Al-Hasan al-Basree (d. 110H): Al-Hajjaaj bin Yusuf is the Punishment of Allaah

Ibn Sa’d relates in his Tabaqaat al-Kubraa (7/163-165):

A group of Muslims came to al-Hasan al-Basree seeking a verdict to rebel against al-Hajjaaj

[a tyrannical and despotic ruler]. So they said, “O Abu Sa’eed! What do you say about fighting this oppressor who has unlawfully spilt blood and unlawfully taken wealth and did this and that?” So al-Hasan said, “I hold that he should not be fought. If this is a punishment from Allaah, then you will not be able to remove it with your swords. If this is a trial from Allaah, then be patient until Allaah’s judgement comes, and He is the best of judges.” So they left al-Hasan, disagreed with him and rebelled against al-Hajjaaj – so al-Hajjaaj killed them all. Al-Hasan used to say, “If the people had patience when they are being tested by their unjust ruler, it will not be long before Allaah will give them a way out. However, they always rush for their swords, so they are left with their swords. By Allaah! Not even for a single day did they bring about any good.”

It is narrated from al-Hasan al-Basree (d.110), as mentioned in Minhaj us-Sunnah of Shaikh ul-Islam (4/528),

Verily, al-Hajjaaj is the punishment of Allaah. So do not repel the punishment of Allaah with your own hands. But you must submit and show humility, for Allaah the Most High stated, “And indeed We seized them with punishment, but they humbled not themselves to their Lord, nor did they invoke (Allýh) with submission to Him.” (Al-Mu’minun 23:76).

And also from al-Hasan al-Basree, as occurs in Adaab Hasan al-Basri, of Ibn al-Jawzee, (pp.119-120):

Know – may Allaah pardon you – that the tyranny of the kings is a retribution (niqmah) from among the retributions of Allaah the Most High. And Allaah’s retributions are not to be faced with the sword, but they are to be faced with taqwaa and are repelled with supplication and repentance, remorse (inaabah) and abstention from sins. Verily, when the punishments of Allaah are met with the sword, are more severe. And Maalik bin Deenaar narrated to me that al-Hajjaaj (Ibn Yoosuf) used to say, “Know that every time you commit a sin Allaah will bring about a punishment from the direction of your ruler (sultaan)“. And I have also been told that a person said to al-Hajjaaj, “Do you do such and such with the Ummah of Muhammad (sallallaahu alaihi wasallam)?” So he replied, “For the reason that I am the punishment of Allaah upon the people of Iraaq, when they innovated into their religion whatever they innovated, and when they abandoned the commands of the their Prophet (alaihis salaam) whatever they abandoned.”

All of the jamaa’aat (groups) that have appeared in the 20th century, claiming to rectify the Ummah, have fallen into deviation in their methodologies of reform and they have not judged by what Allaah has revealed in their understandings, their methodologies and their calls. They wrongly believe by removing one ruler, or one government they can establish Allaah’s law, or that they can do so through political parties that engineer coups and revolutions while turning a blind eye to or belittling the fact that the Muslims are far removed from that Islaam which gave honour and victory to the Companions, but upon an Islaam tainted with innovations, devations, foreign philosophies and ideologies in the fields of aqidah and ibaadah and manhaj and siyaasah. And thus, that tainted Islam they are following does not have the same effect in bringing about the aid and support of Allaah and the granting of success as that pure Islaam, with its purity in aqidah, and Tawhid, that the Companions were upon.

The activities of these groups claiming to rectify the Ummah are based upon methodologies that are in opposition to the Book, the Sunnah and the way of the Righteous Salaf whose belief and methodology Allaah has made a criterion of truth in all affairs of the religion.