Serving Humanity with The Muslim Cowboy
Serving Humanity with The Muslim Cowboy
The Dangerous Spiral of Accusation
“Chain Tabdīʿ” = declaring a Muslim an innovator because he knows, visits, quotes, or does business with someone who is accused of innovation…and then extending that label by association further down the line. Focus on that word – accused. It will make a huge difference later in understanding how a certain cult has gone so very very far astray.
Practically, “chain tabdīʿ” manufactures division (tafarruq) and hands victories to any enemy who profits from a fractured Ummah. The powers-that-be are scared out of their minds from a united Ummah. The remedy is adab al-ikhtilāf (ethics of disagreement), private nasiha, and public love and unity upon the Sunnah.
By “chain tabdīʿ,” I mean this: Zayd is labeled an innovator. Then anyone who hosts Zayd, quotes Zayd, attends Zayd’s lecture, or even does not condemn Zayd loudly enough becomes “an innovator.” Then anyone connected to that second person is tabdi’ed too. The label becomes lāzim (a so-called “necessary implication”) that gets projected onto people who never actually held the original view.
Classically, our jurists warned: “Lazim al-qawl laysa bi-qawl”: the alleged necessary implication of someone’s statement is not itself that person’s statement. You do not bind a Muslim to an inferred chain of claims he never uttered or adopted.
By “chain tabdīʿ,” I mean this: Zayd is labeled an innovator. Then anyone who hosts Zayd, quotes Zayd, attends Zayd’s lecture, or even does not condemn Zayd loudly enough becomes “an innovator.” Then anyone connected to that second person is tabdi’ed too. The label becomes lāzim (a so-called “necessary implication”) that gets projected onto people who never actually held the original view.
Classically, our jurists warned: “Lazim al-qawl laysa bi-qawl”: the alleged necessary implication of someone’s statement is not itself that person’s statement. You do not bind a Muslim to an inferred chain of claims he never uttered or adopted.
a) Brotherhood and Unity
إِنَّمَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ إِخْوَةٌ
“The believers are but brothers; so make peace between your brothers.” (Q 49:10)
وَاعْتَصِمُوا بِحَبْلِ اللَّهِ جَمِيعًا وَلَا تَفَرَّقُوا
“Hold fast, all of you, to the rope of Allah and do not divide.” (Q 3:103)
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ فَرَّقُوا دِينَهُمْ وَكَانُوا شِيَعًا لَسْتَ مِنْهُمْ فِي شَيْءٍ
“Those who split their religion and became sects – you are not of them in anything.” (Q 6:159)
Chain tabdīʿ manufactures division without due proof, contradicting these ayat directly.
b) Verification and Justice
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِنْ جَاءَكُمْ فَاسِقٌ بِنَبَإٍ فَتَبَيَّنُوا
“O you who believe, if a wrongdoer brings you news, then verify…” (Q 49:6)
وَلَا تَقْفُ مَا لَيْسَ لَكَ بِهِ عِلْمٌ
“Do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge.” (Q 17:36)
Suspicion and guilt by association fail the Qur’anic bar of bayyina (clear proof) and tabayyun (verification).
c) Guarding the Tongue
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اجْتَنِبُوا كَثِيرًا مِّنَ الظَّنِّ… وَلَا يَغْتَب بَّعْضُكُم بَعْضًا
“Avoid much suspicion… and do not backbite one another.” (Q 49:12)
إِذْ تَلَقَّوْنَهُ بِأَلْسِنَتِكُمْ
“When you received it on your tongues…” about spreading unverified talk (Q 24:15–16)
Chain tabdīʿ is almost engineered to violate these.
d) Sanctity of the Shahadah
وَلَا تَقُولُوا لِمَنْ أَلْقَىٰ إِلَيْكُمُ السَّلَامَ لَسْتَ مُؤْمِنًا
“Do not say to one who offers you peace, ‘You are not a believer.’” (Q 4:94)
If even a greeting of salam protects a person’s Muslim standing from rash negation, how much more must we not negate a Muslim’s adherence to Sunnah by chain-suspicion? Especially when the lack of said adherence is seen as sin and deviance.
“Subb al-muslim fusūq wa qitāluhu kufr”
“Reviling a Muslim is wickedness, and fighting him is disbelief.” (Bukhari, Muslim)
“If a man says to his brother, ‘O kafir,’ it returns to one of them.” (Bukhari, Muslim)
By analogy, reckless tabdīʿ is a grave matter that will undoubtedly return to one of them – and just as with reckless takfīr, that one is the issuer according to the scholars of Islam.
Those cultists who are the biggest proponents of tabdī’ and chain tabdī’ love quoting this Hadith: “Whoever introduces into this matter of ours what is not from it, it is rejected.” (Bukhari, Muslim)
Ironically, chain tabdīʿ itself is a bid‘a: it adds a non-Prophetic mechanism for anathematizing the Muslims – making it of the most harmful type of bida’.
The Prophet, peace be upon him, corrected privately and with dignity, prioritized mercy, and measured people by their clear words and actions, not by extended webs of association (see the hadith of the Bedouin who urinated in the masjid; his approach of forbearance and stepwise teaching – Hadith found in Bukhari).
