Fatwa On The Legality Of Joining The Iraqi Governing Council Formed After The Occupation Of Iraq 2003AD

A few months after the occupation of Iraq, the Governing Council was formed on 12 Jumada al-Awwal 1424 AH corresponding to July 12, 2003 CE... Sheikh Abdul Karim Zidan demonstrated the legal ruling on joining this council with a written fatwa, the text of which is to be published verbatim.

Question: What is the legality of joining the Iraqi Governing Council formed after the occupation ?

Answer: Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and the best prayer and peace be upon our master Muhammad and all his family and companions, and after:

  We answer you briefly about what you asked about, which is the Sharia ruling from the Transitional Governing Council and the acceptance of membership in it. We say, and Allah grants success with the following:

First: This issue is governed by principle and exception or ʿAzima (request) and permission. As for the principle, it is based on definitive things, which is that the duty of Muslims, groups and individuals, is to push the infidel if he occupies an Islamic country to expel him and not enable him and help him in any way that helps him to survive and dominate the Muslims, and this is something that young people familiar with Islamic Fiqh.

Second: Against this principle, the rule, or the determination, there is an exception or a license that may be taken on the basis of achieving a more favorable interest for Muslims or repelling a corruption that is more likely to be paid on behalf of Muslims, even if achieving this exception or interest necessitates pacification of the infidel and not exerting the required jihad by pushing him and expelling him from the house of Islam.

Third: In light of that, we have to look at the most likely interest that allows the Muslim to delay the jihad against the infidel and accept receiving the command from him and submit to it by joining the Governing Council that he created, as we look at the great evil that we repel Muslims by this joining and accepting the Governing Council and what this indicates Join the meanings I will mention:

The alleged interest in this joining is summed up in the fact that the Muslim by joining this council can intercede for some of those who are harmed by the occupying infidel, and also be informed and aware of what is going on inside this council and the suggestions and opinions put forward in it by the other members of the Shiites and the secular, so he can respond to them and that They will spoil their plans, just as the Muslim joining this council can suggest to the infidel ruler some of what benefits the Muslims from achieving security for the people, employing the unemployed by finding job opportunities for them and speeding up the provision of necessary services to the people.

As for the evils and harms resulting from a Muslim joining this council, they are:

- Stripping people’s trust in this Muslim and the group he represents, and the consequent distancing of people from this Muslim group that this Muslim represents, and this is a great harm that needs no explanation.

- The claimed interest is not achieved, and the reality supports that. The infidel continues to violate homes and imprison believing women until it came to the point that he captivated the Muslim woman until her husband or relative was forced to surrender himself, and the Muslim who joined this council was unable to prevent this infidel occupying from this aggression that he did not do Except the Jews in Palestine.

- The number of detainees reached more than ten thousand, according to their claim, and they were subjected to severe torture. We have seen on television that a captive Muslim was beaten with the shoes of an infidel soldier. The Muslim who joined the Governing Council was not able to prevent this attack or mitigate the abuse of the detainees, some of whom died under torture, as they admitted and claimed. They will hold their soldiers accountable for doing so.

- The Muslim who joined the Governing Council was not able to compel the infidel occupier to provide the necessary services to the people in terms of security for their lives and the necessities of their livelihood, which is a duty imposed by man-made laws on every occupier of any occupied country.

- The joined Muslim could not prevent the secularists and Shiites from achieving what they wanted or prevented them from doing what is not permissible, such as dominating the mosques of the Sunnis and preventing the Ministry of Awqaf from it, which forced the Sunnis to demand that the endowment department be divided into three swears just as the Muslim who belonged to the council could not prevent ministers The Shiites from not expelling the employees from the Sunnis and closing his ministry in their faces.

- The Muslim affiliated with this council supports the claim of the Kurds in their request for federalism based on pre-Islamic nationalism. Rather, he went to support them in their request, whose motive and purpose is known to every Muslim, so their consent is not permissible.

- There are displacement operations carried out by the Shiites of the Sunnis from their villages and cities in the south, and the Muslim affiliated with this council could not stop this attack.

- The Muslim member of the Governing Council was not able to convince the occupying infidel to give the rights of the employees whom he started to dismiss in bulk on the basis of flimsy and unacceptable pretexts, most of which are based on rumors and other many of the injustices committed by this occupying infidel.

When comparing the interest claimed to be achieved and the evils resulting from accepting joining this council and the consequences of leaving jihad and discouraging the mujahideen, it becomes clear to us that there is no justification for taking the license or the exception to the principle that we mentioned at the beginning of the answer, and therefore the legal ruling remains, which is the inadmissibility of guardianship from the infidel By joining the Governing Council and whoever claims that this is permissible by accepting Joseph, peace be upon him, the job of distributing sustenance to people by taking this mandate from Pharaoh, this is a corrupt analogy, because Joseph, peace be upon him, accepted this mandate with full authority for its requirements and requirements as the Qur’an indicated to that and a member of the Governing Council does not have the slightest authority because The real authority and the command and the prohibition are in the hands of the occupying infidel, and even if he is given something of this authority, what is implemented from it requires the approval of the majority, and the balances of the majority in the assembly are not Islamic scales, and therefore a Muslim cannot force the council to adopt its legitimate opinions.

But we would like to conclude this answer by saying that we do not set ourselves up and do our best to slander and vilify those Muslims who joined this council, and it is sufficient for us to show our opinion at the time with a leaflet distributed to the people as we think, and this is sufficient, and we continue to encourage the Mujahideen in response to the Almighty’s saying

(حَرِّضِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ عَلَى الْقِتَالِ)

(urge the believers to battle), and Allah says the truth, and we pray to Him to show us what is right.

And may Allah bless our master Muhammed And upon his family and companions, peace and blessings be upon Allah, Lord of the Worlds.