An Open Letter to Martin Amis

"Help one another in Al-Birr and At-taqwa; but do not help one another in error nor in over-stepping the limits." 5:2 Interpretation of Meaning

All Praise and All Thanks are for Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala) to whom we shall all return to be judged on The Last Day.

We praise Him and ask Him for help and forgiveness; and ask His protection from the mischief of our souls and the bad results of our deeds; whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide; and whom He declares misguided, none can guide to the right path; and I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but Allah: He is Alone, without partner. And I bear witness that Muhammad (salla Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) is the Messenger and Servant of Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala).

Mr. Amis:

Since you have mentioned me by name in both a recent article ('No, I Am Not A Racist') and a television interview, it seems rather fitting that I, a Muslim, should reply to some of the statements you have made in such articles and interviews regarding Islam, especially since your statements seem to reveal that sense of innate Western superiority and that prejudice which are some of the fundamental causes of the current conflict between the West and those many, many Muslims, worldwide, who strive to follow Ahlus Sunnah wal Jammah - the way of Jihad Fee Sabilillah and Al-wala wal-bara - and who thus take exception to the invasion and occupation of our lands and who are actively prepared to fight, who fight or who support those fighting, both the Western forces of occupation and Western lackeys and allies.

You write that Muslims who actively oppose the invasion, by the West, of their land, who oppose the hegemony of the West - who seek to establish a land or lands where the West, the kuffar, the infidels, have no power and no influence - are "rejecting reason" (which you state is the idea of cause and effect) and transcending "the confines of moral law." Thus, you are judging according to certain Western abstractions that you accept without ever pausing to consider whether or not such abstractions are "universal" and can and should, and must, be applied to Deen Al-Islam and Muslims.

For example, when you speak and write of "reason" what do you mean? Do you mean reason as defined by Western philosophy? When you speak and write of "morals", what do you mean? Morals as defined by a theory of Western ethics? When you speak and write of "law", what do you mean? Law as defined by Western jurisprudence? The answer to these questions is, of course, yes.

But have you ever considered that what the West calls reason, Muslims understand as 'aql and that 'aql is or may be different from the "reason" defined by Western philosophy? Have you ever considered that, for Muslims, knowing is what arises from 'aql and that this knowing is or may be different from the "knowing" that is pursued and accepted in the West, which Western "knowing" arises from projecting abstractions (such as categories) onto "things" and individuals and then interpreting those things and individuals according to such abstractions, such Tawagheet?

Have you ever considered that, for Muslims, what is moral is what is defined by the Quran and Sunnah - not what is moral according to a Western theory of ethics? Have you ever considered that, for Muslims, what is lawful is what is established by Muslim (or "Islamic") jurisprudence and not what considered lawful according to Western jurisprudence? I somehow doubt that you have considered such things, and that - if you have - you have assumed or you believe that what is "good Islam" (as opposed to "deviant" or "extremist Islam") is what accords with the Western ideas, theories and abstractions which you have accepted. This is, surely, a kind of intellectual and moral imperialism, a prejudice, a bigotry, that you seem unaware of - or, if you are aware of it, that you accept without question and which you do seem afraid to be honest and open about.

The essence that you do not seem to comprehend is that we are not the same as you and we do not desire to be the same as you: we do not view life, existence, this world, in the same way as you do. Our perspective, our very thinking, is different. Our goal, our aims in life, are not the same as yours, not the same as those of kuffar in general.

Of course, you may well retort that we are not the same "because we have rejected reason" and have immersed ourselves in a religion, and, according to you, "opposition to religion already occupies the high ground, intellectually and morally". Thus we are returned yet again to the assumptions, the prejudices, on which your views are based - to your rather bigoted affirmation, known or unknown by you, of the "superiority" and "universality" of Western morals, of what the West defines as reason, and of what the West defines as "civilization", culture and law, with the additional bigoted affirmation that we Muslims must accept such things and use them as our own standards, our own criteria.



