Strangers In The Dunyā

Muslims who take the liberal international order’s stance towards the non-proliferation of WMDs seriously and support it, believing that it’s necessary to prevent the destruction of the world, are seriously duped. Proliferation is of two types: vertical and horizontal. Vertical proliferation is the increase in the quantity or destructiveness of WMDs by a WMD-owning state, and horizontal proliferation is the acquisition of WMDs by a non-WMD-owning state. According to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, WMD-owning states are required to gradually dismantle their WMDs. In practice, however, WMD-owning states have not made any significant progress towards disarmament, despite the number of WMDs present in the world decreasing over the past few decades. Furthermore, non-proliferation has become a new tool for Western imperialism. The primary factor that leads to a state being labelled a “rogue state” by the US is its violation of non-proliferation. Such a state is considered a threat to the international community and can be invaded in a “preemptive” war to force disarmament if diplomatic and economic measures fail. This is regardless of whether that state is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty or not. North Korea hasn’t been a signatory of the treaty since 1423 AH, and the labelling and treatment of a “rogue state” still apply to them, in violation of the concept of national sovereignty the liberal international order claims to uphold and respect. The double standard the US gives proliferating states is also worthy of note. The “rogue state” label and treatment have been applied to countries like North Korea, `Irāq, and Īrān for acquiring or pursuing the acquisition of WMDs, but have not been applied to the Zionist entity, India, and Pakistan despite them openly manufacturing nuclear weapons. This double standard can be explained by the different nature of the regimes ruling over these countries. North Korea, Īrān, and `Irāq pursue/have pursued a revolutionary foreign policy that seeks/sought to undermine US global hegemony, while the Zionist entity, India, and Pakistan are more or less loyal to it. The concept of “rogue states” was made official by the US government in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union in order to continue justifying its excessive military spending and imperialist foreign policy in the absence of a threatening “evil empire” (as Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union) while at the same time maintaining an image of a defender of international peace and security. Pressuring or coercing “rogue states” to adhere to non-proliferation norms is a means of protecting US hegemony and eliminating threats to it. Many states that historically agreed to give up proliferation have been rewarded by their reintroduction to the international community, allowing them to attain various political and economic benefits. It’s similar to a master rewarding his rebellious dog for going back in line with a bone. At the same time, pressuring or coercing proliferating states to adhere to non-proliferation has also been used as a means of disarming them before attacking them. The US still distrusts “rehabilitated” governments and would take an opportunity to oust them from power. An example of this was Qaddhāfī agreeing to give up his quest to acquire WMDs in 1424 AH to be reintegrated into the international community, but was ultimately betrayed by the West during the Arab Spring. `Irāq agreed to disarmament as part of the ceasefire agreement that ended the First Gulf War, although it became clear in 1423 AH that this agreement was merely made to ensure a safe environment for a full-scale invasion of `Irāq and overthrow of Ṣaddām Ḥusayn’s regime.

Ruling upon the One Who Assists the Rāfiḍah Against the Muslims - Shaykh Khālid al-Fulayj فرج الله عنه

I was recently asked about second-hand purchasing of a product from a boycotted company, since the money you use to buy the product doesn’t go to the Zionist company but rather the previous owner of the product. It’s best to avoid even this because by owning and using a product, you can generate demand for the product among observers who learn about the product from you, which increases profits for the company that manufactures the product. Furthermore, if it’s something like a phone or a car, you’d probably have to visit service centres owned by the company that manufactures it, which also increases their profits.

