Shaykh Bin Bāz on the Most Prominent Lesson Learned from the Gulf Crisis and the Categories of People During Such Tribulations
Imām ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz bin Bāz (رحمه الله) answered a question regarding the lessons to be learned from the Gulf Crisis:[1]
The most prominent lesson (to be learned) is that tribulations and events (such as these) make clear to the people who is the enemy and the friend, and their division into those with the truth and those with falsehood, those who are envious, those desiring good, and the just and the unjust.
Thus, when tribulations occur it is obligatory upon the believer that he is with the truth, not with his desire and nor with falsehood. Rtaher, it is obligatory for him to be with truth, to (always) be with it wherever it leads. And whoever has the truth must call to it and aid it, and as for the one who has oppression, shirk and innovation, he opposes him and calls to his abandonment and does not cooperate with him.
He (رحمه الله) also said, while discussing the Gulf crisis and the actions of certain agitators and those with agendas:[2]
People are of (varying) categories:
1. Among them those who are ignorant of the realities, and matters have become confusing for them.
2. Among them are those who are ignorant, not knowing the rulings of Sharīʿah.
3. And among them are those hired by oppressive tyrants to create confusion among the people and obscure the truth from them—and Allāh’s aid is sought.
Notes
Political events and crises reveal and expose many hidden things and from the greatest of their lessons, is that people are divided into those on the side of truth and those on the side of falsehood, and various other categories depending on motives and intentions.
Here Shaykh Bin Bāz (رحمه الله) is speaking about the aggression of Saddam Hussein against Kuwait which then led to many tribulations. In the midst of these events, nations, both Muslim and non-Muslim, supported different sides in the conflict, and various so-called jamāʿāt supported the oppressor against the oppressed. These are the jamāʿāt of ḥizbiyyah who actually strive to overturn the orderly state of affairs in Muslim nations, seeking power themselves, and they sided with the oppressor, in this case the Baʿthī, Saddām Hussein.
Hence, because of the different motives and intentions of various players, be they Muslim or non-Muslim, they became divided into the categories mentioned by Shaykh Bin Bāz (رحمه الله).
Also, during or after these events, various calls and methodologies appear, opportunistically, due to favourable circumstances that allow them to make their call. An example is that of the Surūriyyah and Quṭbiyyah who came out following the Gulf crisis. Confusion is then caused regarding foundatiosn of the Sunnah and the Salafī methodology, and it is here that ascriptions to Salafiyyah are tested.
The obligation upon a believer in these types of events is to be on the side of truth and to aid and support its people against falsehood and oppression, and to be just and on the side of justice, and to call to that truth, while opposing and abandoning the oppressor, and not cooperating with him. This applies at the level of heads of state (of Muslim nations) and what is below that, from their scholars, ministers and subjects in such events where the truth has become clear from falsehood.
Arabic text:
Footnotes
1. Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā wal-Maqālāt (6/171).2. Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā wal-Maqālāt (6/117).