In this piece, I will be discussing a topic that a lot of people tend to try to avoid, and even if they do speak on it, many simply do not tell the truth. I am speaking, of course, about the topic of jihad (fighting in the cause of Allah). This topic is inextricably tied to the topic of Muslims being asked to disassociate from the Palestinian resistance and to condemn the military operation on October 7th.
So, what is jihad in Islam, and can the Palestinian resistance be classified as a legitimate struggle in the path of Allah?
During the last couple of weeks, we have seen news pundits attempting to corner Muslims into condemning and disassociating from the Palestinian resistance movement, even though what the Zionists have been doing for the last 75 years far outweighs any crime that Hamas or any other Palestinian group has been accused of committing.
This is done deliberately in order to distract people from the main issue at hand: the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of the inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank.
The politicians and the media seek to divert attention away from Israel’s crimes by dehumanizing the Palestinians and alleging that they have committed horrible war crimes. By doing so, they hope that the Western populations will not feel sympathy for the thousands of innocent children, women and men being massacred in Gaza.
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Armed Resistance in the Path of Allah
In Islam there are two types of jihad:
- Offensive jihad; and
- Defensive jihad.
Offensive jihad is when the Muslims (governed by a Sultan, Caliph, or Imam) initiate an attack in order to open the lands to Islam. This form of jihad has specific rulings and conditions. For instance, it requires—although there is a slight difference of opinion amongst the schools of thought—the permission of the ruler.
On the other hand, we have defensive jihad, which is when the nonbelievers attack the lands of the Muslims. Defensive jihad also has its own rulings and conditions.
When we observe the situation in Palestine; who is actually the attacker, and who is it that is defending themselves?
The answer to this question is clear as day. It is obvious that the Muslims are the ones being attacked and that the aggressor is the Zionist state of Israel—a Western neocolonial project concocted to wrestle the Holy Land out of the grasp of the Muslims and into the hands of the unbelievers.
Therefore, there can be no doubt that the Muslims of Palestine are waging a legitimate defensive jihad against the colonialist aggressor.
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Which Worldview: Islam or Man-made Laws?
Some will argue that it was an offensive jihad that the Muslims initiated on the 7th of October. A person who comes to this conclusion is either deliberately distorting reality or plainly ignorant of Islamic jurisprudence.
In Islam, we do not follow arbitrary man-made laws that have been set down by the colonizer in a corrupt system known as the UN. We follow the shari’ah, and the shari’ah divides the lands into dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb.
Dar al-Islam was annexed and invaded by the colonizers beginning in the first half of the 20th century and culminating in May of 1948 with the establishment of the so-called state of Israel. Therefore, a legitimate struggle to defend the Muslim lands from the invading forces has been in place for over 75 years.
The people who claim that the Palestinians had transgressed and initiated an offensive jihad on the 7th of October have no knowledge of Islamic history or Islamic jurisprudence. Or perhaps it is a combination of the two.
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So, Should We Condemn?
We find amongst our Muslim brothers and sisters those who are affected by the current climate, who have been raised in the West, who have gone through the Western educational system, and who have been brainwashed into following a line of thought that is not in agreement with Islam.
Such individuals say that we must disassociate from and condemn all armed resistance in the occupied Muslim lands. This line of thought originates from a worldview that is completely at odds with the reality of what is transpiring. It is a line of thought that is not based on Islamic principles, our tradition, and jurisprudence. It is a worldview contaminated by Western thoughts and propaganda and is foreign to the Islamic paradigm.
If we look at the situation from an Islamic fiqhi (jurisprudential) perspective, from a Shari’ah perspective—which should be every Muslim’s starting point—, then it is obligatory on all of us to support the struggle to liberate dar al-Islam from foreign occupiers. We cannot condemn Palestinians for trying to liberate and defend the Muslim lands.
You do not have to be an Islamic scholar (‘alim) to recognize that the Palestinian Muslim struggle is legitimate, and you do not have to be an ‘alim to feel a sense of joy and pride when the Palestinians resist and fight back against the occupiers who are ethnically cleansing them and committing genocide. This is a feeling that comes naturally to every believer with a sound heart, whose mindset is governed by Islam and is not contaminated by foreign ideas.
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Who Are Civilians?
Another accusation that is presented by detractors of the Palestinian resistance is the notion that they target civilians and are a terrorist organization. This is an accusation that is essentially just a regurgitation of Western and Israeli propaganda.
Again, our answer to this question should be based on Islamic jurisprudence (Shari’ah) and not Western laws. What is relevant for us, is what the Shari’ah says, what Allah and His Messenger ﷺ tell us.