You write that, once, centuries ago, Muslim "societies" were - according to the Western standards you accept - quite "civilized" and cultured, but that they are now far behind the West, and that this has bred, in some Muslims, anger and resentment. Thus, in your own mind, you see a causal "cause and effect" - the cause being our lack of development, our lack of "progress" and achievement, in Muslim lands (compared to the West) and the "effect" being the anger and resentment we are alleged to feel.

Here, we are entitled to ask such questions as "what is enlightenment"? What is "progress"? What is culture and civilization? The answers, of course, depend on what assumptions, what axioms, we use, we posit - what abstractions we manufacture to understand such things, and, more fundamentally, what perspective we view such things from: the Western one, or that of Deen Al-Islam. The two are not the same.


But let us consider, for the moment, the "achievements" of the West. You and others of your ilk seem mighty proud of the "achievements" of the West, of its progress - but these so-called achievements, and this so-called progress, derives from the greed of the West, from its lust for conquest, from its pursuit of materialism, from its exploitation, from its colonialism, and have resulted in the killing of hundreds of millions of people in the last hundred years alone. They have also brought about climate change, which will assuredly cause great suffering, great conflict, in the future, for both human beings and the other life on this planet.


Furthermore, such are the achievements of the West that every major Western city is infested with drugs: places so "enlightened" that even the leaders of the West never, ever, venture alone by themselves into certain areas of the cities and towns of their lands, especially at night. Can you envisage Bush walking alone, unprotected, unarmed, around certain neighbourhoods in St. Lious, or Newark, New Jersey, at night? Around parts of Detroit? Can you envisage the un-elected British Prime Minister, Brown, walking alone, unprotected, around some of the streets of London, of Salford, of Nottingham, of many others places? No? Can you imagine them doing this not just once, but many times - walking alone by themselves in dark places among their own people in cities and towns that they, in theory at least, are responsible for and are considered to "govern"? What does their failure in this respect say about them, about their "politics", about their fine-sounding promises, about the "achievements", the hypocrisy, of the West?

Such are the achievements of the West, that in Britain nearly 100,000 women per year seek treatment in the British city of London alone for violent injuries received in their own homes, and, on average, in Britain, two women per week are killed by a male partner or former partner - that is over one hundred women a year. Also, in England and Wales alone, in one year, there are over 600,000 recorded incidents of domestic violence, and every minute of every day the British Police are called by a woman who has been subject to violent domestic abuse.

Such are the achievements of the West that Amerika has over seven million people locked up in prisons, on Parole or on Probation, and Amerika is such an "enlightened place" that, every year, nearly twenty million people use an illicit drug and nearly thirty million people receive treatment or counselling for mental health problems. Such are the achievements of the West that Britain has an estimated two million alcoholics. Such are the achievements of the West that there are vast bleak housing estates in Britain where gangs of youths have made the lives of ordinary folk a living hell; where crime is a way of life for many, many people, and where violence, drugs, gang-culture and alcohol are often seen as the only escape from a dreary life which offers no prospects and little hope.

Are these achievements worth the deaths and suffering that the West has caused for so many centuries, in the lands of the West, in what were the new colonies of the West, and in the rest of the world? The almost wholesale extermination, for instance, of the native American peoples. The treatment of the indigenous peoples in Australia and the Philippines. The hundreds of invasions and colonial wars in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere, leading to millions of deaths. The hubris-like exploitation of the resources of the world. The extermination of hundreds of thousands of Japanese men, women and children by means of two atomic bombs; the systematic killing of millions of people in Vietnam by Amerikan bombs. The forceful repatriation, and starvation, of millions of Germans after what the West calls the Second World War. The liquidation of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of people during and after the Russian revolution and in the following years of Stalinist rule.

Now, Amerika struts around like some cowardly bully, determined to bring "enlightenment", and spread its "achievements" - the achievements of the West - to the rest of the world, invading here; invading there; undertaking "regime change" here, and "regime change" there. Arresting, torturing, and detaining without trial thousands upon thousands of Muslims world-wide. Bombing this village, then that village; killing thousands upon thousands of people, year after year after year, letting its troops rampage through cities, towns and villages, kicking down the doors of people's homes, forcing people to lie down while an Amerikan boot is on their neck, and soldiers shackle and hood men and boys and take them away for days, weeks, months of interrogation.

