At-Tawbah Publications

Praise be to Allah who made for His slaves in the course of their lives stations of memory and attention, and treated them with generosity in the blessed seasons and doubled their salary and their rewards and made them steadfast in response to the calls

Peace and blessings to His Revered Prophet who said: “He who fasts at Ramadan in belief and anticipation, his sins are erased”, and to his family and to his Companions and to those who followed them until the day of the deen … Allah said:

“The month of Ramadan is that in which the Qu’ran was revealed, a guidance to mankind and clear proofs of the guidance” {Surat al Baqara 185}

And so we maintain this great season and dear month as a month of reward and blessings and a month of the Quran and the Furqan and a month of invasions and victories. This s the month of Ramadan, in which there occurred facts and events that changed the face of history.

It was in Ramadan that the Great Battle of Badr occurred, which was the beginning of the great glory of the Faithful and the day of the designated Furqan when Allah differentiated between the followers of the Compassionate and the followers of Shaytan at the time when their religious beliefs split apart. {When you were on the nearer side (of the valley) and they were on the farthest side, while the caravan was in a lower place than you; and if you had mutually made an appointment, you would clearly have broken away from the appointment, but–in order that Allah might bring about a matter which was to be done, that he who would perish might perish by clear proof, and he would live might live by clear proof; and most surely Allah is Hearing, Knowing} {Al Anfal 42}

And so the fathers met the sons between the brackish water and the spears on the 17th day of the blessed month of Ramadan in the second year of the Hijra. It was this day in which Allah strengthened His followers and eliminated His enemies and with this solidified His worshippers. {Allah had helped you at Badr, when you were a contemptible little force; thus may ye show your gratitude} {Al Imran 123}

And in the eighth year, also in the month of Ramadan, there was a great invasion with which Allah strengthened His religion and granted victory to His soldiers and cleansed His blessed house from the taint of idols and idolaters. And as a result of this battle, people joined the religion of Allah in droves.

In the year 658, on Friday, the 25th day of the blessed month of Ramadan, also, the Muslims led by the King Muthafar Qataz began to fight the Tartars who raided the lands of the Muslims and caused the collapse of the Caliphate and sabotaged the Islamic state and profaned the eggs of the Muslim people, displacing them helter-skelter. So Allah led the Ummah under the Commander Al Sandid and the brave fighter to return the Ummah to its strength ad to remind the Ummah of its dignity. They met in the glorious battle of Ayn Jalut while the sun still shone and the shadows dispersed and the winds blew. The people called to Allah and the speakers stood on their podiums. The nail was for the Muslims and the circle swirled around the infidels, and the root of the oppressors was eradicated. Praise be to the Lord of the Universe.

This is the tip of the iceberg and it would take us a very long time to trace the victories that the Muslims acquired in this dear month over the course of history.

As we remember those greatest of days each time we are visited by this blessed month, then let us become anxious and look to similar ones among how the Muslims are living today beneath the yoke of servitude. The nations and the enemies assail each other and the infidels and the despots have authority over them.

Now the blessed month comes upon us this year after a year of united world war by the despots of the world gathered under the leadership of the American Crusaders against Islam and supporters of the Mujahidiin everywhere. Yes, a world war against Islam; this is the truth that every Muslim must come to understand and which the enemies call by other names and dress in other clothing by calling for a war against terrorism and the like. For all of the Muslims, each has a capacity that he must use to battle and terrorize the enemies of Allah from the infidels and the apostates as much as he can.

Allah (SWT) said: {And prepare against them what force you can and horses tied at the frontier, to frighten thereby the enemy of Allah and your enemy and others besides them, who you do not know (but) Allah knows them; and whatever thing you spend will be in Allah’s way, it will be paid back to you fully and you shall not be dealt with unjustly} {Al Anfal 60}

{Fight them, Allah will punish them by your hands and bring them to disgrace, and assist you against them and heal the hearts of a believing people} {Al Tauba 14}

{O ye who believe! Fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness and know that Allah is with those who guard (against evil)} {Al Taba 123}

There are many other ayats just like these and numerous ahadeeth which make it mandatory for Muslims to fight the infidels until there is no fitna and Allah’s religion is the only religion. But in the Book of Our Lord, there is an entire Surat called the Surat of the Fighting. Allah(SWT) says: {And whenever a chapter is revealed, and fighting is mentioned in it, then you see those who are sick in their hearts who look at you with the look of one fainting because of death. Woe to them then!} {Muhammad 20}

For this is one of the obligations of the religion – let no one revoke it or delete it from the religion of the Muslims. As for he who is not pleased by this or does not recognize theirs then let the scourge of Islam be removed from his neck so that he may die in the will of a Christian or a Jew or an apostate of another sort!

