and the Battle of the Trench, and so it went on until the Conquest, when people entered Allah’s religion in multitudes. After that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ passed away. A wave of apostasy then arose, and Abu Bakr fought the apostates. When he had finished with them, he turned his attention to fighting the unbelievers, mustering armies against Persia and Byzantium, and then he passed away. ʿUmar succeeded him and pressed on with the conquests until he toppled the empires of Chosroes and Caesar, spreading the faith so that Muslim authority stretched across the whole earth, east and west. Such is the nature of fighting in Islam.

Who is it that organizes and leads warfare? The imam. We therefore follow the imam: if we are commanded to set out, we set out, and we do not go to war without the imam’s permission—this is impermissible, for it is one of the imam’s prerogatives: “O you who believe, what is the matter with you that, when you are told, ‘March forth in Allah’s cause,’ you cling heavily to the earth?” (Q 9:38).

Fighting thus falls under the authority of the imam. When he calls the people to arms, it becomes obligatory upon everyone capable of bearing weapons. The imam who oversees Hajj and jihad is not required to be free of every sin; he may have some wrongdoings and infractions, but so long as he has not left Islam, jihad and Hajj must be undertaken with him. His righteousness and strength benefit the Muslims, while his wrongdoing harms only himself. Jihad, Hajj, and likewise the congregational prayer are in the Muslims’ interest. If he is right, we support him; if he errs, we avoid his misdeeds, yet we do not rebel or rend the unity of obedience. This is the creed of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah, upon which the welfare of the Muslims depends.