Now, Amerika and its allies hypocritically lie to get their own way, as they did before their invasion of Iraq, with their lie, their deception, of Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction". Now, they hypocritically forget their own problems, their many many failures in their own lands, and seek to export their failed way of life to others.

Are you surprised, then, that there is resentment, even anger, among the Muslims who are the victims of such hypocrisy, such bullying tactics? Here is the simple cause-and-effect you want.

Have you forgotten how - before the Washington and New York expeditions - Amerika imposed sanctions on Iraq, causing the death by starvation of tens upon tens of thousands of children? Have you forgotten how - long before the Washington and New York expeditions - Amerika supported the creation of a Zionist State in a Muslim land, and how it supported the occupation of that Muslim land for decades? Have you forgotten the suffering the Muslims in occupied Palestine have endured for decades? Have you forgotten how Amerika and its ally, Britain, in their own interests, carved up Muslim lands in the Middle East after what the West called the First World War, manufacturing artificial entities like Iraq?


You wail and bemoan the few thousands deaths that the Washington and New York expeditions caused, while we remember the tens of thousands of our brothers and sisters killed directly and indirectly by Amerika, as we remember Amerikan support for the brutal Zionist occupation of Palestine where our brothers and sisters have suffered for decades and where tens upon tens of thousands of them have been killed and maimed. We remember Amerikan support for the tyrants and corrupt rulers of Algeria, of Egypt, of the Land of the Two Holy Places, of elsewhere, places where tyrants and corrupt rulers do the bidding of the Amerikan masters and torture and imprison tens upon tens of thousands of Muslims, of our brothers and sisters, years after year after year.

So it was that many Muslims considered the Washington and New York expeditions as revenge, as a just retribution, for the suffering, the killing, that Amerika has brought to the Muslims, decade after decade after decade.

The cause of those expeditions, those attacks, was not as you and your ilk delude yourself into believing as due to the "evil" of some Muslims who adhered to or who believed in some "irrational religion" - rather, the cause was the interference of the West in our affairs, an interference that has lasted well over one hundred years. Here is a simple cause and effect you seem to want. Here is the reason.

You, the West, Amerika and its allies, are not blameless as you like to believe. What is to blame is your arrogance, your hubris, your prejudice, your belief in your superiority, your delusion that you have some sort of moral right to export your ways, by force of arms, by indoctrination, by propaganda, by deceit, to other lands, to other peoples. Are you then surprised that there is resentment, even anger, among Muslims?

As I wrote elsewhere:

"In the Jumaadi Al-Thaani attacks we can see the fundamental difference between the Muslim perspective, and the kaffir one, represented as the kaffir perspective is by Amerika and its kaffir allies such as Britain. For the Muslims, the attacks (even if they disagree with them) are understandable, one act in a conflict that has a very long history. For the kuffar - for the West and its lackeys and apostates - the Jumaadi Al-Thaani attacks mark "point zero": the beginning of their self-declared "war on terror" and the beginning of their campaign to bring their so-called "freedom", "democracy" and "progress" to Muslims, whether these Muslims want these Tawagheet or not."

You go into paroxysms of anger about the three thousand or so people killed in the Washington and New York expeditions (the Jumaadi Al-Thaani attacks) and yet do not seem to care about the continued killing, oppression and suffering of Muslims in occupied Palestine, in Chechnia, or the hundreds of thousands of Muslims killed by the West and their apostate allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the torture of thousands upon thousands of Muslims by Amerika and its allies.


You write that you do admire Islam, with the unstated - and possibly to you, unacknowledged - condition that this Islam conforms to and accepts certain Western abstractions, ideas.

That is, what you are comfortable with - what you can accept, within certain limits - is an "Islam" which does not threaten nor frighten you, and which does not threaten the hegemony of the West, and which conforms to the norms established by the West, and which uses the criteria of the West to judge by. An Islam, in brief, of Muslims who have abandoned Jihad Fee Sabilillah and Al-wala wal-bara.


