Letter from Sheikh Hammoud Ibn Uqla to Mulla Omar

An Address from the Sheikhs: Hammoud bin Uqla Ash-Shuaibi, Ali Al-Khudayr and Sulaiman Al-Alwaan to the Commander of the Believers (Ameer-ul-Mumineen): Muhammad Umar and those Mujahideen with him, may Allah grant them victory.

In the name of Allaah, the Beneficent the Merciful

To the Commander of the Believers (Ameer-ul-Mumineen) Mulla Muhammad Umar Al- Mujahid (the Mujahid), may Allaah preserve him and protect him and conceal his errors with the truth:

As-Salaamu Alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu. We ask Allaah, the Most High, that this letter reaches you while you are in full health and wellbeing.

Commander of the believers (Ameer-ul-Mumineen): We - the collective scholars- are honoured to have the likes of you attributed to our nation (Ummah), because you have affirmed, in reality, the supremacy and honour of the believers. You were not satisfied with declaring that you are the dominant, rather you confirmed this great meaning through your noble deeds, as the dominance in the land is not merely the material dominance, rather its most important and its greatest, is the dominance of religion and moral values. As He, the Most High, said:

"So do not become weak (against your enemy), nor be sad, and you will be superior (in victory) if you are indeed (true) believers. [Quran 3:139]

This verse descended upon the Messenger of Allaah (SAWS) and his Companions, may Allah be pleased with them, on the day they were defeated at Uhud. So the real supremacy is the supremacy of moral values and religion. Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, said, "Islaam is dominant and is not dominated over." Bukhari narrated this in his Sahih as a dangling narration (Mu'aliq), and At-Tahawi narrated it with an authentic chain. So Islam and the people of Islam are dominant, even if they are defeated in battle. And Allah, the Most High, said:

…But honour, power and glory belong to Allâh, His Messenger and to the believers. [Quran 63:8]

So the supremacy is directly connected to Allah and His Messenger and to every believer who truly adheres to his religion. So he is supreme with the supremacy (bestowed) by Allaah and with his faith (Iman). So whoever adheres to the morals of truth, then he is supreme according to the Quran and the Sunnah.

Ameer-ul-Mumineen: Verily, the ignorance of many of the Muslims, concerning your right, does not decrease anything from your power, as you have become a symbol from the symbols of this nation (Ummah) and we will write with our hands, the history of this era and affirm for the future generations, that you were the masters of this worldly life. Even if you are killed prior to that, then your biographies will be preserved in gold plating and we will all bear witness for you, before Allah, the Most High, that you are from the most sincere and truthful slaves to this nation (Ummah). We assume this about you and do not approve anyone except with Allah's (approval).

And we will bear witness that you alone were the ones who raised your heads to America; the country of disbelief (Kufr) and the Cross, when the Muslims were not honored by a single man who would say, "No!" and again, "No!" to what America sought from him, in this time. Only you did so. So congratulations to the Muslims because of you.

Ameer-ul-Mumineen: In your actions, the meanings of justice, equity, supremacy, nobility, victory, security, allegiance and disavowal have become apparent through your deeds. You have given the nation (Ummah) a lesson, though actions, in these meanings when you began your blessed journey to Afghanistan and you gave to the nation (Ummah), the fruits of Jihad against the Soviets. Then, at the time when Afghanistan was on the verge of crumbling into the hands of the secularists and the Communist and the Rafidhah (i.e. Shia) - and just when our hope for the fruits of Jihad was about to cease, you revived the hope in the Ummah, with Afghanistan and it has become, today, the focus of the eyes of all the Muslims and they all seek the supremacy and the victory for your land. And then you took control of Afghanistan and implemented the Shariah, Allah be praised.

