Aqeedah and Fiqh
The Mardin Conference – Understanding Ibn Taymiyyah’s Fatwa
By Shaykh Abd al-Wahhab al-Turayri, former professor at al-Imam University in Riyadh
I wish to speak about the Mardin Conference as someone who was closely involved with it from the conceptualization phase all the way up to its concluding session when the “New Mardin Declaration” was issued.
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The Conference was convened by the Global Center for Renewal and Guidance (GCRG) in cooperation with Mardin’s Artuklu University with the purpose of studying Ibn Taymiyah’s “Mardin fatwa”. The conference was chaired by the eminent scholar Sheikh Abdullah Bin Bayyih. Indeed, the conference was his initiative. His hope for the conference was to take Ibn Taymiyah’s Mardin fatwa from the specific geographical focus for which it was intended to a broader global focus and from the contingencies of Ibn Taymiyah’s time to a timeless understanding.
To achieve this goal, the conference needed to investigate a number of topics:
(1) A full conceptual understanding of the fatwa was needed.
(2) The correct text of the fatwa had to be determined and errors in transmission identified.
(3) A correct understanding of the Mardin fatwa must be determined on the basis of the above.
(4) The fatwa’s benefits for the present day must be investigated.
The First Investigation: Conceptualizing the Fatwa
Mardin is the region of Turkey where Ibn Taymiyah was born. His home city, Harran, is located within Mardin. The Mongols conquered and occupied Mardin when Ibn Taymiyah was seven years old, forcing him and his family to flee.
The people of Mardin were Muslims. Ibn Taymiyah regarded the Mongol occupiers who ruled them as people who were unbelievers in Islam as well as spoilers and murderers, since the Mongols carried out numerous atrocities against the inhabitants of the region. The situation in the region was one where the general populace was Muslim but living under the dominion of non-Muslim rulers.
Ibn Taymiyah was asked about the people of Mardin: Should the people of Mardin be considered as hypocrites? Is it obligatory on the Muslims population there to emigrate? Is Mardin still to be considered part of the Muslim world?
His answer – known as the Mardin fatwa – addressed these points clearly:
1. The lives and property of the people of Mardin are inviolable. Their living under the subjugation of the Mongols does not compromise any of their rights, nor can they be maligned verbally or accused of hypocrisy.
2. As long as the inhabitants of Mardin are able to practice their religion, they are not obliged to emigrate.
3. They should not give assistance to those who are fighting against the Muslims, even if they are forced to flatter them, be evasive, or absent themselves.
4. The territory is neither wholly a part of the Muslim world, since it is under the domination of the Mongols, nor is it part of the non-Muslim world since its populace is Muslim. It is in fact a composite of the two. The Muslims living therein should be treated according to their rights as Muslims, while the non-Muslims living there outside of the authority of Islamic Law should be treated according to their rights.
Ibn Taymiyah’s nuanced description of the region demonstrates something of his ingenuity in dealing with complex questions and situations.
The Second Investigation: Determining the Correct Wording of the Fatwa
The text of the fatwa is as follows:
Ibn Taymiyah was asked about the land of Mardin. Is it a land of war or peace? Are the Muslims who live there obligated to emigrate to other Muslim countries? If they are obliged to emigrate and they fail to do so, and if they assist the enemies of Islam with their lives and property, are they sinful for doing so? Are those who accuse them of hypocrisy and malign them sinful for doing so?
Ibn Taymiyah answered:
Praise be to Allah. The lives and property of the Muslims are inviolable, whether they are living in Mardin or elsewhere. Assisting those who are acting in opposition to Islam is unlawful, whether those who give the assistance are the people of Mardin or others. The people living there, if they are unable to practice their religion, then they are obliged to emigrate. Otherwise, it is preferable but not an obligation that they do so. It is unlawful for them to aid the enemies of the Muslims with their lives and property. They must refuse to do so by whatever means they can, like absenting themselves, being evasive, or showing flattery. If the only way open to them is to emigrate, then that is what they must do. It is not lawful to malign them categorically or to accuse them of hypocrisy. Disparaging and accusations of hypocrisy must be according to the designations set forth in the Qur’an and Sunnah and are equally applicable to some of the people of Mardin as they are applicable to some people elsewhere.
