What is your opinion of the one who says that the Afghan jihad is an individual obligation (fard 'ayn) for the people of Afghanistan only, and a collective obligation (fard kifayah) for others?

The questioner : May Allah reward you. The first question: What is your esteemed opinion of the one who says that the Afghan jihad is an individual obligation (fard 'ayn) for the people of Afghanistan only, and a collective obligation (fard kifayah) for others? Because the reality there is that there are not always actual operations, and the operation that the mujahideen carry out involves a number exceeding what is required. For example, the number might be one hundred, but those carrying out the operation are twenty or fifty. These others have no work to do except to take turns with the others.

The Shaykh : We say, after praising Allah and sending prayers and blessings upon the Messenger of Allah, his family, his companions, and those who follow them: In my belief, the matter does not come down to the Afghan people not needing to be reinforced by men from other Muslim nations, except because the preparations present in that land, in terms of what Allah Blessed and Exalted is He intended in His saying: . The inability of the Afghan people to prepare full equipment in terms of weapons and material strength is where the previously mentioned call becomes apparent, namely that the Afghans do not need reinforcement in men, because the weapons are fewer than what the men currently present in that land require. If the weapons were available there, then human reinforcement would also be part of the preparations commanded in Islam. However, this does not mean that the individual obligation (fard 'ayn) has fallen off the other nations despite acknowledging this fact. I said that the matter comes down to the scarcity of weapons there to clarify that it is not befitting for scholars to stop at this phenomenon and not delve into knowing the cause. In my opinion, the cause is what I mentioned just now. Otherwise, who doubts that if the Afghan people had more weapons, equipment, and human strength than the current reality, who believes that the war would have continued to this time, especially after the fighting, as we hear and have not seen, unfortunately, became confined between the Muslims and the communists, and they stopped at some of the capitals there? Why? Because the strength present among the Afghans is not sufficient to eliminate the remaining communists and to take control of the entire Afghan land. The reason for this is the lack of sufficient equipment. If sufficient equipment had been present, it would have been very natural for those people to understand that the individual obligation (fard 'ayn) was not confined to the Afghan people. This is from one aspect. From another aspect, I believe that even if the matter were as we described, the other Muslims must participate in going to jihad in Afghanistan, because a person is strong through his brother. When the Afghans see other Muslims helping them with all the strength they have, whether human strength or weapon strength, it is undoubtedly something that strengthens their resolve and encourages them to continue in this long, protracted war, which would have ended in much less time if all Muslims had risen as one man. From another aspect, we say that the reinforcement of the Afghan people by other Muslims has a benefit for them, in addition to the benefit we mentioned which returns to the Afghans themselves, which is that the Muslim nations prepare themselves to carry out Islamic jihad when the caller calls. And today, unfortunately, there is no Muslim nation in any land of the vast, wide lands of Islam that we can say is prepared to engage in jihad in the path of Allah. Yes, there may be regular armies that are managed and directed by the rulers presiding over these small states, but the rulers, unfortunately, do not adopt the jihad that the Muslim nations adopt. Consequently, with their adoption of this jihad by these nations, they are unable to move, and they cannot roam and rebel. So this is an opportunity that has presented itself for them to do what they were unable to do in their own homeland. Add to this what I had mentioned in some sessions regarding this topic, that the Afghans themselves need those who fight for them, other than their own fighting. Their fighting is with the disbelievers by weapons, but the Afghans, unfortunately, need their Muslim brothers to fight for them in calling them and teaching them the legal rulings derived from the Book and the Sunnah. Therefore, I said to some of the Arab shaykhs when we met them that the going of the Arabs there is more obligatory for them than for others, because they combine two jihads: the jihad against the disbeliever whom the Afghans themselves have agreed to fight, which is the communist disbeliever, and the jihad of the tongue and explanation, which we firmly believe the majority of the Afghan people need. So when the Arab mujahideen go there and are from the people of knowledge and the people of the Book and the Sunnah, they fight the enemy, the enemy of all Muslims, on one hand, and they spread their call among the Afghans on the other hand. Therefore, I do not believe that the individual obligation (fard 'ayn) has fallen off the other Muslims other than the Afghans. But there is no doubt that all Muslims in all Islamic countries cannot, of course, settle in the land of the Afghans for reasons that are not hidden from everyone. But whoever is among the people of material and scientific strength, it is most obligatory for them to go to that land, combining the two battles, if the expression is correct: fighting the disbeliever enemy and fighting the ignorance that permeates the souls of many of the Afghan people. This is my opinion regarding this question.