We as muslims say that Islam was not spread by sword but by love, Ikhlaq, by logic, by the Pious people etc. However its written in the books that Sahaba during their wars used to given three options to non believers.
Mu' meneen Brothers and Sisters,
As Salaam Aleikum wa Rahmatullahi wa
Barakatuh. (May Allah's Peace, Mercy and Blessings be upon all of you)
One of our brothers/sisters has asked
this question:
We as muslims say that Islam was not spread by sword but by love, Ikhlaq, by
logic, by the Pious people etc. However its written in the books that Sahaba
during their wars used to given three options to non believers. 1. Accept Islam
and you will be other brothers and you continue ruling your lands 2. If you
don`t accept Islam then give Jizia and come under our protection 3. If both the
conditions are not accetable then be ready for war.
My question is what if today any force of non believers come to my country and
tell me 1. Accept Christianity and be our brothers and and you continue ruling
your lands 2. If you don`t accept Christianity then give Jizia and come under
our protection 3. If both the conditions are not accetable then be ready for
war.
None of these 3 conditions are acceptable to me. I want to remain a Muslim, be
independent and don`t want to indulde into a war. This attitude of non
believers is not acceptable to me. But didn`t we also adopt the same attitude.
I am little confused by this analogy, would you be kind enough to address this
issue.
Love,
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Answer:
Islam spread by sword
In the name of Allah, We praise Him, seek His help and ask
for His forgiveness. Whoever Allah guides none can misguide, and whoever
He allows to fall astray, none can guide them aright. We bear witness that
there is no one (no idol, no person, no
grave, no prophet, no imam, no dai,
nobody!) worthy of worship but Allah Alone, and we bear witness that
Muhammad (saws) is His slave-servant and the seal of His Messengers.
Your
Statement: However its written in the books that Sahaba during their wars used
to given three options to non believers. 1. Accept Islam and you will be other
brothers and you continue ruling your lands 2. If you don`t accept Islam then
give Jizia and come under our protection 3. If both the conditions are not accetable
then be ready for war.
Your statements regarding the three options given to the
disbelieving nations by the Sahaabaas is indeed accurate.
The second and the third options by themselves did not
guarantee that the disbelievers became believers; but what it did permit was
that the tyrant leaders, who had become a hindrance and would not allow their
subjects to hear the invitation of Islam and make up their own minds, would be
humbled and the people would be invited to the Truth of Al-Islam. Whoever amongst them wished to accept Islam
as their way of life would become brothers in faith, and whoever amongst the
subjects did not wish to revert to Islam would be permitted to follow the deen
of their choice, even under muslim rule.
There was absolutely no force or coercion used to convert the subjects
of these nations of Islam. There was
never a bigger lie invented and more often repeated by the disbelievers, even
upto this day, than the falsehood: ‘Islam was spread by the sword’!
Dear and beloved brother in Islam, the confusion arises in
the concept because we look at the nations and the world today through the
prism of nations whose boundaries are divided at times by race, by languages,
and by culture more than because of belief.
But before this division of nations that took place in the mid 1940s
under the Charter of the United Nations, the nations were divided (in the time
of Prophet (saws) and for a long period thereafter) by belief, and later by
colonialism and imperialism (of the British, French, Spanish, etc.).
If we could only bring ourselves to relate to the
conditions of the nations, the tyrant rulers, and the helpless subjects and
their subjugation to their State and their Church at the time of the expansion
of Islam, we would understand the situation in a better light.
The aristocratic rulers controlled the government and the
state, and the priestly class completely controlled the religious
institutions. The rulers would partially
approve and honor and allow the priests to monopolize the religious affairs of
the state, and the priests would approve and honor the rulers in return for
their own protection. And in between
this understanding of the tyrant rulers and the priests, the subjects were
humiliated and subjugated and the law of the jungle prevailed, where the strong
oppressed the weak and forced the ruled to serve the purposes of the tyrant
rulers!
Amidst this era of perpetual tyranny of the state and the
church, came the light and freedom of the Truth of Al-Islam; where none was
superior to another except in piety, where the law was exactly the same for the
rich or poor, strong of weak, ruler or ruled, the holy and the unholy, etc. In the sight of the tyrant rulers and their
priests who had monopolized power in their lands, this Truth of Al-Islam was a
revolution which would take away their seats of power and make them humble and
answerable to the Justice of Allah’s Laws!
If the rulers were sensible and righteous, they were apt
to adopt the first option and accept Islam as their way of life and allow the
propagation of Islam freely in their lands for the people to make up their own
minds.
If the rulers were sensible and realized that their
strength was no comparison to the might of the Muslim army and to the idea that
the revolution of Islam would bring to their society, they would accept the
easier second option and become ‘dhimmis’ and accept to pay the ‘Jizya’ or
protection tax to the Muslims.
If the rulers refused to accept the above two options, and
insisted on ruling their subjects and their lands in the monopolistic manner
that they were accustomed to, then the absolute last option would come into
play and war would be imminent!
One can only imagine the height of the tyranny the State
and the Church in collaboration with each other committed towards their
subjects, that the revolution brought about by the common man during the French
Revolution in the late 1700s resulted in the cutting of the necks of every
Aristocrat and every Clergy in France and the permanent separation of State and
Religion in their constitution! This chapter in history inscribed in blood is
what we know today as the birth of ‘democracy’!
