NOTE: Ibrāhīm bin Sulaymān al-Rubaysh is one of the senior leaders within al-Qā’idah in the Arabian Peninsula and is their chief ideologue.Prior to joining up with AQAP, al-Rubaysh was in Guantánamo Bay prison until December 2006. Following his release he entered into the Saudi rehabilitation program, which supposed to reform jihadists and transition them back into regular society. He went to Yemen, though, in 2008 and joined up with AQAP. The below English translation/transcription is unedited and came from al-Rubaysh’s Arabic audio message, which was released on September 18.
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I send this message to every sympathizer of the Ummah in the Land of the Haramain (the Two Sanctuaries: Makkah and Medinah). I send it to the scholars and the preachers, to the sermonizers on the pulpits and the imams of the mosques, to the teachers and instructors in the universities, to the caretakers in the homes and to the jealous fathers and guardians, to every Muslim man and woman who prefers the commandments of Allah over all other else, and are not among those who, if provided a salary,, pay no mind to what is occurring to the religion. To all those, I send this message asking them to take it into great consideration. I remind you of Allah who entrusted you with your Religion and granted you guardianship over what is under your hands. As the Honest and Trustworthy, prayers and peace be upon him, said
“If the shepherd to whom Allah granted guardianship dies having neglectedhis flock, Allah will ban him from Paradise.”
I remind the people of knowledge of the covenant by which Allah bound them:
“And remember Allah took a covenant from the people of the Book, to make it known and clear to mankind, and not to hide it; but they threw it away behind their backs, and purchased with it some miserable gain! And vile was the bargain they made!” (Aali Imran: 187)
If Allah had not made it a duty for us to give advice to Muslims, I would not have taken it upon myself to send this message.
To begin, I ask this question: Are you satisfied with the situation of society and its state of deterioration from which is apparent that it is heading towards an abyss? Each year brings more evil than the last.
Some will answer me by casting a hadith of the Messenger of Allah, prayers and peace be upon him and his household, in which he said:
“If a man says that people are damned, he is more damned than they.”
I will be characterized as a fear-mongerand conspiracy theorist but all this does not matter. He, who wishes to ascertain the truth, let him examine the situation without prejudice.
What will be apparent to those who study the situation is that the problems of sinfulness and corruption have increased and diversified to the point that the senses are inured to them. Inappropriate veiling of women has increased and no market is without it. Even the Masjid-ul-Haraamhas not been spared from it. Cases of impermissible seclusion and its consequences have increased manyfold, and those who sit with the Committee for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue know of these calamities!
The calamity is that our society has delivered itself to its executioner through carelessness or feigning indifference. You see society toying with it without arousing the least resentment, resulting in the appearance of all kinds of legalized sinfulness and corruption, aimed at transforming and westernizing society and effacing all that bespeaks an Islamic identity in societal customs.
As a result, we see foreign exchange programs whereby women are sent out more than men, and they are provided more jobs than men. An identification card for women has been instituted and a serious effort made to gradually enforce this upon them. We hear of a female dean of a certain college who refused to allow female students to take a test without an ID card and the judge who suspended a case until a female client was issued an ID card. It is as if they can do what they want: they will stop marriage contracts, the distribution of inheritances, the purchase or sale of property until the women clients are issued ID cards.
Another form of sinfulness and corruption, of which there is inundation of reports, is the employment of women as actresses and their work as announcers and correspondents on official networks.
Part of the legalized sinfulness and corruption that we see is the mixing of sexes in the hospitals, even though the ability to segregate the sexes is easily available to any who wish to do so. And if they claim that there is a need for men to treat women in some cases, why are the male sections filled with female doctors and nurses?
Another kind of intermingling has come, contrived by the king’s genius. He has realized his dream for which he has been waiting 25 years through the universities where men and women, male and female students mix.
Their plan is to spread corruption and transform society, but gradually so that society will not reject it. As it is said, “Slowly but surely”. Although in fact recent years have witnessed an acceleration in their measures, this will perhaps expose them quicker. Perhaps their haste is due to the fact that they feel secure. Those who think they are safe from punishment will misbehave! They do not fear Allah, and all past experiences have proven that there is no reaction from the people to be feared.
One of their cunning plots to introduce sinfulness and corruption is through claiming journalistic freedom. The beginning was when the Minister of Justice issued a circular to the Shari’ah judges requiring adherence to article 37 of the press and publication laws, stipulating that issues of publication in the newspapers are the purview of the Ministry of Information and not the Shari’ah courts. When the wolf is entrusted with the flock, the field has been opened for people to write what they want with no accountability or supervision, but of course this privilege is not given to all. It is only for certain kinds of writers. They write what they want, in violation of the Shariah, and rejected by our societal customs. Then many voices which are raised in response are disregarded, and with the passage of time, society becomes numbed to this issue.
