"Between The Islamists And The Liberals" - Sheikh Ibrahim
Bin Sulaiman al-Rubaish
30 November 2010
By Al-Ikhwah Al-Mujahidun
In the name of Allah, the
Compassionate, the Merciful
Praise be to Allah, Lord of
Creation, prayers and peace be upon the noblest of the
prophets and messengers, our Prophet Muhammad, and his
family and companions until the Day of Judgment.
Thereafter:
I send this message to every
sympathizer of the Ummah in the Land of the Haramain
(the Two Sanctuaries: Makkah and Medinah). I send it
to the scholars and the preachers, to the sermonizers
on the pulpits and the imams of the mosques, to the
teachers and instructors in the universities, to the
caretakers in the homes and to the jealous fathers and
guardians, to every Muslim man and woman who prefers
the commandments of Allah over all other else, and are
not among those who, if provided a salary,, pay no
mind to what is occurring to the religion. To all
those, I send this message asking them to take it into
great consideration. I remind you of Allah who
entrusted you with your Religion and granted you
guardianship over what is under your hands. As the
Honest and Trustworthy, prayers and peace be upon him,
said
"If the shepherd to whom Allah granted guardianship
dies having neglected his flock, Allah will ban him
from Paradise."
I remind the people of knowledge of the covenant by
which Allah bound them:
"And remember Allah took a
covenant from the people of the Book, to make it known
and clear to mankind, and not to hide it; but they
threw it away behind their backs, and purchased with
it some miserable gain! And vile was the bargain they
made!" (Aali Imran: 187)
If Allah had not made it a duty for us to give advice
to Muslims, I would not have taken it upon myself to
send this message.
To begin, I ask this question: Are you satisfied with
the situation of society and its state of
deterioration from which is apparent that it is
heading towards an abyss? Each year brings more evil
than the last.
Some will answer me by casting a hadith of the
Messenger of Allah, prayers and peace be upon him and
his household, in which he said:
"If a man says that people are
damned, he is more damned than they."
I will be characterized as a
fear-mongerand conspiracy theorist but all this does
not matter. He, who wishes to ascertain the truth, let
him examine the situation without prejudice.
What will be apparent to those who study the situation
is that the problems of sinfulness and corruption have
increased and diversified to the point that the senses
are inured to them. Inappropriate veiling of women has
increased and no market is without it. Even the
Masjid-ul-Haraam has not been spared from it.
Cases of impermissible seclusion and its consequences
have increased manyfold, and those who sit with the
Committee for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of
Virtue know of these calamities!
The calamity is that our society has delivered itself
to its executioner through carelessness or feigning
indifference. You see society toying with it without
arousing the least resentment, resulting in the
appearance of all kinds of legalized sinfulness and
corruption, aimed at transforming and westernizing
society and effacing all that bespeaks an Islamic
identity in societal customs.
As a result, we see foreign exchange programs whereby
women are sent out more than men, and they are
provided more jobs than men. An identification card
for women has been instituted and a serious effort
made to gradually enforce this upon them. We hear of a
female dean of a certain college who refused to allow
female students to take a test without an ID card and
the judge who suspended a case until a female client
was issued an ID card. It is as if they can do what
they want: they will stop marriage contracts, the
distribution of inheritances, the purchase or sale of
property until the women clients are issued ID cards.
Another form of sinfulness and corruption, of which
there is inundation of reports, is the employment of
women as actresses and their work as announcers and
correspondents on official networks.
Part of the legalized sinfulness and corruption that
we see is the mixing of sexes in the hospitals, even
though the ability to segregate the sexes is easily
available to any who wish to do so. And if they claim
that there is a need for men to treat women in some
cases, why are the male sections filled with female
doctors and nurses?
Another kind of intermingling has come, contrived by
the king's genius. He has realized his dream for which
he has been waiting 25 years through the universities
where men and women, male and female students mix.
