Muhammad Al-Yaqoubi - Refuting ISIS: Second Edition

REFUTING ISIS
SECOND EDITION

Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, prayers andof Prophets, who was sent as a mercy to the world,upon his Family and his Companions.

Copyright 2016
Shaykh Muhammad Al-Yaqoubi

Publisher: Sacred Knowledge
PO Box 711504
Herndon, Virginia 20171
USA

First published in August, 2015 in the United States.

ISBN 978-1-908224-1-94

Editing: Abdul Aziz Suraqah
Typesetting: Etherea Design
Cover Design: Imran Malik

All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations.

Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Baber Parvez, Diana Darke, John McHugo, Yasir Iftikhar, & Ali Beyad for their assistance in the publication of this work.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to the innocent people who havebeen unjustly killed in the name of Islam.I pray that Almighty God accepts them with His InfiniteMercy and grants their families patience and comfort.

Contents

Abbreviations

PBUH: Peace be upon him, the standard Islamic prayer upon hearing the name of any of the prophets of God.

AH: After Hijra, referring to the Islamic calendar, it literally means, after the migration of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE, which is the start of Islamic calendar.

b./Ibn, meaning son of, between two Arabic names. For instance, Amad b. anbal (Amad son of anbal).

D. Died, referring to the death year of a scholar.

Preface to the Second Edition

In the five months since the first edition of this book was published, I have received numerous email messages and letters of thanks and praise. Refuting ISIS has filled a gap in the theological battle against ISIS and showed that a scholarly response is very much needed. I also received requests to translate the book to several languages, a process which will take place soon.

The first edition was well received. Over 45,000 copies were distributed convincing many confused young Muslims that the road of ISIS leads to destruction in this life and to Hell in the Hereafter. Thousands of copies have already sold in the US & UK, and I have participated in several events promoting the message of the book to Muslim communities and policy makers.

With this encouraging and overwhelming response, I felt the need for a second edition that quenches the thirst of the readers with more details. Therefore, I went through the book from beginning to end, almost rewriting many sections. Several topics were tackled in a more detailed manner, such as the prohibition of burning human beings, the abolition of slavery, and Islams position towards minorities. New subjects were tackled, such as the invalidity of excommunicating Muslim rulers for not applying certain aspects of Shariah, Islams position towards democracy, and the prohibition of destroying pre-Islamic monuments and sacred sites. Several other topics benefitted from more rigorous proofs, especially the section confirming that ISIS criminals have left the fold of Islam and are not Muslims any longer.

This second edition of the book comes after the heinous attacks that ISIS perpetrated in Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, France, the USA and Indonesia. These attacks, which must be condemned by Muslim scholars and preachers around the world, are another testimony that, by killing women, children, and civilians, ISIS betrayed Islam, betrayed the Holy Quran, and betrayed the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

In the appendix, you will find my interview in response to Al-Jazeeras interview with the Nusra front leader Al-Julani, and his views on minorities. In Sunni Islam, we condemn terrorism and the extremist ideology behind it, in whatever form it appears and we see no difference between ISIS and Al-Qaeda, as both have the same ideology and their main difference is on leadership and priorities.

It is my hope that this contributes to the defeat of ISIS, which has already started on the ground, by refuting its ideology, thus reducing the numbers of its supporters around the world. I also hope that the reader will find this second edition to be a resourceful guide in unearthing the true teachings of Sunni Islam with regards to the ideology of ISIS and its crimes.

MUHAMMAD AL-YAQOUBI

Preface to the First Edition

Islam has never been challenged from the inside as it is being now. Scholars are therefore obliged to respond, and their response should be intellectually rooted and conclusive. The ideology of ISIS is based on a complex system of fallacies that sever the sacred texts from their context. It also thrives on a series of devious stratagems that make selective use of whatever elements of the Shariah (Islamic law) satisfy their twisted minds.

There is a myriad of proofs to destroy the allegations made by ISIS and expose their manipulation of the Shariah, but knowledge of these proofs is confined to scholars who are familiar with the classical texts and is generally not accessible to the average reader.

To address this knowledge gap I wanted to write this bookto offer a handbook that clarifies the position of Sunni Islam towards ISIS and its atrocities and provides the public with a scholarly response based on sacred texts and classical works. It is also the first attempt to defy ISIS intellectually, not only by offering a decisive rebuttal to their feeble narrative but also by defining the theological standing of the group and the illegal status of their self-declared caliphate. This book proceeds through a series of carefully constructed arguments, proving that the so-called Islamic State is neither Islamic nor a state, but rather a deviant group that is driven by anger, hatred, and a thirst for power, using Islam to reach their goals.

This book was written in February 2015 and first published in Arabic in June of the same year. I subsequently rendered the book into English. Although it is an advantage for any author to translate his own work, there is always the appetite to expand the original text, especially when the audience or the style dictates so. Nevertheless, I maintained the same order of chapters and quotes, but added a few points which were raised in a recent media interview about the status of religious minorities under Islamic governance; specifically as to whether they must embrace Islam, face execution, or maintain their beliefs and be citizens in their countries, living peacefully, side-by-side with Muslims and other groups. The latter is the opinion held by the majority of jurists.

Refuting ISIS is aimed at five different groups: (1) Muslim youth who are being influenced by the propaganda of ISIS, with no credible alternative perspectives; (2) ordinary Muslims, who are against ISIS but are seeking answers to the new theological and legal challenges brought about by ISIS; (3) new recruits to ISIS, to help them defect by proving to them that ISIS has no valid roots within Islamic theology and that the oath of allegiance to its leader is void; (4) the fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in Syria as well as the Muslim pilots from the alliance against ISIS and their families, many of whom wonder about the legitimacy of the war against their Muslim brothers and whether they die as martyrs for a just cause; and (5) the western audience: academics, journalists, politicians, and the public, the majority of whom have always admired Islam as a set of tenets and a religion of peace and civility. When faced with the practices of ISIS, many within this category of people wondered where the Muslim scholars were and why they were silent. Many in the West have heard Muslim figures in the media disassociating true Islam from the actions of ISIS, but for intellectuals that in itself was neither convincing nor sufficient. The voice of an expert and scholar from within Islam was required in order to dig out the treasures of the Islamic legal system and present proofs that undeniably refute the allegations of ISIS and expose its fallacies.