بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Muslims and the War in Ukraine
On February 24, 2022, the war between Russia and Ukraine began. As usual, disbelievers on both sides use Muslims in this bloodshed. And Muslims are always a victim, even if there is a confrontation between disbelievers.
Muslims, having no state of their own, wish to lean on some power, in the person of the state. And this is the natural desire of anyone who wants to be on the side of the strong. Many Muslims have succumbed to this temptation and have taken one of the (visible) sides of this conflict.
Some of them sided with Ukraine, began to defend it in every way, scolding Russia for its “invasion of a sovereign state”, some even called for participation in the war on the side of Ukraine, even under the flag of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), calling Muslims participating in this war as mujahedin and the dead as shahids, and some even considered them as dunya and akhirat shahids and started burying them without performing gusl janaz, as if those shahids died in the battle with disbelievers in the way of Allah. Various kinds of volunteer national Muslim battalions emerged, consisting, for example, of Muslims - Crimean Tatars, Caucasians, or Tatars and Bashkirs. Some of them became part of the AFU, while others remained formally independent groups fighting against Russia. Some of them actually participated in hostilities, while others participated formally, recording staged videos of "battles" and posting these videos on the Internet.
From the point of view of Shariah, it is a grave sin to take part in a war, either on the side of Russia or on the side of Ukraine, because it is a battle on the side of disbelief and under the flag of disbelief. What Allah (swt) says in the Quran:
[الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا يُقَاتِلُونَ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ وَالَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا يُقَاتِلُونَ فِي سَبِيلِ الطَّاغُوتِ]
“Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah, and those who disbelieve fight in the cause of Taghut” [4:76]. Muslim passed in his Sahih that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said:
«ومن قتل تحت راية عمية يغضب للعَصَبة ويقاتل للعَصَبة فليس من أمتي»
“Those who have been killed by being under an obscure banner, showing anger because of the fanatical commitment (to some people) and fighting because of the fanatical commitment are not of my community.”
In addition, there are huge numbers of Muslims on both sides of the front who have been forced into the war, so a Muslim participating in this war will be their murderer.
And as for those who take part in this war on the side of Russia, the sin of participating in the battle on the side of the Kafir occupier, who seized the lands of these Muslims long ago and established there the laws of Taghut, killing, raping, forcibly baptizing Muslims, hangs on their necks. And now these Muslims, instead of going to fight against this Russian occupant, go to die for him to expand and strengthen his power...
This is the situation of the Muslims of Russia, Ukraine and Crimea now: they go to die under the banner of the disbelievers on the path of Taghut, and those under Russian rule still go to die for their own occupier. If there were a Righteous Khilafah (Caliphate), they would go to fight under the banner of Islam, first of all to liberate the Kafir-occupied lands of Muslims and to establish there the laws of the Almighty, from Palestine to the lands of the Siberian Khanate...
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Shaikhetdin Abdullah