Zil Hajj 25, 1432 A.H, Tuesday, November 22, 2011

In the Name of Allah. All praise be to Allah. And may peace and prayers be upon the Messenger of Allah, his family, his Companions and those who follow their guidance.

To proceed:

I’ve entitled this lecture of ours today with the title: “Lessons Learned”.

I gave it that name because I feel that it doesn’t just indicate what I intend to discuss here today, but I also feel that it also gives a bit of a military connotation - which goes well with the Jihadi-related topics that we are going to be discussing today.

Now of course, I don’t intend to simply talk about the tactical matters that normally come under such a heading, but I still think that it passes as a decent title for what we’ll be discussing here today.

So Insha Allah (Allah willing), before we get into everything, just as a disclaimer I’d like to caution everyone from the get-go that this lecture of ours is going to be a bit more casual, and maybe a bit less concise than most of the Jihadi audio’s out there. So I have to ask you all to just bear with me for a bit.

Anyway, getting straight into the topic: basically I’ve had some time to reflect over my five years or so in Somalia. And I thought that maybe my transition in thinking - from pre-Jihad and Hijrah days to post-Jihad and Hijrah - was something worth discussing for those who haven’t gone through a similar experience.

Some of the issues that we’ll be bringing up, some of them might be inspirational, some others might be a bit more blunt and real than we might like, and then there’s others that are intended as a wake-up call.

Now to get into the first topic, I’d like to touch on the issue of: “Becoming A Part Of The Ummah”.

What I mean by this here is the feeling that someone gets when he finally realizes that life isn’t just about his job or his Green Card. He finds out that the Ummah isn’t just his immediate family and the people he sees in the Masjid on Friday’s. Now, really becoming part of the Ummah doesn’t happen until you get out of the belly of the beast and you really start living in the crisis zones of the Muslims. You start walking in the poverty, living the oppression, and having that feeling of lost hope. This is what it’s really like to be part of the Ummah. It’s not about walking down orderly side-walks and buying Subway sandwiches on your way back from the gym. And it’s not about studying for your Master’s Degree or getting a promotion at work. But let’s get a little more deeper than that.

There’s this sickness that occurs amongst people when they get cut-off from the Ummah, that maybe we can call the ‘Starfish Effect’. It happens when Muslims, they find themselves cut-off from the Ummah. So they start to generate their own little mini-Ummah - deep in the heart of Dar ul-Kufr. The only problem with this little ‘dream world’ of theirs is that there isn’t really much of a precedent for Muslims doing this back in the days where Muslims used to be sane and they used to have a Khalifah (Islamic Caliphate) and they used to have pride in their Deen (Religion). Anyway, what happens to these guys is that they start to see the problems that are affecting the Muslim world through the perspective of their brand-new Ray-Ban or Oakley sunglasses. Now, when a Muslim from way over there finally gets fed up and attacks America, or what have you?! You get one of our Starfish buddies here jumping up and down and talking about how it’s going to be so terrible for the Muslims. When he says ‘Muslims’ what this guy really wants to say is that actually this is going to be very bad for his paycheck or his kids’ future or something along this train of thought. Or it’s possible he could also be afraid of going to jail, or maybe worse.

But the real question here, is what makes Starfish Mo more deserving of having a happy life than the rest of the Muslim Ummah? The ones who are living back at the core of the Muslim lands. Why don’t they have the right to be happy-go-lucky? I mean, when they finally get fed up, and start fighting America, shouldn’t that be the sign for Starfish Mo to start packing his bags to go find out what’s going on? Shouldn’t he have a bit more sympathy for those guys? Or even maybe a bit of hatred for the people who are harming his people? I think so, and I’m pretty sure that’s what our religion dictates as well. But unfortunately what we normally see from these people is that they go through extremely emotional spiels about the death of Joe or Sally, and then they start talking about how human they were - we might even hear about how even animals have rights in Islam. But really, on the other side of the picture here, we’ve become so desensitized to the oppression of Muslims – by allowing ourselves to become targets of the Western media - that when it comes down to the death of Muhammad or the raping of Fatima, these types of events hardly get the same rant and rage as what we get from Starfish Mo about poor Joe and Sally’s death. And also, to add spice to the matter, if we get someone to come along and say: “Well... who cares about Joe? He’s just a Kaffir!”, then we get a whole ‘nother lecture from Starfish Mo about how it’s fine and dandy to have sympathy for the Kuffar, and basically it comes down to the fact that Starfish Mo has really just lost the plot. He doesn’t realize that this is a war of civilizations, it’s not a war of individuals. It might very well be the case that Joe was just an ‘average Joe’, he could have... maybe he never meant any harm for Islam. But at the end of the day that doesn’t change the fact that he was still part of the civilization that is at war with Islam!! So what it comes down to is that we first... we have to choose a side. And then after that, we can go on to worry about doing justice to the individuals who find themselves caught up in a bad situation. Similar to how Allah (SWT) described – the following Ayat (verse) – Allah (SWT) said:

