As I lay in bed scrolling through twitter, I came across a clip from an Ilmfeed podcast with a ‘mufti’ and his daughter discussing the topic of Hijrah which is the Islamic concept of migration from the lands of Kufr to the lands of Islām, for the sake of Allah. I could tell almost instantly what kind of discussion this would be from the casual dismissal of its importance for western Muslims, but nothing could have prepared me for what followed.
I found myself pausing and rewinding every few seconds just to double check I heard them correctly because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; the mockery, the oversimplification, the sheer disregard for something so deeply rooted in our religion. I sat up, wide awake now, my mind racing with thoughts about the flimsiness of their arguments. What started as a late-night scroll turned into a moment of clarity. So here I am, sharing my reflections on why their take on Hijrah doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
Before delving into what they said, I think it’s important to first understand why they said it. Their arguments against Hijrah are not merely intellectual errors; they are symptoms of a deeper psychological and spiritual sickness afflicting Muslims who have grown too comfortable in the west. This complacency is most prevalent among first and second generation immigrants, particularly those who have achieved financial stability and social integration but at the cost of their Islamic integrity. Their rhetoric isn’t rooted in sound evidence but in guilt and a secularised worldview that prioritises the worldly life over Islam.
Guilt and Self-Justification:
For those early immigrants to the west, moving here was often justified as a temporary means for financial stability, but became permanent. They know their parents or grandparents chose the dunyā over Dīn (religion) and so they rush to defend the decision by any means necessary. Some, like the so-called ‘mufti’ in the video, sink to such depths of delusion that they label migration from Muslim lands to the UK as “Hijrah,” while dismissing the reverse as unnecessary. This was one of the statements he made that I found more upsetting than shocking. Hijrah is migration to the lands of Islam, not away from them into the arms of those who despise the laws of Allāh. What he said is not from Islam; it’s a desperate fabrication to numb the stabbing guilt of abandoning Dār al-Islām for the ‘comforts’ of Dār al-Kufr. To confront the west’s inherent hostility to Islam would mean admitting their own moral failure, and that of their parents who traded faith for worldly gains, so they twist sacred texts, a disgraceful act that carries a heavy punishment in the hereafter.
Then, this ‘mufti’s’ distortion of the Ayah:
…يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ ٱصۡبِرُواْ وَصَابِرُواْ وَرَابِطُو
The ‘mufti’ translates ورابطوا as ‘cohesion’, but in this Ayah, Allah commands, “O you who have believed, persevere and endure and remain stationed (رابطوا)” (Qur’ān 3:200). This is a call to military vigilance and steadfastness at the borders of Dār al-Islām, not a command to assimilate among kuffār. To twist this Ayah into a justification for social cohesion with disbelievers is a vile misreading, stripping it of its true meaning and context to serve a self-justifying narrative. The Sahabah understood this as a directive to guard their faith and borders, not to cosy up to disbelievers under the guise of “Hijrah.” This misinterpretation does not come from ignorance; it is intentional deceit, and what makes it even more serious is that it is being spewed by a community leader who others trust and look up to.
Then came the ‘mufti’s’ reliance on the Hadith:
لا هجرة بعد الفتح
“There is no Hijrah after the Conquest” [Sahih al-Bukhārī] to justify staying in the west. Again this is intellectual dishonesty of the highest order. This statement, uttered by the Prophet ﷺ after Makkah’s conquest, specifically addressed migration from Makkah once it became Dār al-Islām, not a blanket cancellation of Hijrah from lands of disbelief, as mentioned by Ibn Hajr in Fath al-Bārī. This is also supported by the hadith in which the Prophet ﷺ said:
لاَ تَنْقَطِعُ الْهِجْرَةُ حَتَّى تَنْقَطِعَ التَّوْبَةُ…
Hijrah will not end until repentance ends…” (Sunan Abī Dāwūd, 2479),
Scholars have also unanimously agreed that Hijrah remains obligatory wherever Muslims cannot practice Islam in its totality. To apply this Hadith here is a deliberate lie and a weak attempt to dodge the duty of getting up and abandoning his cosy podcast set.
