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  • Marrying first cousins in Islam

    The idea that marrying first cousins is harmful is very doubtful, but even if there is some harm in it, opposing it totally requires a very narrow, Western, materialistic, and individualistic perspective given the benefits.

    The belief that marrying cousins is harmful arose in a context where there was intense inbreeding for multiple consecutive generations, often by cousins who were closely related on both the paternal and maternal sides.

    The main motivation for this was the preservation of wealth and power within a single dynasty.

    As is often the case in the West, they swung from one extreme to the other, until it reached the point where they even banned marriage to sixth cousins, which ultimately eroded family ties and empowered the Church and the State. So there was a clear material motivation.

    Modern studies that claim congenital birth defects are higher among couples who are first cousins are extremely flawed. For example, one of the most cited studies was conducted in the UK and looked primarily at Pakistani immigrant families.

    The study found that the risk of birth defects was around 6% for children born from cousin couples and around 3%, but there are a couple of factors that were not considered.

    One is that most Pakistani households in the UK are what are termed lower income households and that lower income households in general have higher rates of birth defects. Subsequent studies tried to adjust for this, and found that the rates of birth defects were lower, but still higher than in couples that were more distantly related.

    Another issue which was not considered in these studies, however, is that many of these families marry cousins for many generations for un-Islamic reasons, and reject outright the possibility of marrying their children to righteous, religious spouses outside of the family completely.

    Furthermore, since jihad has been abandoned for generations there is no more influx of slaves to bring diversity into the gene pool. More expensive, Westernized lifestyles also limit family size, meaning that families who consistently and exclusively marry cousins draw from an ever shrinking genetic pool.

    Many or perhaps most of the families included in these studies fit this description, and none of these studies consider how many generations these families have been marrying cousins and what their attitudes toward marrying outside of the family are. Unfortunately many families who marry cousins have extremely hostile attitudes toward other tribes, nationalities, and races, which over generations could augment the risk factors associated with cousin marriage.

    Still, even with all the flaws in these studies, the increased risk of birth defects is similar to the risk associated with women delaying pregnancy until later in life, and yet none of these people ever criticize women delaying pregnancy in order to pursue careers.

    When it comes to technologies which are strongly linked to birth defects such as synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and pharmaceutical medications which inevitably leech into the water supply, somehow they view this increased risk as acceptable due to the perceived benefits.

    These individualists also don’t consider the benefits of cousin marriage when weighing harms and benefits, and this is because most of these benefits are based in factors that they don’t consider in their narrow, almost autistic style of analysis.

    For example, cousin marriages are less likely to end in divorce, probably because people from the same family and culture have similar values and often higher compatibility, which can mean less stress and conflict in many cases.

    It also reinforces a strong and clear sense of cultural identity, which is associated with many positive mental and physical health outcomes.

    Cousin marriages also have higher rates of fertility than non-cousin marriages, so even if a a child is born with birth defects there is likely to be more children to help care for their sibling.

    Finally, and most importantly, Muslims understand that there is a purpose and a plan behind illness and disability. It reminds us of our weakness, causes us to turn to Allah for help, and helping to care for the sick or disabled with patience is a source of great reward with Allah. Disabled people may also have spiritual or emotional value which makes up for any physical or mental weakness they have.

    We do not, thus, regard the sick or disabled as unwanted, defective, or inferior.

    Viewing the disabled as inferior or unwanted causes massive psychological harm to them, which in turn harms the surrounding society, and this happens frequently with the kuffar.

    The benefits of cousin marriage are more difficult to quantify, so the kuffar shift the focus toward what they are able to measure, part of their quest for omniscience and to actualize a theology in which human beings are elevated to the level of Allah.

    On the other hand, Muslims who abandon Islamic marriage guidelines, focus excessively on cousin marriage, adopt prejudicial attitudes toward other tribes or ethnicities, and close themselves off to the rest of the ummah may be helping feed the narratives of the enemies of Islam.

    May Allah guide us and make us steadfast upon Islam, which is a balanced way of life, and protect us from the excesses, imbalance and extremes of shortsighted and flawed manmade ideologies that foolishly exalt human perception and logic above revelation.

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  • Demographic decline: the self-destruction of the West

    The kuffar are destroying themselves with the same technology that appears to be so powerful.

