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The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is dedicated in America to “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions,” (that’s from “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America,” by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991), issues a call to Muslims worldwide to wage jihad — warfare, not inner spiritual struggle — for Gaza.
“Muslim Brotherhood General Guide: The Time Has Come For Jihad To The Maximum Degree,” from the MEMRI Blog, January 2 (thanks to James):
In his weekly sermon, Muslim Brotherhood General Guide Muhammad Mahdi ‘Akef called to launch jihad for the Palestinians in Gaza in any way possible: military warfare, popular resistance groups, donations of blood and money, and comprehensive boycott.
He said that this fateful moment of the battle against Zionism is the time for jihad to its maximum degree, and that this is incumbent upon everyone….
This is in line with the Islamic doctrine that jihad becomes obligatory upon all Muslims whenever a Muslim land is attacked. (Provocations by Muslims from that Muslim land don’t factor into this equation — if the non-Muslim enemy strikes back, that constitutes an invasion of Muslim land.) All the schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that when a non-Muslim force enters a Muslim land, jihad becomes the individual obligation of every Muslim (fard ‘ayn) rather than a collective obligation of the entire umma, from which one is released if others are taking it up (fard kifaya). Bulghah al-Salik li-Aqrab al-Masalik fi madhhab al-Imam Malik (“The Sufficiency of the Traveller on the Best Path in the School of Imam Malik,”) says this:
Jihad in the Path of Allah, to raise the word of Allah, is fard kifayah [obligatory on the community] once a year, so that if some perform it, the obligation falls from the rest. It becomes fard `ayn [obligatory on every Muslim individually], like salah and fasting, if the legitimate Muslim Imam declares it so, or if there is an attack by the enemy on an area of people.
The Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafi’i schools of Sunni jurisprudence further declare that jihad, once it is fard ‘ayn, is no different from prayer and fasting — in other words, to engage in warfare with non-Muslims in that case is a religious devotion that cannot lawfully be evaded. Hashiyah Ibn `Abidin, an authoritative text of the Hanafi school, says that jihad is “fard ‘ayn if the enemy has attacked part of the Islamic homeland. It thus becomes an obligation like salah [prayer] and fasting which cannot be abandoned.”