“They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (From what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks; Except those who join a group between whom and you there is a treaty (of peace), or those who approach you with hearts restraining them from fighting you as well as fighting their own people. If Allah had pleased, He could have given them power over you, and they would have fought you: Therefore if they withdraw from you but fight you not, and (instead) send you (Guarantees of) peace, then Allah Hath opened no way for you (to war against them)”. This is verses 89-90 of Surat An-Nisa.

So here we can see Allah has first ordered us to fight the Kuffar, the ones that don’t choose to accept Islam, and He didn’t make any distinction between them in this. Then, after that He reminds us that those who come to us and seek a truce - the ones, they don’t want to fight us nor do they want to fight their own people - these are the people that become safe from us. Now the problem here is that Starfish Mo hasn’t gotten on the right side yet. He hasn’t taken the first step and he’s already ready to go make a case for Joe - who never came out against the oppression of his people and never asked for a truce. Now, one of the biggest rationales provided for this over-blown sentiment for the Kuffar is usually related to, you know what they say, how this is going to harm what they call ‘the Dawah’. Of course when they say: ‘the Dawah’, they don’t really mean the Dawah which the Prophet (peace be upon him) used to do. They don’t mean a simple brief description of Islam followed with the message that says: “Accept Islam and you will be safe”. Or one that says: “If you don’t you will be responsible for the destruction of your people”.

Now this is not really... this is not what they mean by ‘dawah’. What they mean by ‘dawah’ is the fake, phony, benign face of Islam that they wish to portray in order to keep their positions as Imam of the Masjid or that they portray in order to keep themselves out of jail. And unfortunately we have some other guys - who supposedly even believe in Jihad - but they’re still preaching the same types of slogans. Some of them, you hear them say: “Don’t make Hijrah”. Some of them they say: “Don’t make us look bad here in Dar ul-Kufr”. “Don’t do anything to jeopardize us”. They tell you: “Vote for Fu’laan (so-and-so), get involved in the system”.

So these guys what they’re trying to do here is, they’re trying to take some sort of ‘middle path’ between those who are with America and those who are with the terrorists. And they’re doing this in a post-9-11 world. And the problem with this here is that despite the fact that they want to tread this middle course here, the Kuffar they don’t stop giving us examples daily that they don’t believe in this gray area, they don’t believe in this fine line here. So everyone is going to have to realize - sooner or later - that trying to practice your religion in Dar ul-Kufr is nothing more than a dream world. But on the brighter side, really to tell the truth, I do believe that some guys are starting to wake-up. Many of them, you know, I hear them asking themselves: “Isn’t this some type of hypocrisy, for us to be supporting Jihad and the Ummah, but yet - at the same time - we’re still going about our normal, everyday lives, and trying to engage in dawah, and you know giving the Kuffar a smiling face?” The thing that still holds them back, in this question of theirs, the reason they haven’t really understood the reality, is that they have this false idea of dawah, like we already mentioned. And it’s let them to think that dawah has to be done without having any Izza (Honour) whatsoever. So this is really why they can’t understand the real hypocrisy that lies beneath their actions that they’re feeling strange about. And the fact of the matter is that the real element of hypocrisy in this equation is not the issue of being two-faced, dealing one way with the Kuffar, and then feeling about them another. The real element of hypocrisy here is that you’re claiming to be supporting the Jihad and you’re claiming to be supporting the Ummah, but yet you still haven’t thrown your lot in with the rest of the Ummah. So basically, what I’m trying to say here is that waiting for the Khilafah to spring up and then flying-in in style is not really a means of support for the Muslims in the Muslim Ummah. And waiting for the Mujahideen to fail and then going back to your normal life because you never compromised anything is also not a real form of support.

Now, after having touched on becoming part of the Ummah and getting into the discussion about dawah and the false impression the people in the West they have about what dawah actually means, this brings me to the next lesson I want to discuss here which I’d like to call: “Knowledge Is For Action So Seek Relevant Knowledge”.

