Helpful Disbelievers  

 

(A response to Dr. Haitham Al-Haddad's article: Do England Fans Need “Deradicalising”?)

​

I think that as Muslims, especially here in the West, we get confused about how to treat disbelievers when we find some of them supporting our causes. In the seerah of our beloved prophet Muhammad (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) the number of disbelievers willing to help the Muslims were always the minority. In fact, we can probably name most of them: Abu Talib, the Negus of Abyssinia, Utbah ibn Rabi'ah (apart from when he disfigured Abu Bakr's face by hitting it with his shoes, he was reasonable sometimes right up until the Battle of Badr), ‘Abd-Allaah ibn Abi Urayqit (who they hired during the hijrah), Suraaqah ibn Maalik (who, during the hijrah, didn't reveal their location to the Quraysh) and the few men who helped to stop the 3 year boycott.

 

Our beloved prophet is the perfect example of someone who, on an individual level, was the most generous, the most patient, the most truthful, the most sincere and the most honest towards people, but he never lost sight of the final goal. He never allowed getting the help of these disbelievers to guilt trip him into compromising at all which is why his letter to the Negus of Abyssinia invited him to follow him just like his letters to the Roman and Persian Empires. Also, why would he lose sight of the final goal when he understood that establishing the Islamic system would benefit all people, Muslims and disbelievers? Didn't he (ﷺ) say, "Allah wonders at those people who will enter Paradise in chains"? Those of you who indulge the ignorance of certain Muslims and disbelievers are not doing them any favours. In fact, you are being selfish because you are not helping their worldly life or their afterlife.

 

In the world today, the disbelievers willing to help Islamic causes are still a minority. All we have to do is look at Islam21C's own articles to see that the majority are either silent or, increasingly, openly hostile like the far-right, the LGBTIQA+ community going after our children, the media, the political establishment, European nations regarding the niqab and more recently the head scarf, the Zionists, the USA and the war on terror, the Burmese, the Indians, the Chinese Communist Party, the Russians and the list goes on.

​

I do understand though that we can lose sight of the individuals in front of us because we have this bigger goal. That is something that we, as Muslims, should be careful about as it can lead to us losing our humanity. The many examples mentioned above of the good attitude of our beloved prophet (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), especially towards the poor, neglected and downtrodden, continued throughout his life, in Makkah and in Madinah, and it won't aid western foreign policy in Muslim countries if we stick to this good attitude. In fact, our taxes and skills do far more towards that than, for example, helping a recently widowed, slightly arthritic little old lady by buying her a key turner so that she can get inside her house, or giving your umbrella to a homeless man or even buying one for a homeless woman, all disbelievers.

​

​Wal-hamdu lillahi rabbil 'alamin (March 2023 originally a comment made in 2021 in response to an article)

​

Umm Hafab

​

Home

Muslim News

Answering Disbelievers

Advising Believers

​