But what you do not seem to understand - what is possibly incomprehensible to you and to kuffar in general - is that the authentic Islam of Ahlus Sunnah wal Jammah, the Islam of Jihad Fee Sabilillah andAl-wala wal-bara, is totally distinct from the way of the West, and that Muslims view life, our purpose, in a quite different way from you.


In summary, your arrogant, hubris-like, assumption - the foundation of Western prejudice, the basis of Western notions of superiority - is that your values, your abstractions, your ideas, your assumptions, are universal; correct. Thus, we Muslims must accept these so-called "universal values" and reinterpret Deen Al-Islam in accord with them.

Thus, you have projected your abstractions onto Deen Al-Islam, and judged what is acceptable, and what is not acceptable, according to these abstractions. What is not acceptable, by these standards, according to these criteria, is "extremist", or "deviant Islam" and must, according to you and Western governments, be systematically, even ruthlessly, rooted out.


Let us consider just two examples. First, what you mean by "peace" is not what we mean by peace. As I wrote in The Ignorance of Infidels: Myths, Prejudice and Propaganda About Islam and the West:

For the kuffar, peace is the "happiness of the greatest number", personal happiness and contentment, or the tranquillity which can arise from lack of conflict

We Muslims do not view peace in the same way as the kuffar - or, rather, we should not view peace in the same way as them. For Muslims, peace is what Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala informs us it is. What others call peace, and how they define it, is therefore irrelevant for us. For us, peace is the peace of Jannah, and that state of being which arises from submission only to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala.

Our goal is not to attain some state of "peace" on this Earth, or to strive for "peace" between nation-States; or to avoid conflict in the name of "peace". Our goal is obedience to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala - to strive to do, and uphold and propagate, what is halal; to restrain from doing, to restrain others from doing, what is haram

Thus, by striving for these things we, as Muslims, hope for Jannah, InshaAllah. That is, our primary focus is on the next life.

Second, the question of so-called "innocent civilians". As I have written elsewhere:

It should be understood that there is no concept of civilian (or “non-combatant”) in Deen Al-Islam. Instead, it is generally accepted, according to Ulaama, that Deen Al-Islam makes a distinction between those people who have hurma - protection (ismah al-nafs) under Shariah - and those who do not. Those who are protected are Muslims, and those of the kuffar who have a treaty, or covenant, with the Muslims, either general, as in case of Dhimam, or particular, as in the case of Aqd Al Amaan. Those who have the benefit of protection can only be killed if they transgress a limit, or limits, which Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala has set, defined as these are by Shariah. Thus, a Muslim who, for instance, was found guilty in a Sharia Court of zena could be killed.

The asl (rule) is that the kuffar have no protection - and it is not forbidden to harm or kill them - unless they are covered by an exemption, such as Aqd Al Amaan, or unless they become Muslim, or unless they seek sanctuary, for as Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala says:

“And if anyone of the Mushrikeen seek your protection then grant him protection, so that he may hear the Word of Allah, and then escort him to where he can be secure…” 9:6 Interpretation of Meaning

Sheikh ul-Islam ibn Taymiyyah (Rahimullah) - in one of his writings regarding the Tartars - wrote that one of the primary aims of a Muslim is to defend the Deen against our enemies, and, citing a Hadith [See Footnote 1], he wrote that Jihad against the kuffar would continue until The Last day. He also wrote, in the Jihad al-Kuffar: Al-Qital al-Fasil part of his Siyasatush-Shariah, about the “glory of Jihad and those who participate in it” stating that it is the best of voluntary deeds: better than Hajj, than Umrah, than voluntary Salah and voluntary shawm. As narrated by Mu’ath Ibn Jabal [2], it was authentically recorded that the Prophet, Muhammad (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) said:

“The head of this matter is Islam; the central pillar is Salah; and summit is Jihad.”