    Consider the demographic problems highly industrialized societies like W. Europe, North America, China, and Japan are facing.

    Low birth rates lead to an increasingly elderly population. With fewer younger people to care for all the elderly, there is a heavier burden on both the government and the young. The government has fewer workers to pay taxes with more expenses to care for elderly.

    This means increasing taxes, which causes discontent among the population and weakens the government’s grip on power.

    This also erodes the West’s claim to moral superiority, because they maintain order by paying out benefits rather than using raw violence.

    Furthermore, these countries have to depend more and more on immigration to cover labor shortages. This decreases overall social cohesion and also increases tension.

    This can be observed in the far right backlash against immigrants in Western Europe and North America, which is a major flashpoint in these countries’ descent toward civil war.

    Less labor supply means labor costs go up, which drives inflation by making everything more expensive. Higher prices, of course, also fuel social tension inside of these countries. Since neo-colonial subjects also depend on supplies from neo-colonial master countries, it also causes unrest in the 3rd world slave countries, putting more pressure on the neo-colonial relationships.

    And what is the source of this demographic imbalance?

    It’s mainly that as technology becomes more advanced, the knowledge required to produce it becomes more specialized, requiring ever longer and more specialized education.

    People are busy with their education, so don’t have children until much later. They also try to avoid having too many children due to the high cost of education and the fact that children don’t help economically due to mechanization.

    Children not working further erodes the quality of society by leading to generations of entitled, spoiled brats with no discipline, gratitude, or sense of responsibility, meaning the quality as well as the quantity of the population declines.

    This is not to mention the fact that delaying or abandoning marriage leads to the rise of a “hook up” culture which results in women getting emotionally ravaged and the rampant spread of mental illness, further eroding the overall health of the society.

    Add to that the heavy load of industrial pollution, including toxic chemical and radiation causing hormonal imbalances and cancer.

    You don’t need to see research about this – just go to rural Afghanistan or Mali and look at the people, and compare them to people in the West.

    Making matters worse, continually advancing technology requires ever more expensive, advanced education, which means the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, because fewer people can afford to reach the top echelons of industry.

    This adds to social tension even more.

    So the kuffar achieve some impressive little feats in the very short term with their gadgets. However, they inflict even more harm on themselves in the process than whatever harm they do to the Muslims with their planes, guided missiles and artillery.


    ان يمسسكم قرح فقد مس القوم قرح مثله

    “If a wound should touch you, there has already touched the [opposing] people a wound similar to it.” [3:140]

    The general principle here is that if the kuffar inflict harm upon the believers, they too are inflicted with harm.

    و تلك الايام نداولها بين الناس وليعلم الله لذين ءامنوا و يتخذ منكم شهداء

    “And these days of various [of varying conditions] We alternate among the people so that Allah may make evident those who believe and [may] take to Himself from among you martyrs…” [3:140, continued]

    It’s a constant principle from Dawud and Jalut to the Battle of Badr that faith overcomes the appearance of worldly strength and power.

    The purpose of fighting, for a believer, is to attain the mercy and acceptance of Allah by striving to make the word of Allah supreme.

    Achieving this purpose does not depend on technology. Even honorable defeats are part of an ongoing struggle, as the Muslims today take inspiration from the struggle of mujahideen like Umar al Mukhtar or Imam Shamil, may Allah accept them.

    So we should really not be amazed by dishonorable and cowardly engineers and scientists who devise methods to kill thousands of Muslims while simultaneously destroying both the dunya and akhira of their own people. If we can use these tehnologies without doing haram, fine.

    If not, then we need not view the technologies as a prerequisite for armed struggle. The nature of asymmetric warfare also means that expensive technology can rapidly become a liability due to the cost of maintaining and deploying it.

    This was also the case in the Battle of the Trench, where initially the confederates appeared fearsome and far more powerful than the Muslims due to having a large amount of cavalry, but with time they were unable to feed their horses, leading the army to disperse.

    So don’t be like the treacherous Banu Qurayza, who went over to the side of the kuffar because of being amazed by their appearance of strength and power.

    The promise of Allah is true, jannah is true, and jahannam is true, so fear Allah and go forth when you are called to do so.

