An interesting discussion with a young ISIS recruit…

By: Assim Luqman Al Hakeem

He is seventeen years old and eager to go and fight in Syria. When I tried to talk him out of it, he started calling me derogatory names! I said to him: we can call each other names from here till kingdom come. However, let’s discuss this in more civilized manner and put our guns, grenades and weapons on the table for moment. If you like what you hear, you follow the truth wherever it is. If you don’t like it, do what you want! The young man surprisingly agreed. I said to him: you claim that you follow the Quran and Sunnah, am I correct? He said yes. Why do you want to go to Syria? He said because this is where the Caliphate, Islamic state, dignity and honor of Muslims is. I said: is Caliphate a legitimate cause for killing Muslims and destroying property? He thought for a while and then answered yes, it is. These people opposing it are most likely apostates and hypocrites and deserve to die. Besides, the Muslims who die among them are collateral damage for a greater cause. I said to him: let us not jump to conclusions and take it step by step. Caliphate is something that is praised in Islam but it was never an objective to live or die for. It is not part of the essentials in Islam. This is why the Prophet salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam didn’t mention it to be one of the seventy plus branches of Iman. Ibn Taimiyah said: “The Sunnah is to have one Caliph and the rest are his deputies. However, if the Ummah disobeyed and had more than one ruler, each ruler must establish the prescribed punishments, fulfil his duties and give rights to his subjects.” If you look the time of the great scholars of Islam, you will find that they had a separate state in Al Andalus and they had an army and a ruler from the Umayyad Caliphate while the majority had the Abbasid Caliphate! Abu Hanifah, Malik, Ash-Shafi’ee, and Imam Ahmed and many other Imams never said that this is kufr or called for war to regain Caliphate. Great scholars of Islam said that having many separate states is permissible with different rulers such as Al Qurtobi, Ibn Taimiyah, Al Shawkani, Al Shingeeti and many more. My young European friend looked confused. I said to him: besides, the consequences of fighting and killing Muslims are far greater than claiming to unite the Muslims under one Caliph. Look at the amount of killing this so claimed Caliph is infecting in the Muslims while invading their towns and villages and killing anyone who stands in his way. No one had ever dared to do this for Caliphate except the Shi’ah who call for their Imamate.