Al-Furūsiyya - Ibn al-Qayyim - (الكتاب/373)

and he also permitted shooting with them. Abu Bakr, one of our scholars, held that shooting with them is disliked (1), arguing that the Prophet ﷺ once saw a man carrying a Persian bow and said, “Throw it away, for it is accursed. Rather, hold to the Arab bows and to the spears made of qanā, for through them (2) Allah upholds the religion and grants you authority in the land.”

The sound and certain ruling is that shooting with them, and holding competitions with them, is not disliked at all. The ummah has unanimously agreed on the permissibility of shooting with and carrying them. In our times it is precisely with these bows that jihad is waged: by them the enemy is broken, Islam is strengthened, and the idolaters are put in fear.

The objective is to support the religion and defeat its adversaries, not to favor a particular bow in itself. Allah the Exalted says, “Prepare against them whatever force you can muster” (al-Anfal 60), and shooting with these bows is part of that prepared force. The Prophet ﷺ also said, “Shoot and ride; yet for you to shoot is dearer to me than for you to ride” (3). He did not restrict this to any one type, and the address is not limited to the Companions; it applies to them and to the ummah until the Day of Resurrection. Thus every group is commanded to use whatever form of archery and type of bow is customary among them.

The hadiths cited earlier concerning the virtue of archery and of reaching the enemy with arrows (4)

(1) The phrase al-ramy biha (shooting with it) is found only in MS Za. (2) MS Za reads fihima (in both of them); the hadith was sourced earlier and is not reliable. (3) Its documentation was already cited on p. 63. (4) Mss. Ta and Ha read al-siham (the arrows); see pp. 62-77.

وأباح الرمي بها. وقال أبو بكر من أصحابنا: يكره الرمي بها (١)، واحتجَّ بأن النبي ﷺ رأى مع رجلٍ قوسًا فارسيّة، فقال: "ألقها فإنها ملعونة، ولكن عليكم بالقسي العربية، وبرماح القنا، فبها (٢) يؤيِّد الله الدين، ويمكِّن الله لكم في الأرض". والصواب المقطوع به أنه لا يُكْرَه الرمي بها، ولا النضال عليها، وقد انعقد إجماع الأمة على إباحة الرمي بها وحملها، وهي التي يقع بها الجهاد في هذه الأعصار، وبها يُكْسَر العدو، وبها يُعَزُّ الإسلام، ويُرْعب المشركون. والمقصود: نصرة الدين، وكسر أعدائه، لا عين القوس وجنسها، وقد قال الله تعالى: ﴿وَأَعِدُّوا لَهُمْ مَا اسْتَطَعْتُمْ مِنْ قُوَّةٍ﴾ [الأنفال: ٦٠]، والرمي بهذه القسي من القوَّة المعدَّة، وقد قال النبي ﷺ: "ارموا، واركبوا، وأن ترموا أحبُّ إليَّ من أن تركبوا" (٣). ولم يخصَّ نوعًا من نوع، وليس هذا الخطاب مختصًّا بالصَّحابة، بل هو لهم وللأمة إلى يوم القيامة، فهو أمر لكل طائفة بما اعتادوه من الرمي والقسي. والأحاديث التي تقدَّمت في فضل الرمي وتبليغ العدو بالسهام (٤)

(١) قوله (الرمي بها) من (ظ). (٢) في (ظ) (فيهما)، والحديث تقدم تخريجه وهو لا يثبت. (٣) تقدم تخريجه (ص/ ٦٣). (٤) في (مط)، (ح) (السهام)، انظر (ص/ ٦٢ - ٧٧).