Mu' meneen Brothers and Sisters,

As Salaam Aleikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.  (May Allah's Peace, Mercy and Blessings be upon all of you)

 

 

one of our brothers/sisters has asked this question:

As Salaam Aleikum

My question :As Muslims should we be proud of Osama Bin Ladin or is he a terrorist.Even though he has admitted that he is not responsible for the attacks on the WTC, but he has claimed that he is happy about it. He has perhaps admitted to the American embassy bombings in Tanzania and the USS Cole in Yemen. DO you think he is helping the Islamic cause or damaging it. His open remarks like having a fancy to kill Americans, which are telecast on TV throughout the world is not going to help the Muslims either, and of course we will be generalised and hated. Comments like this also do not help 3rs world countries relationship with US or European countries who have no option but to be at the mercy for financial aid. Surely there is a better way to spread Islam than by killing people. Osama is a millionaire, perhaps he could have used his wealth to spread Islam - started an Islamic TV channel, Islamis institutes in the West and Middle East etc. Sometimes I have admiration for the guy other times I have doubts. Look at the economic effect globally as a result of bringing down two building ? We are all suffering in someway. Off course America has its own agenda's, but let leave that out now....... Are guys like Osama good for Islam. Your comments please.

Allah Hafiz

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Answer:

 

Ossama Bin Ladin

In the name of Allah, We praise Him, seek His help and ask for His forgiveness. Whoever Allah guides none can misguide, and whoever He allows to fall astray, none can guide them aright. We bear witness that there is no one (no idol,  no person,  no grave, no prophet,  no imam,  no dai,  nobody!) worthy of worship but Allah Alone, and we bear witness that Muhammad(saws) is His slave-servant and the seal of His Messengers.

 

The truth is that Ossama bin Ladin is only a human being and a ‘fantastic’ creation of the Western Media Hype!  All we know for sure about him is that he is a pious muslim, who helped in the Afghanistan Jihad with Russia.  He left his comfortable palaces and the luxuries of this world, to go live as a soldier in the Cause of Allah.   

 

Everything else we know about him is from the Western Media!   The people or muslims you see who rally behind his name have more to do with their hatred for the US government policies towards the muslim nations, rather than their knowledge of Ossama bin Ladin.   In Ossama, they find a muslim who has the courage to stand up and say what is in the hearts of millions of muslims.   In Ossama, they find a man who is unlike their leaders and rulers, who speak only what the World Powers tell them to speak.    In Ossama, they seek the honor that the muslim leaders have sabotaged in their subservience to the World Powers.

 

I obviously don’t know enough about Ossama bin Ladin to comment on what he does or does not do.   What I know of him is what I hear about him in the news.   Thus, I don’t think I am qualified to give my opinion on the person.

 

Your Question: DO you think he is helping the Islamic cause or damaging it.

I personally think it is a mixture of the two.    He has given, in my humble opinion, a hope to the muslims and rallied them to rise up against oppression, injustice and arrogance.   He has dared to say what no person dares to say in this world and age….  And that has brought upon him the wrath of the world powers.

 

Your Comment:  His open remarks like having a fancy to kill Americans, which are telecast on TV throughout the world is not going to help the Muslims either, and of course we will be generalised and hated.

The truth is that the Western Media and the people who have not understood Islam,  have always been against the very idea of Islam.   They also have an in-built fear or prejudice,  having lived under the influence of Islam for a thousand years!    And besides,  even without the current focal point of Ossama,  it was not as if the West had not found a reason to ridicule and object to everything that was Islamic.   

And if you see carefully,  and think clearly,  why is the action of one man or one organization linked to the religion of 1.6 billion people?    We never linked the religion of Hitler to his atrocities!   We never linked the religion of Mussolini to his atrocities!   We never linked the IRA to their religion!   We never linked the Basque separatists of Spain to their religion!   Then why is it that the whole 1.6 billion people who follow Islam are linked to the actions of one man?  

The truth is what Allah says in the Holy Quran,  and no one could have said it more beautifully and accurately,  than these words of Supreme and Divine Wisdom:

 

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 2 Surah Baqarah verse 120:Never will the Jews or the Christians be satisfied with you, unless you follow their form of religion.

 

Thus no matter what we do, the West will never be satisfied with us; unless of-course if we become like them….  And that is not in the Islamic agenda! 

 

Your Comment: Comments like this also do not help 3rs world countries relationship with US or European countries who have no option but to be at the mercy for financial aid.

For the people who take the affluent Western nations as their ‘providers’, they will have this feeling.  But the truth is, they control the world… from economics to politics to public opinion.   And they always have their interests and their nation’s well being at heart, which is fine! 

What we, as believers need to do, is stand on the side of Justice and Truth…. Without fearing what will be the repercussions; because there is absolutely no substitute for doing the Right Thing.