If he decided this, and every Muslim understands the fact that the war of America and its allies today against what they call terrorism is in fact a war against Islam and its obligations and its laws. And that the sleeper cell that they are talking about is not a special group of Mujahidiin Muslims who belong to the Al Qaeda Organization or others. But rather it means every Muslim who follows the deen of Islam and his sleep among them, in truth, is a dereliction of his religion and a failure in his obligations. For if he awoke from his slumber and his religion returned and he knew the obligations placed upon him, then he would direct himself towards them and strive to discharge them. This Muslim and others like him are at this time the sleeper cells that woke up and which must be struck and eliminated among them. This is the truth and the nature of the battle raging today between the infidel forces represented by America and its allies from among the infidels of the West and the East and their lackeys among the apostate tyrants in our lands. All of them are on one side and they are in one camp. And every Muslim who requires submission and is faithful to the Quran is on the other side.

Yes, these are crucial days in which the people are divided into two hemispheres. And in which Allaj (SWT) has opened a new page for the people of Islam, which will change its path from the bitter realities that placed it in handcuffs for decades.

For it is not possible for a faithful person to erase his religion or to remain negative, without a role in supporting the religion in crucial days like these.

Allah said: {not alike among you are those who spent before the victory and fought (and those who did not); they are more exalted in rank than those who spent and fought afterwards} {Al Hadid 10}

These wars stripped of their risk Greet them; for after them the age of regret knocks

For each Muslim has the obligation to rebirth himself into the ranks of the supporters of the religion and to stand by their side and join their caravan as it were, and encourage its deeds and its aspirations to lead up to the capacity of the great responsibility placed upon him. It is his duty to bind himself to his religion by striving to support it with the precious things and with sacrifice. For his religion, however, is the ting targeted one way or the other by the enemies.

So he must make this month a station to review and reorganize and rearrange the efforts and their schedule of tasks so that our aspirations for the glories and victories experienced by Muslims in this holy month are not just mirages.

However we cannot treat this month like any visitor passing by our house. He must remain as a month f effort and ijtihad and a month of opening and jihad in the manner of the Salaf. For this is the season of blessings and rewards – it was revered by Allah and honored in the passing of months. Allah made its fasting and its alms a reason for forgiveness of sins and mistakes and drawing necks from the fire. In this month, the servants review themselves and are supplied with the best of supplies – the best supplies of taqwa.

Allah says: {O ye who believe! Fasting is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may guard (against evil)}

And so the greatest wisdom here is as Allah said to His servants {so that you may guard (against evil)}. So that you may guard Allah, so undertake his rights and impartiality, in the gloriousness of servitude. Realize for Him the tawheed and be innocent of shirk and condemnation. And make jihad for these things as the right of His jihad.

If the man does not wear the clothing of piety then he is stripped naked even if he is clothed. The best qualities of man are obedience to his Lord and there is nothing good in the man who is abstruse.

Omar Abi Bin Kaab asked about the meaning of taqwa and he said “O Commander of the Faithful, you followed the path that has thorns?” He said: “Yes” He said: “And what happened?” He said: “I worked hard and made ijtihad – how great was my ijtihad in trying to prevent pricks!” And Abi said: “And this is taqwa”

For taqwa is the sensitivity of the Faithful from exposure to sin and strife and mistakes, and constant fear of violating the will of Allah and constant warning of alienation or dereliction in His rights. And the hard yearning for the thorns of the path including suspicions and strife and mortal sins.

Abstention from sins both small and large – this is taqwa
Make a sign above the land of the thorns that warns of what he sees
Do not despise the small things for the mountain is made of gravel

Ali (RA) said of taqwa: “It is fear of the exalted and work of the lowest and a little conviction and preparation for the day of the deceased.”

Others from among the Salaf said similar things, and all of them – their words are in the same circle and they are in one pot, and they are from one source and they issue from one fresh spring.

