Your statement: "There is a rebellious state and a secure state, and both are Muslim." Is your description of the rebellious state as Muslim based on its ruler or based on...

The questioner : Shaykh, you spoke about the issue of... a rebellious state against a secure state, and you described both states as Muslim. The criterion for this description is the state of the rulers, not the state of the people, usually. May Allah reward you with good?

The Shaykh : And may He reward you as well. The answer is: We judge countries as Islamic or non-Islamic not by looking at their rulers, but by looking at their people. So any region where the majority are Muslims is a Muslim state, even if this majority has been afflicted with some rulers to whom the saying of Allah, Mighty and Majestic, applies, that they do not judge by what Allah has revealed. But this type of rule, as we all know from the reality of Islamic history, the reality of today, differs from state to state. For example, this state is represented by a communist system, and this state is represented by a socialist system... If they were given someone to rule them by this Islam, then I would say what I said, that the aggression was from a Muslim state against a Muslim state. But even so, I want to add something else on the occasion of this question and its answer. It is not upon us whether it is said, as I said, as I believe, that a Muslim Arab state aggressed against a Muslim Arab state, because these rulers, first, have not disavowed Islam, even though they contradicted Islam in many of their actions. And second, which is what I want to say now, whether we say these two states are Muslim or we say they are disbelievers, this aggression does not agree with Islam, nor with the system by which the disbelievers themselves rule. In every case of the two cases, there is aggression and rebellion. As for the ruling of Islam, it is as you heard in the Qur'an This is my answer to what you asked?