Fighting people of this kind is obligatory by the consensus of the Muslims. No one who knows the religion of Islam and understands their true circumstances doubts this, for the peace they maintain and the religion of Islam can never coexist. If those Kurds, Bedouin Arabs, and other desert dwellers who do not abide by Islamic law must be fought even when their harm does not extend to the townspeople, then how much more so these people. Nevertheless, fighting them must follow the course prescribed by Islamic law: they must be called upon to abide by the laws of Islam if that call has not already reached them, just as a belligerent disbeliever is first called to affirm the two testimonies of faith if the call has not already reached him.

If there are those who fight them in the fully proper manner, that is the highest attainment in gaining Allah’s pleasure, exalting His word, establishing His religion, and obeying His Messenger. But if some of those fighting them are immoral and have corrupt intentions—fighting for leadership, for example, or transgressing against them in certain matters—and the harm to religion from refraining from fighting them is greater than the harm of fighting them in this manner, then fighting them remains obligatory, to avert the greater of two harms by accepting the lesser. This is one of the fundamental principles of Islam that must be observed.

For this reason, one of the principles of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamā‘ah is to undertake military campaigns under every ruler, whether righteous or immoral. For Allah supports this religion through an immoral man and through people who have no share in the Hereafter, as the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, foretold. For if military campaigns are possible only under immoral rulers or with an army rife with immorality, then there is no alternative but one of