Furthermore, in Jihad al-Kuffar: Al-Qital al-Fasil ibn Taymiyyah (Rahimullah) mentioned those among the kuffar who, according to the majority opinion, should not be targeted when Jihad is undertaken. These are women, children, the elderly, the blind, and those who are incapable of physically fighting, provided such persons as these do not assist or aid, through words, or deeds, or by giving assistance or encouragement to, those who are physically fighting the Muslims. Note there is no mention of “innocent people” or of “civilians”, and note the important words here: “provided such persons as these do not assist or aid, or give encouragement to…”

Hence, if such people as are mentioned do in some way assist or aid, or give encouragement to our enemies, then they may be targeted. Thus, if they - for instance, a woman, or an elderly person - aid or assist or give encouragement to our enemies, then the protection afforded them by the exemption mentioned by Sheikh ul-Islam ibn Taymiyyah (Rahimullah) and other Ulaamah no longer applies.

In this respect, let us consider the example of the two servants of Abdullah ibn Khatal (ibn Taymiyyah in Al-Saarim al-Maslool names them) who were commanded to be killed by order of the Prophet (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) and the example of the killing of Duraid ibn Al-Simma. What do these tell us? In respect of Duraid ibn Al-Simma, that those who support, in any way, our enemies, may be killed. In respect of the two servants, that those who incite or encourage or support those who fight against the Muslims can be killed, in the same way that those who insult or demean the Prophet (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) can be killed. These are relevant examples because Duraid ibn Al-Simma was an old man, and no direct physical threat to Muslims forces, and because the servants were women.

Thus, the relevant question we should ask is: “What constitutes aid, assistance and encouragement, in words and deeds?” This way of reasoning, this type of question, is in accord with Deen Al-Islam: for example, Imam al-Shafi in Kitaab al-Umm writes only about those whom it is not correct to kill, without attributing to them any specific term, and without applying to them an specific concept (such as the kaffir concept of “civilian” and “innocent”). [3]

The question we need not ask, we should not ask - because it is irrelevant, according to Deen Al-Islam, and reveals the influence of the kuffar - is: “Is it haram to target civilians?”

In addition, some evidences - such as Shahih Muslim 19, 4294 and 19, 4456 - 4457 - are often used by moderates and modernistss opposed to, for example, Martyrdom Operations, and these moderates and modernists take such evidences in the general sense, to apply unreservedly, without restriction, or exemption. This, however, is an error, because they do not consider the specific situations, and other evidences, which do or which might restrict these.

In respect of one such Hadith, ibn Qudamah (Rahimullah) pointed out:

“He (Ahmad ibn Hanbal) said, ‘The Hadith of As-Sa’b came after the forbiddance of killing the women and children, because his forbiddance of killing the women was when he sent (men) to ibn Abi Al-Huqayq.” Al-Mughni Wash-Sharh Al-Kabir (10: 503)

Hence, we return to asking the important and relevant question as to what, exactly, is the aid, assistance or encouragement, which removes the particular exception made - in the case, for example, of women and the elderly - to the general rule of the kuffar having no protection.

Notes:

1) See Muslim Book 20 (Kitab Al-Imaara) Chapter 53, and also Bukhari 9, Book 93, Number 552 and 9, Book 92, Number 414.

2) Refer to Hadith 29 in An-Nawawi’s Forty Ahadith.

3) Refer to Kitaab al-Umm, 4:253, 274

Do you not see the difference, here? Do you not understand, for example, that, for Muslims it is only correct to talk and write about the limits imposed by Shariah, with these limits being determined according to adillah from Quran and Sunnah? Do you not understand that this is the right, the correct, Muslim way?

Do you not understand that instead of us thinking like a Muslim, instead of us being Muslim, that you want - even demand - that we think like you, using your terms, your terminology: that we re-interpret Deen Al-Islam via the abstractions, the Tawagheet, you have manufactured?

No, I am reasonably confident that you do not understand this, that you cannot see this difference. Why not? Because of an innate prejudice; an inability to free yourself from the often unstated assumptions and axioms that underlie the Western weltanschauung you have accepted, giving rise to an inability to use the faculty of pure reason.

