Should a Muslim rejoice in the victories of the Iraqis over the disbelieving enemy, despite the fact that we know the Iraqi government does not apply the Shari'ah and does not

The questioner : Of course, we know through the Book and the Sunnah the enmity of America, Britain, and France and other verses that came regarding them. They are these people, and now they are throwing everything they have, not to liberate Kuwait, as has now become clear regarding the load being thrown at Iraq. Perhaps, of course, it fell on mosques and on people who are praying. We say that the rule in Iraq is not an Islamic rule, but the state is an Islamic state. So, what they are doing now—of course, from our feelings and hearts, we do not approve of what the enemies are doing. We hope that Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) will disgrace them and grant victory to the people of Iraq and the army of Iraq over them. And even though, of course, the rule is not Islamic, this is our feeling. I mentioned the little knowledge when the believers rejoiced in the victory of the Romans over the Persians, because the Persians were people of polytheism. So the polytheists loved for the Persians to be victorious, and the believers loved for the Romans to be victorious because they were People of the Book. So now, the people of Iraq, the army of Iraq, the children of Iraq, and the women of Iraq are still an Islamic state, even if the rule is not as it should be. But our feeling from within is that we hope the disbelievers will be defeated and victory will be for the people of Iraq.

The Shaykh : For the people of Iraq.

The questioner : Yes, and if we supplicate in our qunut in the prayer, this will be from our hearts. So we do not know if this is a feeling within us for which we are held accountable, or if there is sin in it, or if there is deviation from the creed. May Allah bless you?