Their plan is to spread corruption and transform
society, but gradually so that society will not reject
it. As it is said, "Slowly but surely". Although in
fact recent years have witnessed an acceleration in
their measures, this will perhaps expose them quicker.
Perhaps their haste is due to the fact that they feel
secure. Those who think they are safe from punishment
will misbehave! They do not fear Allah, and all past
experiences have proven that there is no reaction from
the people to be feared.
One of their cunning plots to introduce sinfulness and
corruption is through claiming journalistic freedom.
The beginning was when the Minister of Justice issued
a circular to the Shari'ah judges requiring adherence
to article 37 of the press and publication laws,
stipulating that issues of publication in the
newspapers are the purview of the Ministry of
Information and not the Shari'ah courts. When the wolf
is entrusted with the flock, the field has been opened
for people to write what they want with no
accountability or supervision, but of course this
privilege is not given to all. It is only for certain
kinds of writers. They write what they want, in
violation of the Shariah, and rejected by our societal
customs. Then many voices which are raised in response
are disregarded, and with the passage of time, society
becomes numbed to this issue.
The closest example of this is the women's ID card.
The newspapers wrote much about this issue, and much
has been said about it. When the people were prepared
to receive the blow, it was instituted. When its
institution was accepted, the time came to gradually
enforce it. The turn is coming for women's athletic
clubs and women driving cars.
Their increased audacity is
derived from the weakness of those in the forefront of
the Islamist movement. You see that a vast majority of
the newspapers will not publish an article by them. As
for those who do write in the newspapers, they do not
even think of discussing these topics, because they
know they will not be published. Nothing remains for
them but the internet, and one or two satellite
channels. As for the other networks, they seldom host
them unless they feel that their words will serve
their (the network's) own benefit. When they do
appear, their weakness becomes apparent. They expose
themselves to shame and melt away with these changes
to a shocking degree. Their words they use and the
concepts they hold are almost identical to those
newspaper writers from other ideologies. They now
speak of nationalism, dedication to it, and
identification with it, rather than jealousy for
Islam. They have begun to utter that such and such is
"against the regime and the law", when previously
governance was for Allah alone. You will but seldom
hear from their tongues (any talk) of enforcing
Allah's law.
This calamity is not limited to the fact that they
will not reject forbidden acts unless the regime also
forbids them. Indeed the situation has become worse
with many of them, in that they have come to advise
people not to condemn forbidden acts unless the regime
itself has stipulated that they be banned. And whoever
openly rejects forbidden acts, they proceed to
admonish him more than the ones who actually committed
the forbidden acts. As for he who rejects the
forbidden act by deed, this to some of them is a kind
of open sin that requires public rejection of the
sinner.
Sometimes you see them having discussions with the
liberalists in meetings or on TV. Then you will see
the weakness of their rhetoric and their lack of
audacity. You will see each of the two parties
claiming to be the chosen one. Each claims that the
rulers back them and what they say, that the regime
favors them, and they want to serve the homeland and
the interest of the people. Frequently their argument
in responding to an opponent is "I do not know more
than those in authority" or "the people in authority
know where the benefit lies"!
Before, during and after this,
they try to strikes the right note to please their
rulers. This is done by condemning Jihad under the
name of terror. With some of them, it is like salt on
food, or purification for prayer. They are afraid that
if they are silent their mouths will be muzzled or
their Dawah efforts impeded. The situation has reached
the point where some of them slander lies against the
Mujahideen. And if they talk about the liberalists,
they say "My brother liberals". You see their rulers
smile upon them, but give them nothing but more
restrictions and spread of sinfulness and corruption.
You see them rejoice because Nayef Ibn Abdul Aziz
criticized this newspaper or that channel. They
rejoice at that and repeat it, and perhaps they read
it and cite it like they cite the words of the
scholars. They know, and Nayef knows better than they,
that a decision from him is sufficient to change the
program of those writers, or remove those they wish to
remove, or even to imprison or dismiss them from duty.
