The story of the Shaykh’s discussion with one of the Christian priests regarding the scholars’ declaration of disbelief against Mustafa Ataturk.

The Shaykh : As is often said, I was once gathered in a session with a priest from among the Christian priests, and a long discussion took place between us. The story is long and has benefit, but time is short; we have only about five minutes left. Therefore, I will mention only what relates to this point. This priest objected to the Muslims for ruling that the man who was formerly known as Mustafa Kemal Pasha, and then became known as Ataturk, the father of the Turks, had deviated the Muslim Turks from many of the rulings of their religion, as is well known. This priest attacked the Muslims and accused them of exaggeration in their declaration of disbelief against this Ataturk, claiming that he did not do anything noteworthy that warranted declaring him a disbeliever, except that he imposed the hat, the brimmed hat, on the Turkish people. You know this brimmed hat; it is the cap with a brim, either a full brim or a front brim. My response to him was from two aspects. The first aspect, and I will not dwell on it, is that the man did not only contradict Islam in this regard, but he changed many of the rulings of the Shari'ah. For example, he made the female’s share in inheritance equal to the male’s share. As for the issue of the brimmed hat, I engaged him in a long discussion, the summary of which is that Islam, in its perfection, established rulings and legislation so that Muslims would preserve their Islamic identity and not become effeminate or lose their distinctiveness in the identity of another nation over time. I mentioned to him, and he is, unfortunately, an educated man, that the scholars of consensus say that any people who wish to preserve their identity must preserve their traditions, their history, and their language. This is an established fact in their field of sociology. So I said to him, it was a favor of Islam and a perfection of its legislation that it prescribed for Muslims to preserve their Muslim identity and not imitate those who differ from them, but rather to intentionally differ from them, as I explained to you earlier. This man, Ataturk, and here is the point of this example, if he had wanted good for the Muslim Turkish people and found a benefit in the hat that he did not find in other clothing, he could have made a distinction between the hat of the Muslim Turk and the hat of the non-Muslim Turk. For instance, he could have placed a band on the Muslim’s hat so that anyone seeing this Muslim wearing the brimmed hat would say, "This is a Muslim," even if he wore the clothing of the disbelievers. But the man did what he did out of hostility toward the religion of Islam, and therefore the scholars of the Muslims ruled that he was a disbeliever, an apostate, and one who had exited the religion of Islam. There was a long discussion between us on this issue until Allah the Exalted inspired me, and I said to him, after he said that this is a matter of clothing, meaning that clothing has become a national matter and not specific to a particular people or a particular religion, I approached him from a sensitive angle. This priest is Lebanese, and Lebanese priests have a specific uniform. First, their clothing is black on black, and second, their cap is like a tarboosh, if you know the red tarboosh, but it is twice the length of the tarboosh and black.

The questioner : Like the pyramid, meaning?

The Shaykh : No, the pyramid remains with a high head. This is like a bucket, like this. The point is, I said to him: Do I understand from your words that clothing has no relation to religion, that it is permissible for you, for example, to remove this cap and put on the red tarboosh with the white turban on it? So that anyone looking at you would think you are a Shaykh from among the Muslim Shaykhs? He said: No, no, no. I said: Why? Is this not clothing? Does it have no relation to religion? He said: No, we are the scholars of the Christians, meaning, we are the men of religion, and we have a specific uniform among the Christians in general; we have a specific uniform. Then Allah the Exalted inspired me, and I said to him a word that caused him to completely collapse, and it became clear that there is no room for anyone to argue against Islam. I said to him: This is the difference between us, the Muslims, and you, the Christians. We have no distinction between a scholar, a student, and a non-student, as long as Islam unites us. What is not permissible for the greatest scholar is not permissible for the least Muslim; that is our position. But with you, you have men of religion and men without religion, as I said to him. The proof is that you say this is a specific uniform for you, the priests, while the other Christians wear whatever they wish. That is not permissible with us. What is forbidden for the greatest and most pious person is forbidden for the smallest, and what is not permissible for the scholar to wear is not permissible for the uneducated person to wear. And so he collapsed. In truth, this is one of the virtues of the Islamic Shari'ah, and perhaps this is sufficient, and praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.