Allah has given victory to the Jihad through you on the day that you built upon a destroyed and mutilated country, an Islamic state, through statements and actions. So justice and correct religion became the leadership and you waged war against Shirk and venerated graves and you divided (the wealth) according to equality and were just, in matters, to the point where, if someone were to say that the wolf in being herded by the sheep under your leadership, this would not be inconceivable. Next, you astounded the entire world by destroying the statues (Bamiyan Buddhas), while acting upon the Shariah of Muhammad (SAWS), who was sent for this purpose. So we said, "Allaah has provided to the Ummah, someone to revive, in its midst, the legacy of Ibrahim (AS); the destroyer of statues and the rejecter of idolatry!" And we were pleased with your actions when you revived the meanings of Tawheed, which were absent from the Ummah for centuries, as statues in all their various sizes and shapes fill the countries of the Muslims. However, Ameer-ul-Mumineen was not satisfied to live in a country, in which gods, who were worshipped besides Allah the Most High, surrounded him.

Then you destroyed those objects of worship and humbled its worshippers and our hearts leapt into flight from happiness due to the revival of Tawheed, in this matter. Then you enforced upon the people of Dhimmah [i.e. those disbelievers who live in Islamic states, who pay the Jizyah (tax) to the Muslim authority], subjugation and humiliation, acting upon the Book of Allaah, the Glorious, Most High, and with the Sunnah of His Messenger (SAWS), just as they were in the origins of Islaam, humiliated; paying the Jizyah from their hands, while feeling themselves subdued. So we said, "The Umar of his time is in Afghanistan, enforcing humiliation and subjugation upon the disbelievers (Kuffar), in his land!"

Then the hostility came, which confirmed your true, pure steel, when the countries of the world turned to reach the Emigrants (Muhajireen) to your land, without any sin that they had committed except that they said, "Our Lord is Allaah." So the East and the West called out from all of the religions of disbelief (Kufr). And from them the Christian, the Jew, the idolater, the Communist, the Nationalist, the apostate and the hypocrite, in an effort to form an alliance, including all of the countries of the world, against your supremacy and superiority. Yet you remained firm with the solidarity of a mountain. This preparation did not frighten you and you were not horrified from the weapons of mass destruction. You were patient and approved the onslaught for supremacy on the day when the rest had betrayed you and the beliefs emerged and the nullifications of Islam emerged from many of those who attribute themselves to it. And even then, you remained as a symbol with the solidarity of the mountains.

Every Muslim feels supreme because of you (and your presence) in his Ummah. The countries turned against you and the alliances came to you from every uphill slope and every direction with their numbers and their (military) equipment in a way, which has never been witnessed in history, as history has never recorded an alliance like this one, against a believing, truthful group. So you sacrificed your possessions and selves and money and this was all due to the virtues (bestowed upon you by) of Allah the Most High, and your faith (Iman) and truthfulness. We assume this about you and do not approve anyone except with Allah's (approval). Your faith and your reliance upon Allah, the Strong, the Supreme, was greater than their alliance and what it gathered.

Ameer-ul-Mumineen: The war has not laid down its burdens and we give you glad tidings of the (actual) victory of the (physical) senses, which is coming by the permission of Allah, the Most High, because you have reached this impasse. And we give glad tidings to you, as well, of a true victory, which you have already established, because your moral values and your words have attained this victory over the moral values of your enemies. And your enemies lie in every gathering, by claiming that they are the people of "justice" and "human rights" and the people of "freedom and equality". But in this battle, all of their convincing arguments have fallen from their faces, and it is seen by the individuals as well as the common masses, the reality of the hateful Crusader / Jewish face. And it became truly apparent who kills the innocent and who did not remit to any single living thing, any rights at all! And we witnessed how the "freedom" and "superiority" of the laws, which they have legislated for themselves, would be. And we understand the meaning of living in "civiliSation" and the "unification of religions", which they call to. They desire the "civilisation" of the American jungle and the "unification" of the Crusader believers, only! So glad tidings to you regarding this victory, as you have separated the world into two trenches and you have demonstrated the realities to every heedless one, on the day that you brought down - through your solidarity and faith and reliance upon Allah - all of their false meanings and the outright treachery of the Crusaders.