Now, when we get into this lesson, this topic here, two quotes come to mind that really affected me. And the first one I remember back in the days, I remember watching Khattab (may Allah have mercy on him) and one interview during his long stay in Shishaan (Chechnya), the Jihad in Shishaan, there was one interview where he was complaining that the Muslims are dying and they’re living in oppression, and the Kuffar have taken the Muslim lands, and yet we have scholars back in the lands of the so called lands of Shari’ah and so forth, they’re concerned solely with matters like the permissibility or the impermissibility of satellite dishes. Now of course we have to give every part of our religion its due rights and all matters of our religion are important. But the point here - the point that Khattab was trying to get across here - is that it’s necessary for us to prioritize. Especially in these times of crisis. So we have to put the liberation of the Muslim lands first. Jihad and Hijrah have to be the first order of the day. And then after that, all of the other Ahkam (Commandments), we give them their priority accordingly.

Now, the second quote, which is also related to the topic here of knowledge, seeking knowledge in accordance with our situation nowadays. The second quote which is – I always find it to be dead on - like most quotes from Abdullah Azzam (may Allah have mercy on him), it’s a quote that really indicates this man, he was living far ahead of his time. And most of his quotes, they’re always full of wisdom despite how long ago it was that he said them. The one I’m referring to here, he says: “There’s people out there that they believe that the foundation or principles of this religion are merely a game or a vain amusement. They believe that these principles they can be achieved simply by someone giving an eloquent speech, with beautified words, or by writing a book that’s printed and placed on bookshelves. But in fact he’s saying: ‘this was never the path of the People of Dawah’”.

The truth of the matter here... is that the reality of our situation in these times is that many of our so-called scholars - even the ones who are sympathetic to the idea of Jihad - are still pretty much stuck in the small world of lectures and books, like the Sheikh was referring to. Very few of them are ready to go to jail - or die - for what they supposedly believe in and preach. Then you have the other guys, who are even further off-track. They don’t even give the topic of Jihad and Hijrah the time of day. Instead they’re too busy discussing whether or not the Hanbali Madhab is better, or the Hanafi Madhab, you know they want to know whether or not the Sunnah can actually, theoretically, abrogate an Ayah from the Quran, despite not really having any examples of such. They want to know whether this particular Hadith should be considered ‘Aziz’ or is it from the category of ‘Mustafeedh’. They want to seek out obscure routes of well-known Hadiths’ to grade. Some of them, they debate the old topics of straightening the lines for prayer, or having your clothes beneath the ankle. You got others caught up in the Soap Opera of Rabee’ Al-Madkhali and the rest of his Murji stooges. So this might seem normal for people living in Dar ul-Kufr, but for someone living under the sound of constant artillery bombardment, or someone constantly hearing about the martyrdom of another one of his close friends, these discussions are closer to being morbid jokes then they are, you know, sincere knowledge-seeking.

I believe that, that’s sufficient as a discussion of this here lesson, let’s move on to the next lesson, a bit related to the topic at hand. It’s called - the lesson here is: “Ribaat Is A Great Opportunity To Improve One’s Self”.

Now there are many people out there who think that coming to Jihad or making Hijrah means an end to seeking knowledge - or maybe even an end to life as we know it. Many people out there many of them they talk about all the things that they have to get done before they can go to Jihad. They think that they’re never going to see another free second. But these people, they really, they just haven’t seen the ground reality. Everyone else, who’s come to Jihad or made Hijrah, they can tell you, the first thing you need to do is you need to get yourself a hobby. Because fighting the enemy – often times it’s a rare occasion actually - it comes maybe once a month or so. There are times of course when things do get really get hot, but that’s not the norm. Many people they fall into this trap when thinking about the Seerah (traditional biography) of the Prophet (peace be upon him), they get this picture of the Companions always on campaign, there’s always roaming around the desert just looking for a battle. But in reality Allah (SWT) says in Surat at-Tawbah, Ayah 126:

“See they not that they are tried every year once or twice? Yet they turn not in repentance, and they take no heed”.