This may seem like an honest mistake to the untrained eye, but what he said stems from a diseased mindset that rebrands truth as falsehood. The danger of this ‘mufti’ and those like him is that they don’t just misguide themselves, they drag others into their delusion, numbing the Ummah’s conscience with fabricated proofs. Hijrah is not a one-way ticket to a comfortable life; it’s a command to seek Allāh’s pleasure over worldly ease regardless of the consequences. Allah has even informed us of the reward awaiting someone who dies or is martyred while undertaking Hijrah, highlighting how danger and hardship are intrinsically tied to this blessed journey. Their refusal to face this truth, and on top of that, twist it to suit their desires, exposes the extent of their guilt and cowardice. May Allāh guide them before the angels ask:
…قَالُوا أَلَمْ تَكُنْ أَرْضُ اللَّهِ وَاسِعَةً فَتُهَاجِرُوا فِيهَا…
“Was Allāh’s earth not spacious enough for you to emigrate therein?” (Qur’ān 4:97).
قصبة الأوداية, الرباط
Escape or escapism?
The notion that those who make Hijrah are cowards, fleeing from their problems, should only be seen as a projection of the weakness of the one saying it. By mocking Hijrah as “escapism,” they deflect from their own inability to sacrifice comfort for faith. They fail to see that we aren’t free to practice our religion completely as Allah commanded. We are restricted to personal acts of worship, and when it comes to the other aspects of our faith we are only tolerated as long as we conform, and our “freedom” is conditional. Muslims are allowed to pray in masājid, speak about their religion and wear hijab, until it conflicts with secular liberalism (e.g hijab bans, mosque surveillance, censorship of “extremist” views).
They will also overlook the institutionalised erosion of faith, with public schools enforcing LGBTQ ideology at every given opportunity, banks enforcing Ribā (usury), Muslim children being purposely housed with non-Muslim foster parents, and the media normalising immorality in all its forms.
Reframing History
It is one thing to say Hijrah is not obligatory for Muslims living in the west today, but the ‘mufti’ took it a step further when he asserted that there was no need for those Muslims in 1947 to migrate from India and establish Pakistan. At this point I had to put my phone down and really think about what I had just heard. The words “those who migrated were looking for a romantic and rosy future…but that’s arguable,” and “those who remained in India are not worse off…it [partition] was because of some ideologues and scaremongers” were stuck in my head, and it was at that exact point I closed the video and decided to write this. I thought to myself, how dare he sit there dismissing the blood, sweat, and tears of millions who fought for the establishment of Pakistan as “unnecessary”? And then to claim that Muslims in Pakistan are no better off than those in India?
Then I remembered what his daughter said earlier in the podcast that made everything click “our family didn’t go to Pakistan did they?” His response: “No, because there were no issues locally.” Your own Indian Muslim ancestors chose to stay put. They didn’t make the Hijrah to Pakistan, didn’t join that exodus of sacrifice for a land where Islam could thrive unshackled; and now their descendants, sit in the west, parroting the same inactive and dismissive mindset, telling Muslims not to make Hijrah; not to strive for something greater. SubhanAllah what a legacy!
To the reader; you may not know much about the partition of India and you may not care about it, but I would urge you to read a letter titled ‘Now or Never’ written in 1933 by Rahmat Ali and other members of the Pakistan National Movement. It not only explains the necessity of the partition, but shows how we, as Muslims in the west, are also surrounded by a secular tide not so different from the one they feared in India; a place where Muslims are again a minority, wrestling with identity and faith against a dominant system that doesn’t respect or even try to understand who we truly are as Muslims. The parallels are frighgening. Just as those Muslims feared being swallowed by a Hindu federation, Muslims in the west today grapple with the slow chokehold of assimilation. Just as Pakistan was a lifeline for a nation that refused to “crucify itself on the cross of Hindu nationalism” (Now or Never, Paragraph 17) as they so fiercly put it, for us today, Hijrah to one of the many established Muslim lands serves the same purpose. They warned us in 1933 that history is “full of open warnings to us” (ibid, Paragraph 20). We’d be wise to listen to those warnings now. Their fear was real and just as urgent back then as it is now. Also, the Indian Muslims were no small group back then; they were one-tenth of the world’s Muslim population, occupying a region “four times that of Italy, three times that of Germany and twice that of France” (ibid, Paragraph 9). For them, partition wasn’t a luxury like the mufti wants us to believe; it was the only way to preserve their faith.
To label their actions as “unnecessary” dismisses the urgency of those who wrote, “The issue is now or never. Either we live or perish for ever.” (ibid, Paragraph 18). Pakistan has its struggles and challenges but to compare them to the challenges faced by Indian Muslims is pure delusion. I can’t even imagine how hurtful it would be for those Indian Muslims who are still suffering because of the decisions of their ancestors to hear this ‘mufti’ downplay those challenges from the comfort of his podcast studio in the UK.
