This week’s editorial in the Islamic State’s al-Naba’ newsletter leaps off media attention given to ongoing reports of Palestinian civilians being killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and the reactions of outrage. However, this outrage is portrayed as something useless if it does not lead to taking up the proper solution: namely, correct creed (Tawhid -- Islamic monotheism) and action (jihad).
As the editorial puts it, the only way to fight against the massacre of Muslims is to massacre disbelievers: or to borrow a common idiom, fight fire with fire. The deviation from the proper solution among Muslims is portrayed as a kind of ‘massacre.’ Those who defend the existing systems and fight against the Islamic State, thereby impeding it from continuing its path of jihad, are portrayed as participants in the Gaza massacre.
Those who defend the existing systems and fight against the Islamic State, thereby impeding it from continuing its path of jihad, are portrayed as participants in the Gaza massacre.
Beyond this simple and predictable message however, the editorial reveals some of the interesting ways in which the Islamic State conceives of history and the course of events. For the Islamic State, it is necessary to believe that everything that happens -- whether good or bad for the Muslim -- is ultimately the result of God’s decrees, and one must accept these decrees of fate. However, this belief that everything that happens is ultimately the result of God’s will does not mean an entirely fatalistic outlook on life, because one could then say that jihad is useless if everything is predetermined by God, and that it does not matter if the believers take up jihad, because their survival and success simply depends on God’s will.
Instead of such absolute fatalism, the Islamic State rather suggests that the believers have choices to make and those choices influence God’s will: if they reject the solution of adopting correct creed and waging jihad, then they will ultimately face humiliation, but if they adopt the solution, they will eventually attain success, whatever tribulations might come in the way. To borrow an image, the Muslims are portrayed as facing a fork in the road -- what path they take is implied to determine God’s will. By following the right path, they ultimately attain success. By taking the other path, they ultimately face degradation at the hands of their enemies.
Notable also is the address to non-violent “Islamists,” urging them to study Islamic history in order to realise that the way of proper creed and jihad as adopted by the Islamic State is the precise way adopted by the Prophet Muhammad, his companions and their successors, who thus obtained great conquests and victories over the disbelievers.
Below is the editorial translated in full.
In the Time of the Massacre
Souls burn and feelings are inflamed with every Jewish massacre in Palestine, without these feelings being translated into deeds or positions on the ground. Instead they remain confined in chests or lines, while the massacres and pains follow one after another, and with them follow the cries and tears, and then those feelings gradually die away, and thus is an empty cycle of being at a loss, helplessness and sitting back in the time of bed-chambers and couches. This is the characterisation of the reality far removed from exaggeration and underestimation. But the question that must be put forth: what is the solution to repel these massacres? What are the lessons to be drawn from them?
In the time of the massacre, the Muslim must realise that this world proceeds in accordance with divine laws and rules that are not partial to anyone.
In the time of the massacre, all the claims about “peace” and its daughter “pacifism” have been proven false! For the first was a means of the secularists, and the second was an innovation of the “Islamists.” Just as the choice of “peace” has failed, so also “pacifism” in all its forms has failed to repel any danger from the Ummah or prevent the shedding of any Muslim blood, contrary to the delusion that held away over the masters and followers of pacificism in characterising it as wisdom, prudence and a means of salvation. Wherever pacifism arises, slaughter arises! Indeed, it has been more of a failure than the option of “peace”! Thus, it has become necessary for people to abandon “pacifism” and its options. For it is among the ideological massacres that have arisen and have not been known in previous ages.
Among the legacies of pacifism besides screaming and wailing: howling for international “diplomatic” solutions, and what use is “diplomacy” in the time of the massacre?! Isn’t “diplomacy” just the other face of the armies and military wars?! Surely planes bomb and tanks cause figure by direction and planning of “diplomatic” politicians who constitute the head of the spear in the wars?!
In the time of the massacre, the Muslim must realise that this world proceeds in accordance with divine laws and rules that are not partial to anyone, and that the path placed by God to bring about change and repel oppression from Muslims has no alternative in all dictionaries of politics and modern “patriotism” and “revolutions,” for the jihad that God Almighty has mandated to support and enable Muslims has nothing to stand in its place: not “pacifism”, “resistance” or “patriotism.” Rather, the authentic Shari’i jihad that was practised by the Prophet (SAWS) and his companions during the course of Islamic history is a jihad that only has the Shari’a as its regulator, guide and motivator. It is a jihad that does not require the “Security Council” or its covenants of disbelief. This is the missing jihad in Palestine and elsewhere- it is the only solution in the time of the massacre.