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  • Mawlid and the history of birthdays

    The Bible’s stance on birthdays is very clear, and yet birthday celebrations are almost universally accepted by Christians, such that their biggest holiday, Christmas, is a birthday celebration.

    There are two birthday celebrations mentioned in the bible. One is by Fir’awn, and the other is by the evil Jewish king Herod, where he kills Yahya, alaihi asalam.

    Birthday celebrations were also widespread among the pagan Romans.

    Jews actually adopted some elements of Roman birthday celebrations into their religious rituals.

    A Roman birthday tradition was for the host of a birthday party to serve one cup of wine for each letter in his name. So Marcus would serve 6 cups of wine, Quintus 7, and so forth.

    Today, when many Jews celebrate Passover, they serve 4 cups of wine. This is because the feast is in the honor of Allah, who according to the Jewish tradition is named YWHW, which has 4 letters.

    It’s very cursed to adopt a pagan ritual into an originally monotheistic tradition.

    It’s especially cursed to apply it to the One who is al Awwal and al Akhir, subhanahu wa t’ala, considering the connection to birth.

    The societies and cultures where birthdays are most widespread are those with the highest levels of egoism, selfishness, and wastefulness.

    In the modern era, birthday celebrations first became widespread in the corrupt upper classes of the West, and spread from there.

    One of the evidences of the righteousness and truthfulness of the sahaba, radhi Allahu anhum, is that they never went near such celebrations.

    It’s natural that humans like to celebrate, but if we would obey Allah’s command and fight in His path, we would not have as much need to indulge in wretched, innovated celebrations that cause us to resemble the worst of creation.

    If we fought, it would result in being cut off from the Orwellian dystopia of modernity, such that marrying early and having lots of children would make economic sense, as opposed to delaying marriage to integrate into ever more complex and specialized professions.

    More children being born and marrying earlier would mean more celebrations of birth (‘aqiqa) and marriage (walima).

    Also, Allah taking shuhada from among the Muslims would cause polygyny to become much more common, resulting in even more frequent marriages.

    A continuous high rate of birth and death vitalizes a society in the same way proper cupping (with blood letting) vitalizes the body. Releasing blood stimulates the generation of fresh, young, and more energetic blood cells.

    Given that birthdays have such a strong historic connection to so many disgraced and debased enemies of Allah, they should be considered as dishonorable.

    Therefore, we should keep such dishonorable celebrations far away from the most honorable Messenger ﷺ.

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  • Explaining anti-Islamic sentiment in Muslim-majority countries

    There are a growing number of people in the Muslim lands who carry a kind of hatred for strongly practicing Muslims. This is especially notable inside of Saudi territory, and is likely partly a legacy of the decades of heavy handed religious police.

    Looking deeper at this matter, though, this is really an issue of an incomplete implementation of Islam.

    Many ignorant Muslims in the Muslim lands come to hate religious people because they seem them as preventing them from having fun and enjoying life, and there is some basis to this criticism. There are two main factors at play here:

    1) A lack of halal sources of enjoyment.

    2) Exposure to haram sources of enjoyment.

    The first issue is largely a problem of modernity, and the second issue results largely from a failure of al wala wal bara.

    Pleasure and Enjoyment: Tradition vs. Modernity

    Enjoyment is very highly relative; a starving person can derive more enjoyment from a piece of stale bread than a spoiled, wealthy person can derive from a seven course meal in a world-class restaurant. Enjoyment is also often highly social; sharing a meal of inferior quality with close friends or family is almost always more enjoyable than eating a higher quality meal alone.

    عَنِ النَّبِيِّ صلى الله عليه وسلم قَالَ لَيْسَ الْغِنَى عَنْ كَثْرَةِ الْعَرَضِ وَلَكِنَّ الْغِنَى غِنَى النَّفْسِ

    The Prophet ﷺ said “Wealth is not in having many possessions. Rather, true wealth is the richness of the soul.” [Muttafaqun alaih]

    عَنْ وحشي بن حرب قَالُوا يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ إِنَّا نَأْكُلُ وَلَا نَشْبَعُ قَالَ النَّبِي صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ فَلَعَلَّكُمْ تَفْتَرِقُونَ قَالُوا نَعَمْ قَالَ فَاجْتَمِعُوا عَلَى طَعَامِكُمْ وَاذْكُرُوا اسْمَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْهِ يُبَارَكْ لَكُمْ فِيهِ

    Washi ibn Harb reported: They said, “O Messenger of Allah, we eat but we are not filled.” The Prophet ﷺ said, “Perhaps you eat separately?” They said yes. The Prophet said, “Eat your meals together and mention the name of Allah over it, for you will be blessed in it.” [Sunan Abu Dawud 3764, hasan according to al Albani]

    Modern lifestyles attack both of these sources of enjoyment; on one hand, most hardship and hunger is removed from people’s lives, and on the other hand, social contact is greatly constricted.