The Shaykh : May Allah bless you. Deviation from the creed is the opposite of that. This feeling is the feeling of every Muslim toward every Muslim people, even if the ruler of that Muslim people is one who does not rule by what Allah has revealed. We say a word of truth: he does not rule by what Allah has revealed. Whether these people who do not rule by what Allah has revealed are disbelievers in terms of belief or disbelievers in terms of practice, the important thing at this time is to know that this ruling is not Islamic. However, we must distinguish, as you hinted in your question—may Allah reward you—between these rulers whose affair revolves around whether their disbelief is a disbelief of belief, or, at best, a disbelief of practice. Whether their disbelief is of this type or that, we must distinguish between these rulers and the ruled. The ruled are a Muslim people. We do not exclude any of the Muslim peoples who have been afflicted by rulers who do not rule by Islam. In my view, there is no difference between the Iraqi people as a Muslim people, even if there are Shi'ah in this people, and even if there are Sunni in this people who deviate from the Sunnah, much or little, as is the case in Egypt, for example, or in Syria. There is absolutely no difference between these peoples. It is not permissible for a Muslim scholar who knows the reality of these peoples to lump them in with their rulers, except if they are of that sect by which the Muslim community has been afflicted in this era, the one that says by declaring the rulers of the Muslims and their subjects disbelievers, except for those who are with them in their deviation from the Salafi Islam that we follow on the methodology of the righteous Salaf. A Muslim scholar cannot lump Muslim peoples in with rulers who rule by other than what Allah has revealed, for he would thereby have contradicted many verses, all of which revolve around the saying of Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He: This is a reality that no one can deny except those Khawarij who are the tails of the old Khawarij. They exaggerate in declaring Muslims disbelievers in general; they do not distinguish between a ruler and the ruled, and between a ruler who believes in the obligation of returning to Allah but is overcome by his desires, and one who has adopted other than Islam as a religion, law, and system, and may explicitly state or let it slip from his tongue that this Islam is no longer fit to be a ruler over people. This type is undoubtedly a disbeliever who has apostatized from his religion. But one must distinguish between one who is in this state and one who believes and displays his belief in some of his actions, such as maintaining Islam in prayer, in zakah, in fasting, in Hajj to the House of Allah, and the like. This distinction cannot be ignored by a scholar who has a standing in this knowledge. If the matter is so, then what I mentioned earlier is that our feeling and our calls must be for Allah, Mighty and Majestic, to help the Iraqi people against these disbelievers: the British, the Americans, the French, and the like of them from the collaborators who are called the allies. And we must not forget a bitter reality, which is that with these disbelievers are some Islamic states that participate with these disbelievers in crushing the Iraqi Muslim people. We must call for Allah, Mighty and Majestic, to help the Iraqi people against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and it is not permissible for us to call for anything other than that. We wished, and I said it clearly—and some of our brothers present now remember it well with me—before this great calamity of the striking of Iraq by these so-called allies, I said: if war breaks out between Iraq and the Americans, it is obligatory to fight the Americans on the side of the Iraqis. But if the fighting occurs between the Americans and the Muslims with them on one side, and the Iraqis on the other side, then we advise here to stay neutral. On this occasion, we cite the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): As for if the Americans, the British, and the disbelievers with them take it upon themselves to fight the Iraqis, then in this case it is obligatory for us to support the Iraqis, and not to seize the Iraqi government because it is a Ba'athist government. Here I want to remind you of some of what came in some tapes indicating that the Saudi policy now is completely deviated from the Islamic legal policy. I remind you of some of what came in some tapes indicating that the Saudi policy now is completely deviated from the Islamic legal policy, and I mention some of the fatwas I heard issued by some of the eminent scholars there: How did you accept for yourselves to permit seeking the aid of disbelievers on the claim that the danger of the Ba'ath Party in Iraq is more dangerous than the Crusaders? Even if we grant this for the sake of argument, and the Iraqis or the Ba'ath in Iraq are still far from the Saudi lands, and the reality is that the Crusader danger has arrived in the Saudi lands, but I am amazed at how they accepted for themselves to combine the two opposites at the same time: permitting the seeking of aid from disbelievers to repel the danger of the Ba'ath Party settling in the Saudi lands, while on the other hand, they allow the Syrian Ba'ath Party to settle in the Saudi lands. What is the difference between the Syrian Ba'ath Party and the Iraqi Ba'ath? The scholars say that disbelief is one religion, and the Ba'ath Party is also one religion. Is it not the case that those who utilize the Saudi media to justify their great error, which is seeking the aid of disbelieving states to repel the greatest disbelief in their claim, which is the Iraqi Ba'ath, how did they find it acceptable to allow the Syrian Ba'ath to settle in their lands? I understand from this that the Americans said to Saudi Arabia: seek the aid of such-and-such state and such-and-such state, including the Syrian Ba'ath. So they said "At your service" (Labbayk) in the place of disbelief, instead of there being in those lands "At your service, O Allah, at your service." This is a strange and very strange matter. I do not know how those eminent ones, and some of the students and doctors who say that the Shaykh does not know the reality there, overlook this bitter reality. Well, you know the reality. Did you know that the Syrian Ba'ath has descended upon your land or not? If you say: No. Then you are like the ostrich. And if you say: Yes. Then how do you fight the Ba'ath with the Ba'ath, and disbelief with disbelief? It is up to you what you heard earlier of the wordThe Shaykh : Ibn Baz, may Allah reward him with good and keep us and him firm upon the word of truth. I say to you, may Allah bless you, that you remain with your feeling and the emotion that binds you to the Muslims in all lands of the world. I have said in some of my tapes that there is a difference from another angle that those who claim that necessity compelled them to seek the aid of disbelievers in the path of fighting the Iraqi Ba'ath do not consider. I say that the Ba'ath, whether in Iraq or Syria or any other country that is an Islamic land, cannot be a ruler forever, because the Muslim people must eventually overcome the disbelieving ruler one day. But the Americans, as a government and as a people, are disbelievers. So when they occupy a country, whether by treaty or by war, it is not only the government that will spread its ideas and its Crusader spirit, but the people with it, all of them, because the people and the state are in one misguidance. Whereas the Ba'ath party in Syria or Iraq does not represent the Syrian people, nor does it represent the Iraqi people. So it is a very, very grave error for these deluded ones to imagine that the Saudis are now fighting a disbelieving people, and not just a disbelieving people, but one more disbelieving than the Crusaders whom they sought aid from. This is declaring Muslims to be disbelievers, and they know the danger of this declaration of disbelief, and they proclaim it in their lectures and broadcasts. But, with great regret, they say what they do not do, or they fail to apply what they say, for they did not distinguish between the ruler and the ruled. We know for certain that the Saudi ruler is not the same as the ruled. Even if we say that the Saudi ruler is better than the rulers of the Muslims, he still has some deviations that no one can deny. Is there a Muslim who upholds the oneness of Allah on the face of the earth, and especially in the lands of tawhid (the oneness of Allah), who among the people of knowledge and virtue denies that the spreading of the images of the Saudi kings and placing them in the fronts of councils contradicts tawhid? Can you imagine that there is anyone who disagrees with this? Do we imagine the existence of such people who permit hanging images in Syria, Egypt, and the like? As for Saudi scholars who grew up on tawhid and were raised on tawhid, they undoubtedly, in the depths of their souls, deny the manifestations of shirk (associating partners with Allah) that the Saudi state is now spreading among all the peoples, let alone the Saudi people. This is a contradiction, but they deny it, at least in their hearts, at the third level after which there is no grain of faith, as is in the authentic hadith. So, just as there are individuals in the Saudi people who deny some of the rulers' actions because they contradict the Shari'ah (Islamic sacred law), so too there are in the other peoples those who deny, sometimes in the heart, sometimes in speech, and sometimes by revolution, some of the rulers who rule by other than what Allah has revealed. So how is it permissible for us to associate them with their governments and apply the term of disbelief to them, and to cite...