So how can it be believed that the Interior Minister -
who gave himself a status that none can question what
he does, who intervenes to dismiss orators and
preachers, who has the right to fire employees from
their jobs even it they are outside his ministry, and
who orders the detention of whomever he pleases and
the Office of the Ombudsman has no right to look into
cases raised against his investigations bureau -
cannot deter a newspaper from doing what he dislikes
if he takes offense at it?!
The matter that must be patently clear is that this
corrupt clique of writers is at the beck and call of
Nayef and his brothers. They utter only what pleases
them. If individual transgressions are found, how
swiftly they are dealt with.
The rulers of the House of Saud want to take what
suits their fancy from both Islam and liberalism and
leave the rest. They have therefore put in place red
lines for the Islamists and liberals under their
control which they are not able to cross. All o them
move within these lines. And woe, woe, to him who
thinks about crossing them. For example, the Islamists
cannot speak of Jihad against the Americans as being
legal as the Jihad against the Russians was legal.
They are not able to reject the conventional courts
belonging to the Ministry of Commerce or Ministry of
Information. And who is able to criticize the vicious
campaign of detentions?
When they speak of the co-mingling (of sexes) in King
Abdullah University, many of them speak of it from the
perspective that the country's regime has not
instituted it, and that their ruler does not know
about it!
We are approaching what is called National Day. Is a
preacher, a scholar or even the Mufti himself able to
reject celebration of the National Day? Or even to
cite the fatwa of the permanent committee prohibiting
its celebration? And it must be taken into
consideration that when the fatwa by the permanent
commitment condemning it was issued, the day was
commemorative only, marked by small celebrations. Now
it is a holiday when all the schools are closed and
celebrations are imposed everywhere. Changing the name
does not change the reality of things. They are not
able to criticize it. The vast majority of them were
silent over the Rafidites' violation of the sanctuary
of Tawheed in the city of Allah's Messenger, prayers
and blessings be upon him and his household. How can
any transgression be denounced when there is silence
on the greatest idolatry which takes a person out of
the fold of Islam?
The same can be said of the liberals. They do not take
liberalism in its original sense. Rather they take
from it liberation from some legal and social
restrictions. But they are not able to announce their
liberation from political tyranny of the idiotic
Bedouin and his brothers! Which of them can dare to
ask in one of their articles: why are the minister of
information and minister of defense not changed like
other ministers are changed? And who can say that the
appointment of a second deputy prime minister
abrogates the position of the Bay'ah committee? Who
can say that what the Interior Ministry has been doing
in detaining people for many without trial is a matter
that violates the official law of the country? Which
newspaper can publish even one issue that does not
contain news of the official receptions and departures
done by the idiot and his brothers?
The media establishments in our country without
exception are subject to the House of Saud. They are
not able to violate their desires and fancies, and
they are not able to cross the red lines laid down by
the House ofSaud. For example, when the
journalist Khaled Sulaiman was asked: why did you
prioritize the disaster of the floods of Jeddah over
the floods of Riyadh? He answered that he found
freedom to write about Jeddah, but did not find
freedom to write about Riyadh. When he was asked, "Who
gave you freedom for this but not for that?" He
answered, "Ask the censor!" This is what the
restricted journalist is able to declare. I don't
think there is any distinction between the two cases
except that most of the officials in Riyadh are from
the House ofSaud. They are above both the
Shari'ah as well as secular law, as is well-known!
Rather, there are some journalists who you will find
in their writings searching for subjects that will
please their rulers. That is crystal clear in the
writings of Abdullah al-Arayfij, who is nothing more
than a scribe for the Ministry of Information in most
of his writings. Indeed, he has even mentioned things
that he could not know except through the transcript
of the interrogations conducted in the prisons of the
secret police.
Faris bin Hizam is not much different, when he
criticizes this preacher or that for not giving a
speech condemning the assassination attempt on
Muhammad bin Nayef. Regardless of the Shari'ah ruling,
the journalist who respects his profession should not
be compelled to say anything other than his own
opinion, unless he is hired or belongs to one party.
