I have been ordered to fight Hadith

𝐈 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐇𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐡

Mohamad Mostafa Nassar
Twitter:@NassarMohamadMR

The anti-Islam Allegation:

Islam wants to kill non-Muslims, enslave them, and force those who remain alive to be Muslim by force.

Response:

The Glorious Quran is Crystal clear about that:

Non-Muslim countries across history have been invading other countries and taking over, in doing so they tend to impose their own whole system of governance, culture, and laws as much as they can.

Countries of today are no exception you take the United States of America, which is called the “leader of the free world” as an example. The United States has been invading many countries over the past decades under fraudulent excuses, those excuses have been proven to be false and fraudulent by their own admission.

The United States has been falsely claiming that they are invading other countries to spread democracy, freedom, equality, Justice, and respect for the rule of law.

The statistics and reality do not lie, we have seen US forces along with forces from the free world countries invading other weak countries under those slogans to rob those countries off their wealth, spread sectarianism, promote values of homosexuality and many other values that go against the traditional religious values and indeed conflict with Islam fundamentally.

Islam does not want to force people to be Muslims for more information about this topic read here.

Does Islam Force Itself On Others?

Let us check the details of the Hadith

Bukhari: God’s Apostle said, I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, None has the right to be worshipped but God. (Volume 4, Book 52, Number 196)

With regards to the narration, only part of it has been quoted, and the full text reads:

And the Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “I have been ordered to fight the people until they testify that there is no deity worthy of worship other than Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, establish the prayer, and pay zakat, and if they do this, then their blood and money shall be protected from me, except by an Islamic right, and their account will be with Allah.

This narration lists some of the pillars of Islam that Muslims must adhere to. The fighting being ordained here refers to the enforcement of laws and regulations within an Islamic state. Just as modern governments enforce their legal policies, so to does the Islamic state. These legal policies refer to Muslims paying their Zakat (charity tax) and abiding by the laws in an Islamic state.

Those who understood the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) the best, were his companions, and we can examine their application of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) to derive a better understanding.

We find that after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), many hypocrites who had pretended to be Muslim began to turn away and leave their religious duties, one example was Zakat (the charity tax).

They wanted to compromise the commands of God. It was then that Abu Bakr, the First Caliph and the Caliph of that time, cited this narration to make it clear that a compromise would not be tolerated and he would fight them until they agreed to follow Islam in full. The fighting that resulted was known as the Riddah wars.

Similarly, we can see that today’s governments would not tolerate it if a citizen refused to pay tax or abide by the laws of the country. If one lives in a state or country they must abide by the regulations to ensure a secure and healthy society. We should note that the ‘people’ referred to in this narration does not refer to all of humanity.

As Shaykh Ahmed Ibn Taymiyyah says:

“It refers to fighting those who are waging war, whom Allah has permitted us to fight. It does not refer to those who have a covenant with us with whom Allah commands us to fulfill our covenant.” (Majmu` al-Fatawa 19/20)

Clearly, this narration does not refer to imposing Islam upon non-Muslims, since the Qur’an explicitly states:

“There is no compulsion in religion” Quran (2:256)

Another Explanation of the Hadith

Understanding the Hadith, “I Was Ordered to Fight the People Until They Testify…”

Firstly:

The hadith is mistranslated. It does not say, “I was ordered to kill…”, rather it says, “I was ordered to fight.” There is a huge difference between the two words. Killing (qatl) is one-directional, whereas fighting (qital) implies mutuality, i.e., that there are two sides fighting each other. [Dr. Bouti, Jihad fil Islam]

Moreover, this hadith does not apply to all non-believers: the word “people” (nas) used in the hadith is restricted by other texts of the Qur’an and sunna, and is therefore understood to refer only to Arab polytheists. For more information on this hadith and related matters, please see this answer:

Jihad, Abrogation in the Quran, and the Verse of the Sword

Question 2:

This hadith has been used by certain Muslims in my country to threaten peaceful Muslims into paying their zakaat money to an organization of the former’s choosing. It has made headlines in the past on the national media, and given Muslims a bad name. They use this hadith to justify their brutality. Is this correct? Can they do such outrageous actions and have certified backing from the Sunnah?

Answer:

This is by no means correct; such actions have no backing from the Noble Sunna. Only the government would have such authority, not individual Muslims. May Allah guide such people and protect them from extremism.

Lastly, I would strongly advise you to not read books like Fiqh al-Sunnah, but rather learn from scholars and texts that convey traditional Sunni orthodoxy.

And Allah knows best.

wassalam

Faraz

Checked & Approved by Faraz Rabbani