The distinction I have briefly outlined is crucial to correctly understanding the Deen that is Islam. Thus it is that the classical Muslim scholars did not talk or write about whether it is morally right or wrong to target "civilians" or "non-combatants" or some general abstract category which may be or has been manufactured by us in an attempt to "understand" - but only about those it is unlawful, according to Quran and Sunnah, to kill.


You write that Islam is a "totality" - and thus, by extension, inclines towards or even is "totalitarian in nature", which is a typical Western, kaffir, mis-apprehension, based on manufactured abstractions, on division into categories. For Islam, correctly understood, restores us, as human beings, to our natural nature - our fitrah - which is to be'Ibaad of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. That is, it is an expression of harmony, a means whereby we restore our natural connexion to our own nature, to other human beings, to Nature, to the Cosmos, and, of course, to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, Who - Muslims believe - created human beings so they might discoveer and know their true nature. Thus, Deen Al-Islam is the Way of natural balance, of awareness and appreciation of the sacred, something which the West has lost, which is why, of course, there is so much hubris, so much arrogance, so much dishonour, so much hypocrisy, in the West. It it such divisions, such abstractions - which are or which become Tawagheet - which obscure, which cover-up, the simple truth of the unity of Tawheed. Thus, they are kufr, and thus do such things conceal our true nature, as human beings.

This error, of concealment, of division, is also what you and others do when, in stories or other writings, you ascribe certain motives to individual Muslims, describing such motives according to some psychological term or other, or some such abstraction manufactured according to some Western theory. It does not seem to occur to you, or others, that such Muslims may have done what they have done purely out of a humble desire to obey Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, to do what they sincerely believed was correct according to Quran and Sunnah. Thus, yet again, there is a certain prejudice, a certain arrogance, and a certain hubris-like profanity: an inability, wilful or otherwise, to perceive and appreciate and respect what many regard as the sacred.



What we desire is very simple, InshaAllah. We want the West to stop interfering in our affairs. To leave our lands. To stop supporting the tyrants, the corrupt leaders, who rule and who govern lands where Muslims are in the majority. We desire to live, as Muslims, according to Quran and Sunnah alone, with Shariah our only guide to what is lawful, and what is unlawful. That is, we desire a land or lands where the West has no influence, no power, whatsoever; a place where Muslims from other lands can migrate to, if they so wish; a place where we can make the Word of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala supreme. We do not want your "peace", nor your "democracy", nor your Taghut of the nation-State.

Why will the West not leave us alone? Why does the West insist that we abandon our perspective, our Way, for yours? Why does the West resist - by force, by terror - any and all attempts by us to live in a land where we are rid of you and of the Tawagheet that you bow down before and which, whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, you have made into a new religion?


Thus, and in conclusion, I invite you to consider the assumptions upon which your views are based. I invite you to investigate Deen Al-Islam as it is, not as you seem now to view it, through the abstractions, the perspective, of the West. Thus, I invite you to Islam: to the Way of true humility and true honour, where we feel and know the limits imposed upon us, which limits are the genesis of both humility and honour, and thus the foundation of genuine civilization, of that way of living which arises from having Adab, and which thus makes real for us what is numinous, what is sacred. We know these limits because of the Prophet, Muhammad (salla Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) who revealed them to us in the Quran and Sunnah. Thus do we feel and know our true relationship to other human beings, to other life, and to our Rabb, Who says:

"Be loyal and do your duty to Allah; fear Him and always speak with honour. He will direct you to do honourable deeds and will forgive your mis-deeds. And whosoever obeys Allah and His Messenger will achieve the greatest achievement of all." 33:70-71 Interpretation of Meaning

This greatest achievement is the attainment of Jannah, the eternal life beyond our fleeting life here, in the Dunya, and it is the perspective of Jannah which is the essence of Islam: of that simple, humble, submission which makes us, and which marks us as, Muslim.





May Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala protect us from all forms of Al-asabiyyah Al-Jahiliyyah, forgive us for our mistakes, and guide us to and keep us on the Right Path. Whatever good that may have been written is from Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, and whatever mistakes or errors have been made are from me, wa Allahu Allam.




Abdul-Aziz ibn Myatt
18 Muharram 1429