As for Jamal Khashuqji, he is a man enamored with
women working and driving cars. He wants the economy
to recover, raise the level of income and cure
unemployment by having women work and drive cars! I
will not be surprised if, when asked about medicine
for a fever, he answers that it lies hidden in women
working! No surprise, because those people admire the
West with all its faults.
Is it not time for the prominent Islamists to present
their issues with complete honesty, to inquire about
the disease and determine its source rather than talk
about its symptoms only? And instead of speaking about
Al-Watan newspaper, they should talk about the
Ministry of Interior or about the regime which blocked
the Shari'ah courts from ruling on media issues.
Rather than censuring this writer or that, they should
censure Abdullah and his brothers, for they are the
ones who encouraged the writers and made this possible
for them. The more assiduous in wrong-doing are the
writers, the more they are favored. This is the case
with Turki al-Hamad who curses Allah Almighty, only to
become closer to the king and have his pen gifted to
him!
Even judging them favorably, we would have to say that
they approved of them and were silent about them. They
were certainly able to stop this writer or that writer
just as they were able to block any number of
preachers and imams, even flocking many others into
prisons. Why did they imprison Sheikh Khalid
al-Rashid? If they say that he led a demonstration,
why have they imprisoned others who have done nothing
but issue fatwas supported by legal evidence such as
Sheikh Saeed Aali Za'eer, and Sulaiman al-‘Alwan and
many others.
The give free rein to the
newspaper writers and owners of the media networks who
have different ideologies. This matter of preachers
censuring the scribes but leaving alone their sponsors
is like the case of a man beaten with a stick. He
curses and rebukes the stick, and makes a complaint to
the person carrying it! If that person replaces the
stick with another, then he gives him thanks and
gratitude!
For how long will shut your eyes,
feign ignorance and disregard the chiefs of fitna
and the pillars of sinfulness and corruption in our
country?!
This will serve no purpose other than to throw more
veils over the eyes of the people as to causes of
affliction and distract their attention away to that
which will not be of much benefit to them. They raise
complaints to the king against a certain minister and
this changes nothing. In the best cases, he just
replaces the minister with another who is no better,
and the situation remains exactly as it was or becomes
even worse; because the head of the snake remains in
place.
[Poetry]
Do not cut off the tail of the
snake and leave it alive If you are clever the head should follow the tail
It is true that the method of honesty shall bring down
affliction on many, and will cause many preachers to
thrown into prison. This is better than conferring
legality on the chiefs of sinfulness and corruption,
their matter becoming ambiguous to general populace
causing them to accept them in their sinfulness and
corruption. Let us know that affliction is the way of
the messengers. Allah has preserved our Tawheed from
harm through the stance of an Imam of Ahl-us-Sunnah
coming out openly with the truth in the face of the
Caliph. The Imam suffered great affliction, but Allah
preserved the sound ‘Aqeedah to this age.
One strong stance makes up for many weak and wobbly
positions. One sermon from Sheikh Khaled al-Rashid,
may Allah release him, came out with the truth and
caused his imprisonment. But it had a good effect and
beneficial impact among the people. The people have
been repeating this for years, whenever the occasion
comes. We seek our refuge in Allah!
Our Ummah is in urgent need of knowledge. It is in
more urgent need of truthful positions from people of
knowledge. Books can suffice us from knowledge without
declaration of truth. If every scholar is silent out
of fear of affliction for himself, then the Deen is
lost and truth mixes with falsehood among the general
populace. Thus the fitnah grows, and no one is saved
except who seeks salvage in Allah.
In conclusion, I send a message to every Muslim
sister:
Sister of Islam, know that Allah
ordains goodness and guidance for you. But your
enemies do not want that for you. If you desire any
blessing or honor, you will only find it in the shade
of Allah's law. There will you find the means of
satisfying Him, His guidance and protection, and
victory in this world and the next.
