To the secular, authoritarian regime in Azerbaijan,

Your desperate ban on Islamic dress (the khimar/head covering and the jilbab/the garments of public life) in schools and public institutions, in a country in which Muslims constitute 96% of the population, is not merely an innocent measure relating to clothing, as you claim; it is an explicit expression of your blind obedience to the corrupt Western secular ideology. By waging war against the Sharia of Allah (swt) you place yourselves among the outright enemies of Islam and the noble Islamic Ummah.

Your regime, like all the other rulers in the Muslim lands who rule by other than what Allah (swt) has revealed, is nothing more than a puppet in the hands of the West. In your fear of the inevitable Islamic revival, you are attempting to force Muslims in Azerbaijan to abandon their religious identity in favour of a bankrupt Western model. You are attacking the honour and chastity of our sisters in order to impose a secular society completely separated from Islam.

In addition, your disgraceful political and military partnership with the Jewish entity, your cowardly silence, and your active complicity in the genocide to which our brothers and sisters in Palestine have been subjected constitute an unforgivable sin and a heavy burden upon your shoulders. As though this betrayal of the Islamic Ummah were not enough, here you are now intensifying your internal conflict by banning the khimar worn by our sisters.

It is no coincidence, given your cooperation with your allies in the Jewish entity, that you deliberately allow the influence of these oppressors to penetrate the educational system in Azerbaijan. The common denominator between your corrupt regime and the Zionist occupier could not be clearer: a deep-rooted hatred of Islam and a joint, desperate attempt to fight and eradicate the religion of Allah (swt).

Nevertheless, when your authority is at stake, as happened during the last war with Armenia, you do not hesitate for even a single moment to exploit the sincere Islamic sentiments of the people. You sent believing men to the front. They fought with the takbir on their lips; indeed, they sacrificed their lives in defence of the country. On the battlefield, their yearning to fight was permitted to serve as fuel and ammunition for the cannons.

But what about your gratitude to them? As soon as the smoke of war dissipated and your secular thrones were secure, you turned, like cowards, against the very families of those soldiers themselves. Although this group of believing men sacrificed their blood, you are now ruthlessly removing the khimar from the heads of their daughters and excluding them from schools. You are forcing the daughters of the men who fought for you to ensure that your dictatorial secularism prevails over the commands of Islam. This is the utmost degree of betrayal.

Know that the khimar is not a matter of personal choice, democratic rights, or “human rights,” as Western institutions claim. Rather, it is a divine command from the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Whoever wages war against one of the obligations prescribed by Allah (swt) thereby invites the wrath of Allah (swt) upon himself in this world and the Hereafter.

The Muslims in Azerbaijan are part of a noble, global Ummah that will not allow secular tyranny and foreign Western influences to dissolve it. History has taught us that every regime that has attempted to eradicate Islam has itself ultimately collapsed.

True protection of the honour of Muslim women, and ensuring the establishment of a society in which Islam is practised in its entirety, do not come through pleading for rights from agent regimes complicit with the enemies of Islam. Rather, they come through the return of true Islamic leadership. It is the Khilafah Rashidah (rightly guided Caliphate) on the method of the Prophethood that will sever ties with the enemies, implement the Sharia of Allah (swt), eliminate tyranny, and liberate Muslims throughout the world from rulers who wage war against their deen.

Know that victory belongs to Islam, and that the downfall of repressive regimes is only a matter of time. So return to the commands of Allah (swt) before disgrace befalls you in this world and punishment in the Hereafter.

[وَاللَّهُ غَالِبٌ عَلَى أَمْرِهِ وَلَكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ النَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ]

“And Allah is predominant over His affair, but most of the people do not know.”[Surah Yusuf: 21]