Your
Question: My question is what if today any force of non believers come to my
country and tell me 1. Accept Christianity and be our brothers and and you
continue ruling your lands 2. If you don`t accept Christianity then give Jizia
and come under our protection 3. If both the conditions are not accetable then
be ready for war.
Beloved brother, you must remember that other than the
Truth of Islam, none of the others based their expansion on the mission of
spreading their religion or beliefs, but rather their interests were more
worldly, like accumulation of material wealth, superiority of race, recognition
as a world power, protecting their own worldly interests, etc.; and these were
supposedly the mission behind the colonialism and imperialism of the European
powers like the British, French, Spanish, Portugese, etc. in the mid-1700s to
the mid-1900s and even of the Super Powers of today.
If you look at the state of the world affairs today, you
will see that the current Super Powers of the world give the rulers of other
nations the exact same options, albeit in a slightly different shade:
- Accept
‘their’ system of ‘Democracy’ and continue ruling your lands under the
guidance and subjugation of the Super Powers.
- If
the rulers are willing to accept the superiority of the World Powers, do
their bidding regardless of whether right or wrong, protect their
interests even at the cost of their own, and basically subjugate
themselves to their master, then they would be considered ‘allies’ and
thus protected!
- If
you don’t accept their institution and system of democracy in the way and
manner they wish, then prepare yourself for war!
Regardless of whatever options the nations choose, the
main mission of the current Super Powers is option 2, whereby they wish to
place ‘dummy’ leaders in other sovereign nations by force, to do their bidding
and protect their interests in world affairs!
Your
Question: None of these 3 conditions are acceptable to me. I want to remain a
Muslim, be independent and don`t want to indulde into a war. This attitude of
non believers is not acceptable to me
My dear and beloved brother, you must realize that these
options are never given to the subjects of a nation, but rather to those rulers
who have monopolized power and subjugated their subjects to abject oppression
and tyranny!
If what is told to us from the news reports is true, and
you or I were a subject of
When the Companions of the Prophet (saws) began their
expansion of Islam and freed the subjects from the tyranny of their rulers,
they brought with them the Truth and freedom and the invitation of the eternal
rewards of the Hereafter to the long-suffering subjects who welcomed this whiff
of fresh air with both arms and accepted Islam as their way of life in a manner
and multitude never witnessed by mankind before! So much so, that within a short period of
only a 100 years after the death of the Prophet (saws), more than half the then
known world had willingly of their own free will, accepted Islam as their way
of life!
A simple and basic look at world history will tell you
that of the 1400 odd years since the inception of Islam, the Muslims have been
the sole Super Power of the known world for almost 1100 years! As long as the Muslim Ummah remained united
and adhered to the guidance of the Quran and the Sunnah they were the leaders
of the known world, but when the Muslim rulers became fragmented and left the
guidance of the Quran and the Sunnah, dishonor and disgrace became their lot!
Sunan of Abu-Dawood Hadith 4284 Narrated by Thawban
The Prophet (saws) said: ‘The (disbelieving)
people will soon summon one another to attack you (believers) as people when
eating invite others to share their dish!’ Someone asked: ‘
Thus my dear and beloved brother in Islam, our challenge
today is exactly the same as was the challenge of the early muslims: to present
the true nature of Islam to the world, in word and in deeds…..and those early
Muslims have left us a very good and high example to follow! Allah is our
witness, the condition of the Muslim Ummah will not change from its state
today, until the revolution of the Truth of Islam is presented in its true form
again to the world! Allah is our witness
brother, without the same patience as portrayed by the early generation of
muslims, without the same love for the deen of Allah, without the same sense of
sacrifice, and without the same zeal to propagate the True picture of Islam to
the world, the Muslim Ummah will remain the ‘scum’ and the ‘rubbish’ as
prophesized by the Noble Messenger of Allah (saws)!
Allah Says in the Holy Quran Chapter 13 Surah
Raad verse 11:
11 Verily never will Allah change the condition of a people until they
change it themselves! But when Allah
Wills a people's punishment there can be no turning it back, nor will they find
besides Him any to protect.
Sunan of Abu-Dawood Hadith 3455 Narrated by
I heard the Messenger of Allah (saws) say:
‘Allah will make disgrace prevail over you, and will not withdraw it until you
return to your original religion!’
The Noble Messenger of Allah (saws) who warned the
believers of these trying times to come, also gave the good news that the
Muslim Ummah will triumph once again from its abyss of disgrace, and will once
again unite itself and establish the Truth of Islam in the world. When exactly this will happen is in the
Knowledge of Allah Subhanah Alone. It
might take a few years, a few hundred years, or even a few thousand years…but
Allah is our witness, it will happen as related in Truth by the one who was
sent with the Truth!
My dear and beloved brother in Islam, your and our role,
and in fact our test and trial, is only which side were we on, and what efforts
and sacrifices did we make towards the realization of this goal!
If one trusts,
obeys, and follows the guidance
and commands of Allah and His Messenger (saws), one can be assured of never ever being
misled; but if one believes, obeys and follows any other guidance, other than that of Allah and His Messenger
(saws), one can be assured of being led
astray.
Whatever written of Truth and benefit is only due to
Allah’s Assistance and Guidance, and whatever of error is of me alone. Allah Alone Knows Best and He is the Only
Source of Strength.
Your brother and well wisher in
Islam,
Burhan