” and “however”, with which Mirza twists every positive aspect around and turns it into something else. In sha Allah, a satisfactory answer to this will also be given under the heading “Sulh Hasan” (the Peace of Hasan).
In any case, see that Sayyiduna Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) remained Amir al-Mu’minin for twenty years, and his government did not collapse until his death. Neither did the other Companions offer any kind of resistance, nor did Husayn (may Allah be pleased with him) ever enter the field during this twenty-year period, nor is it proven that he ever condemned this killing of Hujr ibn ‘Adi by Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him); nothing of the kind is proven. This is clear proof that this killing was not an unjust killing; otherwise, would Sayyiduna Husayn (may Allah be pleased with him) have been one to remain silent? Did he turn his eyes away from injustice? Was he compromising? Certainly not. Rather, in this matter he should have been even more active, since firstly an unjust killing was taking place, and secondly all of this was happening in the tussle of his respected father, Sayyiduna Ali (may Allah be pleased with him). Yet, let alone stopping it with his hand or tongue, he did not even consider it wrong in his heart. This is evidence that Mirza is an extremely dishonest and deceitful man, who narrates such fabricated stories that even his own statements do not confirm.
Note: This passage, which has been quoted in abridged form from the Engineer’s video, contains a false narration that he presents further on in the name of Sayyidna Husayn (may Allah be pleased with him). It claims that he wrote a letter to Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) saying: “I fear what face I will show to Allah, for what you are doing to the Shari’ah while I remain silent, only holding firm to my brother’s treaty…………” So I say: before Mirza Sahib, his teacher Ishaq Jhalvi also used to narrate all these false narrations, but neither was he ever able to present any sahih (authentic) chain for them, nor has his student, Engineer Sahib, who is treading his misleading mission. But whom has deception been practised on? The common people. Yes: “only narrations with sahih chains, narrations with sahih chains,” while they call this very history forged, false, fabricated and rubbish. Anyway, for this letter incident to be a lie, that statement of Engineer Sahib which we quoted earlier is enough: that Sayyidna Husayn (may Allah be pleased with him) was the grandson of the Messenger, his position was not that of an ordinary scholar, he could never compromise, he would surely come out onto the field, and so on and so forth.
Therefore, the silence of all the noble Companions (may Allah be pleased with them), and their not condemning Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) over this killing, shows that none of them regarded it as an unjust killing. Moreover, no Companion declared the rule of Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) to be a tyrannical rule; rather, the impressions of the noble Companions are the complete opposite. Thus, from Sayyidna Abdullah ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both) this statement is narrated with a sahih chain:
مَا رَأَيْتُ رَجُلًا كَانَ أَخْلَقَ لِلْمُلْكِ مِنْ مُعَاوِيَةَ۔
“I have not seen anyone more deserving of rule than Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him).”
Sayyidna Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas (may Allah be pleased with him) said:
ما رأيت أحدا بعد عثمان أقضى بحق من صاحب هذا الباب يعني معاوية۔
“After Uthman (may Allah be pleased with him), I have not seen anyone more right in judging according to the truth than the owner of this door, meaning Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him).”
Shaykh Ghulam Mustafa Amanpuri (may Allah preserve him) declared its chain hasan (good).
Just think! If Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) had been a tyrannical ruler, and the killing of Hujr ibn Adi were just as Engineer Sahib describes, would these Companions have made this very comment about Sayyidna Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him)?
Fine, if not from the Companions, then prove from some Tabi’i that he declared the killing of Hujr ibn Adi an unjust killing and condemned Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) in any way?! And how could there be such a thing, when this step was taken only after consultation with such great Tabi’in. Nor did any of the later muhaddithin say anything of the kind, nor did they declare him wrong. Rather, they hold a very good opinion about his rule.
Even if we suppose, for the sake of argument, that Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) was wrong in the matter of this killing, even then, sir, it is not correct to criticise him, because he consulted the Companions and Tabi’in about it, and then he (may Allah be pleased with him) exercised ijtihad. So when a ruler (who is knowledgeable and God-fearing) exercises ijtihad, he is not blameworthy for making a mistake in that matter.
عَنْ عَمْرِو بْنِ الْعَاصِ، أَنَّهُ سَمِعَ رَسُولَ اللهِ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ يَقُولُ: ”إِذَا حَكَمَ الْحَاكِمُ فَاجْتَهَدَ ثُمَّ أَصَابَ، فَلَهُ أَجْرَانِ، وَإِذَا حَكَمَ فَاجْتَهَدَ ثُمَّ أَخْطَأَ، فَلَهُ أَجْرٌ“۔
“It is narrated from Sayyidna Amr ibn al-As (may Allah be pleased with him) that he heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: ‘When a ruler judges and exercises ijtihad and then reaches the correct decision, he has two rewards; and when he judges and exercises ijtihad and then errs, he has one reward.'”
When it comes to that mutual disagreement of the Companions which took place during the time of Sayyidna Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) over the retribution for Uthman (may Allah be pleased with him), and it is said that on both sides there was the ijtihad of the Companions, so both groups deserve a reward, Mirza Sahib says: “Brother, this hadith is about the ruler, that if he makes a mistake he gets one reward.” And he says that if Sayyidna Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) had been in error in the Battles of the Camel and Siffin, that is, had he fought these wars wrongly, there would have been one reward for him. So I say that Sayyidna Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) is also a ruler, and if he carried out this killing on the basis of ijtihad, then why is he blameworthy?