‎Those who blindly support Dawlah tend to have an idealistic view of AQ under Sh. Usāmah bin Lādin رحمه الله. They assume that AQ once had the same “all or nothing” approach Dawlah adopted, but this is far from the case. ‎AQ relied on support from legitimate actors in the liberal international order to operate, and it probably wouldn’t have survived if it had made takfīr on everyone who participated in the liberal international order and manifested full hostility towards them. ‎A good example of this was Shaykh Ibn Lādin relying on Sūdān, whose Ikhwānī government granted him and his mujāhidīn a base of operations in the country and state support. In return, Shaykh Ibn Lādin built infrastructure to help the Sudanese military fight Western-backed rebels. ‎When Sūdān gave in to international pressure and finally expelled AQ, the group went to Afghānistān, where Mullā `Umar رحمه الله and his Ṭālibān acted as its new patrons, giving it a base of operations and official state support like Sūdān previously did. ‎Although the IEA was not a recognised state, it relied on building diplomatic and economic relationships with recognised states and attempted to become a recognised state. ‎AQ also cooperated with Ḥizbullāt, a legitimate political party in Lebanon that’s supported by Īrān, which is a recognised nation-state in the liberal international order. Of course, AQ didn’t approve of Ḥizbullāt’s heretical `aqīdah and ideology, and the cooperation was merely a limited, short-lived collaboration against the Zionist entity. ‎When AQ fighters escaped from Afghānistān following the US invasion of the country, they relied on support from Jamā`at al-Islāmī, an Ikhwānī movement that has registered, legal political parties throughout South Asia. ‎It’s not possible to disassociate from the liberal international order completely without severe consequences that can be argued to fall under ikrāh. I think we can agree that it’s not possible to do this as an individual without most likely being left to die, and it’s not possible as an armed group or a ruling entity either. ‎Sh. Abū Muṣ`ab as-Sūrī رحمه الله recognised this, which was why he wrote in his report about the Ṭālibān that they’d be excused for joining the UN out of necessity. At the same time, he said that Muslims need to help the IEA exit this state of necessity. I think this is the correct and most balanced approach. ‎There are many unrecognised states in the world, but none of them are completely isolated and many of them heavily depend on recognised states to act as their patrons. This is because some level of cooperation with recognised states in the liberal international order is necessary for survival. ‎I think there has to be a balance between the Ikhwānī and the “all or nothing” approach. Perhaps this balance can be found in sticking to a level of cooperation with legal international actors that’s absolutely necessary to achieve the aims of sharī`ah, without compromising our tawḥīd. ‎This is why mass takfīr of every legal actor in the liberal international order is wrong and counterproductive. It’s wrong because the consequences of fully rejecting the order make participating in it at least seem like compulsion, and it’s counterproductive because it severely limits our ability to form necessary relationships with them. ‎We should also be careful to not become permanently dependent on the liberal international order. Any cooperation with it, if justified, is only a means to an end. As more lands, markets, and resources come under Muslim control, we become less and less in need of these relationships.

‎Not being in the position of the IEA allows us to criticise it very easily, but we can try to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing in terms of appeasing the enemies of Allāh ﷻ like Russia, China, and Īrān. ‎Most of what they’re doing is in order to gain international recognition for Afghānistān’s statehood. I’m the first to oppose seeking international recognition without a valid excuse, but it’s important to look into the consequences of remaining as an unrecognised state. ‎An unrecognised state: ‎- lacks political representation in the international arena ‎- lacks international protection from threats to its sovereignty ‎- has limited diplomatic and economic relations with other states ‎- cannot issue travel documents or passports to its citizens ‎- cannot join international financial institutions or trade blocs ‎- does not have a postal service ‎- cannot make international money transfers. ‎This places extreme hardship on a state’s citizens and can lead to the collapse of the state. Afghānistān and many other unrecognised states aren’t completely isolated, but the IEA wouldn’t be able to maintain this “privilege” if it were to cut all diplomatic ties with enemy states and declare all lands under kāfir control diyāru’l-ḥarb that must be annually invaded. ‎Even on an individual level, we accept and submit to the nation-state and the ribā-based global financial system every day. We hold citizenships and passports, have bank accounts, even use fiat money, etc. We’d be left to die if we completely rejected the liberal international order. ‎Is this an excuse? I think that if a scholar uses ijtihād and comes to the conclusion that participating in the liberal international order is permissible out of a perceived compulsion, it would at least be a valid excuse preventing takfīr. And this isn’t even taking into account the fact that the leadership of the IEA likely doesn’t understand the implications of accepting and participating in this international order. ‎People don’t even just criticise them for participating in the international order though, they straight up make takfīr of them for friendly diplomacy with enemy states like shaking the hands of Chinese diplomats or putting out a red carpet for them. ‎What’s worse is when people think it’s really easy to reject the liberal international order as a whole and wage jihād on every neighbour, while at the same time accepting, submitting to, and participating in the liberal international order daily in their individual lives. ‎I don’t want to justify their actions, I just want people to understand their situation and actions and at least try to help them overcome their dependence on the kuffār.