Chain tabdīʿ collapses under all five: it removes certainty with conjecture, violates innocence, misjudges without proper conception, opens the means to harm, and multiplies social corruption far beyond any supposed benefit.
Imam Malik disliked argumentation and public mud-slinging over religion; he said:
“Every one of us may have his statement accepted or rejected, except the companion of this grave (peace be upon him).” (Ibn Abd al-Barr, Jāmi‘ Bayān al-‘Ilm, 2/32 33)
His method anchored practice in the living Sunnah of Madinah, favoring social cohesion and restraint over speculation and factionalism.
The Hanafis emphasized istihsan (juristic preference) and avoidance of hardship or social strife. Abu Hanifa warned that calling someone an innovator or unbeliever based on inference was an injustice unless proven by clear, explicit statement. Ibn ‘Ābidin notes in his Radd al-Muhtar that labeling a Muslim a mubtadi‘ is among the major moral risks unless based on certainty and necessity. The Hanafi principle “yutraku al-ijtihad bi khawf al-fitna” (ijtihad is suspended if it leads to fitna) shows the same restraint.
Imām al-Ṭaḥāwī writes in the creed of Ahl al-Sunnah:
“We do not declare anyone of the people of the qiblah a disbeliever on account of a sin, so long as he does not deem it lawful.” (al-ʿAqīdah al-Ṭaḥāwiyyah)
This alone invalidates the cultic reflex of ejecting Muslims for social or intellectual proximity.
Ibn Nujaym reinforced the same:
“Established Islam is not removed by doubt.”
While this was referring to takfīr and chain takfīr, chain tabdīʿ thrives on nothing but doubt – not certainty.
Imam al-Shafi‘i famously said:
“I never debated anyone except in sincerity, and I never debated one whom I knew was entrenched upon innovation.”(al-Bayhaqī, Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī)
His method of usul prioritized clarity of evidence and the assumption of Muslim integrity. His student al-Bayhaqi, and later al-Nawawi, reaffirmed that disagreement is a mercy when bound by the Sunnah and that censuring others beyond proof is itself bid‘a. His concern was nasiḥah, not notoriety.
Imām al-Nawawī, commenting on the ḥadīth “If a man says to his brother, ‘O kāfir,’ it returns to one of them,” warned that takfīr or tabdīʿ can never rest on possible or ambiguous meanings.
The Shāfiʿī school’s ethic is verification (tabayyun), not amplification.
Imam Ahmad endured slander and imprisonment yet refused to declare innovators by broad association. His student Abu Dawud reported: “I never heard Ahmad declaring anyone of Ahl al-Qiblah a kafir.” Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim, both Hanbalis, strongly warned that tabdīʿ or takfir by inference destroys hearts and the ummah, stressing that intention and clarity are required before any accusation.
In Majmu‘ al-Fatawa, Ibn Taymiyyah said in reference to a famous Hadith from our Messenger PBUH:
“Whosoever errs from ijtihad while seeking truth is rewarded, not censured.”
And al-Dhahabī reported from him later in life:
“I do not declare anyone of the Ummah a disbeliever. (Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, 15/88)
All of these giants, though scourged by innovators, refused to return their excommunication; they saw the fitnah of labels as more harmful than their error whether it be takfīr or tabdī’.
Thus, every madhhab upholds restraint, proof, and unity against conjectural labeling.
Chain tabdīʿ collapses under all five: it removes certainty with conjecture, violates innocence, misjudges without proper conception, opens the means to harm, and multiplies social corruption far beyond any supposed benefit.
Ghibah (backbiting) and namimah (tale-bearing) are major sins (Q 49:12; Q 104:1). Public tabdīʿ chains incentivize feeding the algorithm of outrage. That habituation to others’ faults is spiritual poison. The Sunnah calls to cover faults, give gentle advice (Q 16:125), and prioritize reconciliation (Q 49:10).
Ibn Abd al-Barr and others report from early Malikis, as well as Shafi‘i and Hanbali jurists, the dislike of naming people publicly when a generic warning suffices unless an immediate, concrete harm to the public demands specificity.
When a real, specific harm is present (for example, a false contract, an unsafe teacher for one’s child, a circulating fabrication) and when competent scholars — not partisans — investigate, then measured warning is hisbah, not “chain tabdīʿ.”
Conditions include: necessity, proportionality, accuracy, no viable alternative, intention of protection (not score-settling), and no transgression beyond what the situation requires. The Malikis, Shafi‘is, Hanafis, and Hanbalis all maintain the usul principle: “al-darurah tuqaddar bi-qadariha” — necessity is measured strictly by its limit.
History is blunt: external projects — from colonial playbooks to modern agendas — profit when Muslims are too busy denouncing one another to build anything. Whether you name them Zionists, colonial remnants, or any adversary of Muslim cohesion, the pattern is the same: divide, then rule. The Qur’an already warned us about schism as a self-inflicted wound (Q 6:159; 3:103). Why hand enemies our unity on a platter?
We do not need conspiracies to see a simple truth: disunity is a strategic gift to anyone who opposes Muslim strength.
Worship, family duties, community service, economic excellence, and da‘wah. These are fard ‘ayn or kifayah that wither under the acid of factional shaming.
