Qatar Mobilizes its Powerful Media Machine to Silence Critics of the Massive World Cup Spending by Claiming to Take Advantage of this Opportunity to Call to Islam
(Translated)

As soon as the news of the huge Qatari spending on preparations for the World Cup spread, which amounted to $220 billion (19 times what Russia spent on the last World Cup in 2018), many articles appeared trying to justify this spending and show the Qatari effort to exploit this sporting event and the great demand for it to spread the Hadiths of the Prophet (saw), raise the sound of the call to prayer and by bringing in the Daiya Zakir Naik etc...

Of course, we are not against the exploitation of any event to call to Allah. We can only support any effort to spread the Deen of Allah, especially if this is compared to what is happening in the countries of the Hijaz of the open war against Islam and the spread of vices and immorality.

However, our judgment on matters must be based on clear and consistent standards, and any wise person should not be swept away under the influence of reality or the influence of whims. We judge the validity of things not based on their reality, or on the basis of comparing them to what is worse than them, or based on our love for football, or based on fascination with flashing trends.

Unfortunately, the reality far from Islam was imposed on us, and the prevalence of an atmosphere of humiliation lowered the ceiling of expectations. Moreover, the absence of an accurate conception of what life should be like in an Islamic society made us proud of things that are not supposed to be discussed at all, and that should be taken as facts.

Among the things that boasters of the Qatari achievements promote are the narration of the ban on alcohol and the symbols of LGBTQ in stadiums and their surroundings. I wonder how is this matter promoted as a great achievement, knowing that the news contains evidence of its impotence?! Are alcohol and homosexuality prohibited only in stadiums and their surroundings, and permitted outside them?! Did Islam forbid these evils only in a certain area?! Has the prohibition of the forbidden in a small space and its permissibility outside it became an unparalleled achievement worthy of praise and mention?

Allowing the presence of the mosque next to the dance arenas, while the prayer is intermittent between the dances, and accepting the presence of the modest woman next to the woman in tabarruj (showing her charms to non-mahrem); all this is not considered a call to Islam, but rather an explicit call to secularism that does not give any consideration to the Deen, and permits the wicked to be immoral and the religious to perform his worship, provided that the state remains governed by human legislation. As for the call to Islam, as Allah (swt) and His Messenger (saw) taught us, it is to present the pure and untainted Islamic model with what is forbidden.

The imposition of football as a global event and giving it this huge aura is in itself a conspiracy against Islam, even if alcohol is banned entirely and not only in the stadium and its surroundings. What does it mean for people to be occupied by a ball that the players pass around?! What does it mean for people to be preoccupied with something that is absolutely useless, even if Qatar or any other Arab country wins the World Cup itself, and not just to be its organizer? What difference will it bring to people's lives? What did the countries that organized this event gain? What did the countries that won the World Cup gain? What does it mean for Muslims to be preoccupied with this nonsense at a time when their blood is shed, their resources are plundered, and their sanctities are violated?

How can a sane person justify having fun at a time when the Jews are desecrating the holiest parts of Muslims and killing their finest?! How can a sane person justify having fun and luxury when millions of Muslims lack a piece of bread or a piece of tin foil to protect them from the heat of the sun or the rain of the sky?! How can a sane person justify having fun while the prisons of the oppressors are filled with scholars, righteous people and Mujahideen (fighters)?! Where are your priorities O Muslims?! How do you arrange them?! Which needs come first?! How do you prioritise? I don't mean luxuries, but the luxuries of luxuries, above the top priorities?! What wisdom is this and what foresight?

To say that Qatar organized this event to call to Allah undoubtedly contradicts the reality and it is naive. Qatar has never carried the concern of Islam, but since its inception it has been a British colony, and since the nineties of the last century it has turned into a den of British conspiracies, especially after the launch of Al-Jazeera.

Unfortunately, people's memory is very short, and their minds are quickly manipulated!

• Have we forgotten that Qatar hosts the American Al-Udeid base that is used to strike Muslims in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan?

• Have we forgotten the malicious role played by Qatar, with the recognition of its most senior officials, in infiltrating the Syrian factions and diverting them from the course of the revolution?

• Have we forgotten Qatar's role, with the recognition of its most senior officials, to pressure Hamas and push it to go along with Abbas's Palestinian Authority on the path of normalization?

• Have we forgotten that Al-Jazeera was the first in media normalization with the Jews, and it is still going on the same path today, despite its lamentation over Shireen Abu Akleh?

• Why is there no mention of opening the country to Jewish tourists who will come to Qatar to attend matches on direct flights from the usurping entity of Palestine?
If the goal is really to call to Allah, then Abd al-Rahman al-Sumait, the Kuwaiti Daiya, may Allah have mercy on him, who is a defenseless individual, estimates the number of those who embraced Islam at his hands in Africa alone at seven million, and he did not spend a tenth of what Qatar spent! And he did not set up for himself this false glamour.

This is regarding the da’wah that is undertaken by individuals. As for states, what the Messenger of Allah (saw) taught us is that the way for the Islamic state to carry the da’wah is to implement the rulings of Shariah within the state and carry it externally through da’wah and jihad for the sake of Allah, to conquer countries and apply Islam on their people, so that they see Islam practically on the earth. This will be a reason for them to enter the Deen of Allah. If Qatar is unable to carry Islam externally, this is the case in applying it at home.

Today, people are proud that Qatar displays the Prophet’s Hadiths in public and raises the call to prayer with beautiful voices, and they consider this a great achievement for the benefit of Islam! What if it had implemented these Hadiths and the rest of the Shariah rulings in practice; what would the situation have been like?

Qatar’s problem is that the day Britain established it, it made it a very small country in area and population (11570 square kilometers, 300,000 people, 10% of the total population of the emirate), compared to its neighboring countries, as the area of Saudi Arabia is 185 times, the area of Iran is 142 times, and the area Iraq 37 times. It seems that this matter created two obsessions among the rulers of Qatar:

1- The obsession with staying in power, as they know that they are the product of colonialism and they have no popular cover. Removing the cover of colonialism from them makes them hold on to power for a few days only. Therefore, they find every way to sustain the West’s pleasure with them, and they volunteer to serve colonial projects with dedication, perhaps they win the renewal of their work contracts. It is clear that most of the money spent on preparing for the World Cup went to Western and British companies in particular.

2- An obsession of the fear that one of the surrounding countries will devour them. They know that the weakness of the country’s area, its weak human capabilities, and the nature of its geography make its security fragile, even if it equipped its army with the most powerful equipment. They remember well how Iraq invaded Kuwait, which is more than Qatar in area and population by 1.5 times in hours, so they spend huge sums of money to have a reputation in the world and a "respectable" seat under the sun, thinking that their reputation could be a protection for them and a deterrent from being attacked.

But they do not know that no matter how much they spend, arm and leg, that will not give them:

• Immunity from the colonizer, and we saw that the West did not mobilize a single soldier to defend Ukraine, which it shares religion, ethnicity and history with; it was content with sending some weapons and saying, “Go, you and your people, and fight, here we are sitting.”

• Immunity from the soon-to-be-established Khilafah (Caliphate) State, Allah willing, which will sweep the region and eliminate these worn-out thrones in a blink of an eye.

In the end, I say that Muslims were not created for fun and amusement, even if it is permissible. Yes, it is permissible to relieve oneself with some kind of play and fun, but that it is not the original objective, and it is not at the expense of serious matters, and it does not include the forbidden.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Muhammad Abdullah