Sayyid Imam continues his rebuttal of Nasir al-Fahd; this time it’s for Fahd’s failure to differentiate his enemy. In this regard, Imam adduces anti-war protests and British priests as examples of diverse political views in Western nations. The most interesting bit comes toward the end when Imam takes up the subject of cursing the Prophet, which he did not cover in his first book.
Continuing:
In the Exoneration, Zawahiri quotes Fahd as saying that a visa is a pact of safe passage that must not be violated by attacking the country that granted it. But, Fahd says, America is like Ka`b b. al-Ashraf [see part 5] who harms God and His messenger Muhammad, so an American visa can be violated.
Fahd has confused the subject of states giving pacts of safe passage to other states and states giving them to individuals. He also misunderstands the story of Ka`b. Moreover, he contradicts Islamic scripture because he equates killing Muhammad with killing Muslims, which are not equivalent. No matter how great America’s enmity toward Muslims is, it does not rise to the level of killing Muhammad. Even in Muhammad’s time, no matter how much the infidels hated the Prophet, Muslims had to respect the treaties they contracted with them.
Fahd is seeking to justify the killing of Americans en masse in the Twin Towers. Thus he comes up with the ugly heresy of treating all Americans as a single individual. Once this is accepted, you can kill “civilians (ie noncombatants),” whether Muslim or not. This is like killing someone on account of their nationality or for paying taxes. This is heresy for the following reasons:
- God does not lump people together (3:113).
- God has protected the people of the Book to keep them from claiming rights over each other.
- The Prophet did not lump all the infidel Quraysh together. He praised some and forbade the killing of others, even though they fought against him.
- When fighting the Persians and Byzantines, Caliphs only fought those who fought them. They didn’t lump everyone together.
- Even though Pharaoh persecuted the tribe of Israel and despite the fact that the Qur’an says that his people obeyed him in this, Moses was still in the wrong for killing one of them.
According to the Companions, Bzyantium (which is Europe and America today) has a number of good qualities:
When Mustawrid al-Qurashi was sitting with ‘Amr ibn al-‘As, he said, “I heard the Prophet say, ‘The Hour will come when the Romans will be in the majority.’ ‘Amr asked him, “What are you saying?” He said, “I am repeating that which I heard from the Prophet.” ‘Amr said, “If you say this, it is true, because they have four good characteristics: they are the most able to cope with tribulation, the quickest to recover after disaster and to return to the fight after disaster, and are the best as far as treating the poor, weak and orphans is concerned. They have a fifth characteristic which is very good; they do not allow themselves to be oppressed by their kings. (Sahih Muslim)
Notice that one of Byzantium’s good qualities is that its people they “do not allow themselves to be oppressed by their kings,” which is true today of America and Europe. Since the occupation of Iraq in 2003, a number of countries have withdrawn and there are still demonstrations in the U.S. and allied nations against the occupation. They are not a single entity as Fahd would have it. In recent days, many priests in the U.K. have adopted a position favoring Muslims.
Cursing the Prophet does not invalidate a treaty with hostile infidels because cursing him is part of their religion. Muhammad contracted the treaty of Hudaybiyya even though his interlocutors cursed him. The only ones who can violate a contract of protection by cursing the Prophet are people of the Book who live under Muslim dominion.
I said previously that Fahd should not be allowed to issue fatwas because his fatwas contradict the fundamentals of jurisprudence. He has to be held responsible for what is destroyed on account of these fatwas.
* Regarding their belief that a visa for tourism in Muslim countries is not a pact of safe passage and does not protect them from killing and kidnapping
I dealt with this in part 7 of the Document. It’s sufficient to mention the words of Abu `Umar b. `Abd al-Birr that “everything the harbi considers to be a pact of safe passage taken from someone’s words, outward signs, or permission is a pact of safe passage that all Muslims must uphold.” According Shafi`i, anyone who enters a Muslim country without a proper pact of security should be referred to the one who gave him the pact. They should not be harmed.
Z argues the exact opposite even though he travelled in Europe and America and suffered no harm.
Z also applies the same corrupt reasoning to foreign tourists in Muslim countries. He believes they can be killed because of the actions of their governments. But the Prophet never treated his enemies as a single entity.
All of this is a rebuttal of AQ’s justification for mass killing, especially killing civilians. What remains to be said here is that those who advocate killing civilians tacitly acknowledge that they are unable to confront the enemy’s soldiers just as they are unable to achieve military goals. It is an acknowledgement through cowardice.
Cowardice and inability lead them to kill those whom the Sharia forbids to be killed: noncombatant civilians, whether Muslim or non-Muslim.
Z justifies mass killing and the killing of innocent Muslim noncombatants by various rationales. Sometimes its for their nationality, because they pay taxes, because they are being used as human shields, because AQ is responding in kind, or because they are a single entity. This gives UBL and Z justification for widening the scope of killing as far as possible. It is an “open appetite for bloodshed.”
* Regarding the heresy that only Jihadi clerics can speak on these matters
They want to silence their critics. This position contradicts the Qur’an. Moreover, there is no need to fight in a jihad to be a mufti. You would have to exclude some of the Companions and the founders of the Islamic legal schools if this were the case.
It remains to be said that the authors of this heresy have called me the “mufti of the mujahids in the world” and the “fighting scholar and mujahid mufti.”
These so-called scholars of jihad were the first to flee the battlefield. Moreover, their amir Mullah Omar was one of the scholars of jihad. Did they seek fatwas or permission from him to attack America?
Document (Arabic): 11-24-08-al-masry-al-youm-denudation-6