We need to think with either our hearts or our brains, to come to the Right Decision….  But if one thinks with his ‘stomach’, chances are he will almost always make the wrong decision!

 

Your Comment:  Surely there is a better way to spread Islam than by killing people.

 This comment is more of an accusation than reality!    Islam was spread over the ages by winning the hearts of the people, not by killing them!    And today, when all the swords of the worlds are against the muslims, it is still by far the fastest growing religion in the world!   It is the muslims who are being oppressed and killed all over the world; in Bosnia, in Kosovo, in Albania, in Kashmir, in Algeria, in Iraq, in Sudan, in Afghanistan,  etc.   

And besides, the people who kill are not in the business of doing ‘daawah’!

 

Your Comment:  Osama is a millionaire, perhaps he could have used his wealth to spread Islam - started an Islamic TV channel, Islamis institutes in the West and Middle East etc. 

How do we know he is not already doing that?  When a believer spends his wealth in the Cause of Allah, he does not advertise it to the world!  We are told only the negative aspects of his being by the enemies, and we are so naïve, that we believe each and every word that is spoken against him.

Ossama is indeed a millionaire… and he could have, like the rest of the muslim millionaires, lived lavishly in luxury wherever he wanted!  It is his wealth, and he has chosen to forsake the luxuries enjoyed by the likes of him, to the rough mountains of Afghanistan!  How he earned his wealth, and how he spends it is something he will have to answer to Allah Subhanah.   

We have absolutely no right to tell him what he should be doing with his wealth!   

 

Your Comment: Sometimes I have admiration for the guy other times I have doubts.

I don’t think he cares what you or I, or even the world, think about him.  But the fact that he has chosen to live the way he does, with all his wealth, is worth admiration.    It could have not been anything, other than the pleasure and the promise of His Lord!  

 

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 9 Surah Taubah verse 111: Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their possessions; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth through the Law the Gospel and the Qur'an: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah?  Then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme.

 

Your Comment:  Look at the economic effect globally as a result of bringing down two building ? We are all suffering in someway.

This is what our problem is today!  We always think “how is this effecting me” before we think how is it effecting the state of the Muslim Ummah!   Brother, you must bear in mind, that no one has yet proven a crime against Ossama.  He might be a suspect, but he is not a convicted criminal!  And no one has yet proven that he indeed was behind the attacks on the USA on September-11.  In my personal opinion, he just does not have the kind of muscle and connections to have pulled this off!  Thus whoever has done this; more than you and I; just think how much the sovereign nation and people of Afghanistan are paying for it. And that too after publicly proclaiming that he had nothing to do with these attacks!   

 

Your Question: Are guys like Osama good for Islam.

The answer again is yes, and no!  Yes, because the muslim Ummah is so fed up with its political and farce leadership, that they have found in Ossama an alternative to focus on.   Even the muslims who are not necessarily pious and God-fearing, have voiced their support for the causes that he has brought forward.   Lets just say, it has given rise to the Ummah of Islam for once, to agree and unite for a common cause:  the upliftment of the honor and the independence of the muslims to practice their religion as they see fit.

And no, because the West have termed all the muslims as terrorists.   Not that before Ossama, they had not tried to do that!  Or not that before Ossama, they were in love with Islam!  They have focused all their enmity on this one man, and have promised to crush him and his cause, in the hope that anyone who dares to challenge the World Powers and tell them what they do not like to hear, should know that they will crush him and his voice in whatever way they can!     But little do they realize, that even if they kill Ossama, there will be a thousand Ossamas who will rise up to challenge the oppression and injustice that is done to the muslims and their nations in the name of the ‘New World Order’!   Ossama or the Talebaan never went to the USA and told their women to cover up or tell their men to grow beards,  or whatever else they did in their sovereign nation!   What gives the USA the right to tell people what they should be doing in their independent nations?   What gives the USA the right to attack a sovereign nation in the search for one ‘suspect’?   If an ordinary American did a crime in another country and ran back to the USA,  could a nation like Saudia or Pakistan declare war on the USA if they refused to give up this person to them?  The truth is, the USA is blinded by its own ignorance and arrogance, and wants to use its muscle to subjugate the world to its way of life.    But, as muslims  we have a way of life that has been ordained by Allah Subhanah,  which,  without a doubt,  is superior to any way of life invented by man!

All we ask is live as you want to live;  and leave us alone to live as we are commanded to live!    But that is something the World Powers just cannot allow!    Thus there will always be a conflict.   Not between the most powerful nations in the world and one man;  but between the ones who don’t believe and the ones who do!

 

Whatever written of Truth and benefit is only due to Allah’s Assistance and Guidance, and whatever of error is of me.  Allah Alone Knows Best and He is the Only Source of Strength.

 

 

Your brother and well wisher in Islam,

 

 

Burhan