    The United Nations and those who agree with them claim that they are making people happy by trying to remove all hardship and trials from people’s lives, and technologists claim that they are making the human condition easier by having machines replace human beings.

    In traditional settings, the levels of social contact and togetherness are much higher. People go to communal wells to collect water in the morning, and chat while waiting for their turn to collect water. They may go to the river together to wash clothes and chat together or even sing songs together while washing.

    Child rearing, while challenging, is a huge source of joy and happiness, and people now avoid having children because they want to get better positions inside of the lucrative supply chains of modern technology. In societies where people have a lot of children, they have a saying that “it takes a village to raise a child.” Raising children is a highly collaborative experience, where a mother may get help from grandparents, in-laws, cousins, and neighbors, and at times may reciprocate by helping others with caring for their children.

    Even a community fighting for its survival can be a great source of happiness; imagine the happiness a wife experiences when her husband goes away to battle and she doesn’t know if he will ever return. Then he returns, not only safe and sound, but carrying war booty which will enrich the community. Imagine if she has a friend whose husband is killed – she may go to comfort her and help her bear her loss, but this experience of her friend’s loss will deepen her appreciation of her husband surviving.

    The modern Western lifestyle has removed all of this. Water appears instantly from a faucet. Washing clothes only requires interaction with a machine; no interaction with fresh air, running water, or friends and neighbors. While waiting for the clothes washing machine to finish, women often watch television; an empty and inadequate replacement for social contact.

    Food is easy to come by, such that large amounts of food are often dumped in the trash. There is no suspense about where the next meal is going to come from, so people become busy with trying to lose weight. Thus, a husband bringing delicious food home to his wife becomes a curse rather than a blessing. Rather than this food increasing her in love for him, it may cause her to resent him.

    Children are sent off to school, and instead of reciprocating with neighbors and collaborating in community child care, fees are paid to a school, or taxes are paid to a government that then provides industrialized child care.

    There is no perceived presence of existential danger or struggle, so people try to fill the emptiness with extreme sports like bungee jumping, motorcycling, hang gliding, skiing, water skiing, racing, dirt biking and mountain biking, climbing, sports and other such pastimes, all of which consume huge amounts of resources without producing anything.

    Since marriage is no longer essential for survival, the bond between husband and wife is weakened to the point of abandoning marriage entirely, replacing it with a string of girlfriends and boyfriends, dating apps and sexual fetishes.

    Since people spend more time sitting on computers and working with machines than having meaningful social contact, they turn to alcohol, drugs, and music to have stronger social connections and shared experiences.

    Since children no longer make economic sense, people replace them with pets and dogs to fill the emptiness.

    Then along come religious people into this modern context.

    They tell women not to go out unnecessarily to avoid fitna, essentially demanding that women be socially isolated.

    They tell the people to fast and be moderate in eating, while people want to fill the emptiness in their souls with gluttony.

    They tell the people not to use contraception, when having many children early will make it more difficult to attain high status in the modern system and have access to the money required to enjoy all of the expensive “fun” that system offers.

    They tell people that extreme sports are wasteful and unnecessary, and that playing Western sports is imitation of kuffar. They tell women not to ride horses or bicycles to avoid being immodest.

    They tell people to avoid haram relationships, while halal relationships are extremely difficult and expensive.

    They tell childless people who have delayed marriage to fulfill the insane demands of modernity not to keep dogs.

    They tell people deprived of social contact, depressed and isolated, to avoid going to social settings and events like concerts and parties where alcohol and drugs are consumed, where people dance and listen to music, where temporary happiness, intense social connections, and even love and sex can be found on demand.

