An Offer to Retract and Unite

Was posted by Imam Anwar alAwlaki on February-14-2009

As of yet I haven’t received any response that could be classified as scholarly that refutes what I said or that presents sharia proof for the article of Sh Tawfique. All what I am getting is some people complaining that I should have brought the matter with him first and that publically refuting his article is not the way of shuyukh and lacks adab. Do these people have any idea that the scholars of ahl As-Sunnah have a 1400 year history of refuting bida and heresy in public? Do they know that there are volumes and volumes of books written in this category?

Sh Tawfique has told the Western terrorists he met with that he is proposing a natural alliance with them to fight against terrorism. But now he is telling us, the Muslims, that he didn’t mean that. He is clarifying and re-clarifying again and again a flimsy article that just cannot hold water. Why not just retract this whole statement and bring an end to this confusion?

I did not write this specifically for Tawfique. I was responding to a trend. This lecture just happened to be a classical example of this trend and that is why I picked on it. However if Sh Tawfique does publically retract his statement once and for all, and does clarify to the people the true meaning of walaa’ and baraa’, I would be happy to apologize to him publically for what I have written. I am not seeking disunity among Muslims but rather seeking unity and therefore any attempt to side with the enemy is an act of disunity among the Muslims. We should be offering an alliance with Muslims not the other way around. Lets work towards that goal and unite as an ummah.

I extend my hand to Sh Tawfique and say: Let us all unite, the shuyukh and the masses, and form a natural alliance against the scourge of the greatest terrorists of all, the West.