Ameer-ul-Mumineen: Just as your solidarity disgraced the disbelievers in their claims, it also clarified to the Muslims, important meanings that were absent or were about to be erased from their understandings. Your solidarity taught us the balance of the power for the Muslims. Your solidarity renewed allegiance and disavowal (Al-Walaa' wa'l-Baraa'). Your solidarity renewed the understanding of Jihad and the understanding of victory and defeat. Your solidarity taught us the meaning of sacrificing and attainment (for and) from Allah the Most High. It has reached us that you were offered a great deal of wealth to step down from the defence of the Muslims and that the hypocrites approached you with a promise of good at times and with the threat of evil, at others, in order to lure you to step down from your moral values. And we became convinced with certainty, that if you desired this worldly life more than the Hereafter, then this would certainly been easy for you by stepping down from some of your moral values. And at that time, you would have become the richest people of the Earth. However, the hearts, which are penetrated with Iman, decline that with the firmest of refusals.

Consider the day when the Arabs took pride in Samu'al bin 'Adiyah; the Jew who preserved the trust and was the victim of trials and whose son was murdered in front of his two eyes, upon the hands of Al-Harith bin Jablah Al- Ghusani, the King of Sham (Levant), who approached him seeking money - yet he refused to hand over the money except to the guardians of the order of Al- Qays, who left the (money in his) trust. Therefore, his solidarity became an example for the Arabs. So if we were to take pride in your solidarity, which surpassed the solidarity of Samu'al by thousands of times, it would be more befitting. And it is a duty upon every Muslim today, if he wishes to give an example of solidarity, that he mentions your solidarity!

Be like Samu'al, when Al-Hammam approached him With a large army, like the black of night,
Sizeable (he was) a neighbor to whoever received his protection,
He (Al-Hammam) approached and cautioned this neighbor of Ibn Ammar,
While glimpsing this one (i.e. Ibn Ammar) from Taymaa',
His home a guarded fortress and a faithful neighbor,
Because he was poisoned from my plot, and he said to him,
"No matter what you say, I will abide by my neighbor,
" So he said, "Betray (him), or you will lose your son! You are between these (choices).
" "So choose, as there is nothing for them; not even a selected portion,
" So he hesitated momentarily, and said to him,
"Slaughter your sacrifice, I will protect my neighbor!"

Ameer-ul-Mumineen: Verily, our astonishment at your deeds and our support for them will never cease and will not end, by the permission of Allah the Most High, as long as you do not change or surrender or turn back. We ask Allah for steadfastness for ourselves and for you, until death. And we reassure you that we, and a great number of the scholars (ulama) and the propagators and the students of knowledge, are with you.

We support you and declare to you, that you should not be made to feel depressed and nothing is removed from your strength or your endurance, due to the statements of some of the betrayers and people of doubt who harshly criticize your solidarity and who criticize your actions. And they claim that you've killed yourselves and your people and destroyed your country through your deeds. Verily, these - your deeds - are the eye of correctness and they are what have been indicated by the Shariah-based evidences and that, which Allah the Most High and His Messenger, have commanded! And everything that happens to you or your people; it is from the decree (Qadr) of Allah the Most High, and it is He who commands you to rely upon Him and follow His orders and to have allegiance to the believers and disavowal towards the disbelievers and to perform Jihaad against them through every method. And if the opposite happens to you (i.e. death), then it is the "great success", which Allaah described the Companions of the Trench (Ashab Al-'Ukhdud) with in His statement:

Verily, those who believe and do righteous good deeds, for them will be Gardens under which rivers flow (Paradise). That is the great success. [Quran 85: 11]

And with what did the Companions of the Trench achieve and acquire this success? They achieved it due to their reliance upon Allah and their solidarity upon their religion and by not compromising their moral values. So they achieved this honour (i.e. this description), which was not bestowed to anyone else in the Quran, despite the fact that every one of them was killed.

