Fighting The Corrupt Ruler

An excerpt from ‘Commanding Virtue and Forbidding Vice’
by Ibn Hazm al-Andalusi adh-Dhāhiri

It should be said to them: What do you say about a sultān who puts the Jews in charge, makes the Christians his army, forces the Muslims to pay the jizyah [protection tax], raises weapons against Muslim children, demands Muslim women to fornicate, holds arms against Muslims, captures their women and children, and is publicly perverse with them; but in all of that, he still agrees with Islām outwardly and he continues to pray?

If they say that it is not permissible to rise against him, then it should be said: but he will continue killing Muslims until he is the only one who remains, him and Ahl al-Kufr [the people of disbelief] along with him; if they permit having sabr [patience] in that situation, they would have opposed Islām and abandoned it; but if they affirm the obligation to rise against such a tyrant – and this is their actual opinion – then it is said to them: what if he killed only ninety percent of the Muslims or all of them except one of them and captured their women and took their wealth; if they reject standing against him, they contradict themselves; but if they still agree, then we continue to ask them about killing fewer and fewer Muslims, while they continue to agree with standing against him, until we reach the killing of a single Muslim, or the capture of a single woman, or the taking of a single person’s wealth, or the oppressive violation of someone’s skin (through whipping); if they distinguish between any of that, they contradict themselves and make rulings without evidence, which is not allowed; but if they obligate a physical response to all of that, they return to the truth.

We further ask them about one whose wife, daughter, son and himself are to be abducted by a corrupt sultān so that he could be sexually perverse with them; should he surrender himself, his wife,his son, and his daughter to this evil; or is it farḍ upon him to defend against whoever wanted this? If they say that it is farḍ upon him to surrender himself and his family, they have said something terrible that no Muslim says; but if they say that it is farḍ upon him to fight, then they return to the truth and they must say the same thing about every Muslim, i.e. defending each other [as all Muslims are brothers] in person and property.

[From Musa Cerantonio’s Facebook page here]