What do the esteemed jurists, the imams of religion—may Allah be pleased with them all and help them clarify the manifest truth and dispel the confusion engulfing the ignorant and those who stray—say concerning these Tatars who repeatedly advance into Syria, who have uttered the two testimonies of faith and professed Islam, and who have not remained in their original state of unbelief? Is fighting them obligatory or not? What is the evidence for fighting them, and what are the scholarly positions on this matter?

What is the ruling concerning those who join them by deserting the Muslim army, whether commanders or others? What is the ruling concerning those whom they have forcibly brought out with them? What is the ruling concerning those accompanying their army who identify with religious learning, jurisprudence, spiritual poverty, Sufism, and the like?

What should be said about someone who claims that they are Muslims, that those fighting them are also Muslims, and that both sides are unjust, so one should fight alongside neither? And what of the assertion that they should be fought in the same manner as rebels acting on an interpretation of religion?

What duties concerning them fall upon the Muslim community: its people of learning and religion, its fighting men, and its people of wealth? Give us detailed, satisfactory legal answers on these matters, for their case has become unclear to many Muslims—indeed, to most of them—sometimes because they lack knowledge of their circumstances, and sometimes because they lack knowledge of Allah’s ruling