Advice for the agitated youth - بازمول

Questioner:
May Allah reward you with good, O’ noble Shaykh, actually the questioner is a woman from the Netherlands; she says: Recently, the call has been made amongst the youth to go fight jihad in Syria. So from amongst those who have gone are young women that are fifteen, sixteen and seventeen years old. They leave discretely without their parents’ knowledge. Then if those young girls are asked why are they going to Syria; they say it is to perform hijrah which is an obligation [upon them] and they claim that they have captured the region of Halab and are establishing the legislation of Allah there. So what is your advice to them regarding their claims.

Shaykh Muhammad Bazmool: My advice to them regarding what they claim [those  young people who leave the West to go and fight in Syria claimg they are gping their fulfilling the obligation of hijrah] is that they should fear Allah the Glorified and Exalted and return to the people of knowledge in this matter because the people of knowledge have clarified that there is no jihad legislated by Islam in Syria.

Surely, the Messenger of Allah has clarified that the jihad that has been legislated in Islam must fulfil several conditions:

The first condition: is that it is performed along with the Imam. The Prophet said in a hadith extracted by Muslim in his Saheeh: “The Imam is a shield behind whom people fight.”

So those people who go off to Syria to fight do not do so with the permission of the Imam and thus disrupt the unity of the larger Muslim community. In fact this departure of theirs causes many problems that bring problems to Islam and the Muslims...

The second condition: from the conditions of jihad which is legislated in Islam is that it occurs underneath a clear banner of making la ilaha illa Allah [none has the right to be worshipped (in truth) except Allah] ]uppermost. This is because he says in the authentic hadeeth: “And whoever fights for a cause that is unclear; if he dies in this state, then his death is the death of the pre-Islamic period of ignorance.” And it is well-known that “the jihad” in Syria does not have a clear banner which involves making la ilaha illa Allah uppermost.

There are Christians there who fight, secularists who fight, nationalists who fight, people who claim Islam from the takfiris who fight just as there are also people with deviant and misguided ideas who fight.

So all of those people; fighting under their banner is not considered fighting to make la ilaha illa Allah uppermost; even if one of them says we are fighting to make la ilaha illa Allah uppermost.

So the response to this is making la ilaha illa Allah uppermost as it is described in the Islamic legislation must occur behind the Imam who is legislated in Islamic law.

Also you people do not have an Imam for whom it has been legislated that people may fight behind him.

If it is said: "We have a leader whom we [have] appointed over the community so he is our Imam that has been legislated."

Then to them it is said: "You people are mistaken since it cannot be said concerning this leader you have appointed for yourselves that he is the legislated Imam under whom the greater community of Muslims rally around just because you have appointed him over yourselves."

Also from the jihad which is legislated and its description is that, proper preparations are made for jihad since Allah the Glorified and Exalted says:
“And prepare whatever strength you are able to from steeds of war with which you might terrify the enemy of Allah and your enemy.” [Surah al-Anfal 8:60]

So where is the preparation legislated by Islam?

What preparation did these people make to fight in those places?

They don’t know how to handle weapons properly, they don’t know military strategy, they do not know whatever is related to the affairs of jihad and invasions on land. All of this, they do not know.

So where is the preparation that they will take with them to those places?

There is no doubt that their opposition to these descriptions, have produced an action that was not legislated in Islamic law. The Messenger said: “Whoever performs an action which is not in accordance with our affair will have it rejected.”

So this action of theirs is rejected. It is of no benefit to them to say that our intention is to fight for the sake of Allah and to make la ilaha illa Allah uppermost, because the righteous intention if it is not coupled with an action which is consistent with Islamic legislation will not benefit whoever does it.

Therefore their action will not be accepted until it is performed sincerely for Allah and is likewise consistent with the legislation of Allah which was brought by the Messenger of Allah. For that reason the Messenger said: “Whoever performs an action which is not in accordance with our affair will have it rejected.”

The fourth matter: The Messenger use to reject the participation of young people in the fighting alongside the men when they hadn’t yet reached puberty as he did with Abdullah ibn Umar. He wanted to participate in the battle of Uhud.

Also he turned away others from the young people of the companions when they desired to fight; and they were males.

So what about these young girls from the women [who now wish to leave the west and fight in Syria under the guise of obligatory hijrah to Syria]?

There can be no doubt that the ruling as it relates to them is emphasised even more [than this ruling towards pre-pubescent young males] because it is not appropriate for them to go out to fight to begin with [as women should not generally fight in jihad].

Rather, there is no jihad upon the women rather their jihad is Hajj.

Then as for what is mentioned [about going to Syria to fight as that is related to ]...making hijrah and hijrah is obligatory.

We say: Making hijrah from the land of disbelief to the land of belief takes a ruling that is somewhere between obligatory and encouraged.

So it is obligatory upon the one able to do so and fears for his religion if he remains in the lands of disbelief upon his religion, since he is unable to make his religion apparent.

It is encouraged if a person is able to make his religion apparent and does not fear exposing himself to fitnah by remaining in the lands of disbelief.

So in this situation we say for you it is encouraged for you to migrate from the lands of disbelief to the lands of Islam.

In the first situation we say that it is obligatory upon you. Plus the scholars say that hijrah is to move from the land of disbelief to the land of Islam.

So does the current situation in Syria make it a land of Islam?

What is clear and unmistakable is that the government there [in Syria] espouses the Nusayri ideology or the Jafari ideology and thus subsequently promote schools of thought that the people of knowledge have declared are ideologies of disbelief which are at war with Islam and the Muslims. Perhaps you have heard about the many atrocities that have affected Islam and the Muslims in that land.

So how is it that by going there to fight is from the establishment of hijrah from the land of disbelief to the land of Islam?

There can be no doubt that this is a strange concept that is truly baffling and there is no power or might except with Allah.

Therefore what is obligatory upon those young girls and boys and other than them is that they don’t involve themselves in these matters.

They [must] pay attention [to the scholars words] and not allow themselves to waste their [young] years in vain, such that they do not waste their lives in vain and thus fall into sinfulness and opposition to the legislation, while they desire to do acts of obedience and to implement the legislation of Islam. For indeed, without a doubt, this is from the deception of Satan and the trickery of the people of misguidance.

We ask Allah to protect us and all of you from every evil and Allah knows best."

Ref: Dusunnah.com