In the time of the massacre, the Muslim must be certain that nothing happens on God’s earth except by the Exalted’s knowledge and will. So tribulations and wounds that strike the Muslim are completely predetermined, as are bounties and joys he obtains. He must be certain that just as the believer is pleased with and thankful for the good that fate brings, he must also be content with the evil fate brings, and endure it and accept it. The wars and calamities have revealed that people have a deep problem in terms of faith in God’s judgement and decree, and that the believers in it- in terms of certainty and acceptance- are few in comparison with those who delve into objecting to the Exalted Creator in word and deed, in heart, tongue and pillars! This in itself is a massacre upon the existing massacre! The obligation on the Muslim is to accept the Exalted Lord’s decrees of fate through patience, acceptance and contentment. We are God’s creation. We move about on His Earth and kingdom, for the Earth is His earth and the kingdom is His kingdom, and creation is His creation. We are His servants, and this is the relation between humanity and the Creator: pure servitude. The one who is content has contentment, and the one who is dissatisfied, upon him is God’s anger.
We are His servants, and this is the relation between humanity and the Creator: pure servitude. The one who is content has contentment, and the one who is dissatisfied, upon him is God’s anger.
In the time of the massacre, man must realise how frequent death and its scenes are, and thus he must take the initiative to make good what has cause evil, and correct what has caused corruption, and renovate what has collapsed from the edifice of Tawhid in his heart and reality, for the Ummah’s plague today is in its creed. Whoever says otherwise has deceived the Ummah, caused trust to go to loss and concealed advice.
In the time of the massacre, man should beware the danger of following the evil preachers who mobilise people in a way that is far removed from the prophetic methodology. Sometimes they make them cry, sometimes they make them laugh, and on other occasions they intoxicate them, in accordance with the interests of the Taghut and the policies of countries. The Muslim must be aware of the one who takes his religion and how he determines his stance towards the Muslims’ causes, for if the call to support the oppressed and their causes is not based on creed and the bond of faith, then this support soon enough dies away and dissolves into nothingness with the passing of time. This is what has repeatedly happened with all the Muslims’ causes, and thus the support disappears and the massacre continues.
In the time of the massacre, the Muslim should look at the massacres in Palestine as being an extension of the disbelievers’ massacres against Muslims in every place, an extension of the massacres of near and distant history, an extension of the massacres of Iraq, al-Sham, Yemen and Khorasan, and before that the massacres of Chechnya, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and other massacres that the enemies of Islam have committed, whether Christians, idolators, communists or Majus. Differentiating between the blood and causes of Muslims on the basis of Jahili divisions and borders is itself part of the ideological massacre that has struck the Muslims’ creed and has been more dangerous to them than the massacre itself. How easy is the death of man compared with the death of his Tawhid!
The Jews or the Americans are not the only ones involved in the massacres of Palestine, but also there are other parties that have participated in these massacres intentionally or in subordination, even if they show themselves to be crying today for their victims. For the evil preachers who have dedicated their lives to defending the Tawaghit and their disbelieving armies that protect the Jews’ borders are participating in the massacre. The apostate movements and fronts that have waged war on the mujahidin and cut the path to them and delayed their march are part of this massacre. The hypocrite writers and media activists or the so-called “educated ones and elite” in the Jahili environment, and those who have got the better of the mujahidin and given them sharp tongue-lashings: these people are also participating in the massacre. These people and others are involved in the massacre in so far as they wage war on and slander the mujahidin who have undertaken the adversities of the wars against the forces of disbelief. These people have aligned with the coalition of disbelief against the mujahidin, and thus the massacre against the Muslims has continued.
And so, oh Muslims, strip bare your Tawhid and then your sword, for nothing better repels the massacre than the massacre. Nothing better repels killing than killing
Nothing repels the massacre from the Ummah of Islam besides the massacre. Read history, oh “Islamists,” so that you can know how the Muslims were! Read the lives of the companions and the conquerors. Read about the might of al-Saddiq in the Apostasy Wars, read about the expeditions of Khalid bin al-Walid and the damage he inflicted on the disbelievers. Read the history of Islam, where it can be seen that it is the practical application of what has come in the two revelations. Read and follow the Almighty’s words: “Oh Prophet, wage jihad against the disbelievers and hypocrite and be harsh in dealing with them. Their abode is Hellfire, and wretched it is as a fate.” And the Exalted’s words: “When you meet those who have disbelieved, strike off their necks, until you have wreaked havoc on them, so tie the bonds.” Read your history in its two revelations so you can know that the Muslims repelled massacre with massacre, and dented iron with iron, and spared the Muslims’ blood by spilling the disbelievers’ blood, for they spilled the blood of the Romans and the Persians, and before them the idolaters and apostates. They supported Islam through the jihad that is not shy of inflicting damage and showing might, harshness and severity against the disbelievers, such that the deserts became filled with the rot of their slain bodies, and the stench of death filled the air. Thus did our predecessors confront the massacre and repel it.
Contemplation of the inevitable descent of Jesus (peace be upon him) at the end of time, removing the jizya and compelling the People of the Book to choose between Islam and the sword, makes one realise that prevailing in the time of the epic battle is by the sword, and that it is to be preferred to other means to which Islam has allowed for. The sword will become the best caller to Islam on the bases of the Book and the Sunna. And so, oh Muslims, strip bare your Tawhid and then your sword, for nothing better repels the massacre than the massacre. Nothing better repels killing than killing: “And God is predominant over His affair, but most of the people don’t know.”
