[Hanbali]

Originally Posted by Revert

Ameen to your dua. Thats good for the brother from Oakland, however he is 16, has no ties apart from his parents sibling etc.

Actually the brother has an amazing story. He lived on the street for almost a year, due to his mother's hatred for Islam.

During that year, he got his highest grades in high school.

He was given full paid scholarship to Harvard, Berkeley, and a bunch of other major schools.

He went to Berkeley on a full paid scholarship, and he eventually supported the same mother who threw him out of the house.

She hated him for becoming a Muslim, but it was only him becoming Muslim that propelled him to Berkeley and allowed him to make enough money to support her, even though she stopped supporting him for that year when he was on the streets. It was Islam which made him a good student; before that, he had been a thug.

Once he started supporting his mother, she then softened towards Islam, and when I was there, she was on the verge of converting. I don't know if she did or not though. Subhan-Allah!

Look how Allah [swt] works!

I have a wife to support, I would do her a great injustice by asking her to sacrifice all that she is accustommed too so we can move to country far away from her family.

You would be doing her a greater injustice by joining the army and entering the abode of Hellfire.

$200 a month on food isn't a lot considering I eat plain pasta almost every single day.

Dearest brother, I did not mean to diminish your difficult situation.

May Allah [swt] reward you for your perseverance.

I know that you live a tough life, and I don't mean to belittle that. ALL I am saying is that if you were called to join the army of the tawageet, you would have options other than joining and becoming an apostate.

I don't want to make Hijrah as I don't feel its neccessary nor is it mandatory.

Brother, I don't believe that hijrah is mandatory on all of us. I said that it would be necessary if you were being forced to join the army. I am talking about that specific situation, in which case I would say that if your appeals of conscientious objection did not work, then hijrah would be your option.

Going AWOL is breaking the law, and I wouldn't wish to have criminal charges brought against myself if in the event I was caught.

So you would rather honor the court of law of the tawageet, but you would feel no qualms of being held accountable in the Court of your Lord Most High?

Yes, we must obey the law of the country we live in, but this law is unjust, and this is civil disobedience, of which is in our American tradition. It is unjust to force people to join their crusader wars. This is civil disobedience to resist this.

I've already stated what I will do if called up, I will go to Yugoslavia as I have family there.

And that would be hijrah in that situation. Remember: the first hijrah was to a land of kufr, i.e. Abyssinia.