    At the same time, taking the kuffar as allies and adopting their technology, especially in terms of media, results in dangling all of this haram and wasteful fun and enjoyment in the faces of the Muslims. Muslims travel to the West and study in the universities of the kuffar, and get exposed to huge numbers of naked women, parties, and dating. They see videos on TV and social media of music concerts with ecstatic fans screaming and cheering in joy. They watch videos of all kinds of amazing feats in extreme sports. They watch heart-warming videos of cute dogs playing with babies. They see sports stars, entrepreneurs, musicians and actors who use drugs and commit zina being honored and revered. They see women traveling alone, playing sports in public, having money, independence, and professional achievements, and having their beauty and fashion admired by handsome men.

    Very few are aware that the way of life of the kuffar depends on the murder and enslavement of millions of people, including millions of Muslims. The ignorant are heedless of the reality that the waste associated with this way of life threatens to plunge humanity into an era of famine, plague, and war. They don’t connect the extreme weather events and suffering to the rampant sin and corruption caused by this lifestyle. All they see is a world of fun and excitement, and people with beards trying to prevent them from accessing it.

    قَالَ رَبِّ بِمَاۤ أَغۡوَیۡتَنِی لَأُزَیِّنَنَّ لَهُمۡ فِی ٱلۡأَرۡضِ وَلَأُغۡوِیَنَّهُمۡ أَجۡمَعِینَ
    إِلَّا عِبَادَكَ مِنۡهُمُ ٱلۡمُخۡلَصِینَ

    “[Iblees] said, “My Lord, because You have put me in error, I will surely make [disobedience] attractive to them on earth, and I will mislead them all
    Except, among them, Your chosen servants.” [15:39-40]

    This hatred is especially notable in a nation like Saudi Arabia, because both of these factors – the exposure to haram enjoyment, and the prevention from both halal and haram enjoyment – were especially intense. In terms of exposure to haram enjoyment, the number of young Saudis who studied in the West is especially high compared to other Muslim countries due to higher wealth levels, and so was their access to television and internet.

    With halal enjoyment, they have suffered from disconnection from nature due to higher availability of toxic luxuries like cars and air conditioning, and disintegration of social connections due to relying on machines and servants rather than family and community. They also faced intense restrictions on halal enjoyment in the form of restrictions on marriage, with many youth forced into unhappy arranged marriages for financial and political reasons, and slavery was outlawed at the request of the British.

    And with haram enjoyment, they faced some of the harshest restrictions in terms of prevention of mixing, music, and other entertainment. This dynamic is the key to understanding the rising trend of atheism and hatred of the religion which is affecting Muslim countries.

    Incomplete Systems

    This brings us to the more fundamental problem:

    أَفَتُؤۡمِنُونَ بِبَعۡضِ ٱلۡكِتَـٰبِ وَتَكۡفُرُونَ بِبَعۡضࣲۚ فَمَا جَزَاۤءُ مَن یَفۡعَلُ ذَ ٰلِكَ مِنكُمۡ إِلَّا خِزۡیࣱ فِی ٱلۡحَیَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنۡیَاۖ وَیَوۡمَ ٱلۡقِیَـٰمَةِ یُرَدُّونَ إِلَىٰۤ أَشَدِّ ٱلۡعَذَابِۗ وَمَا ٱللَّهُ بِغَـٰفِلٍ عَمَّا تَعۡمَلُونَ

    “So do you believe in part of the Scripture and disbelieve in part? Then what is the recompense for those who do that among you except disgrace in worldly life; and on the Day of Resurrection they will be sent back to the severest of punishment. And Allah is not unaware of what you do.” [2:85]

    Islam is a complete system. Like any complete system, the absence of one part leads to a dysfunctional system. Some parts negatively affect the performance of the system, and other more critical parts render the system completely non-functional.

    The human body is such a system; losing a limb or both eyes does not render the system dysfunctional, but it severely reduces the functioning of the system. Losing an essential organ like the liver or heart renders the system completely non-functional.

    In the case of the loss of the liver, the body can continue to live for a while, but will quickly become overloaded with toxins and die.

    A car is also a system. It can function without a seat, a hood, a windshield, or a muffler, but if it loses its radiator or a wheel, it quickly becomes non-functional.

    If a person only saw one car in his life, and it was a car missing two wheels, they would probably view cars as being strange and useless. Without seeing and experiencing a functional car with four wheels, it would be hard to expect them to truly appreciate the value of a car.

