Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
Dear questioner, thanks for your important question, and we implore Allah to guide us all to the best and to help us understand the peaceful teachings of Islam.
One of the important objectives of Islam is to safeguard people’s life, property, and honor. Islam prohibits aggression against innocent people, Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The Qur’an and the Sunnah are abundant with provisions that crystallize and emphasize this principle. In the Sunnah, we read that a woman entered Hellfire because she tied up a cat until it starved. Then what will be the fate of those who shed innocent people’s blood and violate their rights?
Moreover, we would like to stress that in Islam, there is an interim pledge that is given to people who enter Muslim countries through the state authorities or any other recognized institution such as travel agencies. Issuing an entrance visa to a tourist is considered a pledge of security (i.e. `ahd aman). Islam prohibits any violation or cancellation of this pledge even if it is an individual one.
In this regard, we would like to cite for you the following statement issued by the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS):
All thanks and praise are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah who was sent as a mercy to the whole world. Peace and blessings be upon the rest of the prophets and messengers, and those who honorably followed them until the Day of Judgment.
The International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS) was really appalled to see the bloody incidents both inside and outside the Muslim world. The IUMS, which is keen to clarify Islam’s stance concerning these grisly bombings, decides the following for the whole Muslim Ummah and other nations:
1- All divine religions in general and Islam in particular assert the sanctity of human life and strongly prohibit aggression against it. All divine religions clearly state that the blood of all human beings is sacred and unlawful to shed unless the human being himself committed a criminal act or caused corruption in the land or transgressed against the lives of others. The Qur’an, along other divine scriptures, states that (Whosoever kills a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if be had killed all mankind, and whoso saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.)(Al-Ma’idah 5:32)
2- Islam considers killing others and taking their lives as one of the gravest of sins in the sight of Allah. Such heinous sin and abominable crime lead to Allah’s curse in this world and His severe punishment in the Hereafter. In addition, committing such a crime is a strong support for the application of retaliation or qisas on the perpetrator and it makes no difference whether the one they killed is a Muslim or a non-Muslim. Allah Almighty says: “But whoever kills a believer intentionally – his recompense is Hell, wherein he will abide eternally, and Allah has become angry with him and has cursed him and has prepared for him a great punishment.” (An-Nisaa’ 4:93)
The above divine warning encompasses all those who utter the Shahadatayn (Two Shahadahs)—testifying that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) strongly condemned ‘Usamah ibn Zayd when he killed a man in one of the battles after the man had uttered the Shahadatayn. The Prophet addressed ‘Usamah saying, “Have you killed him after he uttered the Shahadatayn, ‘Usamah!” To this ‘Usamah responded, “Prophet of Allah, he uttered the Shahadatayn for fear of the sword (that is, in order to save himself from being killed).” The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) then said, “Have you split his heart into two pieces?”
Thus, we are to deal with people as Muslims as long as they are apparently known to be Muslims. The above ruling also applies to those who have a permanent pledge with Muslims. This category of people is named by Muslim jurists as dhimmi or non-Muslims living under the protection of the Muslim state. This category is protected by the covenant of Allah, His Prophet, and the whole Muslim Ummah. They are known, according to all jurists, as ahl dar al-Islam or the people belonging to the abode of Islam; they are citizens who enjoy the same rights and bear the same responsibilities as Muslims.
There is another category of people who have an interim pledge with Muslims, such as those who enter Islamic territories through the state authorities or any other recognized body such as travel agencies, etc. The individual pledge of security of a single person is as effective as the state pledge, and it prohibits any violation or cancellation of this individual pledge.
With this in mind, Islam considers the act of issuing an entrance visa to a tourist to be a pledge of security given to this tourist, and hence it categorically prohibits transgressing the security given to tourist. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is reported to have said, “Anyone who kills a Dhimmi will not smell the fragrance of Paradise.” (Al-Bukhari)
3- Islam, which prohibits killing innocent civilians, also prohibits terrorizing the secured and terrifying the peaceful. Islam considers it a basic right that everyone enjoys security regarding himself, his family, his property, his religion, and all other special rights that man strives to protect. Islam ranks safety as one of the top blessings Allah favored man with, and it considers committing any violation against this safety as an act that entails Allah’s curse in the Hereafter and His punishment in this world. It is no wonder that Islam stresses the punishment of theft and highway robbery, as such crimes threaten the security of people.
Islam also prohibits terrorizing the Muslim even if it is done jokingly. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) stressed this when he said to a Muslim who jokingly terrorized his brother, “It is not permissible for a Muslim to terrorize another Muslim.” In this hadith, the Prophet did not intend terrorizing Muslims in particular, but the word Muslim was mentioned in the above hadith because the context of the situation was that a Muslim terrorized another Muslim and not somebody else (that is, a non-Muslim). With all this in mind, the Prophetic hadith assures “The believer is the one to whom people feel secured regarding their blood and property.”
4- The Islamic Shari`ah basically asserts openly that every man is responsible for his own actions, mistakes, and crimes. A person is not responsible for mistakes or crimes done by others unless he is personally sharing in them. Allah Almighty says, “Each soul earns only on its own account, nor doth any laden bear another’s load.) (Al-An`am 6:164) Moreover, the Qur’an declares that this ruling is shared by all divine scriptures, as Allah Almighty says, “Or has he not had news of what is in the books of Moses. And Abraham who paid his debt. That no laden one shall bear another’s load.)(An-Najm 53:36-38)
Based on this, it is not permissible to punish the innocents because of an act committed by the guilty or to punish the group for a sin committed by a handful of its individuals. Taking the rough with the smooth, as far as the issue in point is concerned, is an erroneous judgment that does not belong to the Shari`ah. The Islamic Shari`ah has nothing to do with the acts of those few deviated people who follow its teachings but change them from their proper contexts. They claim to punish people because of injustices done by their rulers.
5- The ethical constitution of legitimate war in Islam dictates that it is prohibited to kill anyone except those who are fighting. In this legitimate war, fighting is restricted to face-to-face confrontation between Muslims and the army of the aggressors. Upon seeing a woman killed in the battlefield, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) renounced the act and said, “That woman shouldn’t have been killed anyway!”
Moreover, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade killing women, children, the aged, monks in their hermitages, farmers in their lands, and traders. This ruling of prohibition is stressed by the Qur’anic verses, the Prophetic hadiths, as well as the directives given by the Rightly-Guided Caliphs.
How come that people who neither carry a weapon nor participate in war against Muslims practically or verbally are killed?
6- Indeed, the IUMS condemnation of all these bombings and devastating acts that aim at killing others, demolishing their infrastructure, and terrorizing them, doesn’t mean that we justify the injustices and tragedies against Muslims in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Muslim countries. As Muslims, we should resist these injustices and tragedies using legitimate means. It is not permissible to take the occurrence of such injustices as a pretext to perpetrate criminal acts. The IUMS calls for mutual cooperation between the rulers and the ruled to stand together to face these immense threats imposed on the whole Muslim Ummah. Such threats require concerted efforts to be done in order to achieve mutual aims.
We are writing this declaration as a response to the covenant Allah took on the scholars to clarify the truth to mankind and not to hide it. This will help free Islam from the baseless accusations ascribed to it among which are torture, killing, displacement, exemplary punishment, suppression, and violation of the sanctity of others. This will also help us refute the claims of those who are deviating from the straight path of Islam and are changing its teachings from their proper contexts so that, (those who perish might perish by a clear proof and those who survive might survive by a clear proof.) (Al-Anfal 8:42)
Our final supplication is to thank and praise Allah, the Lord of the worlds.
Almighty Allah knows best.