Every appointee of Islam must strive in this great season to renew his Iman. For is it is his first weapon with which he confronts the conspiracies of the infidels. He is supplied with taqwa and in this blessed month he ladles and gulps fasting and repentance and dhikr and atonement in order to correct his behavior and his lifestyle and thereby renew his intention to be a supporter of the religion.

It is an opportunity in which many of the elders and the scholars review their dereliction in the right of their religion, and they desist from their service to the religion in order to serve the ruler and make the religion a tool of the despots. They avoid falsification of the truths of the sharia in favor of the despots. They refrain from making them legitimate rulers and take care of their positions as imams of the Muslims and reform and repent.

Abu Horayra (RA) narrated that the Prophet (PBUH) said: “He who said farewell to the words and their works, then Allah has no need for him to say farewell to his food and drink.” {Sahih Bukhari}

This is also an opportunity in which many of the preachers review their dereliction in da’wa and the righteousness of Allah in it. They describe it as an imperfection of deviation and reliance on the enemies of Allah, and purify it from suspicions of defeat and disappointment and false rumours that are used to handicap the jihad and disappoint the Mujahideen.

For he who said goodbye to false speech and acts based upon it, then Allah does not require him to say goodbye to his food or his drink!

This is also an opportunity in which many of the people of the left from among the richest of Muslims review their duties toward their Mujahideen brothers everywhere. Jihad by money is synonymous with jihad of the self. They are reminded of their hunger and their afternoon fasting, and the poor and the impoverished and the vulnerable and the people barren of children and the wives of the brothers who are imprisoned and captured and those pursued by the enemies of Allah in all the corners of the land. They must, if they are faithful believers, feel their wounds and their sadness and their grief. He who does not care about the plight of the Muslims is not one of them. And like the Muslims in their grief and anxiety, are like a body – and so when one member complains then the rest of the body falls apart in its lungs and the fever. So they bear this as a reminder and they invite to them the people they disagreed with in their families and they are merciful to their children and sympathize with them and give them that which Allah gave them ad they try to relieve the grief and the agony.

The Prophet (PBUH) was the best of what is in Ramadan at the time when Gabriel met him and taught him the Quran. The blessings of Allah were upon him and he received the best greeting from the wind.

This is an opportunity in which the Muslims review themselves ad judge themselves on forsaking the Quran. For Ramadan is a month of the Quran. {The month of Ramadan is that in which the Quran was revealed, a guidance to mankind and clear proofs of the guidance}

And Allah condemned those who forsake His book saying: {And the Messenger cried out: O my Lord! Surely my people have treated this Quran as a forsaken thing} {Al Furqan 30}

One of the greatest ways of forsaking it is forsaking its validity and its rulings and its sharia and the boundaries it places on the lives of Muslims in general and on their courts and policies and relationships.

This is an opportunity in which the people of luxury review the foundation of themselves and prepare themselves for jihad. They endure hardship and difficulties in order to support their religion. For Allah made this month a school where the Muslim is educated on the strength of desire and patience, and the potential for adversity and leaving comfort behind. For bliss is not aware of heaven and he who clings to comfort will separate from comfort. And support of the religion of Allah requires seriousness and thick skin and ijtihad.

In conclusion…

The month of Ramadan is a time for renewal of atonement and sincerity of the direction and counting on the fasting and alms. There is no doubt that it is a month for answering the call.

For Allah said: {And when My servants ask you concerning Me, then surely I am very near; I answer the prayer of the suppliant when he calls on Me, so they should answer My call and believe in Me that they may walk in the right way} {Al Baqara 186}

So if Allah (SWT) calls to you and your family then do not hold back from your brothers the preachers and the Mujahidiin everywhere during this great season. Try to make your prayers lasting prayers to support Islam and enable the Muslims and eliminate shirk and erase the mushrikin and aid the vulnerable and free the prisoners. For this is the very least of the rights of your brothers against you. A Muslim is the brother of a Muslim and does not hold back from him and does not deliver him. However, you cannot be a hobbyist with the weapon of prayer, for it is a great weapon. Support your religion and your brothers with it, when support through weapons and force fails.

Peace and blessings to our Prophet Mohammed, his Companions and all who aided him

Written by: Abu Mohammed al Maqdisi
This 3rd or 4th day of Sha’ban, 1423