As for whether it is a land of war or peace, it is a composite situation. It is not an abode of peace where the legal rulings of Islam are applied and its armed forces are Muslim. Neither is it the same as an abode of war whose inhabitants are unbelievers. It is a third category. The Muslims living therein should be treated according to their rights as Muslims, while the non-Muslims living there outside of the authority of Islamic Law should be treated according to their rights.
A discrepancy has come up in some printed editions of the fatwa with regard to the final passage “The Muslims living therein should be treated according to their rights as Muslims, while the non-Muslims living there outside of the authority of Islamic Law should be treated according to their rights.”
In some printed editions, the text is corrupted to read: “…while the non-Muslims living there outside of the authority of Islamic Law should be fought as is their due.”
This change in meaning is the consequence of the substitution of two letters in a single word. Instead of the correct word yu`āmal (should be treated), the word is rendered yuqātal (should be fought). This typographic error changes the meaning of the phrase drastically.
The correct wording of the fatwa appears in the following sources:
1. The only known manuscript copy of the fatwa which is the Zahiriyyah Library manuscript (2757) archived at the Asad Library in Damascus.
2. The fatwa is quoted by Ibn Taymiyah’s student and contemporary Ibn Muflih in his work Adāb al-Sharī`ah (1/212), with its correct wording: “…while the non-Muslims living there outside of the authority of Islamic Law should be treated according to their rights.”
3. It is also quoted correctly in al-Durur al-Saniyyah (12/248)
4. Sheikh Rashid Rida quotes it correctly in the journal al-Manār.
Regarding the corrupted wording, it makes its first appearance roughly 100 years ago in the 1909 edition of Ibn Taymiyah’s Fatawathat was printed and published by Faraj Allah al-Kirdi. Thereafter, Sheikh Abdurrahman al-Qasim’s edition was printed and published based upon the text of the Kirdi edition, and therefore replicating the error (28/248).
Due to the wide availability of this edition of the Fatawa, the inaccurate wording became the one that was well known to the public and to students of religious knowledge. Likewise, when the fatwa was translated into English, French, and other languages, the printed edition containing the error was relied upon. As a result, the reputation of Islam was compromised, and also a few young people in the West who converted to Islam got a false impression of Islam’s teachings.
If the Mardin Conference achieved nothing other than to bring this error to light and correct it, then this would have been accomplishment enough.
The Third Investigation: Determining the Correct Meaning of the Fatwa
The corrupted text of the Mardin fatwa has become the basis for the legitimization of many violent and militant groups within Muslim society. Among those who used the fatwa in this manner was Abdussalam Faraj in his book al-Farīdah ahl-Ghā’ibah (p. 6), which has become a manifesto for militant groups.
Many scholars have subsequently refuted his conclusions, including the former rector of al-Azhar Sheikh Jad al-Haqq, as well as the Chairman of al-Azhar’s Fatwa Board Sheikh `Atiyyah Saqar. They successfully discussed the implications of the Mardin fatwa according to its context, even though they accepted the text as it reached them in its corrupted state. Had they known the authentic wording of the text, it would have saved them a lot of trouble.
The reason why militant groups rely upon the Mardin fatwa to legitimize their behavior is because of the corrupted phrase “…while the non-Muslims living there outside of the authority of Islamic Law should be fought.” This phrase can be seen to imply two things:
1. The directive to fight is given in the passive voice, without stating who is to carry out the fighting. Militant groups have used this as license for them to assume for themselves the role of taking up arms against people from within Muslim countries and communities.
2. The phrase “outside of the authority of Islamic Law” becomes ambiguous in the context of the corrupted rendering of the text. It could be interpreted to mean almost anyone, starting from those who commit minor sins to those who commit major violations. This has given militant groups a wide scope of interpretation for acting against others.
