Question:
I kindly request your Eminence to clarify the following points:
First: The Supreme Council of Fatwa, with your Eminence in attendance, cited the presence of American forces using the precedent of Abdullah ibn Urayqit, whom the Prophet ﷺ hired and relied upon as a guide to Medina. However, I heard from one of the scholars that this line of reasoning is incorrect because it falls under the category of hiring (ijarah) rather than seeking assistance (isti’anah) against Muslims—or perhaps against disbelievers. Please clarify, and may Allah reward you with good.
Answer:
This is incorrect. It is a form of assistance (isti’anah), even if he was hired. He sought the help of a disbeliever to guide him along the appropriate route to Medina. Therefore, when seeking assistance is necessitated by need—whether paid or unpaid—the claim that “it is merely leasing/hiring, and therefore permissible on that basis alone” is mistaken. Seeking help from polytheists, if permissible in the context of leasing/hiring, is all the more permissible outside of it. Seeking their assistance for the welfare of the Muslims, provided there is security against danger, is permissible, whether with or without payment. For example, if someone says: “Help me in this matter—to repel this aggressor—and you will receive one hundred riyals,” it is permissible. If he helps without any compensation, it is also permissible.
Thus, the fact that he hired him with money does not negate the assistance. Similarly, the fact that they fight alongside us and are given a stipend (yurdakh lahum shay’), as a form of assistance to help them help us, is completely fine. It is assistance, even if he gave him a wage, because he sought his help to guide him along the way.
Likewise, the Prophet ﷺ presenting himself to the communities of the disbelievers at Mina so that they would grant him protection (yujiruhu) in order to convey the message of his Lord—this is seeking assistance from them. None accepted this except the Ansar, may Allah be pleased with them. He also sought protection from a group and they refused, so none accepted except al-Mut’im ibn ‘Adi, who granted him protection, bore arms, and guarded him from the evil of his enemies, and they honored their protection. This was seeking assistance before the Battle of Badr.
Similarly, after Badr, he borrowed armor from Safwan ibn Umayya on the day of Hunayn, and he employed the Jews of Khaibar in the seventh year of the Hijra, entrusting them with the wealth of the Muslims: cultivating the date palms and crops for a half-share for the public interest of the Muslims, even though they were Jews. He sought their assistance for the benefit of the Muslims in exchange for a half-share.
Therefore, seeking assistance—whether paid or unpaid—is permissible when necessitated by need, public interest, necessity, and severe need.
When Allah removes the need for them, seeking their assistance is not permissible. Thus, when the Prophet ﷺ turned away some polytheists on the day of Badr, it was because he was not in need of them, so he turned them away for certain reasons, just as he sought their assistance for other reasons.
The Hadiths should not be set against one another; rather, they must be harmonized, reconciled, and all of them must be used as evidence. Thus, when there is a need or necessity, assistance is sought from them. When there is no need—just as the Prophet did on the day of Badr when he turned someone away and said, “We do not seek the help of a polytheist”—he turns them away.
He ﷺ sought the help of a polytheist on his return from Taif, and on his journey to Medina via the route of Abdullah ibn Urayqit. All of these are instances of seeking assistance, whether with wages or without wages.
So if we say to them—for example, to a specific disbeliever—”Help us fight Saddam, assist us against Saddam, and we will give you such-and-such every day,” this is seeking assistance with payment. And if he says, “I do not want payment,” it is even more appropriate and permissible.
The claim that it is merely leasing is a mistaken assertion. It is indeed a lease, but it is also a form of seeking assistance alongside being a lease. This is how the Muslims acted during times of need: when need and necessity demand it, it becomes obligatory to ward off evil by whatever means possible—whether through a Muslim, a disbeliever, a disobedient person, or a hypocrite during necessity—provided that safety is observed, the safety is predominant, and there is a likelihood of benefit from this person whose help is sought against the enemy being fought.
Some of the scholars—such as al-Shafi’i and a group—said that seeking the help of a polytheist has been abrogated, arguing that the Prophet sought their help afterward.
Others said: No, it is not abrogation; rather, each ruling applies in its proper context, and this is the correct view.
The correct view is that there is no abrogation, because there is no evidence for abrogation, and reconciling the texts is preferable to declaring abrogation. Therefore, it is permissible when there is a need, and impermissible when there is no need. This is how the Hadiths and the statements of the scholars, may Allah have mercy on them, are harmonized.