Is it obligatory for every Muslim to train in fighting and carrying weapons to be prepared for jihad against the enemies of Allah at any time, and does he sin if he spends his entire life avoiding strengthening his body and learning to fight despite his ability to do so?

The Shaykh : The fifteenth question: Is it obligatory for every Muslim individual to train in fighting and carrying weapons to be prepared for jihad against the enemies of Allah at any time? And does the Muslim sin if he spends his entire life avoiding strengthening his body and learning to fight despite his ability to do so? And is it established that any of the Companions was not skilled in carrying weapons and fighting?
In reality, this question contains three questions, so it is necessary to break it down and then answer.
As for the first part of the question, the answer is clear from the Book of Allah. Is it obligatory for every Muslim individual to train in fighting and carrying weapons to be prepared for jihad against the enemies of Allah at any time? The answer is from the Noble Qur'an: And more than that, it came in the Sunnah, not merely as encouragement to learn, but as a warning and deterrent against forgetting what one has learned of weapons. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Therefore, this question is, in reality, something I find strange, and yet I do not find it strange. I find it strange because of the many explicit texts in the Book and the Sunnah that obligate the Muslim to be strong in his body, just as they obligate him to be strong in his creed and in his spirit. But I do not find it strange from another perspective, due to people’s distance, first, from studying the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and second, due to the prevalence of lethargy, cowardice, panic, and fear among the masses of Muslims, the results of which have appeared in their fighting against the most wretched of Allah’s servants on earth, namely the Jews. These numerous groups from the Arab peoples were unable to defeat thousands of those Jews, whom they call vagabonds from the four corners of the earth. Therefore, what is more important to me than this question, whose answer you have known from the Book, is to know what the cause is that turned Muslims away from jihad in the path of Allah and from preparing for it. This cause must be known so that the wonder may be removed, as it is said: "When the cause is known, the wonder is removed".
I wish to remind you, on the occasion of answering this part of this question, of a hadith of the Messenger of Allah (may Allah’s prayers and peace be upon him), which is his saying: So now, jihad is abandoned and forgotten. Fighting may occur, and you must know this reality: fighting may occur, and it has occurred, but with great regret, there has been no jihad for many decades, because fighting is one thing and jihad is another. Jihad is a matter that Islam is distinguished by, unlike all these religions, conditions, or ruling authorities today on earth. There are many, and very many, battles that occur between one state and another, but that is not of jihad in any way. The Muslims, due to their influence from imitating the disbelievers, whom the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) warned them against imitating, as in his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): They said: O Messenger of Allah, the Jews and the Christians? Meaning those whom we will imitate and follow in their footsteps. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Meaning they were in the eyes of people as the Europeans are today in the eyes of Muslims, with great regret: cultured, possessing civilization and culture. And so the Jews, and the Jews and Christians at that time, were the destination of other people, as is the reality today. These Christians and Jews influenced the masses of Muslims in many matters, including the issue of fighting. We fought, but none of those states that participated in the fighting said that they were fighting jihad in the path of Allah. The fighting that occurred between the Jews and the Muslims was not jihad in the path of Allah. In fact, this term has died from the tongues of writers, except what Allah wills, so that only the term "fighting" and the term "defense of the land and the homeland" remained on their tongues. And the patriotic songs that are taught to children from the time they are young are like the songs of the disbelievers; there is no difference between them. They are merely defense of the land. There is no difference between a Russian defending his land, and a German likewise, and a Frenchman, and an Arab Muslim today; they are all defending the land. As for Islam, the earth of Allah is all His land, and the lands of Allah are all His homeland. So he is only defending the religion, as came: .