Many of the Muffassirin (scholars of hadith) they said what’s being referred to here, is that they get tried once or twice a year, in the form of battles, in the form of going out for Jihad. A quick look at the dates of the main battles in the Seerah will correlate to show how realistic that number really is. Then, the rest of the smaller battles – they were actually Saraayahs (battalions) that the Prophet (peace be upon him) sent out, comprising of, you know they normally comprised of a relatively small number of Companions. Basically, the point here, for all those out there, who you know they feel that they can’t come to Jihad because they want to seek knowledge first or what have you, the point here is that there is life after battle. You know, for the people that don’t get martyrdom they live on, so they have a lot of free time that they need to fill with ‘Ibadah (acts of worship), they need to fill it with seeking knowledge and other such beneficial things. So for those of you out there who believe that the virtue of seeking knowledge is greater than the virtue of acting upon it, that it’s greater than the virtue of fulfilling the individual obligation of liberating the Muslim lands, we have out here, we have a limited time offer for you, it’s called, you know you have the opportunity to engage in both of these actions.

Now this brings us to the next topic, it’s related to the topic at hand, it’s a lesson I call: “Most People Don’t Really Know How To Help The Jihad”.

Now there’s lot of guys out there, they have their own plans about how they are going to help the Mujahideen. But the reality is the Shaytan (Satan) has actually just duped them - or many of them - into actually doing nothing. So, to continue the theme of seeking knowledge, there’s some people out there, they think that they’re going to study the religion for 10 years, and then they’re going to come to the lands of Jihad to be the long-awaited Mufti of the Mujahideen. Now the problem with this ‘Master-Plan’ is that most people, they don’t make it through the hurdles of the Dunya (the temporary world), they don’t make it through. Even they don’t, you know, get the ‘out of jail free’ card. Many of the people, the find themselves before they make it here, this lifestyle has led them to jail before it led them to actual Jihad. Now, for the ones who do make it, many of them, they find themselves out of place, trying to apply their theoretical knowledge to the ground realities. This is why I say it’s best to just come to Jihad, and then find out, what it is that the Mujahideen actually really do need. And if it’s going to be ten years of studying, it’s best that you do that in a real-life environment, amongst the Mujahideen. So that you don’t have to waste any time going back to get your feet wet. Another common master-plan is the guys out there, they say they’re going to become a doctor or a big business man, and then they’re going to help fund the Jihad. Now while this also - like the previous plan - normally takes a decade or so, it also has the same similar hurdles like the last idea. It’s really just a bit naïve. Because, these people, the have the idea that one day they’re going to be able to provide, you know, One Million Dollars for the Mujahideen. And Insha Allah if they do that they’re going to be rewarded. Insha Allah they’d get a great reward for that. But the reality is this is only like one month’s bills or so for the Mujahideen. It would’ve been much more beneficial for them to work on an idea, you know ideas of how to tap into the resources that the Muslims already have, and think about how we can channel the Zakat, or the normal Sadaqah of the wealthy Muslims towards the Jihad. Another idea would be to use a small fraction of that money and put it towards operations that could produce Ghaneemah (spoils captured after a battle) or Fay (spoils captured without fighting) of much greater amounts and in a much quicker amount of time. Then there’s other people, you know they have their plans of how they’re going to help Jihad, and you know they waste a lot of time before they come, you know, maybe even they waste a lot of money. They try to become monster body-builders or master martial-arts specialists. But I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s definite benefits to these types of things, definitely there’s benefits to being healthy, to knowing how to handle yourself or what have you. But it shouldn’t be blown out of proportion. And for those who have seen the lands of Jihad, they see that you know most guys they don’t have the time or money to keep up the habit of five meals a day and power-shakes in between work-out sessions, and so forth. It’s really, some days it’s just tea and dates, or white rice. And for the martial-arts guys I mean, really it’s a rare occasion when someone gets the opportunity to execute a perfect flying drop-kick on a Kaffir: it’s mostly just bullets and stuff like that. So anyway, whatever you do, the point here is to do it in moderation. And whatever you do, make sure that it doesn’t prevent you from coming to the lands of Jihad as soon as possible.

Now moving on to the next lesson - keeping the theme of the tea and dates idea here - is that the fifth lesson is: “The Necessities Of Life Are Actually Quite Few”.

The topic - it reminds me - I’ve had some room-mates in the past, and there was this one brother, he moved in to me and a time when I was a bit on the, you know, on the broke side. After I got the new apartment he moved in on the next day, he started bringing in boxes of stuff - just boxes and boxes - and I started going through it all, and I found out that the guy, you know, I started thinking like “why does this guy need so much junk, you know, just to live day-to-day?”