The closest example of this is the women’s ID card. The newspapers wrote much about this issue, and much has been said about it. When the people were prepared to receive the blow, it was instituted. When its institution was accepted, the time came to gradually enforce it. The turn is coming for women’s athletic clubs and women driving cars.
Their increased audacity is derived from the weakness of those in the forefront of the Islamist movement. You see that a vast majority of the newspapers will not publish an article by them. As for those who do write in the newspapers, they do not even think of discussing these topics, because they know they will not be published. Nothing remains for them but the internet, and one or two satellite channels. As for the other networks, they seldom host them unless they feel that their words will serve their (the network’s) own benefit. When they do appear, their weakness becomes apparent. They expose themselves to shame and melt away with these changes to a shocking degree. Their words they use and the concepts they hold are almost identical to those newspaper writers from other ideologies. They now speak of nationalism, dedication to it, and identification with it, rather than jealousy for Islam. They have begun to utter that such and such is “against the regime and the law”, when previously governance was for Allah alone. You will but seldom hear from their tongues (any talk) of enforcing Allah’s law.
This calamity is not limited to the fact that they will not reject forbidden acts unless the regime also forbids them. Indeed the situation has become worse with many of them, in that they have come to advise people not to condemn forbidden acts unless the regime itself has stipulated that they be banned. And whoever openly rejects forbidden acts, they proceed to admonish him more than the ones who actually committed the forbidden acts. As for he who rejects the forbidden act by deed, this to some of them is a kind of open sin that requires public rejection of the sinner.
Sometimes you see them having discussions with the liberalists in meetings or on TV. Then you will see the weakness of their rhetoric and their lack of audacity. You will see each of the two parties claiming to be the chosen one. Each claims that the rulers back them and what they say, that the regime favors them, and they want to serve the homeland and the interest of the people. Frequently their argument in responding to an opponent is “I do not know more than those in authority” or “the people in authority know where the benefit lies”!
Before, during and after this, they try to strikes the right note to please their rulers. This is done by condemning Jihad under the name of terror. With some of them, it is like salt on food, or purification for prayer. They are afraid that if they are silent their mouths will be muzzled or their Dawah efforts impeded. The situation has reached the point where some of them slander lies against the Mujahideen. And if they talk about the liberalists, they say “My brother liberals”. You see their rulers smile upon them, but give them nothing but more restrictions and spread of sinfulness and corruption.
You see them rejoice because Nayef Ibn Abdul Aziz criticized this newspaper or that channel. They rejoice at that and repeat it, and perhaps they read it and cite it like they cite the words of the scholars. They know, and Nayef knows better than they, that a decision from him is sufficient to change the program of those writers, or remove those they wish to remove, or even to imprison or dismiss them from duty. So how can it be believed that the Interior Minister – who gave himself a status that none can question what he does, who intervenes to dismiss orators and preachers, who has the right to fire employees from their jobs even it they are outside his ministry, and who orders the detention of whomever he pleases and the Office of the Ombudsman has no right to look into cases raised against his investigations bureau – cannot deter a newspaper from doing what he dislikes if he takes offense at it?!
The matter that must be patently clear is that this corrupt clique of writers is at the beck and call of Nayef and his brothers. They utter only what pleases them. If individual transgressions are found, how swiftly they are dealt with.
The rulers of the House of Saud want to take what suits their fancy from both Islam and liberalism and leave the rest. They have therefore put in place red lines for the Islamists and liberals under their control which they are not able to cross. All o them move within these lines. And woe, woe, to him who thinks about crossing them. For example, the Islamists cannot speak of Jihad against the Americans as being legal as the Jihad against the Russians was legal. They are not able to reject the conventional courts belonging to the Ministry of Commerce or Ministry of Information. And who is able to criticize the vicious campaign of detentions?
When they speak of the co-mingling (of sexes) in King Abdullah University, many of them speak of it from the perspective that the country’s regime has not instituted it, and that their ruler does not know about it!
We are approaching what is called National Day. Is a preacher, a scholar or even the Mufti himself able to reject celebration of the National Day? Or even to cite the fatwa of the permanent committee prohibiting its celebration? And it must be taken into consideration that when the fatwa by the permanent commitment condemning it was issued, the day was commemorative only, marked by small celebrations. Now it is a holiday when all the schools are closed and celebrations are imposed everywhere. Changing the name does not change the reality of things. They are not able to criticize it. The vast majority of them were silent over the Rafidites’ violation of the sanctuary of Tawheed in the city of Allah’s Messenger, prayers and blessings be upon him and his household. How can any transgression be denounced when there is silence on the greatest idolatry which takes a person out of the fold of Islam?
