Seventh Note

O miserable pseudo-patriot who fervently encourages Muslims to embrace this world and forcibly drives them to European industry and progress! Beware, don’t let the  bonds  be  broken  that  tie  certain members  of  this  nation  to  religion! If  thus foolishly blindly  imitating  and  crushed  under  foot,  their  bonds  with  religion  are broken, those irreligious people will become as harmful for social life as fatal poison. For the apostate’s conscience is completely corrupted and he becomes like poison in the life of society. It is because of this that according to the science of the principles of religion,  “The  apostate forfeits the right to  life, whereas if an unbeliever  is a member of the protected minorities or he makes peace, he has the right to life;” this is a  principle  of  the  Shari‘a.10   Furthermore,  according  to  the   Hanafi  school,  the testimony of such an unbeliever is acceptable,11  whereas the testimony of someone who has strayed from the path of the Shari‘a is rejected. For he is perfidious.12

O miserable sinner who has deviated from Shari‘a! Do not look at the multitude of the dissolute and be deceived; do not say: “Most people think the same as me!” For the depraved  do  not want to embrace depravity; they rather fall into it and cannot extricate themselves. There is no sinner who does not want to be righteous and who does not want to see his superior and chief as religious. Other than if – I seek refuge with God! – his conscience is  corrupted through apostasy and he receives pleasure from poisoning, like a snake.

O crazy head and corrupted heart! Do you suppose that Muslims do not love the world, or that they do not think about the poverty into which they have fallen, and that they are in need of admonishment so that they do not forget their share of the world?

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10 Bukhari, Jihad, 149; Tirmidhi, Hudud, 2; Musnad, i, 217, 282, 322; v, 231.

11 al-Kashani, Bada‘i al-Sana‘i, ii, 254-5; vi, 266.

12 See, Tirmidhi, Shahadat, 2; Abu Da’ud, ‘Aqdiyya, 16; Ibn Maja, Ahkam, 30; Musnad, ii, 181,

204, 208.