World Crisis and the Pathway to Peace — Page 123
123 C AN M USLIMS I NTEGRATE I NTO W ESTERN S OCIETIES ? such a person should immediately relinquish his citizenship or immigration status and return to his native country. However, if he chooses to remain, then Islam does not permit any form of disloyalty to the country whatsoever. This is an absolute and un- equivocal teaching. Islam does not permit any form of rebellious behaviour, or for a citizen to scheme against his nation—whether adopted nation or otherwise—or to harm it any way. If a person does work against his adopted nation or causes it harm then he should be treated as an enemy of the state, a traitor and be pun- ished according to the laws of the land. That clarifies the situation in terms of a Muslim immigrant. In the case where a local German or a person of any country, who has converted to Islam, it is perfectly clear that for him or her, there can be no other path than to display absolute loyalty to his or her great nation. Another question sometimes asked is: what action should Muslims who live in the West take when a Western country engages in war with a Muslim nation? To answer this I should first of all mention that the Founder of our Community, the Promised Messiah as , has explained that we are now in an era where religious wars have completely come to an end. During the course of history there were times when wars and battles took place between Muslims and the people of other religions. During those battles the goal of the non-Muslims was to kill the Muslims and end Islam. In most of the early wars, the non-Muslims took the first ag- gressive steps and so the Muslims had no choice but to defend themselves and their religion. However, the Promised Messiah as explained that such circumstances no longer exist, because there are no modern day governments who are declaring or waging war