    Likewise, it is not realistic to expect someone to be willing to save money and make sacrifices to buy and maintain a non-functional car, especially when they don’t truly understand what a functional car is like or how it could affect their life.

    Islam, in the modern world, is a way of life, a system, which in almost all cases is missing essential parts.

    What remains of Islam are a few rituals; the salah, zakat, the two Eids, recitation of the Qur’an, and a set of personal commands and prohibitions.

    We are no longer protected by mujahideen in the path of Allah. Instead, we rely on oppressive national police and military forces. Even in the few countries that still have Islamic criminal law, there is no Islamic commercial law, so economic opportunities are restricted by oppressive tariffs, taxes, and labor regulations. Marriage possibilities are restricted by ever more demanding expectations of professional and educational attainment.

    Islam, modified to coexist with the liberal, secular world order, is no longer a functional system, and it’s no longer Islam. Rather, it is a burden which seems to limit one’s success and enjoyment within the liberal, secular world order.

    One of the reasons Christendom rejected Christianity in favor of secularism is because it demanded that they tolerate injustice, misery, and oppression and wait patiently for their reward in the afterlife. As a result, they have gone to an extreme of seeking pleasure in dunya instead. Islam is distinct from this extremism in that it balances the concerns of both the dunya and the akhira.

    رَبَّنَا آتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الْآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً وَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ

    “Our Lord, grant us good in this world and good in the Hereafter and save us from the punishment of the Hellfire.” [2:201]

    This modified Islam thus simulates the conditions that lead to the rise of secularism among the Christians; Muslims are told to deny themselves enjoyment in this world and suffer under extreme injustice, not standing against it or fighting for fear of being labeled “terrorists,” and they are told to wait for their reward in the akhira.

    A “deen” is a holistic way of life. The commands and prohibitions of Islam are not just personal guidelines and a path to spiritual salvation; they are parameters for the construction of an Islamic society. Substituting the commands of sharia for other systems of law results in the construction of a society where the commands and prohibitions of Islam seem strange and out of place.

    This process is an essential element of the war against Islam, because it is the means by which the general masses of Muslims are convinced to oppose those who actually strive to implement and establish Islam as a holistic way of life.

    The key to combatting this is first to implement the commands of Allah such that we know the sweetness of iman and the joy, happiness, and tranquility that Allah azza wa jal bestows upon the believer. Secondly, we have to convey the reality of an Islamic lifestyle and the happiness and enjoyment that it contains, just as the kuffar strive to spread media highlighting the pleasures and enjoyment of their way of life.

    Likewise, we have to strive to highlight the misery, filth, and degeneracy of the modern, Western lifestyle, just as the kuffar seek to depict the lives of practicing Muslims as miserable. You can see constant examples of this in the media of the kuffar – they are continuously spreading media about the most practicing Muslim areas like Somalia, Yemen, and Afghanistan, and making their condition seem pitiful and miserable. The reality is that if you go to these places, in spite of all the material hardship you will find, you will also find that the people have a vitality, a sense of community, and a sense of purpose which is missing in the wealthy lands of the West.

    The condition of the lands where Islam is strongest is one of superficial hardship, but deep contentment rooted in faith, while the condition of the West is one of superficial contentment, but deep misery rooted in ingratitude and disbelief (kufr). Thus, the spread of materialism serves to reinforce the illusion of the happiness of the kuffar and the misery of the believers.

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  • Dispelling Illusion and Escaping Subjugation to Human Beings

    One of the most important aspects of da’wah today is to expose the evil of Western civilizational “progress,” because this notion of progress is one of the biggest obstacles to the establishment of jihad and sharia. The masses of Muslims don’t realize that the abundant food and entertainment of this system are cursed, and they don’t realize this cursed food and entertainment are used as weapons against them, to ensure their humiliation and subjugation, and to corrupt their religion. As such, they view Muslims that threaten to cut off their access to cursed food and entertainment as their enemies, while they view the ones helping them gain access to cursed food and entertainment as their helpers.

    قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ سَيَأْتِي عَلَى النَّاسِ سَنَوَاتٌ خَدَّاعَاتُ يُصَدَّقُ فِيهَا الْكَاذِبُ وَيُكَذَّبُ فِيهَا الصَّادِقُ وَيُؤْتَمَنُ فِيهَا الْخَائِنُ وَيُخَوَّنُ فِيهَا الْأَمِينُ وَيَنْطِقُ فِيهَا الرُّوَيْبِضَةُ قِيلَ وَمَا الرُّوَيْبِضَةُ قَالَ الرَّجُلُ التَّافِهُ فِي أَمْرِ الْعَامَّةِ

    The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Years of treachery will come over people in which liars are believed and the truthful are denied, the deceitful are trusted and the trustworthy are considered traitors, and the disgraceful will deliver speeches.” It was said, “Who are the disgraceful?” The Prophet said, “Petty men with authority over the common people.” [Sunan Ibn Majah 4036, sahih according to al Albani]

    Many of the modern luxuries, which themselves come along with heavy dependence on the kuffar, result from decades of alliance and collaboration with the kuffar, in direct contravention to Allah’s command:

    یَـٰۤأَیُّهَا ٱلَّذِینَ ءَامَنُوا۟ لَا تَتَّخِذُوا۟ ٱلۡیَهُودَ وَٱلنَّصَـٰرَىٰۤ أَوۡلِیَاۤءَۘ بَعۡضُهُمۡ أَوۡلِیَاۤءُ بَعۡضࣲۚ وَمَن یَتَوَلَّهُم مِّنكُمۡ فَإِنَّهُۥ مِنۡهُمۡۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا یَهۡدِی ٱلۡقَوۡمَ ٱلظَّـٰلِمِینَ

    “O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people.” [5:51]

    It’s necessary to recognize that whatever we “gained” through submission to the kuffar was not truly progress, and that those who would fight to defend this “progress” are in fact fighting for the preservation of the dominance of the kuffar over the Muslims. This means reviving the tradition of zuhd which was practiced by the salaf, and which is integral to the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ.

    To this end, we must highlight the virtue and merit of simplicity. If you fear your enemy, your enemy will not fear you, and as long as we want what our enemies can offer us, we will fear them.

    Sacrifice is the essence of worship; we sacrifice our time and our desires to offer salah, we sacrifice our wealth to offer zakat, and the highest honor we can attain is to sacrifice our souls and offer ourselves to our Lord.

    As we increase in love for Allah, subhanahu wa t’ala, we must necessarily hate that which keeps us away from Him, which means that the sacrifices necessary to worship him cease to become a burden, and instead becomes a joy.

    It is not enough to relinquish the attachment toward the luxuries that chain us to the kuffar; it is necessary to actually hate these things. For one who hates to see the kuffar spreading their corruption through the earth, it is necessary to hate the means by which they derive the power, wealth, and strength to spread their corruption through the earth. And a large part of this power is derived through their economic presence in the Muslim lands.

    If we had followed the command to avoid taking the kuffar as awliya, we wouldn’t have cities which are constructed to accommodate the needs of cars rather than human beings. We would not have to purchase equipment for the construction and maintenance of the infrastructure to accommodate cars. We would not be going deeply into debt with riba to pay for this equipment and infrastructure. We would not need to send women to work outside the home to pay for expensive, car-based lifestyles and to cover the high taxes associated with high national debt.

    And most importantly, if the Muslims collectively rejected this closeness to the enemies of Allah and the “progress” that comes with it, the kuffar would be deprived of their ability to even maintain their system. Their financial and industrial system is already near the breaking point, and a loss of the market share they enjoy in Muslim countries would push it over the edge, even if the loss of market share were the only effect. However, a true awakening of the Muslims would do much more than just reduce their market share; it would also lead to disruptions in strategic areas like the Straights of Malacca, Gibraltar, and the Suez Canal. This would further drive up costs, affecting the profitability of a cascading series of industries, resulting in mass unemployment and breakdowns in global supply chains.

    It’s very simple; for the kuffar to reach the level that they are at required the colonization of the Muslim lands. Cutting off the neo-colonial flows of wealth from these lands would take them back to the level that they were at before.

    When a Muslim country is faced with the hardship of sanctions, we must consider the fact that sanctions hurt the kuffar just as they hurt us. If awareness spreads about the myriad of harms hidden behind luxuries like supermarkets, consumer electronics, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, automobile emissions, and other technologies which we have been duped into believing benefit us, then we will be better able to withstand the difficulties associated with breaking our addiction to these cursed and toxic products and the political arrangements that enable access to them.

