[Khairan]

Originally Posted by Salahadeen

You referred to us as Takfeeris or Talafis...don't remember which...so I was just showing you that the Shi`as themselves do takfeer of the other Shi`a groups! So the issue that the Shi`as have contention with is not Takfeer--since they do it to themselves--but rather when Sunnis do it to their particular group.

Salaams,

Once again, I don't understand what this has to do with my post. You seem to have missed the point of my pointing out the takfir, which is to say that someone who has a polemical agenda of disparaging another group is not a more reliable source of that groups beliefs than a practicing member of that group. That's like saying Anne Coulter is a more trustworthy person to learn about Islam from than Hamza Yusuf.

How you would extrapolate from my post that I as a shia perform takfir and therefore I don't have a problem with anyone except sunnis committing takfir puzzles me.

Originally Posted by Salahadeen

As for your claim that "only God has the right" ...., that's nonsense. Hadrat Abu Bakr (ra) fought the apostates, whose apostasy was proven simply by them denying the zakat. Ali (ra) put to death certain people who had become apostates due to their extreme views. So it is incorrect to say that human beings cannot do takfeer.

I do not believe it is correct to interpret any of these instances as people being executed for apostasy. The Qur'an, for one, never mentions death as an appropriate penalty for apostates. I think the weight of historical evidence shows that the people who we describe as apostates or heretics contemporaneous with the first Muslims were killed because they committed war or treason against the Islamic state, not because they were deemed "non-Muslim."