The same can be said of the liberals. They do not take liberalism in its original sense. Rather they take from it liberation from some legal and social restrictions. But they are not able to announce their liberation from political tyranny of the idiotic Bedouin and his brothers! Which of them can dare to ask in one of their articles: why are the minister of information and minister of defense not changed like other ministers are changed? And who can say that the appointment of a second deputy prime minister abrogates the position of the Bay’ah committee? Who can say that what the Interior Ministry has been doing in detaining people for many without trial is a matter that violates the official law of the country? Which newspaper can publish even one issue that does not contain news of the official receptions and departures done by the idiotand his brothers?
The media establishments in our country without exception are subject to the House of Saud. They are not able to violate their desires and fancies, and they are not able to cross the red lines laid down by the House ofSaud. For example, when the journalist Khaled Sulaiman was asked: why did you prioritize the disaster of the floods of Jeddah over the floods of Riyadh? He answered that he found freedom to write about Jeddah, but did not find freedom to write about Riyadh. When he was asked, “Who gave you freedom for this but not for that?” He answered, “Ask the censor!” This is what the restricted journalist is able to declare. I don’t think there is any distinction between the two cases except that most of the officials in Riyadh are from the House ofSaud. They are above both the Shari’ah as well as secular law, as is well-known!
Rather, there are some journalists who you will find in their writings searching for subjects that will please their rulers. That is crystal clear in the writings of Abdullah al-Arayfij, who is nothing more than a scribe for the Ministry of Information in most of his writings. Indeed, he has even mentioned things that he could not know except through the tran****** of the interrogations conducted in the prisons of the secret police.
Faris bin Hizam is not much different, when he criticizes this preacher or that for not giving a speech condemning the assassination attempt on Muhammad bin Nayef. Regardless of the Shari’ah ruling, the journalist who respects his profession should not be compelled to say anything other than his own opinion, unless he is hired or belongs to one party.
As for Jamal Khashuqji, he is a man enamored with women working and driving cars. He wants the economy to recover, raise the level of income and cure unemployment by having women work and drive cars! I will not be surprised if, when asked about medicine for a fever, he answers that it lies hidden in women working! No surprise, because those people admire the West with all its faults.
Is it not time for the prominent Islamists to present their issues with complete honesty, to inquire about the disease and determine its source rather than talk about its symptoms only? And instead of speaking about Al-Watan newspaper, they should talk about the Ministry of Interior or about the regime which blocked the Shari’ah courts from ruling on media issues. Rather than censuring this writer or that, they should censure Abdullah and his brothers, for they are the ones who encouraged the writers and made this possible for them. The more assiduous in wrong-doing are the writers, the more they are favored. This is the case with Turki al-Hamad who curses Allah Almighty, only to become closer to the king and have his pen gifted to him!
Even judging them favorably, we would have to say that they approved of them and were silent about them. They were certainly able to stop this writer or that writer just as they were able to block any number of preachers and imams, even flocking many others into prisons. Why did they imprison Sheikh Khalid al-Rashid? If they say that he led a demonstration, why have they imprisoned others who have done nothing but issue fatwas supported by legal evidence such as Sheikh Saeed Aali Za’eer, and Sulaiman al-‘Alwan and many others.
The give free rein to the newspaper writers and owners of the media networks who have different ideologies. This matter of preachers censuring the scribes but leaving alone their sponsors is like the case of a man beaten with a stick. He curses and rebukes the stick, and makes a complaint to the person carrying it! If that person replaces the stick with another, then he gives him thanks and gratitude!
For how long will shut your eyes, feign ignorance and disregard the chiefs of fitna and the pillars of sinfulness and corruption in our country?!
This will serve no purpose other than to throw more veils over the eyes of the people as to causes of affliction and distract their attention away to that which will not be of much benefit to them. They raise complaints to the king against a certain minister and this changes nothing. In the best cases, he just replaces the minister with another who is no better, and the situation remains exactly as it was or becomes even worse; because the head of the snake remains in place.
[Poetry]
Do not cut off the tail of the snake and leave it alive
If you are clever the head should follow the tail
It is true that the method of honesty shall bring down affliction on many, and will cause many preachers to thrown into prison. This is better than conferring legality on the chiefs of sinfulness and corruption, their matter becoming ambiguous to general populace causing them to accept them in their sinfulness and corruption.
Let us know that affliction is the way of the messengers. Allah has preserved our Tawheed from harm through the stance of an Imam of Ahl-us-Sunnah coming out openly with the truth in the face of the Caliph. The Imam suffered great affliction, but Allah preserved the sound ‘Aqeedah to this age.
