بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
News & Comment
Have We Abandoned Aleppo?
News
The news this morning again touched on Aleppo and the ongoing massacre. A doctor spoke about the horrific injuries people are suffering. The Russian bombardment has resumed and thousands are killed, besieged and running out of food. Pictures of the bombed out buildings that we see on TV make it hard to imagine that people still survive amidst such devastation and the days go by with no help from the Muslim world to stop Bashar killing men, women and children. Has our Ummah abandoned Aleppo?
Comment
Allah's Messenger (saw) said,
«الْمُسْلِمُ أَخُو الْمُسْلِمِ، لاَ يَظْلِمُهُ وَلاَ يُسْلِمُهُ، وَمَنْ كَانَ فِي حَاجَةِ أَخِيهِ كَانَ اللَّهُ فِي حَاجَتِهِ، وَمَنْ فَرَّجَ عَنْ مُسْلِمٍ كُرْبَةً فَرَّجَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ كُرْبَةً مِنْ كُرُبَاتِ يَوْمِ الْقِيَامَةِ، وَمَنْ سَتَرَ مُسْلِمًا سَتَرَهُ اللَّهُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ»
“A Muslim is a brother of another Muslim, so he should not oppress him, nor should he hand him over to an oppressor. Whoever fulfilled the needs of his brother, Allah will fulfill his needs; whoever brought his (Muslim) brother out of a discomfort, Allah will bring him out of the discomforts of the Day of Resurrection, and whoever screened a Muslim, Allah will screen him on the Day of Resurrection.”
While we all proclaim that people in Aleppo (or Burma or Kashmir) are our brothers, we are failing in the duty of brotherhood: to aid them and relieve their suffering by sending an army that can stop Assad’s army from continuing to kill them. In most parts of the Muslim world, life carries on with little interruption from the terrible events in Syria. Apart from some mention of Syria in the news bulletin or khutbah, the festivals, national pageants, tourism and other aspects of public life and discourse carry on as usual. Just make dua is another answer people are told, as if seeking Allah’s help is reduced to asking alone as opposed to making dua as well as steadfastly raising our voices to demand that the armies of the Muslim countries are sent to aid our ummah in Syria. Isn’t the killing of our brothers and sisters a life and death matter that demands that the rulers mobilise and despatch their armies to liberate them?
To compound the situation, we are made to feel impotent and powerless and told to just make dua and hope for the best. The rulers of Saudi, Turkey and other lands do this by publicly demanding that the UN or ‘international community’ needs to act to solve the crisis, implying that they cannot act and that the bloodshed can only be stopped by foreign powers! In reality, the foreign powers only make things worse and only serve their interests when they intervene in Muslim lands and the same foreign powers are today supporting Bashar. Syria is in the heart of the Muslim lands and the ability to put out the fire there lies with the neighbouring Muslim countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, not in foreign lands.
The rulers are capable of sending troops and planes to liberate our ummah in Syria. After all, Saudi rulers have sent planes to bomb people in Yemen, yet refuse to send planes to bomb Bashar’s forces in Syria. Turkey’s rulers have sent troops and planes into Syria to confront the Kurds but not to liberate the people from Assad. Why? Both governments cite their ‘national interest’. So it is clear they pay no heed to the hadith ordering the Muslim to help another Muslim. So it is clear that the rulers have abandoned our ummah in Aleppo (Syria, Burma and other places).
Does that absolve the rest of us from their sin? No. We are ordered to enjoin ma’ruf and forbid munkar, so as long as we have a voice and air in our lungs, we should be raising our voice to point out the inaction of the rulers and mobilise all Muslims to loudly demand that these rulers despatch the armies to save our Ummah in Syria and we should not rest until they do that or are replaced. Otherwise, what would we say to Allah (swt)? We cannot be mere bystanders.
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Taji Mustafa
Media Representative of Hizb ut Tahrir in Britain