After the terrorist attacks in Alkhobar, it is high time we examined Al-Qaeda’s basis for justifying these blind killings, namely the fatwa known as the “Tatars” by the great jurist Ibn Taymiyya. The terrorists use that fatwa as well as the work of people like Sayyid Qutub and Abu Ala Al-Mawdudi in their bid to legitimize their outrages. How did they manage to twist these opinions to suit their purposes? It is our duty to scrutinize these documents to confront Al-Qaeda on their own ground.
The “Tatars” fatwa emerged when the Tartar army occupied Islamic countries, imprisoned a good number of Muslims, shackled them and used them as human shields in their war with the Muslims. This put the Muslims in a quandary. Should they fight the Tatars and risk killing their brethren or cease fighting altogether? Ibn Taymiyya issued a fatwa declaring that it was necessary to kill the Tatars and sanctioned the shedding of Muslim blood — but on certain conditions: The armies must be at war and the opponents must be infidels. That condition is not fulfilled if there exists an alliance, pact or truce between the groups.
The jurist Ibn Qudama said the fatwa only applies to prisoners of war and not to someone who merely lives next to or in the same neighborhood as an infidel. Imam Abu-Hamed Al-Ghazali said that it was forbidden to shoot arrows at infidels while there are Muslim prisoners among them unless lives in the Muslim army are at risk. The Hanbalis and the Hanafis allowed it if there is the risk of harm to the Ummah.
Imam Malik categorically rejected the killing of the Tatars, declaring that the fatwa had been issued for a specific set of circumstances and within a specific historical context, and he fettered the fatwa with conditions which to deviate from would mean getting into very deep waters.
Can we claim that any of these conditions apply to the events in Saudi Arabia? Where are the two fighting armies? Were the Muslims who were killed prisoners of the infidels or where they merely living next to them like any other peaceful civilian? And what affliction will befall the Ummah if they are not killed?
It is totally unacceptable to say that since Americans and Britons occupied Afghanistan and Iraq and killed Muslims there, they should be killed here, even if that involves killing Muslims living among them. Our pledge of security with them safeguards the blood and possessions of these foreigners. This means we have two choices. We cannot simply betray our security contract by killing these peaceful civilians; all we can do is refuse it outright. Once committed there is no going back: “O ye who believe! Fulfill (all) obligations” and “So fulfill your engagements with them to the end of their term.”
The pledge of security is one of the most important contracts in Islamic jurisprudence and we as the Ummah must respect our contracts.
What then about the writings of Sayyid Qutub, and more specifically his book “In the Shade of the Qur’an” (Fi Thilal Al-Qur’an) and “Landmarks on the Road” (Maalem Fil Tareeq). The expression “governorship” that recurs in those writings is in effect not to be found in a single verse of the Qur’an or the Hadith. In fact, people repeat it without knowing the facts behind it and what circumstances drove its imprisoned author to apostatize the whole of society. “The command rests with none but Allah,” he keeps telling us. While this is true, God left us to regulate many of the matters of our lives — so long as we do not forbid what is allowed or allow what is forbidden. It follows that no one can go declaring the whole of society apostate just because it has taken to codifying traffic laws, for example. How in any case could that be when the Qur’an itself acknowledges the rule of Muslims and, moreover, says we are bound to obey our rulers?
The terrorists hope to strangle us by targeting the oil and energy sector. They believe this will paralyze the economy, create chaos on the world market, tip over the oil production balance and drive down the price of stocks, which in turn will lead to financial paralysis of the government. Yet since the Alkhobar attacks the Saudi stock exchange has actually been invigorated. Wouldn’t it have been better if the people who taught them the use of weapons had taught them some elementary economics? They would then have discovered that the oil supply is not easily affected because it is subject to the world market and the decisions of OPEC, not to the wishful thinking of Al-Qaeda.
(Suraya Al-Shehry is a Saudi writer. She is based in Riyadh.)