Appendix Extract from a Legal Ruling (Fatwă) Pronounced by Ibn TaymĦyah on the Mongols, 702/1303 [The fatwă is given in reply to a speciÀ c question, which provides the framework within which it should be read. The question is stated as follows:] What is the view of top scholars concerning these Mongols who came [to the Muslim lands] in 699[/1299] and committed well known atrocities? They killed Muslims, enslaved their children, plundered their property and committed offences against what is religiously sacred, such as humiliating Muslims and their mosques, particularly the al-Aqßă Mosque in Jerusalem, committed corruption there, pilfered large quantities of Muslim property belonging to individuals and the state, took captive a large number of Muslims, driving them from their homeland. Despite all this, they claim to be committed to the declaration of faith (shahădah: ‘I bear witness that there is no deity other than God, and that Mu˙ammad is God’s messenger’). They maintain that it is forbidden in Islăm to À ght against them because they follow the basic principles of Islăm, and they did not go ahead with their objective of exterminating all Muslims. Is À ghting them permissible or a duty? Whichever answer is given, what is the basis of this ruling? Please give us a ruling on this matter; may God reward you. [In answer Ibn TaymĦyah wrote:] All praise is due to God. Any community or group that refuses to abide by any clear and universally accepted Islamic law, whether belonging to these people or to some other group, must be fought until they abide by its laws. This applies even though they make the verbal declaration [that brings a person into the Islamic fold] and abide by some of its laws. Such was the attitude of Abŗ Bakr [the À rst caliph] and the Prophet’s companions when they fought against those who refused to pay zakăt. All scholars in subsequent generations agree to this ruling, even though at À rst ‘Umar questioned Abŗ Bakr over it. The Prophet’s companions were unanimous in their support for À ghting to achieve the rights of Islăm. This is in line with the Qur’ăn and the Sunnah. It must be stressed that all religious requirements in war must be fulÀ lled. This means that they [that is, the Mongols] should be called upon to abide by and implement Islamic law, if this has not been conveyed to them. In the past, when the À rst declaration of Islăm was still unknown to unbelievers, they were À rst called upon to make it. The Prophet says: ‘There will be rulers who will be oppressive, treacherous and wicked. Anyone who believes in their lies and helps them does not belong to me; nor do I belong to him. He will not come to me on the Day of Judgement. On the other hand, anyone who rejects their lies and lends them no support in their oppression belongs to me and I belong to him. He will come to me on the Day of Judgement.’ When we understand what the Prophet has ordered of struggle [that is, jihăd], which has been, and will be undertaken by Muslim rulers until the Day of Judgement, and what he has forbidden towards helping those who are oppressive, we realize that the middle way, which is pure Islăm, means to join jihăd against those who must be targeted with jihăd, such as the people who are the subject of this enquiry. We should join jihăd against them with any ruler, commander or group that is closer to Islăm than they, if such is the only means of À ghting them. We must refrain from helping the side we join in with in jihăd in committing anything that represents disobedience to God. We obey such rulers in anything conducive to obeying God, and disobey them in anything conducive 424 Appendix 425 to disobeying Him. The applicable rule states: ‘No creature may be obeyed in what constitutes disobedience of the Creator.’ Such is the line chosen by the best people in the Muslim community, over many generations. It is incumbent on everyone who is required to observe Islamic obligations. It is a middle way between the Khawărij [see Chapter 2] and those like them whose approach is one of strict but faulty piety owing to their lack of thorough knowledge of Islăm, and al-Murji’ah [Murji’ites, the extreme opponents of the Khawărij] who advocate obeying rulers in all cases, even though they may be uncommitted to Islăm. We have seen the Mongol army, and ascertained that most of their soldiers do not attend to their prayers. We did not see in their army camps anyone who calls to prayers, mu’adhdhin, or any imăm who leads prayers. They have unlawfully taken away much property belonging to Muslims, and many of their children, and destroyed their land, in numbers and at scales known only to God. In their government they have only people who are among the worst of mankind. These are either unbelievers or hypocrites who do not really believe in Islăm, or else some of the more extreme followers of deviant sects, such as the extreme Sh‘Ħa, al-JahmĦyyah [the followers of Jahm ibn Íafwăn, who denied the divine attributes], etc. Others who follow them are among the most hardened sinners. When they are in their own land, they do not offer the pilgrimage to Mecca, in spite of being able to do so. Although some of them may pray and fast, the majority neither attend to prayers nor pay their zakăt. They À ght for Chinghis-Khăn (Genghis Khăn). Whoever collaborates with them they accept him as belonging to them, even though he may be an unbeliever. They consider anyone who abstains from such collaboration an enemy, even though he may be among the best Muslims. They do not À ght to defend Islăm. Those who are Muslims among their top leaders and ministers give no Muslim any higher status than they give to unbelievers, Jews or Christians. This is what was stated by their chief emissary in Syria who said to the Muslim delegation, as he tried to gain their good will claiming that they were Muslims. He said: ‘Mu˙ammad and Chinghis-Khăn are two great signs of God.’ Thus the maximum he can say in order to win favour with Muslims is to equate God’s last messenger, who is the dearest to God, with an unbeliever king who ranks as one of the most wicked, corrupt idolaters and aggressors. To sum up, every type of hypocrisy, unbelief and outright rejection of the faith is found among the Mongol followers. They are among the most ignorant of all people, who least know the faith and are far from following it. They follow their own desires… Translation by Dr Adil Salahi. Source: Majmŗ’a Fatăwă Shaykh al-Islăm A˙mad Ibn Taymiyya, 37 vols (Compilation of Legal Opinions of Shaykh al-Islăm A˙mad Ibn Taymiyya), ed. and comp. ‘Abd al-Ra˙man ibn Qăsim (n.p., n.d.), xxviii. 501–8. Notes Author’s preface 1. Khurram Murad, ‘Islaăm and Terrorism’, Encounters: Journal of Inter-cultural Perspectives, 4 (1998), 103–14, at 106. 2. M. Nejatullah Siddiqi, ‘Future of the Islamic Movement’, Encounters: Journal of Inter-cultural Perspectives, 4 (1998), 91–101 at 94. 3. Murad, ‘Islaăm and Terrorism’, 103. Introduction 1. Steve Bird, ‘Leicester Algerians accused of funding al-Qaeda holy war’, The Times, 6 February 2003. 2. Quoted by R. J. Bonney, Understanding and Celebrating Religious Diversity. The Growth of Diversity in Leicester’s Places of Religious Worship since 1970 (University of Leicester, Studies in the History of Religious and Cultural Diversity, 1, 2003), 70. Those convicted launched an appeal on the grounds that the general coverage of terrorism made it difÀ cult for them to have a fair trial: Leicester Mercury, 17 October 2003. 3. Four titles purchased on a brief visit to the United States in October 2003: Robert Spencer, Islam Unveiled. Disturbing Questions about the World’s Fastest-Growing Faith (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002); Kenneth R. Timmerman, Preachers of Hate. Islam and the War on America (New York: Crown Forum, 2003); Stephen Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islam. Saudi Fundamentalism and its Role in Terrorism (New York: Anchor Books, repr. 2003); Robert Spencer, Onward Muslim Soldiers. How Jihăd Still Threatens America and the West (Washington DC: Regnery Publishing, 2003). 4. Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islam, 192. ‘Christopher Hitchens was dead on when he described this ideology as “fascism with an Islamic face”, and radio host Michael Savage hit the nail on the head when he came up with the term “Islamofascism”’: <www.freerepublic.com/focus/ news/792626/posts> 5. Elaine Monaghan, ‘US “must sell its image” in Muslim World’, The Times, 2 October 2003. 6. The phrase ‘wretched, backward, philosophy of these terrorists’ was transcribed from his television address. It does not appear in the ofÀ cial transcript: ‘it is a war that strikes at the heart of all that we hold dear, and there is only one response that is possible or rational: to meet their will to inÁ ict terror with a greater will to defeat it; to confront their philosophy of hate with our own of tolerance and freedom; and to challenge their desire to frighten us, divide us, unnerve us with an unshakeable unity of purpose; to stand side by side with the United States of America and with our other allies in the world, to rid our world of this evil once and for all’.