whether there is one man or a thousand, because they cannot help one another. But since those who affirm look at the heart of the matter and reality of the situation, their claims unite and the individual strength of each of them combines and assists all. It resembles lifting a great boulder: the more hands there are, the stronger they are and the easier it becomes.
O miserable pseudo-patriot who fervently encourages Muslims to embrace this world and forcibly drives them to European industry and progress! Beware, don’t let the bonds be broken that tie certain members of this nation to religion! If thus foolishly blindly imitating and crushed under foot, their bonds with religion are broken, those irreligious people will become as harmful for social life as fatal poison. For the apostate’s conscience is completely corrupted and he becomes like poison in the life of society. It is because of this that according to the science of the principles of religion, “The apostate forfeits the right to life, whereas if an unbeliever is a member of the protected minorities or he makes peace, he has the right to life;” this is a principle of the Shari‘a.1 Furthermore, according to the Hanafi school, the testimony of such an unbeliever is acceptable,2 whereas the testimony of someone who has strayed from the path of the Shari‘a is rejected. For he is perfidious.3
O miserable sinner who has deviated from Shari‘a! Do not look at the multitude of the dissolute and be deceived; do not say: “Most people think the same as me!” For the depraved do not want to embrace depravity; they rather fall into it and cannot extricate themselves. There is no sinner who does not want to be righteous and who does not want to see his superior and chief as religious. Other than if – I seek refuge with God! – his conscience is corrupted through apostasy and he receives pleasure from poisoning, like a snake.
O crazy head and corrupted heart! Do you suppose that Muslims do not love the world, or that they do not think about the poverty into which they have fallen, and that they are in need of admonishment so that they do not forget their share of the world?
Bukhari, Jihad, 149; Tirmidhi, Hudud, 2; Musnad, i, 217, 282, 322; v, 231.
al-Kashani, Bada‘i al-Sana‘i, ii, 254-5; vi, 266.
See, Tirmidhi, Shahadat, 2; Abu Da’ud, ‘Aqdiyya, 16; Ibn Maja, Ahkam, 30; Musnad, ii, 181, 204, 208.