As for others, they wish you to be a commodity bought
and sold in the marketplaces. The great swath of those
who discuss women's issues and have covered the
newspapers and filled TV channels with talk about the
situation of women in other countries fall into two
categories.
There are those who are enamored
with the West, and dazzled with its material culture,
and want to bring to us everything from there, be it
good or evil, and this is their best of the two types.
The (other type) are enemies of the Ummah, they wear
the clothes of its friends, and maintain the pretext
of advising it. They speak well. If they talk, their
words are listened to, but they are known by theway
they speak. They claim to be giving advice, but it is
as if they find no problems in the Ummah other than
the situation of women! I do not know what issues they
are talking about.
They keep repeating the demand for women's right to
work, yet women already teach and have climbed up the
professional ladder reaching the post of deputy
minister. They are also prison wardens and there are
markets for women. Two years ago, a trusted source
told me that he gone into a restaurant in a city where
a woman was working in the management. Yet they still
demand the right for women to work. Where do you think
their demands will stop? It seems that they will not
accept that a woman is working until they see her
wearing a police uniform, sitting next to their
colleagues patrolling the streets in patrol car!
O Sister of Faith, they wish for women to work exactly
like they work in the West. We have lived among the
Christians and we see how they treat women and how
they work with them. We have seen women work in the
army, carrying weapons and standing next to men. We
have seen them go out in the morning, marching with
the soldiers and echoing their shouts, and speak all
you will about sexual harassment and abuse. We have
seen women perform hard labor, carrying goods and
unloading them, work as a blacksmith, fix and clean
the sewers, and do even harder work than that. None of
the men there even think about sufficing them from
work, or at least helping them. Does this happen in
Muslim countries?
Their women express great amazement when they learn
that Islam compels a man to financially support his
wife, even if she is richer than he. Some of those who
have lived in their countries told me that one of
their women asked him to find a Muslim husband for her
when she learned that financial support was upon the
husband, and it was upon the woman to raise the
children.
By Allah, Sister of Islam, who is in a better
situation, Muslim women or Christian women? In
America, the Qiblah of those of our country who wish
to go abroad, an American whose mother was an
alcoholic described his situation. He said that his
mother drank so much she was fired from her job, and
so she has to stay at home unemployed. Her husband
kicked her out of the house because he was not
prepared to support her. She left confused and went
looking for a job until she found one – in a brothel!
This is the sort of thing that happens in their
countries. O sister of Islam, would it please you to
be like them?
There is nothing that prohibits a woman from working
if it is regulated according to Shari'ah, the woman is
covered and does not mix with men, and she is
protected from temptation. Nonetheless, there is no
more honorable and dignified work for a woman than her
work in the house, rearing the coming generations and
producing chivalrous men, leaving the pursuit of
financial sustenance to her caretaker, who suffices
her this burden and fulfills his duty.
Sister of Islam, in your home, you are like a king on
his throne. You raise your children, and they become
an asset to you. When you grow old they raise you up
on their heads. Would it please you if we were like
the West, where a woman goes out every morning to the
factory or the store, and throws her child into the
hands of babysitters to raise him? So he grows up and
feels no connection to his mother. Rather he disobeys
her and cuts her off. When she grows old, he casts her
into a home for the elderly. There is a vast
difference between us and them!
The home of a woman is her
guarded kingdom. It is better for her than anywhere,
even better than mosques. As is said in the Hadith:
"Do not prevent the bond-maids of
Allah from going to the mosques of Allah, but their
homes are better for them."
Stay to your homes, Sister of
Islam, and treat well those within it, you will find
the best things from them, after Allah. Take care not
to think well of your enemies. He who thinks well of
his enemy has fallen into a perilous state.
O Allah, cover our imperfections and assuage our
fears. O Allah, protect us from what is between our
hands, behind us, to our right and to our left and
from above. We seek refuge in Your Greatness that we
not be slain from behind.
Our last prayer is praise be to Allah, the Lord of all
Creation.
Al-Malahem Establishment for
Media Production
10 Shawwal 1431h
18/9/2010 C.E.