Dhul Khulasa GhazwaDhul Khulasa Hadith Explained: Did the Prophet Order Killing?
First of all, let us start with the objection regarding this hadith.
It is mentioned in many hadiths, including Sahih Al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, that the Prophet ﷺ ordered Jurayr, may Allah be pleased with him, to destroy a place called Dhul Khulasa, which was connected to a tribe that had been worshiping idols.
The objection made is this: how could the Prophet ﷺ order the killing of people simply because they had a different religion?
This scan is being used to present the objection concerning Dhul Khulasa. The critic attempts to frame the incident as if the Prophet ﷺ commanded Jurayr ibn Abdullah, may Allah be pleased with him, to kill people merely because they followed another religion. The response below argues that this is a distortion, because the command was directed at the destruction of the idol and its shrine, not at the killing of people for religious difference.
The Prophet ﷺ Ordered the Idol Destroyed, Not People Killed
Let us tackle this argument step by step.
First of all, the Prophet ﷺ never ordered Jurayr to kill anyone. He simply ordered him to destroy a place of idol worship that still stood from the days of Jahiliyyah.
The idol itself was called Dhul Khulasa, so the Prophet ﷺ specifically ordered Jurayr to destroy that place and not to kill the inhabitants there.
This was after the Arab tribes had converted to Islam, and they themselves were destroying the idols that they had previously worshiped.
Jurayr’s Conversion and the Question About Dhul Khulasa
When Jurayr came to the Prophet ﷺ to convert to Islam, the Prophet ﷺ asked him about the other Arab tribes. Jurayr answered him:
“They converted to Islam and destroyed their idols.”
So the Prophet ﷺ asked Jurayr:
“What happened to Dhul Khulasa?”
Meaning: what happened to the idol?
Jurayr answered:
“It still stands.”
Meaning: it had not been destroyed with the other idols.
So the Prophet ﷺ sent Jurayr to destroy that idol. He chose Jurayr specifically for this task because the idol was in the lands from which Jurayr came.
Just as the other Arab tribes destroyed the idols they had worshiped after they converted to Islam, Jurayr also destroyed the idol that he and his people had worshiped after they converted to Islam.
A similar principle occurred at the conquest of Makkah, when the idols of Quraysh were removed after Islam became dominant there.
This scan is being used to support the point that the discussion was about Dhul Khulasa as an idol and place of idol worship. The response argues that the Prophet’s ﷺ instruction concerned the removal of the idol after the tribe’s conversion, not a general order to kill people for holding another religion.
Ibn Hajar’s Explanation
Imam Ibn Hajar Al-Asqalani confirms in Fath Al-Bari that the reason the Prophet ﷺ sent Jurayr for this task was that Jurayr and his tribe had been worshiping that idol.
This scan is cited as evidence from Ibn Hajar Al-Asqalani’s explanation. The relevant point is that Jurayr was connected to the people who had worshiped Dhul Khulasa, which explains why he was selected for the mission. The argument is that the Prophet ﷺ sent someone from that people to remove their own former idol after Islam had entered them, rather than sending him to kill people because of mere religious difference.
Ibn Al-Jawzi’s Report
Here is another report by Imam Ibn Al-Jawzi with the same wording.
This scan is used as a second supporting report with similar wording. Its purpose is to reinforce the same point: the subject of the command was Dhul Khulasa itself, meaning the idol and its place of worship, not a command to kill people simply for belonging to another religion.
Why Were Some People Killed There?
The Prophet ﷺ never ordered the killing of any person, nor did Jurayr say that he was going to kill anyone. They were simply talking about the idol, and Jurayr’s task was to go and destroy the idol, just as every other tribe had destroyed theirs.
So why did Jurayr say that he killed some people there?
According to Sahih Al-Bukhari, Jurayr said that he killed some people while he was destroying the idol. The simple answer is that, during his mission, he was attacked by some people from his tribe, Bani Khatham, who wanted to kill him because he had converted to Islam and because they wanted to defend their idol worship.
So he fought against them.
Jurayr was not sent to kill people because they had a different religion. He was sent to destroy an idol that remained after the tribes had entered Islam. The people who were killed were those who fought him during that mission.
That is the only explanation that fits the broader Islamic principle, because in Islam one cannot fight someone who is not fighting.
At the conquest of Makkah, the Prophet ﷺ allowed those who did not want to convert to Islam to leave peacefully, and he did not kill them merely because they did not accept Islam, because they did not fight.
Destroying the Idol Was Connected to Authority Over Their Own Land
When a tribe converts to Islam, they have the choice to destroy what they were worshiping before, since it is their own land.
This is something even the Arabs in Jahiliyyah understood in a general sense: when someone loses a war, what he leaves behind passes into the control of the victor.
Likewise, if Islam enters a place where there is idol worship, and the vast majority of Muslims there do not want idol worship in their land, they have the choice to remove it. Those who fight against them are fighting against what the ruling authority and the Muslim majority have decided for that land.
They either live in that land according to what the ruling authority demands, or they leave.
The objection collapses because it falsely changes the command from “destroy Dhul Khulasa” into “kill people because they have another religion.” The hadith does not say that. The Prophet ﷺ sent Jurayr because Dhul Khulasa was the idol of his people, and the mission was to remove that idol after Islam had entered those tribes. Any fighting that occurred was because people attacked Jurayr and resisted the removal of the idol by force, not because the Prophet ﷺ ordered random killing over religious difference.