Calling Non Muslim Police Against Muslims - your views?
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Tariqul-Islam/message/798
Question:
sidi, i hope that you can answer this burning question of mine.
if we see a Muslim doing wrong, we are obliged to correct him. if he
continues to do wrong in this situation, what are we legally obliged
to do?
some Muslims say that it is haram for us to call the police, as this
is taking the 'kuffar as helpers and protectors' as well as handing
in your Muslim brother to the kuffar, going against the prophet's (s)
sayings:
1. ''The Muslim is the brother of Muslim he neither oppresses him,
nor does he fail him.." (Muslim).
2. "Whoever protects the honour of his brother, Allah will protect
his face from hell on the Day of Judgment." (Ahmad and Tirmidhi).
is it haram for us to seek the judgement and help of the kuffar
against fellow Muslims?
Ustadh Abdullah's response:
As for your question about the ruling of calling the unbelieving
police on the Muslims, this is an extremely problematic issue
especially here in the West, because Muslims - or those claiming to
be Muslims - will some times transgress against other Muslims, and
then attempt to use al-wala wa al-bara (loyalty to believers and
disloyalty to unbelievers) as a means to prevent their victims from
exacting justice from them.
It many times happens that when the victim of another Muslim's
agression is not appropriately dealt with by the local community of
Imams, the agressor is left with no retribution taken and may even
continue his agression until it further excalates to something
extremely severe.
The council of Imams sometimes don't do enough even though they
probably can - as in the case of women who may be seeking divorce
from a particular abusive husband, and at other times they are
completely powerless in the sense that they don't possess any
authority to physically subdue those who transgress either out of
fear of retaliation against their own lives or out of fear that they
will be arrested by the established - non-Muslim authorities for
their vigilantism.
What is a person to do when a person - claiming to be Muslim -
continues to transgress against another?
Instead of giving you an answer to this question, I'll just state
the following and allow you to make your own decisions:
The basic rule of Islam is that a believer is not allowed to call on
unbelievers in order to protect them against other believers instead
of seeking the protection of the believers. And one is even
considered to be acting as a hypocrite when he/she does such a
thing.
But when a person does do his/her utmost to seek the believers'
protection against other believers and that help and protection are
not achieved for whatever reason and the transgression continues to
escalate, a person is confronted by a serious dilemma.
Does a person call on the protection of the unbelievers who are more
likely to remove the agression thereby risking one's good name and
repute and being accused of hypocrisy?
Or does one take matters into his/her own hands and return the
transgression with its equal or greater thereby risking arrest by
the unbelieving authorities for murder or the like, and risking
losing one's family to prison, etc.?
If you do the first, the Muslims will say "Astaghfirullah,
munaafiq!"
And if you kill the person, the Muslims will also
say "Astaghfirullah, that's bad. He killed a Muslim!"
Once a man came to the Prophet (pbuh) and said: "What if one comes
wanting to take my wealth?" He (pbuh) said: "Then don't give him
your wealth?" He said: "What if he fights with me?" He said: "Then
fight him back." He said: "What if he kills me?" He said: "Then you
are a martyr." He said: "And what if I kill him?" He said: "Then he
is in the Fire."
I say, what if this person is a Muslim? Does one have the right to
defend himself or not? And if the Muslim leaders don't or can't
return the brother's/sister's wealth to them, then what is a person
to do?
Of course, the high road is as the Messenger (pbuh) said, "Be the
son of Adam, the murdered one, not the son of Adam, the murderer."
But this demands high ambition and zeal, which most individuals do
not have.
In reality, there is conflict here between two or more universals:
The protection of one's religion, and the protection of one's life,
wealth, and honor.
The first universal - protection of religion (din), happens as a
result of the person not calling the police on another Muslim by
avoiding the label of being a hypocrite.
But as most scholars of Islam agree, when there is conflict
occurring between a matter that threatens one's life and person, and
a matter threatening the loss of one's din (faith), the preservation
of life and person is given precedence, so that one can sacrifice
matters of faith in pursuit of the preservation of life as we do
when one eats pork in the absence of any other food.
So if a Muslim breaks into my home and transgresses against me and
my family, is it a lesser evil for me to take matters into my own
hand and kill the Muslim thereby risking Hell-fire for myself, or is
it a lesser evil for me to call the established 'non-Muslim'
authorities to give me justice even after I sought the help of
Muslims who either refused to help me or were totally impotent to do
so?
One should always seek the help of Muslims when other Muslims
transgress against him/her as a basic rule. But this is not always a
simple matter. Matters are many times very complex and complicated.
In the end, it is a duty of the local leadership in every area in
the west to develop mechanisms to ensure that Muslims can exact
justice from those Muslims who perpetrate crimes against them.
Otherwise, they are just as hypocritical as those they accuse of
hypocrisy who go to the police for protection from other Muslims
when they transgress against them.
And I hope this helps you.
Was Salaam
Abdullah
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