So I started looking through the boxes: I found kitchen utensils. There was a special machine just for making waffles. Another one, just for crushing black pepper. Then there was special spoons, you know, special knives, I don’t know there was a fish knife, a fruit spoon or something like that. For all different types of food. There was a blender just for whipping cake mix, you know what I mean? It was a bit insane for a bachelor pad to have all these things. Anyway, before you know, trailing off into this story, the thing here is that unless you find yourself starting up a new Jihadi front in the United Emirates, you’re not going to expect to find these types of comforts of life – the ones that you might have been used to living in the West. Here in Somalia especially, you’ll probably never, ever see a microwave, or even a normal oven. Now I remember my grandma, she used to have an oven from like the Sixties, and I always think about how it would look like new technology out here.

And then you get, most of the Mujahideen, even seeing television or you know phones, it becomes a rarity for many of us. Now, when living in the forest things get even a bit stranger. You get, at times you live out there for so long that a group of tents with a few connected paths going through the trees, it starts to look like an apartment complex, or a little city. You know, if a banana comes out there, out your way, or if you manage to pass through a village that happens to somehow produce ice or you know they sell some little basic deserts you get the feeling that you’ve found Heaven on earth. Anyway, not going too far, the idea here is that we’re not trying to scare people, maybe we want to wake them up a little bit, but even that’s not really the point here, The real point is that it’s a bit like a Slim-Fast commercial you know: If I can do it, you can do it too! So, in short, the lesson that I wanted to get across, after living through this type of lifestyle, is that people – eventually - we get used to, you know, we get accustomed to living a ‘bare bones’ lifestyle. And when we go through that process we quickly realize that the real basic necessities of life are actually, you know, you can actually carry them on your back. Maybe even - if you’re living large – maybe on the back of a donkey.

This moves us into the next lesson that I like to call: “Life Is Not Like You See In The Movies”.

In reality this title here could actually have been the title of most of these lessons – or even it could be the title of the whole lecture - but I’m going to just try to limit it to a few points you know, about the Jihad here, the way people they might think how things go on, on the ground. The first point is that the Mujahideen are not the Sahaba’ (Companions of Prophet Muhammad), and they’re not Angels. And I’m not going to go into a long list of faults, but the fact of the matter is that Mujahideen are humans. They make mistakes probably just as often as they get things right. Now, some people, they like to take this fact - which should be common knowledge - they like to take it is a field day for attacking the foundations of the religion, you know, they want to attack the virtuous actions of Jihad and Hijrah. But this - obviously it’s not a very fair approach. We have to separate between the validity of the cause, and the sanctity of those upholding it. You know, the cause is a hundred percent valid. There’s no doubt about that, it’s proven by the texts of the religion. As for those upholding the cause they’re simply human like we said. So instead of focusing on their faults, what we really ask of the critics out there, is to come to lands of Jihad, so that they can show everyone how it is to be done. How it should be done. And even here in Jihad, I’ve seen many critics, you know a lot of times there’s... between the Mujahideen, the way you know things are run and so forth. Once they rise through the ranks and they start receiving responsibility, it doesn’t take long before they themselves, they become humbled, by these endless problems that face the Mujahideen daily. And then they themselves they start talking more about how we can find solutions, instead of, you know, who we can point the finger at. Now with that said, I mentioned that maybe the Muhajireen, and the Mujahideen have faults and what have you, I’d still like to say that the Mujahideen - as a crosssection of the Ummah in its current state - that amongst them, they contain some of the best that this Ummah has to provide in these times. I mean, it stands to their credit, that despite be numbered, as a few thousand, with very little weaponry they’ve stood at the defence of the entire Ummah, in the face of the enemy who’s numbered in the hundreds of thousands with state-of-the-art equipment. And knowing this little tidbit of information makes it easier to understand the next point, related to life in the movies. You know, it’s another realist point here is that in real life the heroes, the Mujahideen, they don’t always win. Of course we’d need to go into some long discussion of what true victory real means, and so forth, but I think for all of you, who’ve seen the ‘Constants of Jihad’ by Sheikh Yusuf al-Ayiri (may Allah have mercy on him), all of that is going to be explained well enough. To be clear here what we’re talking about is the actual fights on the battle-field. Now the primary reason for this painful reality is that the Mujahideen - Muslims in general we are not always worthy of victory. And this is because many times, we haven’t completed the necessary conditions. Now we can see this even in the lives of the Companions, they were tried by defeat. Allah (SWT) tried them with this taste in defeat for disobeying the orders of the Prophet (peace be upon him), or maybe even on occasion by becoming too haughty or prideful. The Mujahideen similarly, the Mujahideen in these times are also tried, you know, and they also fall into many of these similar mistakes. To make matters worse the majority of the Ummah hasn’t fully woken up yet. And this leads us to be, you know, leads us to become tried with more trials and tests and tribulations until that fact changes: until the Ummah does wake up, this is going to be more of the same.