Again, Pakistan is nowhere near an ideal Islamic state, and the same applies to the countries that western Muslims want to make Hijrah to today. We can sit here and discuss those imperfections for hours, but this was just to show that the example of the partition is not an evidence for this mufti’s anti-Hijrah position, rather it stands as a testament to the necessity of Hijrah; a beacon of what Muslims can achieve when they refuse to kneel to their enemies. Those who left their homes and loved ones behind in 1947 did so because they believed the “ancient fire of Islam still glows and promises much for the future of mankind” (ibid, Paragraph 17), whereas these ‘muftis’ only seek to dampen the flames of Islam and stop them from illuminating the world as they once did.
May Allah guide those who scoff at the sacrifices our ancestors made. History testifies to the righteousness of those who chose dīn over disgrace, and no-one will remember those who sat in the comfort of their homes belittling their struggles.
The Cogs of the Well-Oiled ‘Anti-Hijrah Machine’
This cunning propaganda is being churned out by organisations like ‘IlmFeed’, who posted the podcast in question, and also ‘Islam21c’ who seem to insist there’s no need for Hijrah and that staying in the UK is somehow “better”. These organisations, masquerading as platforms of Islamic guidance, are the cogs of a well-oiled ‘anti-Hijrah’ machine operating from within these same western countries, designed to keep Muslims subdued in their humiliating state under the guise of ‘religious struggle’ that would result in ‘great rewards’. Their campaign to dismiss Hijrah as unnecessary, or worse, undesirable, reeks of cowardice and greed.
‘IlmFeed’ and ‘Islam21c’ cater to a specific group of people: Muslims so steeped in western comfort that they’d rather reinterpret Islam than abide by its commands. Their content acts as a sedative for this audience; designed to reassure rather than challenge, platforming figures like Haitham al-Haddad who openly mocks people who want to make Hijrah and labels them as tax dodgers chasing the allure of tax free salaries in the Gulf countries. This isn’t scholarship, it’s an act; an abhorrent distortion of Islamic values where the Muhājir, leaving his homeland in pursuit of Allāh’s Pleasure, is painted as a deserter of the ‘battlefield’, while those who continue to chase after the dangling carrot in Dār al-Kufr are hailed as brave and patient warriors who are enduring harm rather than ‘fleeing’ from their problems.
The question is; why do they push this narrative? First of all, I cannot say for certain that this is the reason, but the financial incentives are striking. These so-called “Islamic” organisations thrive on donor funding; cash that dries up the moment Muslims pack their bags for Dār al-Islām. When you look at the issue through this lens, the smug dismissal of Hijrah becomes a calculated move to keep their audience rooted in the west, to line their own pockets. Allāh warns, “Was Allāh’s earth not spacious enough for you to migrate therein?” (Qur’ān 4:97), but ‘IlmFeed’ and ‘Islam21c’ would rather tell you that there is nowhere to go, and staying here (whilst keeping those direct debits running) is the most noble action. I truly hope I am wrong but I struggle to see any other motive. Regardless, they continue to lead Muslims astray with every clickbait headline. The day will come when they answer for this treachery, and no amount of wealth will shield them from Allāh’s perfect Justice.
In the video above, Haitham is asked about the necessity of Hijrah. With a smirk on his face he leans forward and responds, “where will they go?” Is this the depth of his ‘scholarship’? Allāh answers His question through the statement of the Angels I mentioned earlier, “Was Allāh’s earth not spacious enough for you to migrate therein?” (Qur’ān 4:97), a scathing rebuke to Haithams deceptive answer, and to those who choose to stay in the lands of kufr without necessity. Muslim-majority lands, however imperfect they may be, exist across the globe; places where the Sharī’ah of Allah is at least respected even if it is not fully implemented, unlike the UK’s cesspool of Ribā (usury), secularism, and LGBTQ indoctrination. As mentioned earlier, the Prophet ﷺ said:
لاَ تَنْقَطِعُ الْهِجْرَةُ حَتَّى تَنْقَطِعَ التَّوْبَةُ…
“Hijrah will not end until repentance ends…” (Sunan Abī Dāwūd, 2479), affirming its relevance in all times, yet Haitham shrugs it off, as if the notion of Hijrah is some far-fetched “hot topic” which he has already “diffused” years ago. This is the mindset of a man too comfortable to scout the vastness of Allāh’s earth so he wants to tie the rest of us down with him. A man who wants to ‘diffuse’ one of the greatest acts of worship in our religion.
