We recall the speech of Ja’far ibn Abi Talib to Negus, who said: “We were a people in a state of ignorance and immorality, worshipping idols and eating the flesh of dead animals, committing all sorts of abomination and shameful deeds, breaking the ties of kinship, treating guests badly, and the strong among us exploited the weak. We remained in this state until Allah sent us a Prophet, one of our own people, whose lineage, truthfulness, trustworthiness, and integrity were well-known to us. He called us to worship Allah alone, and to renounce the stones and the idols which we and our ancestors used to worship besides Allah. He commanded us to speak the truth, to honor our promises, to be kind to our relations, to be helpful to our neighbors, to cease all forbidden acts, to abstain from bloodshed, to avoid obscenities and false witness, and not to appropriate an orphan’s property nor slander chaste women. He ordered us to worship Allah alone and not to associate anything with him, to uphold Salat, to give Zakah, and fast in the month of Ramadan…” Words in which he summarized how Islam transferred humanity from darkness to light… words in which he explained that the basis is the application of Islam; a religion, behavior, acts of worship, transactions and the constitution of life.
This convincing speech and the accurate characterization of the influence of Islam on individuals is a testament to the interest of the Messenger of Allah in the individual call in the first stages of the Dawah, which greatly affected people, so it made the individuals who adhere to this religion sacrificing for it the precious and valuable things… it made them real Islamic personalities who were the building blocks of the coming state. And he was followed by the first companions, especially Abu Bakr (as), who at his hand many members of the first generation, may Allah bless them all, entered Islam.
Dawah to Allah is obligatory on every Muslim man and woman, and it is not permissible for a Muslim to fail to carry the Dawah, each as far as he knows, because he became a soldier of Muhammad ﷺ, defending his Deen, calling for his law, and standing up for the rulings of his Lord. It was narrated from Sahl ibn Saad that the Prophet ﷺ said to Ali (r.a): «فواللَّهِ لأنْ يهْدِيَ اللَّه بِكَ رجُلاً واحِداً خَيْرٌ لكَ من حُمْرِ النَّعم» “I swear on Allah, it will be better for you that Allah should give guidance to one man through your agency than that you should acquire the red ones among the camels”.
Allah (swt) says: قُلْ هَذِهِ سَبِيلِي أَدْعُو إِلَى اللَّهِ عَلَى بَصِيرَةٍ أَنَا وَمَنِ اتَّبَعَنِي وَسُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ وَمَا أَنَا مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ “Say: ‘This my way: I invite unto Allah― on evidence clear as the seeing with one’s eyes; I and whoever follows me. Glorified and Exalted be Allah! And I am not among those who associate partners with Allah!’” [Yusuf 12:108]
I.e. say O Muhammad: this is my path, my way, and my methodology, that I call to Allah me and my followers, so we do not see an evil and remain silent about it, and we do not see a falsehood and approve it, and we do not see the violation of a sanctity and leave it. Thus, we call upon all people to abandon sin, avoid abomination, act virtues, and leave vices, rather, our call is on clear evidence, knowledge, wisdom and gentleness.
However, despite the importance of this call for individuals to embrace Islam, this is not enough to transfer the light of Islam to humanity, nor to spread Islam to the world … This needs a state that applies the Deen of Islam to become a basis for regulating their affairs, a state that applies it fully and comprehensively, a state that does not believe except in the Quran as a whole, and is not satisfied except with its ruling and arbitrating to it all. It does not accept the survival of any crumbs thrown by the East and West from the damages of capitalism and the futility of its treatments. It is the Truth and anything other than it is falsehood, and the Truth does not accept partnership with falsehood. And its ruling over the parish is one, over the ruler and the ruled, over the rich and the poor within a firm foundation based on the saying of the Prophet ﷺ: «أتشفع فى حد من حدود الله؟ والله لو أن فاطمة بنت محمد سرقت لقطعت يدها» “Do you try to intercede for somebody in a case connected with Allah’s Prescribed Punishments? By Allah, if Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad stole, I would cut off her hand.”
When the rulings of Islam are applied comprehensively by the state, people see the reality of Islam and its magnificence on the ground, they live it and they feel it … And we have in the story of the spread of Islam in South-East Asia a clear and obvious example; Muslims did not go to these vast areas of great population with conquering armies, and did not fight their people but they went to them as merchants carrying the morals of Islam, and the purpose of the call to Allah, by good preaching and good treatment. So they achieved the authentic principle that confirms that Islam only invades hearts and minds, not lands or countries. Muslim merchants carried their goods, and they went to those remote countries and were selling and buying, and the people of those remote countries found in them trustworthiness, and knew them with chastity and honesty, and then learned that this was the effect of the faith they hold; so Islam was endeared to their souls; and soon they have become believers in Islam, and they became its sincere sons.
The propagation of Islam needs jihad, and this cannot be done by individuals but by a state, and here I want to focus or respond to those who say that jihad and conquests are occupation and compelling people to enter Islam. I say that the purpose of jihad is not to coerce people into Islam; but to make a way for them to worship Allah and leave Shirk (association with Allah), and to purge the earth from the atmosphere of sedition so that people worship the Lord of the worlds Alone, and to bring the people out from worshiping humans to worshiping the Lord of the humans, and return humans to the origin of their Fitrah, which is the submission to Allah Almighty who saves people from all humiliating slavery to other than Him. So, it provided an atmosphere of faith to them to help them to differentiate between the Truth and falsehood, and explain to them the right course from the wrong; Allah (swt) said: لَا إِكْرَاهَ فِي الدِّينِ قَدْ تَبَيَّنَ الرُّشْدُ مِنَ الْغَيِّ “There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion. The right course has become clear from the wrong.” [Al-Baqara: 256].
Hence, Rabi Ibn Amer said to Persian King, Rustam, explaining the reason for the jihad of Muslims: “Allah has sent us out in order to lead whom He wills from the worship of man to the worship of Allah alone, and from the narrowness of the world to its vastness, and from the injustice of religions to the justice of Islam. So, he sent us with His religion to His creation to invite them to it; whoever accepts it we accept from him and we leave him, and whoever refuses we fight him and leave things to Allah” and this is what Al-Haq came with in the Quran, where He said: وَقَاتِلُوهُمْ حَتَّى لَا تَكُونَ فِتْنَةٌ وَيَكُونَ الدِّينُ لِلَّهِ فَإِنِ انْتَهَوْا فَلَا عُدْوَانَ إِلَّا عَلَى الظَّالِمِينَ “Fight them until there is no [more] fitnah and [until] worship is [acknowledged to be] for Allah. But if they cease, then there is to be no aggression except against the oppressors.” [Al-Baqara:193]
We now have no state, no jihad, and no Islam that is applied in its totality and its rulings. There is no solution and no way to return it except in its obligatory method, which is the revolutionary radical and comprehensive method which does not accept the partnership of kufr and falsehood under any circumstance or justification. There is no way to do this except by the second Khilafah Rashidah (rightly guided Caliphate) State on the method of the Prophethood… So, will you work for it to attain the goodness of this life and the Hereafter, Allah willing.
Muslimah Ash-Shami (Umm Suhaib)