With that said, I mean this was talking about like I said battlefield, you know the battlefield level tactics and so forth you know, but at the strategic level the bright-side of the situation here is that the war is far from over, and the battle record is virtually meaningless: it doesn’t matter how many individual battles we lose, the real aim here is the war. And the stark reality is that the Kuffar themselves, they know very well, they’ve come to realize with certainty, is that victory is nothing more than patience. If the Muslims continue to remain defiant, as they are destined to do, as Allah (SWT) has given us the Glad Tidings of then they can never be conquered. Really, a conquered nation is not the one that loses its land or suffers battle-field defeats, a truly conquered nation is the one that gives up; it gives in and stops the fight. This is because, you know, I say these things because, you know, worldly means, they do have an effect on the actual battle and so forth, on individual battles. I mean, fighting a tank with stones is not really going to take us anywhere. But at the same time we can see that when people no longer care about death, and when they gain you know the patience and perseverance that they need to continue, they can never be conquered! Even by those same tanks that they don’t really have proper weapons to deal with, it doesn’t matter how much those tanks want to wreak devastation, if those people have patience, the individual destruction, examples of destruction of these tanks don’t mean much at the real strategic level of who wins the war.

You know to get deeper, let me give a more precise example of what I’m talking about. Here in Somalia the world has seen how the tanks of AMISOM have become completely obliterated simply by the courage of a few men who refused to flee. Of course we have to remember that this victory was accompanied the help of Allah (SWT’s) command. The Qadr (Decree) of Allah - we must always remember - the Qadr of Allah has a huge role in these battles. Because like the winds during the Battle of al-Ahzab (the Confederates), Allah (SWT) has given the Mujahideen in Somalia victory through help from the earth. It was time, after time that the tanks of AMISOM found themselves stuck in holes, and they were surrounded by angry Mujahideen. Within hours, they inevitably, they give up and abandon ship. And like I said, again, not just the earth, Allah (SWT) has Junood (soldiers) that we don’t know about, but also Allah (SWT) is the sole reason for the courage that the Mujahideen found within themselves to fight these tanks with while being under-resourced and under-equipped. And Allah (SWT) is the reason for the cowardliness of the enemy, He is the one who through this, you know caused this cowardliness to be in the hearts of the enemy. And this is because Allah (SWT) - the Prophet (peace be upon him) has informed us - that the hearts of mankind are resting between the fingers of Ar-Rahman, and He sways them as He wishes.

Now this discussion here of, you know, despite whatever hardships we go through on the tactical level, victory is our Insha Allah, this brings me to the next topic, which is related to the deficiency of the Kuffar, their weakness and so forth, I call this lesson - lesson number seven, here: “The Kuffar Are Not As Invincible As They Try To Portray Themselves”.

So like I said, we talked about how tanks become useless once they’re stuck in a hole, let’s move on now to some of their more prized hardware like cruise missiles. Of course those out there who have a little bit of, you know, know a little bit of Jihadi history out there, the Battle of Jhangi explains very well the impotence of the Kuffar’s so-called smart bombs. Now, as a live example here from Somalia we have the example of Adam Hashi Ayrow (may Allah have mercy on him). Maybe many people don’t know that he was actually, he was bombed on numerous occasions. The Kuffar the bombed him once near Dobley, another time they tried to bomb him in Ogaden, and he only met his inevitable fate as a martyr after the Kuffar they managed to use spies and special equipment to pinpoint his location and then after that they deployed around four cruise missiles on one single house. Despite all of that there were multiple people living inside the house, they survived, one of them, he continues to fight on the front-lines and he harasses those same enemy tanks we were talking about till this day. Nabhan for example (may Allah have mercy on him) he was also, you know, they attempted to bomb him on numerous occasions. He told me, on one such occasion, he told me that the bombs they landed only 10-20 meters away from him, and despite that he wasn’t even slightly injured, he didn’t have any injuries to show. This was by cruise missiles. He witnessed the bombing of Al-Farouq training camp in Afghanistan, and it wasn’t until, you know, he wasn’t actually martyred until the Americans attacked his car and they filled it with thousands of rounds of ammunition. And this is interesting to note because this ‘overkill’, the only reason for it was that the Americans were deathly afraid of having to come down from the sky and engage in a fire-fight with only a few lightly armed terrorists. So the point from all this is that the Americans they have a flare for the dramatic. For example, even some of their other missiles, they give them names like ‘Hellfire’ missiles. And if you really were to research the topic, or if you were to see one and its effects and so forth, it really it’s nothing more than a bona fide RPG. And in most situations they’re shooting them at normal civilian vehicles and then they jump for joy when they see the destruction: as if they’d destroyed a high-tech armoured tank.