When it comes to the discourse on “human rights”, the best way to deal with doubts surrounding the issue is to explain how they are pushed on Muslim countries as a way of reinforcing our dependence on the kuffār. Someone I spoke to recently expressed doubts about the ḥadd for theft, and my answer was that the alternative (mass incarceration) is a lot more expensive. The same goes for the legalisation of homosexuality and sodomy. It’s very costly because it requires funding to establish programs to socially indoctrinate people to become accepting of such sexual deviance. These “rights” require a significant increase in government spending, and the way governments find the money to implement them is by increasing taxes and printing more money, reducing people’s savings, creating inflation, and going further into debt. All these negatively impact people’s ability to accumulate capital, keeping us dependent on foreign capital and loans and enriching the kuffār at our expense.

The argument that Islāmic mujāhid groups are agents of the kuffār because they benefit them by causing instability in and weakening Muslim countries falls apart when we look at the existing economic relationship between the West and Muslim-majority countries. Historical colonialism was based on the West exploiting the raw materials of its colonies, using those raw materials to manufacture industrial goods, and then selling those goods to colonial markets to increase profits and accumulate more capital. The neocolonial era is slightly different, because the West has transitioned to service-based economies and outsourced most of the production of goods to what it calls the “Third World”. Using institutions like the IMF and World Bank, the West forces Muslim-majority countries to specialise in the production of natural resources and raw materials that can be used in industrial production as well as export-based industrial production that manufactures products it can buy on the cheap. At the same time, it pressures these countries to discourage the production of consumable goods and heavily subsidises the production of food in the West so that it can be exported to Muslim-majority countries and sold in their markets for prices below market value, outcompeting local food products. This has created a situation where Muslim-majority countries are dependent on exporting manufactured goods and/or natural resources and raw materials to the West as well as importing food products from the West. The West can punish Muslim-majority countries for rebelliousness against the liberal international order by sanctioning them or manipulating the value of their currencies to make (imported) food more expensive. But we cannot afford to punish it because that would entail lowering our productivity, losing profits, creating unemployment, and going on a food shortage. The West can afford to starve us because the enterprises that produce the food we import are heavily subsidised, which means that there’s little need for them to compete for profits. They already produce an excess supply of food, which is how it’s being sold in Muslim markets for prices below market value. Islāmic mujāhid groups disrupt the supply of natural resources, raw materials, and manufactured goods in Muslim countries that the West needs. Moreover, they’d cut the export of these resources and commodities to the West if they took over Muslim countries because it violates the Islāmic principle of reciprocity in trade. One might say that the West’s military-industrial complexes benefit from the greater demand for Western-manufactured weapons and military equipment caused by the revolutionary activities of Islāmic mujāhid groups. This is true in a sense, but we have to consider the fact that the West’s arms industry depends on cheap resources and components it imports from Muslim-majority countries that specialise in producing them to manufacture weapons. While there’d be an increased demand for these weapons, the cost of producing them would also go up because of supply disruptions caused by the mujāhidīn. The increased prices of the aforementioned weapons would drive the demand down. In addition to cutting the supply of much-needed resources and commodities to the West, the reunification of Muslim lands by the hands of the mujāhidīn would make us a lot more economically independent. More unity means a larger market, and a larger market is essential to economic independence. A larger market means more resources at our disposal and a greater division of labour. This allows us to accumulate more and better capital and produce what we need in an autarkic economy. A larger market means that suppliers have a greater number of people they can sell their products to, leading to more revenue that they can use to accumulate capital and increase their productivity. There’d also be more market participants who’d come up with new technologies.

‎In a larger market, we’d also have access to a wider variety of goods and services created by more resources and a greater division of labour to accumulate new types of capital and specialise in the production of new products, further widening the division of labour. This access also allows us to further develop existing capital and products to make them more sophisticated. ‎What this also means is that we can develop an arms industry and manufacture more sophisticated and new types of weapons, military equipment, and capital to produce weapons and equipment. This is perhaps what the kuffār fear the most. ‎The mujāhidīn do create instability in and weaken Muslim-majority nation-states, but this is a temporary, necessary, and beneficial stage towards a brighter future. Any stability and “strength” these secular nation-states have doesn’t benefit us but rather the enemies of Allāh ﷻ.

