The 36th Call: Prohibition of taking the Disbelievers as

 Almighty Allah says (what can be translated as): “O you who have believed, take not those who have taken your religion in ridicule and amusement among the ones who were given the Scripture before you nor the disbelievers as allies. And fear Allah, if you should [truly] be believers. And when you call to prayer, they take it in ridicule and amusement. That is because they are a people who do not use reason.” (Al-Ma’idah: 57-58)

Almighty Allah commands the believers not to take the enemies of Islam as allies such as the People of Scripture and the polytheists. They take the pure legislations of Islam as a mockery to make fun of them and they consider them a play and amusement. They wish for the end of Islam and his people. Almighty Allah commands the believers to fear Him and not to take those enemies as allies if they are true and honest believers of the Sharia of Allah.

Those enemies make fun of the call to prayer, the prayers and worship of the Lord. They take religion into ridicule, amusement and mockery because they are people who do not realize the meaning of worship, the Sharia of Allah and prayers which are the most honorable and best actions for those who are reasonable and sane.

This is the sort of ac­tion which is bound to in­fu­ri­ate any be­liev­er who feels that he him­self is treat­ed in to­tal dis­re­spect, when an in­sult is di­rect­ed against his faith and wor­ship of the Lord, and when his po­si­tion as he stands to of­fer his worship and establish prayer is ridiculed. How, then, can any al­liance or patronage be forged be­tween the be­liev­ers and any­one who shares in such a disgrace­ful ac­tion, sim­ply be­cause his mind is im­paired? No man of sound mind would ev­er ridicule the Di­vine faith or the wor­ship of be­liev­ers to the Lord, because a sound mind recog­niz­es the point­ers to faith in ev­ery­thing around it.

It is on­ly when the mind is im­paired or when it de­vi­ates from the truth that such point­ers are not recog­nized? This is be­cause such a per­son’s at­ti­tude to­wards the whole uni­verse around him is un­sound. Ev­ery­thing in ex­is­tence gives the same mes­sage that it has a Cre­ator who de­serves to be wor­shipped and glo­ri­fied. A sound mind ap­pre­ci­ates the beau­ty of wor­ship­ping the Cre­ator of the uni­verse. Hence, it does not make fun of some­thing so beau­ti­ful and dig­ni­fied.

Such mock­ery and ridicule used to be the action of un­be­liev­ers. In par­tic­ular, it used to be the ac­tion of the Jews when the Qur’an was be­ing re­vealed to Allah’s Mes­sen­ger, (Peace Be up­on Him), so that he would con­vey the verses to the Muslim com­mu­ni­ty. We have no men­tion in the his­to­ry of the pe­ri­od of any single in­ci­dence of this type by the Chris­tians. How­ev­er, Allah is stat­ing for the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty a ba­sic prin­ci­ple of faith, as well as the Is­lam­ic con­cept and way of life. Allah has al­ways been aware of what will take place in all fu­ture gener­ations and the at­ti­tudes of oth­er peo­ple to­wards Mus­lims.

We have seen that the en­emies of this faith and the enemies of the Mus­lim commu­ni­ty, in all gen­er­ations, from among those who claim to be Chris­tians, have been much greater in num­ber than the Jews and dis­be­liev­ers who have fought against Is­lam. All those groups have tak­en a hos­tile at­ti­tude against Is­lam, schemed and fought a relentless war against it ev­er since the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty clashed with the Byzan­tine Em­pire at the time of Abu Bakr and Umar, the first two Caliphs. This con­tin­ued right down to the Cru­sades and then to the “Ori­en­tal Ques­tion” which wit­nessed the group­ing of Chris­tian pow­ers through­out the world in an al­liance aimed at de­stroy­ing the Mus­lim state al­to­geth­er. This was fol­lowed by im­pe­ri­al­ism, which em­bod­ied the spir­it of the Cru­sades. Such spir­it con­tin­ued to in­di­cate it­self in slips of the tongue made by im­pe­ri­al­ist lead­ers. Mis­sion­ary work was ini­ti­at­ed to fur­ther pre­pare the ground for im­pe­ri­al­ism and to give it sup­port. This was fol­lowed by a relentless war against the pi­oneers of Islam­ic re­vival all over the world. In all such cam­paigns and ef­forts, Jews, Christians and dis­be­liev­ers of all sorts have tak­en part and joined forces.

The Qur’an has been re­vealed so that it re­mains the con­sti­tu­tion of the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty un­til the Day of Judg­ment. It gives this com­mu­ni­ty its method­olog­ical con­cept of faith, and lays down for it its so­cial or­der and its method of op­er­ation. Hence, it teach­es the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty that it must nev­er share pa­tron­age with any­one oth­er than Allah, His Mes­sen­ger and the be­liev­ers. Al­liances with Jews, Chris­tians or dis­be­liev­ers are for­bid­den out­right, and their pro­hi­bi­tion is repeated­ly emphasized.

This re­li­gion of ours im­press­es on its fol­low­ers the need for tol­er­ance and that they must ex­tend kind treat­ment to the peo­ple of ear­li­er rev­ela­tions, par­tic­ular­ly those among them who claim to be Chris­tians. It for­bids them, how­ev­er, to have a re­la­tion­ship of al­liance and pa­tron­age with them. Tol­er­ance and kind treat­ment is a ques­tion of be­havior and good man­ners. Al­liances, on the oth­er hand, are a mat­ter of faith and or­gan­iza­tion­al group­ings. Pa­tron­age and al­liance mean mutual sup­port be­tween two camps and groups. This can­not take place be­tween Mus­lims and the peo­ple of ear­li­er rev­ela­tions or with dis­be­liev­ers, be­cause to a Mus­lim such sup­port is on­ly a sup­port for the cause of faith and for striv­ing to estab­lish its meth­ods and sys­tem in prac­ti­cal life. How can such help and sup­port op­er­ate be­tween Mus­lims and non-​Mus­lims over such a mat­ter? This ques­tion is clear cut and al­lows no wa­ver­ing. In­deed, Allah does not ac­cept any at­ti­tude over this is­sue oth­er than that of com­plete se­ri­ous­ness, which is the on­ly at­ti­tude a Mus­lim may have to­wards his re­li­gion.