With all this hype about their military hardware, we can also move on, the same can actually be said about their intelligence agencies as well, because they’re all very much over-rated. A live example here from Somalia: one of our martyred brothers from the days following the retreat of the Islamic Courts, he was an American brother on parole. He was a Hispanic brother - he didn’t know any Somali language - despite that he managed to travel out of the United States under the disguise of being Somali and he did that while being on parole. And another wanted brother also informed me that he spent most of his time hiding out from the police in his own house! Really, I’ve come to note out here that it’s a testament to the stupidity of these agencies that they always seem to recruit the dumbest of spies to do their dirty work, to the point that really it’s become a phenomenon. I believe that maybe the biggest cover-story that a spy can actually have is to look, talk and walk exactly like everyone expects a spy to look, talk and walk. I mean it’s really uncanny sometimes: the guy that everyone expects to be a spy actually does turn out to be a spy. Another example of their impotence here, let’s not forget the stupidity involved in having the top people from the CIA; the bin Laden team, blown up single-handedly by our brother al-Khurasani. These operations and more, all of this is just a small drop in the bucket in this regard, I mean there’s plenty of examples to show that these organizations are not as omniscient and omnipotent as they wish everyone to believe them to be.

Now to start wrapping things up here, I’d like to get into some of the closing lessons of this lecture, the first of these is a lesson I like to call: “Mentors, No Matter How Great, Cannot Be Relied Upon As A Gauge Of Truth Or Falsehood”.

I say this because there are many people out there who are waiting for so-and-so scholar to announce the obligation of Jihad, or to go forth and lead them in the way. These same people they have the evidences, they know that this is the truth; they’ve realized that the actions of Jihad and Hijrah are wajib (compulsory) upon them and so forth. But they seem to think that these topics are specific to these huge scholars who have massive knowledge of some obscure knowledge that they like to call ‘balancing of benefits and harms’. But me, I’m here to explain to you here today a groundbreaking truth that basically comes down to those guys who are speaking about balancing of benefits and harms, and using that as an excuse to say that Jihad and Hijrah are not right for these times, a lot of the reasons behind these statements of theirs is that they themselves are either too scared, or too tied to the Dunya to engage in these actions themselves. So I’d advise you not to listen to them, because really there’s no way for them to have the authority to talk about what’s possible or not possible in these times with regards to Jihad and Hijrah for the simple reason that one: they’ve never engaged in these things for themselves. And two: the people who have, and the ones who’ve made videos about it are telling the world how possible it is, how great it is, and how everyone should be taking part. Now another problem with this scholar fixation is that it’s one of those ‘it takes one to know one’ situations. Where people have to rely upon the hype surrounding an individual as a means of measuring his scholarliness. This is because most people, they’re not scholars and they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a scholar and a layman if it wasn’t for the type of clothes he wears and the amount of people asking him questions. So this is where the phenomena I like to call the ‘Vatican system’ comes in: it’s where, this system has destroyed everyone’s perception of reality. This ‘Vatican system’ is the conscious effort of some of the rulers and the media outlets to crystallize the name of certain individuals as the ultimate authorities of Islam. And they do this for personal gains. They chose people of a particular persuasion and they make sure to make their lives, you know, completely comfortable, such that they will never bite the hand that feeds them. Now with that said, we should all ask ourselves: would it really be sane to wait for people with these types of credentials to call for Jihad and Hijrah?! Of course not! But the problem is that all of the real scholars, who do call to Jihad and Hijrah or actually go out and engage in these actions are immediately labelled - by these same people - as ignorant, takfiri Khawarij who don’t respect the Kibaar Al-Ulema’. So what we should really read into this is that they don’t play the game and they’re not part of the stooges of the ‘Vatican system’, but what happens is once these guys are thrown off the Manhaj and they’re placed on the list of non-scholar extremists your average Muslim is left thinking: so then why don’t the scholars ever call to Jihad and Hijrah if it’s so obligatory? And really, I personally have been a victim of this mentality, in the past, and I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t matter who your mentor is, it doesn’t really matter who taught you Islam and who wears the robes of a scholar, and it doesn’t matter if it’s your dad or your best friend. Don’t wait for anyone to accept the truth as an excuse to hang back and hesitate. The truth is plain for everyone to see, but it’s only the brave who can go forth and embrace it.