Once the authentic wording of the text is known, however, what the militant groups rely upon disappears entirely. The understanding of the fatwa is completely different. The correct wording of the fatwa emphasizes the inviolability of Muslim life and rules out any possibility of placing their lives or property in jeopardy. The fatwa clearly states: “The lives and property of the Muslims are inviolable, whether they are living in Mardin or elsewhere… It is not lawful to malign them categorically or to accuse them of hypocrisy.”
Also, it makes it clear that places like Mardin are neither places where Islamic Law is implemented nor places of conflict. Ibn Taymiyah in his fatwa declares that Muslims can live there as long as they are free to practice their religion and that the Muslims are entitled to be treated by other Muslims according to the rights that they have as Muslims, and the non-Muslims who live there and who are not subject to Islamic rulings should be afforded their rights as well.
This is what the Mardin fatwa really says, when its authentic text is relied upon.
The Fourth Investigation: Relevance for Our Times
Ibn Taymiyah, in his fatwa, recognizes that the world is not to be divided simplistically into Islamic lands and non-Islamic lands, unlike many before him who held to that dualistic view.
He recognized that there is a third type of society which has aspects of both. Furthermore, he stated that Muslims can live in such societies as long as they are free to practice their religion and that everyone should be afforded their rights. Muslims should recognize the religious rights of their fellow Muslims living in those lands, as well as the rights of the non-Muslims there who are not subject to Islamic Law.
This fatwa has relevance for today’s pluralistic world, where there is scarcely a country where Muslims do not live. The conditions the Muslims live under vary from country to country. In many countries of the world, Muslim minorities fully enjoy the right to practice their faith. They are allowed to worship according to Islamic teachings and they are not coerced into suppressing or abandoning their faith. Those countries may not be part of the Muslim world, but they are certainly lands of peace and security.
We can see that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) sent the first party of emigrants from Mecca to Abyssinia, a non-Muslim country, and he did so because it was a land of security where the Muslims were safe in their religion. This was because the king of Abyssinia was a just king who never wronged the people under his authority.
This is the gist of what the New Mardin Declaration stated, which was ratified by the delegates at the end of the Mardin Conference.
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Aamer
June 29, 2010 at 1:43 AM
Thank you very much for your effort and clarification. May Allah help us get the message across to all the peoples of the Ummah.
I shall also rememebr that a land where one is allowed to practise Islam freely is a land where one need not migrate from. Aamer
Ryan Mahoney
June 29, 2010 at 7:58 AM
An excellent article!
The conclusion drawn from the corrupted/mis-translated version of the fatwa is completely absurd and it saddens me that any Muslim person could have ever read such a thing and not immediately know that it was bogus. Allah is the most merciful and the most just. Muslims must strive to protect the rights of all people, this is a clear message in the Qur’an.
I think that this goes to show that Islam is under attack not only by outsiders who have their own agendas, but “insiders” who seek knowingly or unknowingly to cast the message of Islam in a way that is pleasing to them while they obscure the true and just nature of Islam.
This fatwa is actually the tip of the ice burg. These types of errors can be found in so many texts — even the English translations of the Qur’an are rife with these kinds of inaccuracies.
Hopefully more will be done.
Abu Noor Al-Irlandee
June 29, 2010 at 9:28 AM
For those who would like to explore the issues surrounding this fatwa in more detail, Yahya Michot has a book in english on this topic:
Ibn Taymiyya : Muslims under Non-Muslim Rule : On Fleeing from Sin, Kinds of Emigration, Status of Mardin, Domain of Peace and War, Conditions for Challenging Power (Ibn Taymiyya, Yahya Michot)
Jibreel Speight
April 21, 2011 at 5:00 AM
May Allah reward you for the link.
Abu Noor Al-Irlandee
June 21, 2011 at 10:52 PM
Yahya Michot has an article very much worth reading and thinking about concerning this Mardin Conference, the publicity surrounding it, the difference between p.r. and scholarship and the various agendas at work with regard to Muslims and Islam in our times.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/58033524/Yahya-Michot-Ibn-Taymiyya-Mardin-Conference?query=dawud+israel
'Abdil Kareem
June 29, 2010 at 9:45 AM
How freely is one supposed to be allowed to practice his religion in a non-Muslim land in order that it be permissible to live there? Is it to merely pray five times a day without suffering any persecution?
