What is the ruling on forming alliances with disbelievers, what are its conditions, and how do we reconcile the hadith (There is no alliance in Islam) with the Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) alliance with Khuza'ah?

The questioner : Is the principle of forming alliances with disbelievers permissible? And if it is permissible, what are the conditions and regulations for such an alliance? And what do we understand from the saying of Allah the Exalted: ?

The Shaykh : That hadith is not a verse.

The questioner : No, excuse me, it is a hadith: . And if it is not permissible, how do we understand, for example, the alliance of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) with Khuza'ah and the Jews in Madinah?

The Shaykh : This hadith is for understanding the subject before I answer you. You are talking about matters related to the Islamic state, are you not?

The questioner : No, I am a Muslim. I want the real answer...

The Shaykh : This is a reservation on my part, Professor Talat. (laughs)The Shaykh : May Allah have mercy on him.

The questioner : I want a comprehensive answer. The alliance is formed by the Muslim ruler, or to put it correctly, the one who takes charge of the Muslims, or an Islamic group, if that expression is correct.

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner : Is there a difference between the alliance formed by an Islamic group with other groups, and the alliance formed by the ruler or the caliph?

The Shaykh : Yes, there is no doubt that there is a great difference. This is a general text, and the alliance that took place in some events of the biography is specific. And with specificity, one must be cautious by studying the chain of narration to see if it is established from the Messenger (peace be upon him) or not; this is a necessary reservation because there are stories and events in the books of biography that are mentioned as established matters with no issue, but they are not so. For example, the famous hadith when the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) conquered Mecca and said: There is nothing in the months more [blameworthy] than this narration, and it is a narration that is not authentic according to the method of the scholars of hadith. Likewise, for example, the story of the Companion, what is the name of the Companion?

The questioner : Zayd ibn al-Habab.

The Shaykh : Zayd ibn al-Habab, and what is this? Likewise, a famous story, but it is also not established. So, after verifying the authenticity of these parts which appear to contradict his (peace be upon him) saying: , we say: The rule is that there is no alliance in Islam. But the Muslim ruler, and I mean by what I say "the Muslim ruler" that I do not mean the rulers who rule over Muslims today in this age, unfortunately, because the least that can be said about them is that they are not scholars; and secondly, it is true that some states may have a committee of scholars under their control, but these are marginal issues for handling some matters, and so on, not for adjudicating the state by Islam, by the Book and the Sunnah, and so on. Therefore, if we assume that there is a Muslim ruler who truly rules by what Allah has revealed and is a scholar, because one of the first conditions of the ruler is to be, in scientific terms, a mujtahid, not just a scholar but a mujtahid, and this very important condition reveals to us the error of the groups of many shaykhs in various Islamic countries who claimed and still many of them claim that the door of ijtihad is closed. This means that any ruler installed over the Muslims should not be a scholar, and if it is said that he should not be a scholar, that means he should be ignorant. Because ignorance or the ignorant, some people may think that it does not include one who is knowledgeable in a madhhab or rules by one of the four madhahib, so he is a faqih in that madhhab. But among the subtleties of matters is that we know that this is not a scholar. The one who studies fiqh according to a specific madhhab or rules by a specific madhhab is not a scholar. And among the curiosities is that they—meaning the Hanafi scholars—mentioned in their books in the chapter of judgment, he said: "And it is not permissible to appoint the ignorant to judgment." The commentator Ibn al-Humam and others said: "The ignorant means the muqallid (one who follows without knowing the evidence)."

The questioner : Even if he knows the circumstances of the madhhab?

The Shaykh : Absolutely not. It is not permissible to appoint the ignorant, meaning the muqallid, to judgment. Why? Because he cannot rule in every ruling that comes to him as long as he is holding to a side of fiqh, which is madhhab fiqh. And how much I like, on this occasion, that example which I mention to our brothers sometimes, for its wit and simplicity, which we benefited from Ibn Rushd al-Andalusi. He said: "The example of the muqallid and the example of the mujtahid is like the example of the maker of slippers and the seller of slippers." He said: A man comes to the seller of slippers with a specific foot measurement, and he looks at the slippers placed with him and does not find this measurement, especially if it is unusual, for example, if the foot is short and wide or long and thin. This is not what they tailor like that; they tailored the common thing. But if he goes to the maker of slippers, he takes the measurement and makes the thing suitable for him. This is the example of the seller of slippers and the maker of slippers. The seller of slippers is the muqallid, and the maker of slippers is the mujtahid. Therefore, they stipulated that the judge must be a mujtahid, and the mujtahid is the scholar. Therefore, he (peace be upon him) told us, foretelling what would be the state of knowledge in the end of times, and he said (peace be upon him): Today you find this prophecy tangible to the touch. The great ones who are thought to be scholars, and what about this Egyptian mufti al-Tantawi who issued a fatwa permitting riba? This is not a scholar, this is a man, not Ali al-Tantawi, what is the name of this Egyptian? Sayyid al-Tantawi, these people, what is his position, mufti or what?
Al-Halabi : The Mufti of Egypt.