So this leads me to our last and final lesson here, which is called: “The Truth Is Considered Lunacy To 99% Of The Earth’s Population”, alternately we could name this lesson: “True Iman Is A Form Of Madness”.

We’re living in a time where basic realities of our religion, which would have been similar to knowing that the sun shines, during the time of the Companions, have become extremely strange and dormant. And it’s this same strangeness that leads many people to view the Truth as stupid, or irrational, or harmful and so forth. Really it comes down to the fact that people spend very little time reading the Seerah as a true story that actually happened. And spend even less time imagining how it would have played out in our contemporary times. If people spent a little more time doing these things we’d have less people walking around calling the people who have strong emotions for this religion with names like: ‘silly’, ‘ignorant’, ‘misguided extremist’ and ‘troublemakers’ and all these types of things. I’d like to leave everyone with a story here, it’s found in Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith number 3328. Its no other than the story of Abu Dharr (may Allah be pleased with him) and his acceptance of Islam. And the hadith mentions that after Abu Dharr reached Mecca, and he asked Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) to take him to the Prophet (peace be upon him) he said:

“So he went and I went with him until he entered and I entered with him to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. I said to him: ‘Present Islam to me,’ and he presented it and I became Muslim straightaway. He said to me, ‘O Abu Dharr, conceal this matter and return to your land. When it reaches you that we have been victorious, then come.’ I said: ‘By the One who sent you with the truth, I will shout it out in the midst of them!’

“So he went to the mosque where Quraysh were and said: ‘O company of Quraysh! I testify that there is no god but Allah and I testify that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger!’ They said: ‘Get this heretic!’ And they got up and beat me nearly to death. Al-’Abbas reached me and put himself over me and then turned to them and said: ‘Woe to you! Will you kill a man of Ghifar when your commerce and your communications pass through Ghifar?’ So they left me. The morning of the next day I went back and said the like of what I had said the day before. They said: ‘Get this heretic!’ and the like of what had been done to me the day before was done. Al-’Abbas got to me and put himself over me and then turned to them and said the like of what he had said the day before.” He said: “So this was the beginning of the Islam of Abu Dharr, may Allah have mercy on him!”

So those of you who can understand Arabic will understand immediately the relevance of this story. What we have here, we have Abu Dharr (may Allah be pleased with him) as a new Muslim being given clear instructions from the Prophet (peace be upon him) that he had a clear excuse for hiding his Islam. But instead of taking the allowance he told the Prophet (peace be upon him) clearly that he will make his Islam known to all, regardless of what may befall him, and what may come to him of harm. So what comes after that in the story is less interesting as what didn’t come after that – the Prophet (peace be upon him) did grab him and lecture him for being an ignorant radical who doesn’t understand the sacred science of benefits and harms. He didn’t tell Abu Dharr that he will be the cause of the revocation of all the Companions Green Cards in Mecca, he didn’t tell him that Abu Dharr is going to be the cause for all them going to jail. In fact, Abu Dharr, he went on and received major beatings on multiple days for proclaiming his Faith in the face of the Quraysh at their holiest site. But the hadith doesn’t go on to mention any blame coming his way from the Prophet (peace be upon him) or even from ‘Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him) who was not yet a Muslim at the time but he was affectionate to the Prophet (peace be upon him) of Islam. The moral of this story is that Islam began as something strange and it has now returned to being something strange, so everyone should make sure to stick to the strangers, and to be amongst those who are called ‘insane’ and ‘ignorant’ and ‘stupid’ by the majority of mankind.

And with that, Insha Allah, I will close this modest lecture entitled: “Lessons Learned”, that covered some of the realizations I’ve had during my five years here of Hijrah and Jihad, and I’ll close with asking Allah (SWT) that he accepts all of our actions, and makes us sincere. I ask Allah (SWT) that He makes the Truth clear for all of us, and guides us to embracing it, that He makes Falsehood clear to us, and guides us away from it. I ask Allah (SWT) that he gives victory to the Mujahideen and establishes the Rightly-Guided Khilafah sooner not later. And I ask Him to free all of our prisoners and return them urgently back to their families and homes. And finally, I ask Allah (SWT) to bring me a good ending and to accept me amongst the martyrs.

And send peace and prayers be upon the Blessed Muhammad, his family and his Companions in their entirety. And our final prayer is that all praise be to Allah.

Submitted by a Mujahid

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