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Patriotism ( love of a person for His/Her country) , in my opinion is a natural sentiment. I want to know what are the views of Islam on this.

Is it considered against the concept of "Ummah"?

The crux of what I understand is that the basis of Nationhood for Muslims is Islam i.e All the Muslims are one Nation. I have read a Hadith in my college book which says:

All the muslims are brother among themseleves

Do we have any other Ayahs / Hadiths to support this or Am I missing something?

In the world of today we see many political agreements involving Muslims countries in which the benefit of country is taken care of and that of Ummah is ignored.

What should be given preference "The Country" or "The Ummah" ? or do we have some some conditions regarding what to prefer?

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Division is the opposite of Unity.

Anything that makes us satisfied (or even worse, make us feel proud) with a certain level of division in the ummah is indeed a mistake.

Some related ahadith:

Whosoever fights under the banner of the blind, becoming angry for partisanship ('asabiyah i.e tribal-ship), calling towards it, or supporting it and then dies, he dies a death of (one in) the Days of Ignorance (Jahiliyah)." [ Sahih Muslim(6/21)]

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"A believer (in regards to) to another believer is like a solid building, one part supports the other." - and then he interlaced his fingers to demonstrate this. [Al-Bukhari (no.481) and Muslim (no.2585)

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Ibn Taymiyah (RH) said: "Everything that is foreign to the call of Islam and the Qur'an, with regards to lineage, land, nationality, schools of thoughts and methodologies, then that is from the calls of the Days of Ignorance (jahiliyah). Once the Muhajireen and the Ansar argued, such that one of the Muhajireen said: 'O Muhajireen!' (meaning, come to assist me) And one of the Ansar said: 'O Ansar!' Upon hearing this, the Prophet (salla Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) said: 'Is it with the calls of Jahiliyah that you cry out, while l am still amongst you?!' [Reported by Al-Bukhaaree (8/137)] And he became very angry at that."[Majmoo'-ul-Fatawa (3/456)]

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"lndeed, Allah has revealed to me that you should have humbleness. And that no one should act proudly and oppressively over anyone else, nor should one boast over anyone else." - Saheeh Muslim (8/120) :

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Whatever one loves to the extent of differentiating based upon it, becomes his or her religion. There is a hadith to the effect that a sign of perfection of iman is that a person loves and hates for the sake of Allah. If one loves and hates for the sake of his country to the extent that he would even kill for it during a war, he has indeed taken his country as his god.

In any case I would keep a couple of things in mind: "country" or "nation" are abstract and artificial notions to divide humans and have no basis in reality. A country is just a few lines that have been drawn up by some men, very akin to two men creating two different idols and saying "this is my god and that is yours." Secondly nationalism is nothing but tribalism on a larger scale, the kind of tribal wars that the Messenger (SAWS) brought to a halt.

It is reported in the Sunan of Abu Dawud from the Prophet (SAWS) that he said: He is not of us, the one who calls to partisanship; he is not of us, the one who fights for partisanship; and he is not of us, the one who dies on partisanship.

Shaykhul-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (RA) said: “Everything different from the tradition of Islam and Qur’an, whether it is related to progeny, country, nationality, doctrine, or school of thought, is from the customs of the pre-Islamic [read: jahiliyyah] period.

Having said that, AFAIK Islam does not discourage one to love their land. For example, the Messenger (SAWS) too missed Mecca and was rueful about leaving the land of his birth behind.

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  • If one loves and hates for the sake of his country to the extent that he would even kill for it during a war, he has indeed taken his country as his god, Everyone loves his family and to protect it, he can go to whatever means possible but this does not mean that he has taken family as God
    – nameDisplay
    May 26, 2013 at 16:38
  • Fighting to save one's honor and that of one's family is validated in Islam. The same cannot be said for one's country or indeed any other partisan-kind of group.
    – Najeeb
    May 27, 2013 at 5:56
  • @satya if your German at time of Hitler, and you parents were jews , would you have supported him?
    – JM97
    Aug 15, 2017 at 8:52
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Nationalism in the sense that I involve in some activity which is benificial to my countrymen and is not harming people of other nationalities is ok. But if I support certain actions of my country -just because it is my country- which are against some other innocent people then there is no difference between idol worship and nation/country worship. I would refer to writings if Dr. Allama Iqbal who said, one of the biggest "ilaah" (idol) of this era is "nation state". No wonder today people in one country are ready to kill people of other nationalities gor their interests.

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I think the difference is between living and non living things. We can love living things only. Land and property are for human beings to utilise them and not to love them. Human love is only for God, His prophets and His mankind. May be I am wrong but I think love of land is a kind of Shirik. We kiss Hajra e Aswad because of our love towards holy prophet(MPUH) otherwise we are not allowed to kiss any stone. All lands belongs to God and He is everywhere and He is a the actual owner of Land. We get a temporary ownership for a specific time period.

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Of course you can be proud of country!!

Im Indian and I even volunteered in elections campaignign.

Ignore other messages they just think because the prophet never did it, its haraam now.

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