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How can the Hadith "Be the slain servant of Allah, not His slaying servant" be reconciled with the Ahadith "Whoever dies defending his honor is a martyr" and fighting the Khawarij?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

There is no contradiction between the religious texts, and the three aforementioned hadiths do not contradict each other because each hadith addresses a different subject. The first hadith, "He who is killed defending his property is a martyr; he who is killed defending his religion is a martyr; he who is killed defending his life is a martyr; and he who is killed defending his family is a martyr," speaks about the permissibility of fighting to repel aggression against one's self, property, and honor. As for the second hadith, "If you live to see that, then be the slain servant of Allah, and do not be the killing servant of Allah," it addresses general tribulations where truth is mixed with falsehood, and in such cases, surrender is better to avoid fighting among Muslims. The third hadith, which describes the Khawarij, "They kill the people of Islam and leave the people of idols," relates to fighting the Khawarij when they rebel with the sword and shed forbidden blood, which is an obligatory duty by consensus. However, merely holding their beliefs does not necessitate fighting them unless they shed blood.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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