A Declaration Regarding the Fighting Between the ISIS and the Mujahedeen of Al-Sham
In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Giver of Mercy
All praise is to Allah alone and may the peace and blessing be upon His final Messenger
Ever since the appearance of the Iraqi so called ‘Islamic State’ -which has later come to be known as the
‘ISIS’ on the land of Sham- I have had the precedence in warning against it and its extremism and that it is a blood thirsty group with a strategy of inner fighting between the Muslims and the Mujahedeen of
Al-Sham and that it is highly proficient at inventing fitan and conflict between Muslims. I have warned – all praise is to Allah- that it does all of that using the cover of ‘Islamic State’; a good statement with false intentions, as did their ancestry of the Khawarij, when they said to Ali bin Abi Talib may Allah be pleased with him: (Judgement is for Allah alone) (1), implying that he didn’t rule by what Allah has revealed, in response Ali said to them ‘that’s good statement from which evil is intended’.
We were criticized for making those warnings, but days have certainly come to prove our expectations and beliefs regarding the ISIS right. Its actions are equivalent to the actions of the Nusayries; it declared
Kufr against the Muslims and Mujahedeen of Al-Sham for unworthy reasons, it labelled them with terms of apostasy and as Sahawat (pro-government), it committed treachery, kidnapped, imprisoned, killed,
massacred groups of Muslim prisoners, spread explosives and detonated objected in streets in an unprecedented way in order to destroy innocent lives and target the basis of Mujahedeen. No one has been secure of their criminalities. It does not care for the interests of Muslims or for the consequences of its actions, even if the outcomes of its actions were for the advantage of Bashar Al-Asad and his evil regime, to the point that many people can no longer distinguish between their actions and the criminal
actions of Bashar’s regime and cannot tell whose actions are more fatal and destructive towards innocent Muslims and whose action serves the other more. They have been doing all of this in their claim in order to establish their non-existent state, except in their ill minds.
When there is a battle against the tyrant and his soldiers, you don’t hear a single twitch from them or sense their presence, but when they gear their stored and stockpiled weapons towards the fighting of
Muslims and the Mujahedeen, they will display monstrous fighting and harshness that they don’t exhibit anywhere else. As the Prophet peace be upon him truthfully described them, ‘They kill the people of
Islam and leave the people of idolatry, if I live until their time I shall kill them, the killing of the people of A’ad’ (2).
Just over six months ago, I wrote a message to the Mujahedeen brothers titled, ‘A Message to the Muhajiroon of Al-Sham and those intending to join them’ in which I warned them against turning their arrows and guns away from the target that they had come for in the first place to Al-Sham -that being the support of the people of Al-Sham and its Mujahedeen against the oppression of the criminal and Nusayri Assad- and not to aim them at the chests of the Muslims, Mujahedeen and rebels of Al-Sham. We faced criticism back then and our message was regarded as a form of ill thought of the Muhajiroon and the migrants to Al-Sham. But as days went past, the danger that we warned against took place. The ISIS is now successfully recruiting some of the Muhajiroon for their aims and goals and use them in the fight against the people of Al-Sham and its Mujahedeen and place the Muhajiroon in battles that they hadn’t come for and have no benefit in and have no gain in except haram as well as the sins of spilling innocent blood. As a result, the ISIS is either killing them or causing their killing.
What has increased the oppression, extremism and misguidance of the ISIS is that some preachers and
respectful individuals have chosen not to condemn them and held the stick from the middle; in the sense that they didn’t support the truth nor did they put falsehood down. This is what has promoted me to write this declaration as well as the need to clear my conscience, offer advice to the Ummah, asking Allah the Most High precision and firmness.
I declare, that the ISIS are extreme Khawarij, in fact they have outdone the early Khawarij in many of their mannerisms and actions. They have combined extremism, oppression, aggression and spillage of innocent blood. All the authentic Hadeeth of the Prophet peace be upon him regarding Khawarij apply to them and those of their likes. He peace be upon him said: ‘The Khawarij are the dogs of the people
of Hell’ (3).
He peace be upon him also said: ‘A group of people will appear at the end of times, who are young and foolish, they use the sayings of the best of creation, their Iman does not exceed their throats, they leave the religion as does the arrow from a bow, wherever you find them, kill them, indeed there is reward in killing them on the Day of Judgement for those who kill them’ (4).
The Prophet peace be upon him also said: ‘There will be conflict and disunity amidst my Ummah, there will be a people who speak excellently but act badly, they recite the Qur’an, but it does not go beyond their throats, they leave the religion as does the arrow from a bow, they do not return to the religion until the arrow returns backwards. They are the worse of creation, glad tidings to those who kill them and are killed by them. They call to the book of Allah, but we are innocent from them, whoever fights them has greater status with Allah than them.’ It was said ‘O Messenger of Allah, what is their sign?’ he replied, ‘shaving’ (5).