Ameer-ul-Mumineen: We ask you and the leaders of the Islamic Emirate, from the likes of your deputies, Muhammad Hasan and the likes of Mulla Jalaludeen Haqqani, Mulla Abdu-Hannan, Mulla Baradir, Mulla Dadullah, Mulla Reese Abdullah and Mulla Khasqar, the leader of the "Tank Battalion", and many others, from them of the leaders of the Islamic Emirate - just as we ask the supporting Mujahideen and their leaders to continue their Jihad and their solidarity, because the eyes of the monotheists (Muslims) have been soothed by you, and you have pleased the soldiers of the Most-Merciful (Ar-Rahman). So we are behind you and we support you with everything that we are able to and we incite the believers to fight alongside you. So do not change and do not fear and do not become lenient: "…and you will be the highest…" and remain firm upon your moral values and upon your noble deeds. Raise the head of the nation (Ummah) with your Jihad, and, verily our happiness will be forthcoming with the return of the Islamic Emirate; overcoming, established and victorious, by the permission of Allah the Most High; He who commanded you with these deeds and took the responsibility of victory.

And in conclusion, we advise all the Muslims in every land, to support the Islamic Emirate in this Jihad against all the ideologies of disbelief (Kufr) and to stand beneath the banner of Ameer-ul-Mumineen. And we advise the Mujahideen - at their head being Ameer-ul-Mumineen - to establish the conditions for victory and establishment, which Allah mentioned in His Book and the Messenger mentioned in his Sunnah.

And here is some of what was mentioned in the Book of Allah, from the conditions of establishment, such as His, the Most High's, statement:

Allâh has promised those among you who believe, and do righteous good deeds, that He will certainly grant them succession to (the present rulers) in the earth, as He granted it to those before them, and that He will grant them the authority to practice their religion, that which He has chosen for them (i.e. Islâm). And He will surely give them in exchange a safe security after their fear (provided) they (believers) worship Me and do not associate anything (in worship) with Me. But whoever disbelieved after this, they are the Fâsiqûn (rebellious, disobedient to Allâh). [Quran 24:55]

So believing and righteous good deeds and being free from Shirk are from the conditions of victory and establishment. And His statement:

Mûsa (Moses) said to his people: "Seek help in Allâh and be patient. Verily, the earth is Allâh's. He gives it as a heritage to whom He will of His slaves, and the (blessed) end is for the Muttaqûn." [Quran 7:128]

So seeking help from Allah and patience with His decree (Qadr) and His laws and fearing Him, both privately and publicly, are from the conditions of victory and establishment. And His statement:

And Mûsa (Moses) said: "O my people! If you have believed in Allâh, then put your trust in Him if you are Muslims (those who submit to Allâh's Will)." [Quran 10:84]

So reliance upon Allaah, with true reliance, is from the conditions of victory and establishment. And His statement:

And indeed We have written in Zabûr (Psalms) [i.e. all the revealed Holy Books the Taurât (Torah), the Injeel (Gospel), the Qur'ân] after (We have already written in) Al-Lauh Al-Mahfûz (the Book, that is in the heaven with Allâh), that My righteous slaves shall inherit the land (i.e. the land of Paradise). [Quran 21:105]

So the righteousness, which may be apparent or hidden, and establishing the meaning of worship, are from the conditions of victory and establishment. And His statement:

Verily, those who say: "Our Lord is Allâh (Alone)," and then they Istaqâmû, on them the angels will descend (at the time of their death) (saying): "Fear not, nor grieve! But receive the glad tidings of Paradise, which you have been promised! "We have been your friends in the life of this world and are (so) in the Hereafter. Therein you shall have (all) that your inner-selves desire, and therein you shall have (all) for which you ask for. [Quran 41:30- 31]

So accepting the Lordship of Allah and His Devoted Worship , while remaining steadfast to His Shariah, are from the conditions of establishment. And the verses, in which Allah mentioned the conditions for victory and establishment far exceeds these, by many.

And from the encompassing legacies of the Prophet; in it too, are the conditions of victory and establishment, in what was narrated by At-Tirmidhi and Ahmad, and this is his (i.e. Ahmad's) phrasing: