Eight children were among the 11 migrants who drowned on January 11, 2020 when their boat sank off Turkey’s western coast. Their shoes, clothes and identities were washed ashore. Hours earlier, another migrant boat sank in the Ionian Sea heading from the Greek island of Paxi shortly before arriving in Italy, leaving at least 12 dead. According to a report published by the International Organization for Migration and UNHCR on December 2019; every year an average of 3,000 people lose their lives while trying to reach Europe across the Mediterranean. 2,275 deaths were registered in 2018 alone, the number of unregistered deaths is much higher.
Boasting of hosting 4.5 million Syrian refugees, nationalist and secular Turkey is treating them as foreigners. Hence not able to find safety, protection and equal treatment in the country, these innocent women and children, who flee the war, aim to reach Europe, but drown in the seas in the process. Second class treatment, nationalist teachers humiliating Syrian children in schools, being denied any service and aid during winter months in shelters without doors, simply for not having identity papers, greedy employers who do not pay their Syrian employees’ rightful wages; and in particular the racism and nationalism of short-sighted politicians, who do not deem Syrians any life outside of the futureless camps, and whose rhetoric repeatedly provoked the people of Turkey against these people, all these issues are the reasons that force these people to the cruelty of the cold and stormy seas in winter months…
This is despite the fact that Islam does not regard any Muslim from any part of the world as a guest, let alone a foreigner on Muslim soils. These people came to their own rightful lands, which were opened to Islam through following Allah’s Command and Promise and His Messenger’s ﷺ. Based on this purely Islamic right, no visa, no residence or work permit is required for any Muslim who arrives at any Islamic land. Furthermore, Islam rejects any notion of nationalism and views every person, who resides in the Islamic territories as one of the citizens, irrespective of creed, colour, ethnicity or land of origin, and does not treat them and especially any Muslim as foreigners. Citizenship in Islam is based on residency only. All the people who hold the Islamic citizenship are treated equally, without any discrimination between them either by the ruler, in terms of looking after their affairs and in terms of protecting their lives, their honour and their wealth, or by the judge in terms of equality and justice. Throughout Islamic history, Muslim rulers not only rejected the treatment of Muslims as foreigners, they gave refugees from non-Muslim lands, who fled persecution, a safe sanctuary on the Muslim lands and treated them as their own citizens. Moreover, the good treatment of the Dhimmis (non-Muslim citizens of the state) is an obligation in Islam, for Rasulallah ﷺ said if anyone ill-treats a Dhimmi «فَأَنَا حَجِيجُهُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ» “I will argue against him on the Day of Judgement.” How could oppression occur against a Muslim under such a system, where even the rights of non-Muslims are meticulously protected? Would a Muslim ever be treated as a second-class citizen?
O Rulers of Turkey! See, what you have become due to your nationalism. Your chasing after nationalist and capitalist ideals, made you responsible for every life fading under the bombings, tortures and drowning in the seas! Moreover, your hands are besmeared with the blood of every Muslim woman, child and man, for you not only remain idle against the Kuffar, who deprive them of their homes and lives, but rather you become partners, associates and even allies, and shake hands with their murderers.
O Muslims in Turkey and the entire Muslim lands! If the rulers ruled by Islam, as commanded by Allah (swt) and united the Ummah under one roof, forming one fist as obliged by Islam, not only the Muslims, but the entire world, every human, regardless of their religion, race and color would be saved from the types of oppression! So then, hasten to re-establish the second Khilafah Rashidah (rightly guided Caliphate) upon the Method of Prophethood, to which your Lord (swt) and His Messenger ﷺ have invited you to establish, and which will give you life!
Women’s Section in The Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir
Friday, 22nd Jumada I 1441 AH
17/01/2020 CE
Issue No: 1441 AH / 010