He peace be upon him also said: ‘They are the worst of my Ummah, and they will be killed by the best of my Ummah’ (6).
Ali bin Abi Talib may Allah be pleased with him said: ‘I heard the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him saying: ‘A group of people will appear from my Ummah who recite Qur’an, your recitation to their recitation is nothing, your prayer to their prayer is nothing and your fast to their fast is nothing, they recite Qur’an and presume that it’s for them, when in fact it is against them, their Salah doesn’t exceed their throats, they leave Islam as does the arrow from a bow’ (7).
Yusayr bin Amru said, ‘I asked Sahl bin Hunaif, did you hear the Prophet say anything about Al-
khawarij?’ He said, ‘I heard him saying while pointing his hand towards Iraq ‘There will appear in it a group of people who will recite the Quran but it will not go beyond their throats, and they will leave the religion as an arrow from a bow’’ (8).
The Prophet peace be upon him said: ‘They go deep into the religion until they come out of it as does the arrow from a bow’ (9).
Ibn Omar said, ‘they went to verses revealed about the disbelievers and applied it to the believers’ (10) and hence they applied the rules against disbelievers to them and treated them as disbelievers.
Based on the above, if the ISIS does not halt its repression, oppression and aggression and stop harming Al-Sham and its people and Mujahedeen and take heed by following the advice given to them by respectable people of wisdom, then it becomes Islamically obligatory upon all the Mujahedeen of Al-Sham to fight them and resist their aggression. This is from the Jihad in the cause of Allah. And we bear a general witness with certainty and conviction that the casualties of the Mujahedeen of the people of Al-Sham are martyrs inshAllah and will be rewarded and that the dead of the ISIS are sinful and will be in
Hell and will be from among the ‘dogs of the people of Hell’ and that in their taking up of arms against the people and soldiers of Sham they have taken the side of the tyrannical Bashar Al-Assad in his war against the people of Sham. We reiterate the saying of the Prophet peace be upon him, ‘glad tidings to those who kill them and are killed by them’.
We call upon the sincere and misled individuals, who have remained with this deviant group to break their connections with them and to announce their innocence from them and from their actions and then to join whomever they wish of the factions of the Sham. It is not permissible for them to stay with that group, to fight alongside it or to increase its number under any circumstances.
As for the brothers who migrated to Sham, they are from us and we are from them, we have the same rights and the same obligations as they do. But if some of them insist on taking the side of the ISIS, the oppressive, extreme and misguided group and to increase its numbers and to fight with it against the people of Sham and its Mujahedeen, then the ruling against ISIS applies to them and they will be treated
the way the ISIS will be treated, and they can only blame themselves, as in the Hadeeth: ‘Whoever increases the number of people then he is from them’. Let not Iblees confuse any of them into believing that their fight with the ISIS is in the cause of Allah, for fighting in the cause of Allah can only be such if it’s sincere for the sake of Allah the Most High, permissible and in accordance with the Sunnah. But as for those who fight over an innovation or certain whims, as do the Khawarij and others from the people of whims, then they are in Hell regardless of their claims that their struggle is for the sake of Allah and that they are sincere to Allah alone in their struggle.
Finally, the people of sham and their scholars and Mujahedeen have a request and appeal with Sheikh
Ayman Al-Zawahiri to make a statement against those foolish extremists, who have sought cover in his name and the name of his group for a very long time, to divert danger from the people of Sham and their revolution as much as possible and to dissolve any connections between the Mujahedeen of Sham and any contemporary name that brings danger to Sham and recruit more enemies to the people of Sham and their Mujahedeen, at a time when the battle with the tyrant of Sham and his Shia allies and soldiers has not been yet resolved. If the Sheikh is to do this, he will be greatly appreciated by the people of Sham and its scholars and Mujahedeen. We only think positively of the wisdom of the sheikh.
We ask Allah the Most High to show us the truth and grant us following it and to show us falsehood and
grant us avoiding it. Allahuma Ameen. Our last prayers are all praise is to Allah, Lord of the worlds (11).
Abdulmonem Mustafa Halimah
‘Abu Baseer Al-Tartousi’
15.01.2014
www.abubaseer.bizland.com
http://www.altartosi.net
(1) Surah Al-Anam, 6:55
(2) Bukhari and Muslim
(3) Sahih Sunan Ibn Majah: 143
(4) Bukhari and Muslim
(5) Abu Dawoud, Mishkat Almasabeeh: 3543
(6) Ibn Hajar in Fath Al-Bari, 12:298, Hasan
(7) Muslim
(8) Bukhari and Muslim
(9) Authenticated by Ahmad and others as well as Sheikh Nasir in the book of ‘Sunnah’ by Ibn Abi Assim.
(10) Bukhari
(11) Translated by Walaa Halimah