So this hadith informs us, may Allah’s prayers and peace be upon him, that the Muslims will be humiliated because of their turning away from their religion. I do not wish to delve into explaining this hadith and what it indicates of very important matters that Muslims must be alert and awake to. I only wish to say that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) mentioned that if the Muslims compete for the worldly life, that will lead them to abandoning jihad in the path of Allah. If they abandon jihad in the path of Allah, Allah will humiliate them. If they want Allah to honor them, they must return to their religion. Here we explain a lot, and a lot, on such an occasion, but time does not allow, so I say briefly: That is Islam in the correct concept and the expression we have followed in the way of teaching people the easiest path, the Salafi concept of Islam, because Islam has been subjected to many, many, and very many concepts, and all these concepts fall within the circle of Islam despite the contradictions between them. So it is obligatory for Islamic callers, the sincere scholars among them, to bring this correct Islam to the understanding of the Muslims, and to raise and educate them on this correct concept, and to act upon it. That is the cure for this humiliation that has settled upon the masses of Muslims in the present time.
Likewise, the other hadith that draws our attention to this painful reality is the saying of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him): They said: Are we few in number at that time, O Messenger of Allah? He said: They said: What is the weakness, O Messenger of Allah? He said: So there is no difference between them in this respect and the other disbelievers. But there is a difference, with regret, that is not in the interest of the Muslims: those disbelievers who love the worldly life and compete for it, like the Muslims or more, are superior to the Muslims in that they have some respectable order and some upbringing for the benefit of serving the people and the homeland. And this is what the Muslims have lost because of their distance from their religion.
And may Allah be pleased with 'Umar ibn al-Khattab when he says: "We are a people whom Allah has honored with Islam, so whenever we seek honor by other than it, we will be humiliated" This reality is a very important warning for the Arab Muslims who imagine that they can defeat their enemies merely by the strength of material weapons. This is, in reality, the opposite of the Shari'ah truth. Our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) says in the explicit Noble Qur'an in many verses, all of which converge with the like of His saying: And we all know that the victory of the Muslims for their Lord is not by material preparation, and in other words, it is not by applying the previous verse only: to the end of the verse. It is not only this that is the victory of the Muslims for their Lord, but rather it is their acting upon their Islam. So if they become stronger than the strongest state on the face of the earth, I affirm that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) will not help them at all. And if they were the weakest of the people of the earth in strength and weapons, but they were believers in Allah and His Messenger truly, and acting upon the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), their Lord would help them, just as He helped their fathers and grandfathers before. And history repeats itself. And so I say: if jihad is obligatory by texts from the Book and the Sunnah, then it must not be that our engagement with performing it and preparing for this obligation, in which no one falls short except one who is not a Muslim, distracts us.
I say: it must not be that that distracts us from the primary or basic preparation upon which this secondary preparation is based, which is realizing the previous verse: to the end of the verse.
This answer pertains to the first question, or the first part of this question.
The second part asked: "Does a Muslim commit a sin if he spends his entire life avoiding strengthening his body and learning to fight, despite having the ability to do so?" The question contains wisdom and a condition. The answer, naturally, is yes, he commits a sin, because he has fallen short in applying the previous verse. This is especially so because the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: So even if he is weak in his body, in his strength, or in his readiness to carry weapons, he is still a person of good, because he is a believer in Allah and His Messenger. This is unlike the disbelievers, all of them without exception, no matter how strong they are; there is absolutely no good in them because they are those who associate partners with Allah. And Allah the Exalted said: .
As for the last part of this question, which is his saying: "Is it established that any of the Companions was not skilled in carrying weapons and fighting?" This question is somewhat strange, because the known type of question is about positive matters or realistic matters. As for asking "Is it established that someone was not skilled?" it is as if it were asked: "Is it established that any of the Companions did not know, for example, Surat al-Fatihah or something similar?" We say that this is a readiness for jihad in the path of Allah, which is an individual obligation. And as we have said in many lessons, jihad is of two types: individual obligation (fard 'ayn) and collective obligation (fard kifayah). The Companions lived in the first type of jihad, because they were the ones who established this Islam, set it up, and built its state. Therefore, they were always engaged in individual obligation jihad, fighting the aggressors around them. Then, when Allah expanded their territory, they began the second stage of jihad, which is collective obligation jihad, meaning carrying the call to other lands where Islam had not yet entered.