One strong stance makes up for many weak and wobbly positions.
One sermon from Sheikh Khaled al-Rashid, may Allah release him, came out with the truth and caused his imprisonment. But it had a good effect and beneficial impact among the people. The people have been repeating this for years, whenever the occasion comes. We seek our refuge in Allah!
Our Ummah is in urgent need of knowledge. It is in more urgent need of truthful positions from people of knowledge. Books can suffice us from knowledge without declaration of truth. If every scholar is silent out of fear of affliction for himself, then the Deen is lost and truth mixes with falsehood among the general populace. Thus the fitnah grows, and no one is saved except who seeks salvage in Allah.
In conclusion, I send a message to every Muslim sister:
Sister of Islam, know that Allah ordains goodness and guidance for you. But your enemies do not want that for you. If you desire any blessing or honor, you will only find it in the shade of Allah’s law. There will you find the means of satisfying Him, His guidance and protection, and victory in this world and the next.
As for others, they wish you to be a commodity bought and sold in the marketplaces. The great swath of those who discuss women’s issues and have covered the newspapers and filled TV channels with talk about the situation of women in other countries fall into two categories.
There are those who are enamored with the West, and dazzled with its material culture, and want to bring to us everything from there, be it good or evil, and this is their best of the two types.
The (other type) are enemies of the Ummah, they wear the clothes of its friends, and maintain the pre**** of advising it. They speak well. If they talk, their words are listened to, but they are known by theway they speak. They claim to be giving advice, but it is as if they find no problems in the Ummah other than the situation of women! I do not know what issues they are talking about.
They keep repeating the demand for women’s right to work, yet women already teach and have climbed up the professional ladder reaching the post of deputy minister. They are also prison wardens and there are markets for women. Two years ago, a trusted source told me that he gone into a restaurant in a city where a woman was working in the management. Yet they still demand the right for women to work. Where do you think their demands will stop? It seems that they will not accept that a woman is working until they see her wearing a police uniform, sitting next to their colleagues patrolling the streets in patrol car!
O Sister of Faith, they wish for women to work exactly like they work in the West. We have lived among the Christians and we see how they treat women and how they work with them. We have seen women work in the army, carrying weapons and standing next to men. We have seen them go out in the morning, marching with the soldiers and echoing their shouts, and speak all you will about sexual harassment and abuse. We have seen women perform hard labor, carrying goods and unloading them, work as a blacksmith, fix and clean the sewers, and do even harder work than that. None of the men there even think about sufficing them from work, or at least helping them. Does this happen in Muslim countries?
Their women express great amazement when they learn that Islam compels a man to financially support his wife, even if she is richer than he. Some of those who have lived in their countries told me that one of their women asked him to find a Muslim husband for her when she learned that financial support was upon the husband, and it was upon the woman to raise the children.
By Allah, Sister of Islam, who is in a better situation, Muslim women or Christian women? In America, the Qiblah of those of our country who wish to go abroad, an American whose mother was an alcoholic described his situation. He said that his mother drank so much she was fired from her job, and so she has to stay at home unemployed. Her husband kicked her out of the house because he was not prepared to support her. She left confused and went looking for a job until she found one – in a brothel! This is the sort of thing that happens in their countries. O sister of Islam, would it please you to be like them?
There is nothing that prohibits a woman from working if it is regulated according to Shari’ah, the woman is covered and does not mix with men, and she is protected from temptation. Nonetheless, there is no more honorable and dignified work for a woman than her work in the house, rearing the coming generations and producing chivalrous men, leaving the pursuit of financial sustenance to her caretaker, who suffices her this burden and fulfills his duty.
Sister of Islam, in your home, you are like a king on his throne. You raise your children, and they become an asset to you. When you grow old they raise you up on their heads. Would it please you if we were like the West, where a woman goes out every morning to the factory or the store, and throws her child into the hands of babysitters to raise him? So he grows up and feels no connection to his mother. Rather he disobeys her and cuts her off. When she grows old, he casts her into a home for the elderly. There is a vast difference between us and them!
The home of a woman is her guarded kingdom. It is better for her than anywhere, even better than mosques. As is said in the Hadith:
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Stay to your homes, Sister of Islam, and treat well those within it, you will find the best things from them, after Allah. Take care not to think well of your enemies. He who thinks well of his enemy has fallen into a perilous state.
O Allah, cover our imperfections and assuage our fears. O Allah, protect us from what is between our hands, behind us, to our right and to our left and from above. We seek refuge in Your Greatness that we not be slain from behind.
Our last prayer is praise be to Allah, the Lord of all Creation.
The Global Media Islamic Front