The Shaykh : The Mufti of Egypt. People took ignorant heads as leaders, the Mufti of Egypt. So they were asked, is it permissible? He said: It is permissible. And he twisted and turned and schemed against the texts of the Book and the Sunnah that prohibit riba, just as the Jews did on the day of Saturday, and just as they did when the Lord of the Worlds prohibited them from fats. So, it is stipulated that the ruler must be a scholar, but if it is as is the case today, he is not a scholar, but he must rely on scholars. So he does not come and leave anything except based on the opinion of the Shura Council of the people of knowledge, just as it should be that he has a Shura Council in politics, in economics, in the army, in the military, and so on. He must have what? Specialists in knowledge regarding economics, and what relates to the army. All of these, the greatest president today relies on them. As for what relates to religion, halal and haram, it is very rare to see one who cares about such a matter. So, if we cannot say that his (peace be upon him) saying: , when we specify it with some details that came from the Messenger (peace be upon him), if those details are authentic, it is sufficient that the Messenger (peace be upon him) is the one who acted with such an action. So, for the one who is his heir in his knowledge, it is permissible to exercise ijtihad in some details. So, if he wants, we say to him: It is permissible for you to specify this general text. The matter is exactly as it is in his (peace be upon him) saying when some of the polytheists came to him to fight with him, he said (peace be upon him): Nevertheless, it is established in the Sunnah that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) sought the help of some of them. And a sufficient example of that is that he borrowed from one of the polytheists, and who is his name?

The questioner : Safwan.

The Shaykh : Safwan borrowed some armor and said, "O Messenger of Allah, is this a seizure or a loan to be repaid?" The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: ; this assistance that is established from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is an exception to the general rule; but we do not reverse the issue; the rule remains a rule, and what the temporal interest of the Muslim ruler requires—provided he is a scholar, as we said, i.e., a mujtahid, or he has scholars who are mujtahids—he does not bring forth anything or act in any matter except based on their fatwas. If they study the situation with complete knowledge and objectivity, they may exclude certain events from such a rule or that original rule , such as . Both are established rules; but both pertain to the Muslim ruler, not to an individual or a group of Muslims who appoint, for example, a president and may pledge allegiance to him, and this pledge is not legitimate; because there is no pledge of allegiance in Islam except for the first Imam. Therefore, it is not permissible to apply such rulings to some groups that do not represent the Muslim community and have not been pledged to by the Muslim community; they may have been pledged to by a faction of companions and friends, and so on; but this pledge is not known to be such, this is self-evident; so I think the answer has ended: this ruling is specific to the Muslim ruler and has some exceptions by ijtihad accompanied by knowledge.

The questioner : Excuse me, regarding , we cannot say that we do not seek assistance from a mushrik in fighting; because when the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said this hadith, he rejected the Jews and the group of Abdullah ibn Abi, and another hadith narrated by Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her), where he rejected a man from the mushrikin who was strong, and the Companions preferred that he be with them, so he said: . Can we say that these two hadiths specifically refer to seeking assistance in fighting? As for the other, seeking assistance in weapons or aid, or something like that?

The Shaykh : No, first, as is knownThose present : "The consideration is the generality of the wording, not the specificity of the cause," so we do not seek assistance from a mushrik; the wording is general and includes seeking assistance in direct fighting and seeking assistance in weapons from one who does not directly fight, like Safwan, for example. And we are not compelled to such a restriction of the meaning of the hadith; because in that case, the loss would be much greater than the gain. If we restrict the hadith to direct fighting, it means that many, many parts of seeking assistance from mushrikin remain on the original ruling, which is permissibility, whereas the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) was general, and the general ruling is absolute, so it is not permissible for us to restrict it. Why do we restrict it? So that some details do not conflict. No, we say it is a general text with a specific exception, so the general text remains in its generality and comprehensiveness, and we do not apply restriction to it except with some few details.

The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.