The Islamic starting point is that we are only allowed to fight combatants. It is forbidden for Muslims to kill innocents in the form of women and children unless they are actively participating in killing us.
What is the situation in Gaza? According to Western media, the Muslim resistance is being portrayed as animalistic barbarians killing, burning, and beheading babies without presenting a single shred of evidence as proof for these egregious claims. These are atrocious crimes that no God-fearing Muslim would ever commit.
Does this now mean that it is impossible for civilians to have been killed unintentionally during the effort to defend the Muslim lands? No, that is unfortunately a possibility in times of war.
Can kids have been hurt unintentionally? Yes, that is also a possibility, but again, that is unfortunately one of the realities of war. There will always be collateral damage.
That does not, however, mean that we must condemn the resistance as a whole.
Why? Because even the Prophet ﷺ when the Muslims were besieging Ta’if, attacking it indiscriminately with catapults, condoned what could today be termed as “collateral damage.”
The hadith is narrated in Sahih Muslim in the chapter known as “Permissibility of killing women and children in night raids, so long as it is not done deliberately”:
It is reported on the authority of Sa’b ibn Jaththama that the Prophet of Allah (ﷺ), when asked about the women and children of the polytheists being killed during the night raid, said: “They are from them.”
Meaning that you cannot conduct a war and completely avoid civilian casualties. That does not, however, mean that you are allowed to deliberately target civilians like the Zionists do to infuse terror into the minds of their victims. As Omar al-Mukhtar famously said:
“They are not our teachers.”
If some people committed impermissible acts on the 7th of October, then we do not condone those acts, but that does not mean that we must collectively dismiss and condemn the legitimate resistance movement fighting for the liberation of Muslim lands:
O you who have believed, whoever of you should revert from his religion – Allāh will bring forth [in place of them] a people He will love and who will love Him [who are] humble toward the believers, strong against the disbelievers; they strive in the cause of Allāh and do not fear the blame of a critic. That is the favor of Allāh; He bestows it upon whom He wills. And Allāh is all-Encompassing and Knowing. [5:54]
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The only countries that classify Hamas as the militants groups are white people countries in Europe. South American, African, and Southeast Asian would recognize Hamas as the liberation movement
Sir, I can understand where you’re coming from, but I hope that you don’t blame all white people for the crimes of the foreign zionists who have illegitimately seized control of our nations. There are plenty of white men who would like to throw off the chains of zionist control and join the heroes of Yemen in firing upon the zionists.
White people I refer to are the elites who work with Zionist and people who are affected by their disinformation campaign
White or black or brown has nothing to do with skin color when mentioned in a colonial context. White skinned Algerians are not “white” because they don’t belong to American or European stock. Russians are not “white” enough for their opposition to the “standard” “white” status quo.
Oprah Winfrey and Will Smith are good examples of white people!
Eh, those Houthis in Yemen are extreme shia funded by Iran, whose goal is to take over Makkah and Madina. These people, like the shias who run Iran, shias in Iraq, and Bashar in Syria are also our enemies. They have their own ambitions, they strategically make enemies with the z***ists for their own goals. Palestinians and H*m*s don’t like Shia, H*m*s even supported the Syrian rebels.
The Shia religion was first invented by a juice named Abdullah ibn Saba from Yemen.
Also shiism is dying in Iran, they are becoming liberalized like white christians, these shia will never liberal Jerusalem.
If you want to learn more about the Shia, look up Sunni Discourse, formerly called Sunni Defense, and Ebn Hussein, aka Hasan Shimarani
No human being on earth condemns the heroic acts of the Palestinian military when they broke out of the Gaza concentration camp on October 7.
I do condemn the acts of the ‘israeli’ Occupational Forces when they deliberately targeted their plainsclothes ‘civilian’ settlers, and the heroic Palestinian forces trying to protect them, on October 7, with tanks and helicopters and bomber aircraft. I condemn the ‘israelis’ for their desecrating corpses, raping and looting the dead.
As the Zionists’ blood lust reaches unfathomable proportions many of the “goyim” are beginning to realize that the Jewish victim narrative no longer aligns with what they are seeing on social media. In fact, the entire Zionist media enterprise is beginning to fracture as once willing and compliant journalistic allies crack under the pressure of trying to sustain the big lie. As a reminder, Zionists = liars and we can expect more beheaded baby episodes as Z’s realize they are losing the info war.
Why were they shooting into Ta’if indiscriminately?
Now is an excellent time to write an article debunking Hezbollat wal Uzza