    Islam must be taught with understanding of the impact that the implementation of sharia has upon the world and our lives. We must wake up to the oppression and misery that man-made systems exert on all of us. To teach that Islam is a divinely revealed message, and then to quietly accept to live according to a system of law rooted in another set of beliefs – or even worse, to dive deep into enjoyment of that system – is a pure expression of hypocrisy which will teach the youth to have contempt for both Islam and the Muslims.

    This is an instance of the meaning of the words of the noble Messenger ﷺ:

    القُرآنُ حُجَّةٌ لك أو عليك

    “The Qur’aan is evidence, for you or against you.” [Sahih Muslim]

    May Allah make the poisoned sweetness that the kuffar use to control us bitter to us, and increase us in beneficial knowledge and guide us to implement it as much as we learn it. May Allah expose those from among the Muslims who have become like the Jews, about whom Allah, subhanahu wa t’ala, said:

    أَفَتَطۡمَعُونَ أَن یُؤۡمِنُوا۟ لَكُمۡ وَقَدۡ كَانَ فَرِیقࣱ مِّنۡهُمۡ یَسۡمَعُونَ كَلَـٰمَ ٱللَّهِ ثُمَّ یُحَرِّفُونَهُۥ مِنۢ بَعۡدِ مَا عَقَلُوهُ وَهُمۡ یَعۡلَمُونَ

    “Do you covet [the hope, O believers], that they would believe for you while a party of them used to hear the words of Allah and then distort the Torah after they had understood it while they were knowing?” [2:75]

    And may Allah send abundant peace and prayer on the seal of the Prophets, Muhammed ibn Abdullah, and upon his family and companions and those who follow them in sincerity until the last day.

    والحمد لله رب العالمين

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  • Trading what is better for what is worse

    Believing that Western technological development is a net gain for humanity is incompatible with sound Islamic creed. Have we been so indoctrinated with materialism that we can’t see that this “advancement” is trading what is better for what is worse?

    The purpose of life is to worship Allah, subhanahu wa t’ala. A calamity which brings us closer to Allah is better than a blessing which causes us to forget Him.

    Even in a purely materialistic sense, Western technology is a massive fail. Why?

    1. Humanity and the earth are interconnected and interdependent.
    2. Development of Western technology did not lead to an overall improvement in the human condition, rather it elevated the condition of some humans at the expense of other humans and natural systems.
    3. Social actions yield social reactions. Interactions with nature yield natural reactions.
    4. Achieving Western technological progress required a level of cruelty so high that Westerners had to suppress their natural mercy (fitra).
    5. The loss of this fitra contributed to a disintegration of their social interactions with each other, leading to a disintegration of social relations and widespread sense of isolation and depression.
    6. The excesses generated by the “progress” led to a sense of purposelessness and a cycle of intensifying, mindless consumption, compounding the cycle.
    7. The material consequences of the “progress” are causing increasingly severe destructive climatic events.
    8. Most of the resource surplus attained through extreme cruelty and destruction goes toward attempting to fix the problems that cruelty and destruction caused, whether through entertainment, seeking pleasure through status symbols, or attempting to remediate various crises.
    9. The measures used to address the numerous crises do not solve the crises, but only defer their proliferation into more crises of increasing intensity.
    10. Eventually this game of “kick the can down the road” will fall apart, and a huge entropic debt will have to be paid.
    11. The inevitability of the failure of this system can be easily ascertained with logical certainty.
    12. Western civilization is a humiliating failure of epic proportions, and only the willfully blind (kuffar) can fail to see this.
    13. To bring about this massive failure, the kuffar have sacrificed the true purpose of their life, which is to worship our Creator and Sustainer sincerely and exclusively.
    14. Kufr is ingratitude and arrogance.
    15. To reject the purpose for which we were created is ingratitude. To believe that we can achieve some other aim (such as immortality) through our own power and ingenuity is arrogance.
    16. Muslims are winning the “war on terror” by any metric you care to use.
    17. This struggle does not need us. We need it.
    18. Who moves away from the struggle and toward the luxury and illusion of safety of the civilization of failure does so to the detriment of their own soul.
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