Abu Abdillah
June 29, 2010 at 11:39 AM
“Practicing the religion openly does not only refer to praying and minor issues of religion and avoiding haraam things such as riba, zina and so on. Rather practicing the religion openly means proclaiming Tawheed and disavowing the ways of the mushrikeen, such as associating others with Allaah in worship and other kinds of kufr and misguidance.” – Fataawa al-Shaykh Muhammad ibn Ibraaheem (1/77).
sister
June 29, 2010 at 9:45 AM
Assalamualykum,
Jazakumallahu khairaan for an excellent article.Where can I read more about Imam Ibn Tayymiah [may Allah have mercy on him]?
Dawud Israel
June 29, 2010 at 12:23 PM
IT IS CRUCIAL WE SPREAD THIS INFORMATION AROUND!!! THIS WILL SAVE LIVES!!!!
I remember Shaykh Hamza mentioning that typo in his recent talk with Tariq Ramadan on Reform, and how that single typo is what has given rise to AlQaeda and all these other messed up groups. Here are my notes and what he elaborated on:
“Talks about fatwa on dar al-harb, dar al-kufr used to kill Anwar Sadat–when the fatwa was read, Sh. bin Bayyah said, “That can’t be right. Something is wrong with that.” And they said not to change the fatwa and he said, something is wrong with that. When he returned to Jeddah and looked the reference up and he found it did not say, “The disbeliever should be fought” but rather it said, “The disbeliever should be treated in accordance with him being a disbeliever” in other words, ther are many rules/stipulations for treating the stipulations. That fatwa was made 100 years ago, and in reprints has said, “the disbeliever should be fought” and that is the basis of Abdul Salam Farraj’s fatwa to kill Anwar Sadat–it was the basis of OBL’s fatwa to kill Americans, Saudi royal family. They based an entire philosophy on a misprint–this is the crises of our community, the crises of authority, who can read these texts and who can determine these things.”
Unfortunately, what will now happen is that although it is clear this has been dis-proven, what psychologists call, the “Perseverance effect” will make it so people continue to believe in this falsity, since they are so used to thinking like that and so habituated to hating.
I will upload that audio bit from Shaykh Hamza’s talk onto my Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/dawudisrael1
And I’ll quote this article in it, with reference inshallah, if that is OK with the shaykh-author. :)
Dawud Israel
June 30, 2010 at 12:20 AM
Video link.
AlQaeda is based on a Fatwa Misprint
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC_jJqvKuxs
Jazaka Allahu khayran.
Abdullah
June 30, 2010 at 6:34 PM
brother Dawud jazakAllahu khair. The audio quality on the youtube is lacking and hard to understand. Is it possible to get a more clear version?
Abdifatah
July 1, 2010 at 11:58 PM
Brother you can go to the Tariq Ramadan website and get the whole Hamza Yusuf and Ramadan lecture there and the quality is about the same i’ll say.
The article is really brilliant, nothing more.
Ma’salaam
Dawud Israel
July 2, 2010 at 12:08 PM
Apologies. Yeah, the audio on the original mp3 file was fuzzy, did require concentration.
I will put up a transcript on there asap! :D
Justin
June 29, 2010 at 12:51 PM
This is an excellent article; very informative, very relevant.
adam
June 29, 2010 at 1:15 PM
I wonder: does this mean that if gays are given certain rights under the constitution (the right to be gay/ have a gay marriage)- must we as Muslims then respect that? What would the ruling be, for example, for supporting gays so that they in turn support Muslims (as a minority)?
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Amad
June 29, 2010 at 1:31 PM
Excellent mashallah.
One could do a PhD dissertation on this fatwa as it does have tremendous implications.
someone
June 29, 2010 at 4:17 PM
Subhanallah, so true! My mind is overwhelmed by the questions that this clarification has engendered. I hope that a follow up article will be written on this, bi’idnilah.
