By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 17 March 2019

In the 173rd edition of Al-Naba, the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter, published on 14 March 2019, the main editorial was entitled, “We Have Rejected You” (Kafarna Bikum), a reference to Qur’an 60:4. A translation of the article is given below.

Al-Naba 173 contends that alliances with the kufr (disbelievers or infidels) are illegitimate for Muslims, as are alliances even in the right cause if people have the wrong motivation—of tribal or family loyalties, rather than for the sake of Islam. As such, IS says it rejected and disavowed the disbelievers—including those who claim the mantle of Islam (i.e., other Islamists)—before they declared their enmity towards the jihadists. Indeed, it is definitional to IS’s ideology and they, therefore, have no complaints about the disbelievers’ hostility in turn. It is “natural”: IS wants to impose the shari’a over everybody and disbelievers will resist.

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We Have Rejected You

The asabiyya [tribal solidarity] was strong among the Arabs during the days of jahiliyya [pre-Islamic ignorance], and the mutual support and mutual assistance among the members of the tribe were great. Thus were the Quraysh in their jahiliyya. When the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, arose among them and disbelieved in their deen [lifeway] and disavowed them and their shirk [“association” (in worship)] in God Almighty, they responded by disavowing the deen of Islam, him, and whoever followed or supported him, even if he was from among the mushrikun [idolaters, polytheists].

Thus they imposed a blockade upon Banu Hashim, most of whom were mushrikun, and upon those who had allied with them from among the alliances of jahiliyya, in one of the mountain passes of Mecca, confining them along with their wives and their children, until the matter became severe for them. This was a punishment for their support of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, because of his kinship, not because of his deen.

Likewise, we see its equivalent these days in the disavowal by the mushrikun and the munafiqun [hypocrites] of the soldiers of the Islamic State, and in considering any word that calls for supporting them or lifting the oppression from them to be an unforgivable crime whose perpetrator deserves woe, destruction, and the gravest of consequences, even if the one who says it is a mushrik waging war against the Islamic State and its soldiers.

We should see that the enmity of these people towards the mujahideen is something natural: it is natural that they should hate those who fight them and work towards the removal of their rule and the implementation of the shari’a of God over them, and so they wish for this danger to disappear from them. But their enmity extends to include everyone who has any connection to the mujahideen, even their women and their nursing infants, out of fear that the children will grow up to follow the deen of their fathers, being muwahideen [strict monotheists] to their Lord and disbelievers in the taghut [rulers using man-made law], or that those muwahidat will give birth to more mujahideen in the path of God Almighty.

Indeed, we have come to see that whoever supplicates to God Almighty to lift the affliction from the Muslims in the lands of Islam is denounced in the strongest terms by those who falsely claim [adherence to] Islam from among the followers of the apostate parties and factions. They show him hostility for doing so and do not refrain from inflicting harm upon him. We have also seen them persist in harming the women and children of the mujahideen, arresting those whom they are able to seize, and threatening the rest with death and captivity if they gain power over them.

We have seen how States mobilise themselves to amend their laws and violate their constitutions, which they worship instead of God Almighty, in order to declare their disavowal of the soldiers of the Islamic State, their wives, and their children, and openly declare that they fear al-aqeeda [the creed] which they still carry in their breasts and refuse to renounce.

What the mushrikun and their allies have manifested in enmity towards the muwahideen and disavowal of them is indeed among the blessings of God the Almighty upon them, so that whoever has sickness in his heart may know that we do not unite with those who have apostatised from Islam in one deen, nor do we and they belong to one umma [community], and there is neither affection nor loyalty between us and them, just as He the Exalted said: “O you who have believed, do not take My enemies and your enemies as allies, offering them affection, while they have disbelieved in what has come to you of the truth, driving out the Messenger and yourselves because you believe in God, your Lord. If you have gone forth in jihad in My path and seeking My pleasure, [how can you] secretly show them affection? And I know best what you have concealed and what you have declared. And whoever among you does that has certainly strayed from the straight path. If they gain mastery over you, they will be enemies to you and stretch out against you their hands and their tongues with evil, and they wish that you would disbelieve.” [Al-Mumtahana 60:1-2]

It is a blessing for them, so that they may complete their faith and perfect their tawhid [monotheism] to God the Almighty by disavowing every power and strength in favour of the power and strength of God, their Lord, just as He, Glorified is He, commanded them: “If God supports you, then none can overcome you; but if He forsakes you, then who is it that can support you after Him? And upon God let the believers place their trust.” [Al Imran 3:160]

Indeed we, and praise be to God, preceded the mushrikun and their allies in declaring our disavowal of them and of their tawaghit, whom they worship instead of God the Almighty, not as a response to their action, but in obedience to God, the Lord of the Worlds, and in following the example of our imam, Ibrahim [Abraham], peace be upon him, and those who were with him, just as our Lord commanded: “There has certainly been for you an excellent example in Ibrahim and those with him, when they said to their people: ‘Indeed, we are free from you and from whatever you worship besides God. We have disbelieved in you, and there has appeared between us and you enmity and hatred forever until you believe in God alone.’” [Al-Mumtahana 60:4]

If they disavow us in this world because of our faith in God alone, then on the Day of Resurrection they will disavow one another because of their disbelief in God the Almighty, and they will curse one another because of the loyalty that existed between them in this world, just as the Prophet of God, Ibrahim, peace be upon him, foretold to his people: “And he said, ‘You have only taken, besides God, idols as a bond of affection among yourselves in the life of this world. Then on the Day of Resurrection some of you will disbelieve in others and some of you will curse others, and your abode will be the Fire, and you will have no helpers.’” [Al-Ankabut 29:25]