‎When we think of Islāmic unity and brotherhood from an economic perspective, it’s easy to see how important and beneficial they are. ‎A human being produces some goods better than he produces others, and this can be because his natural environment is more suited to the production of that thing he’s good at, or because the capital he has allows him to produce a greater output of one thing than other things, or because he’s more skilled at one type of work than other types of work. ‎We only have a limited amount of time in a day to produce things. We would produce a greater output of goods and services if we specialised in producing what we’re good at producing instead of engaging in multiple processes of production, some of which we’re good at and some of which we’re not good at. ‎This is why it’s important to live in a society. If we only produced what we’re good at while being isolated from others, we’d not be able to fulfil our needs and wants. But by living in a society with others, we can specialise in the production of one thing that other people desire and then sell those things to others in exchange for the things we need/or want, or in exchange for a monetary good that can be used to purchase what we need/want. ‎If I’m a farmer who works in isolation, I’d have to reduce the amount of goods I produce to find the time to accumulate capital to increase my future productivity. I would also have to consume the produce I’ve saved up. By living in a society, someone else can produce the necessary capital for me and other farmers, and all I have to do is purchase it from him instead of significantly reducing my output and savings. ‎If I’m a farmer who works in isolation, I might come up with one technology every year that would increase my productivity. If I live in a society with other farmers, however, there will be other farmers who might also come up with new technologies that increase the productivity of all of us every year. I can also build on the technological ideas of other farmers and further increase my productivity and the productivity of other farmers. ‎Moreover, the technologies, capital, goods, and services that people who work in many different sectors of the economy produce and use can be combined to produce new forms of technology, capital, goods, and services that allow us to produce more and specialise in the production of more things. ‎The larger a society is, the more productive it is and the more goods and services it can specialise in producing. Additionally, the larger it is, the more technological innovations it will come up with. ‎This creates more wealth for all of us and allows all of us to be better able to afford more leisure time. From an Islāmic perspective, this helps us build a greater relationship with other Muslims and with Allāh ﷻ. ‎Because we know that our wealth, better living standards, and more leisure time come from the fact we live and cooperate, we appreciate and thus build positive relationships with each other. ‎Because we depend on each other to fulfil our needs and wants through trade, we must treat each other positively and establish good relationships with each other. We need and want others to trade with us, and the best way to achieve this is by treating others in a way that makes them want to trade with us. ‎The more leisure time we can afford because of specialisation and cooperation allows us to build even stronger relationships and ties of brotherhood with each other and especially with our families. It also allows us to become closer to Allāh ﷻ through acts of worship. ‎Lastly, unity and brotherhood allow us to better wage jihād on the enemies of Allāh — not only because of the greater number of fighters but also because of the presence of more people who specialise in fighting and manufacturing weapons all working together. ‎Through this way of thinking, we can understand why individualism and nationalism are so dangerous and why the kuffār enforce them on us.

Entrepreneurs from one Muslim country cannot use his wealth to accumulate capital in another Muslim country without heavy restrictions. Industrialisation also heavily increases output, and Muslim lands being divided into many different nation-states means that industrial enterprises cannot access the markets of other Muslim countries without heavy restrictions. Finally, industrialisation requires technological innovation, and a country with a smaller population is going to provide less technological innovations than a country with a larger population. A country with a larger population is likely going to have more talented and intelligent people who come up with technological ideas than a country with a smaller population. While the possibility of authentic and autarkic Islāmic industrialisation may exist when enough Muslim lands are reunited (perhaps with some additional newly conquered lands), there are other concerns that would make its character very different from that of Western capitalist industrialisation. Western industrialisation was built and continues to be built on ribā, while Islāmic industrialisation would have to be built on equity investments. Western industrialisation also required a heavy centralisation of power that would necessitate waging war on many Islāmic principles if imitated in the lands of the Muslims. There are also other issues like the historical role of Western capitalist industrialisation in enabling and promoting “women’s emancipation”, destroying the family unit and community bonds, etc. Islāmic industrialisation would have to ensure that the changes it brings don’t contravene the sharī`ah and have more benefits than harms from the perspective of maqāsid ash-sharī`ah. It would be nowhere near as “massive” as Western capitalist industrialisation, but I don’t think we need it to be. Western capitalist industrialisation is built on maximising profits even to the extent of violating ethics and religion. As a result, it has established a situation where its continued growth and maintenance requires coercively making foreign countries’ populations dependent on Western imports and adopt a consumerist culture. Islāmic industrialisation wouldn’t need this and it cannot have this due to the many violations of the sharī`ah that it necessitates. Rather, its primary goals would be to sufficiently feed the Muslims and manufacture enough weapons and military equipment to liberate and defend the lands of the Muslims from the kuffār and murtaddīn and reunify them under khilāfah.