Abdullah
June 29, 2010 at 2:10 PM
This types of missreading is not that uncommon with the modern day Ghair muqalids, inspired, funded in many ways by highly intolrent Ghair Muqalids from Saudi institutes. Many organisation set up in the west by mainly graduate of Madina relegious seminary to propogate the narrow understanding to the mass. These students have become the voice in Muslim Media with exapcted result of intorance. Hidden behind all the smile, lies a pathological hate of anything that is not in confirmity with their narrow understanding of Islam and muslim.
Visiting any of the muslim websites and forums, one can see the hate for fellow muslim who are not fooled by shallow claim, hence meting out the same to non muslim is perhaps normal. Unless the saudia revert back to its pre 1970s tradition where diversity was allowed to be aired by the scholars, this will fester and the muslim will bear the brunt of the fall out. These modern day movements of extreme ghair muqalid in all its guise create disunity in the name of unity. No relegious text is sacred to them aslong as it yeilds their intended result. Missquote, misslead is the tool of this strange dawah. May Allah guide all of us to the straight path and keep us steadfast in his deen.
Masalam
Abu Ayesha Al Emarati
July 1, 2010 at 3:07 AM
Everyone wants to push an agenda. Sigh!
Just take the article for what it is brother/sister.
Siraaj
July 1, 2010 at 10:50 AM
I wonder why the ghayr muqallids on this site posted the fatwa…? I think my ghayr ‘aql layman mind is going to explode trying to understand this contradiction foisted upon us by the Saudi royals.
Siraaj
Organic
June 29, 2010 at 2:16 PM
Interesting. If this is what the whole ideology is based on then the explanation is pretty straightforward from what was posted.
However, what does the practive of religion in a non muslim ruled place where muslims live, really mean? Could the West where anti-muslim sentiments are deeply rooted, be a place where muslims can live or is it a place they must leave? Also another question that comes to mind, if these muslims are directly supporting a war against a muslim nation then what is the ruling? And there are many many questions like this.
Abu Ayesha Al Emarati
July 1, 2010 at 4:08 AM
What came first, the chicken or the egg?
Deep-rooted anti-Muslim/Islamic sentiments; what gave rise to these sentiments?
I can’t speak about anywhere else but the UK; if Muslims practiced their Deen like they are supposed to, there would have been no rise or indeed deep-rooted anti Muslim sentiments.
Calling Britain Dar Al Harb, encouraging Muslims to loot and steal whilst living ”kuffar lands” (Abu Qatada), setting up an us versus them mentality.
Now we reap what we sowed.
Servant of Allah
July 2, 2010 at 6:51 PM
-Removed. Pls take your links to terrorist drivel somewhere else. -Edited
AR
July 20, 2010 at 4:50 AM
LOL…please do.
Sharaaz Khan
July 27, 2010 at 4:20 PM
What is most perplexing about this is the fact that this misprint has come to light only now. If a Fatwa is used for so long by extremist groups, how is it that no one caught this earlier? Several decades later, here we are looking at a glaring mistake that could have saved so many lives. It also stands to shows how a single letter in Arabic can have such adverse consequences. This makes me wonder how deeply our traditional books have been affected, which we all know they have been changed. The question is…was this change deliberate? Maybe worth investigating further, if possible.
Mardin
July 3, 2011 at 9:52 AM
Hello, good post. I look forward to your next post. Thanks.
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MOHAMED MIDLAJ
October 31, 2015 at 9:53 PM
Mardin fatwa was quoted by several jihadist groups and Muslim terrorists, especially assasinated Osama Bin Laden. really, for several decades, this statement was misinterpreted for wills of some people. they changed the origin of fatwa to another one(from يعامل to يقاتل). it was occured in the misunderstood fatwa of mardin. thanks a lot for understanding me this subjects.
Islamic Books
January 24, 2020 at 11:58 PM
A conference in Mardin in southeastern Turkey declared the fatwa by 14th century scholar Ibn Taymiyya rules out militant violence and the medieval Muslim division of the world into a “house of Islam” and “house of unbelief” no longer applies.