Worse still is his slanderous claim that “many people want an easy life and they do not want struggle” implying that those pursuing Hijrah are dodging hardship by leaving the lands of the kuffār. SubhānAllah what a vile statement; may Allah discipline the one who said it. The Muhājirūn who left Makkah for Madīnah abandoned their homes, wealth, and loved ones, facing starvation and unimaginable hardship for Allāh’s sake, but according to Haitham they should have stayed and struggled?
Allāh uses Hijrah as an example of the ultimate struggle, a test of faith that Haitham belittles for his own convenience. It’s staying in the UK that’s the easy life, eating good food, making money from the comfort of your mortgaged home, getting promotions at work for the small price of compromising your faith, and letting your children live however they want to in return for social acceptance. Do whatever you want with no immediate worldly/social repercussions. Who’s the one escaping struggle here? Not those making Hijrah, but Haitham, hiding behind his microphone while the Ummah suffers.
Then he goes on to say that whoever refuses to raise children in the west is doing so as a result of their “defeatist” mentality. To protect one’s offspring from tribulations? That’s not defeat, that’s defiance, a refusal to risk eternal punishment in the hereafter for your future generations. Haitham’s “stay and fight” rhetoric is a hollow boast from a man who thinks he is seen as some commander of the western Muslims, but in reality he has already surrendered without even making it to the battlefield; a man with entire compilations of fatāwa based on compromising fundamental aspects of Islam to fit in and integrate is telling us to stay and integrate some more. What a surprise!
The most obvious angle of refuting Haitham al-Haddad’s nonsense is that none of it is rooted in the Qur’an or Sunnah, and this is a recurring trend with him. His mockery of Muhājirūn as lazy and defeatist is a great insult to every believer who has sacrificed his comfort for the sake of Allāh; and his rhetoric of “where will they go?” is an insult to the Creator who made the earth vast for His servants. For those who can leave, let the likes of Haitham be an encouragement for your decision to perform Hijrah; do you really want to end up compromising your faith to justify your decision to stay here? And for those who cannot leave, you deserve better than this incoherent drivel.
The Reality They Refuse to Accept
The purpose of this post wasn’t necessarily to convince you that Hijrah is obligatory, for that I’ll make a separate post اِن شآءالله. I wrote this to make it clear that the ‘anti-Hijrah’ rhetoric being pushed over the last few years is not scholarship, it is damage control for a generation that sold its faith for a shiny new passport. They are represented by those who twist texts and history, and then gaslight sincere Muslim laymen into believing that Allah’s commands no longer apply.
But in summary, the truth has been, and always will be, that:
– Hijrah is obligatory where Islam cannot be fully practiced (I will discuss this further in another post اِن شآءالله).
– These western countries (UK, USA etc.) are considered Dār al-Kufr, not a neutral space somewhere in between.
– Those discouraging people from making Hijrah are either extremely ignorant (in which case someone needs to confiscate all their microphones), compromised, or profiting from Muslims staying put.
So will we obey Allah and His Rasūl ﷺ or the whispers of those who speak from their own desires? The Prophet ﷺ warned us:
يُوشِكُ أَنْ يَكُونَ خَيْرَ مَالِ الْمُسْلِمِ غَنَمٌ، يَتْبَعُ بِهَا شَعَفَ الْجِبَالِ وَمَوَاقِعَ الْقَطْرِ، يَفِرُّ بِدِينِهِ مِنَ الْفِتَنِ
“A time will come when the best wealth a Muslim can have is sheep he follows to the mountaintops, fleeing with his religion from tribulations.” (Sahīh al-Bukhari, no.7088).
Look at the tribulations we are drowning in today; would the Prophet ﷺ be pleased with us living in this environment? Would he reprimand us for fleeing from it? Would he command us to stay?
My final reminder to you all is to read this Ayah over and over again and ask yourselves, do you really want to be from “…those whose souls the angels take while they are wronging themselves, they will say, ‘What was your condition?’ They will say, ‘We were oppressed in the land.’ The angels will reply, ‘Was Allah’s earth not spacious enough for you to migrate?’” (Qur’an 4:97)
May Allah allow us all to live amongst the Muslims, in the lands of the Muslims, and protect us from the misguided words of those who want to keep us amongst the kuffār. Āmīn.
Stranger Thoughts // أفكار غريبة 
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