Yasir Qadhi – Islamic Politics and the Caliphate
AI: Summary ©
The speakers emphasize the importance of the podcast's agenda, including the need for clarification on various concepts and loyalty and allegiance to believers. They criticize the "monster's sharia culture" and the "monster's desire to be a leader", citing the importance of devotion to God and representative leadership. They stress the need for realistic and grounded understanding of what is possible to achieve Muslim loyalty and unity, as well as avoiding "has been bad" movement and a better understanding of rules of the political system. They also acknowledge the possibility of achieving Muslim unity and plan to discuss it in a future conversation with the audience.AI: Transcript ©
And, on a personal note,
friend of mine, I hope, inshallah, this feeling
is mutual,
our dear, sheikh, doctor Hatem Al Hajj. And
of course, Doctor. Hatem does not need an
introduction, but still, Yani, it is our father
and our duty, Iqram and Allahu. Just a
brief summary that, our Sheikh Khateem is one
of the very few people who was combined
between,
an
MD, a professional,
doctorate,
being a full doctor. And then of course
a PhD in Islamic studies as well, the
real, doctor. I always joke that my mother
introduces me and when somebody says doctor, she
goes, this is not the real doctor, Asli
doctor no not an Asli one so the
doctor Hatem is Asli doctor right and he
is also PhD in fiqh al muqaran in
comparative
fiqh. So welcome, Sheikh Al Kareem, to our
extensive podcast today.
For the invitation. Alhamdulillah. And of course, Sheikh
Hatem is, of course very involved with the
American Muslim Jewish Association, AMJA. And, well known.
His classes, his duroos, his publications, his fiqh.
Now I want to explain why we are
doing this, podcast which is of course, something
relatively new and it is our first inshallah
and perhaps in a longer series.
And that is that,
especially during the last few years post Arab
Spring, there were a lot of,
debates going on online with regards to,
Islam, Islamic politics, the role of their ulama.
And these were very contested issues, and emotions
were high,
and,
sentiments were were given in a very, very
blunt manner.
And I began to read,
of course, I had my views in a
print, and that back then I was active
on social media. So I began to read,
Shahatim's,
posts. And they really resonated with me because
these are things that I had been saying
as well in my own way. But, of
course, Sheikh Khatim is, of course, far senior
to us in every single aspect. And so
he was,
saying, in a far more,
academic and with the quotations that are necessary.
And I began to have a conversation, with
him. And I said, Sheikhana, we need to
have a very frank,
dialogue.
And even if we disagree, we show what
are the parameters of disagreement
and explain, because these are very sensitive issues.
And
so because of those posts,
and this is like, we're talking about, you
know, 3 years ago, 5 years ago, 2
years ago, this is finally the result of
that after a number of back and forths.
Finally, hamdulillah, he's here in Dallas with us.
And so we're gonna be spending a few
hours inshallahu ta'ala, as long as we're able
to, to do to discuss a series of
sensitive topics with regards to Islam and politics,
with regards to Khalifa, with regards to methodology
of Khalifa, with regards to the importance of
Khalifa. And a very important note, this,
in interview or this and forth because we're
both gonna be participating.
It just so happened coincidentally, I gave a
talk last month before Ramadan.
That is separate to what we're talking about
with Sheikh Hatim. Even though, of course, because
I gave it, I'm gonna bring up certain
aspects of that. But the reason why we're
having this, podcast has nothing to do with,
my talk last last month because I have
been speaking with him for many many, months.
In fact more than a year to get
this podcast done. Insha'Allah.
So with that, Sheikh Al Kareem. Let us
begin with, I would say, the crux of
the matter. And then from that, we're gonna
we're gonna keep on going our way organically.
And again, for the record, our brothers and
sisters, this is not scripted. You know, I
have some questions and some talking points that
I have in my mind, but we haven't,
you know, scripted this. We're gonna be inshallah
raw and and and organic. And I will
be
pushing back and forth insha'Allah as is our
want. So the first question, Sheikhan Al Kareem,
is what is your personal view based on
your understanding of the Quran, the Sunnah, the
Sira of the,
obligation of establishing the khilafa?
Is it something that is farth?
And if so,
the level of farth
and where do we get this farth from?
Is it something that is aqadi? It is
it is something from the Sharia?
Is it something Akali?
So what what is the role of the
Khalifa,
in our,
discourse as Muslims? So Bismillah.
To proceed.
Well, once again,
for the invitation, and
it's it's a it's a very appropriate question
to start this discussion with.
But before I, you know, address that particular
question, I just want to say
that I wish,
that the viewers
would examine the arguments,
based on their own merits
and do not waste too much time
trying to find, like, a small box for
the speakers,
or trying to categorize the speakers,
because personally speaking,
I it would be hard for them to
find a small box for me.
That does not mean that I don't have
any rails. I I do have my own
religious theological orientations and and so on, and
I do have my own boundaries,
but I I it would be a
waste of time for the viewers
to try to find a small box
to put,
the speaker or that speaker in,
and,
basically,
not examine the arguments on their own,
merits.
Having said that, I must say that growing
up, I had many ideas that
I don't consider to be founded anymore
or realistic anymore.
And I don't say this to basically
undermine those ideas or to belittle those ideas
because it is very possible
that I was right then
and wrong now.
Very possible.
I I hope it is, is not the
case, but it is very possible. I just
want to say this,
to,
get across to the viewers that
I do not hate any genuine, sincere Muslim
for having
unrealistic or unfounded ideas.
I have grown as I aged less respectful
of identitarian
religiosity
and sort of fake religiosity,
but any genuine sincere Muslim,
I don't really
dislike them
just because they have unfounded or unrealistic ideas.
Mhmm. Because I believe that I, myself,
growing up, had some unfounded and unrealistic ideas.
And I believe I was sincere.
So you know that's where I I'm coming
from.
You know, I know that sincere people
can have
bad ideas.
So I don't hate any Exhibit Asia. I
have a bunch of phrases myself. So, yes,
we know. Yes. So that so that that's
that's important to to start with.
Having said that, I think that,
we should delineate what is exactly what it
is exactly that we're talking about.
We're not talking about the hilafa in the
sense because things, get conflated
by,
people who have ideological
fixations and things of that nature. So we're
not talking about loyalty to Muslims.
We're we're
not talking about the concept of the broader
concept of unity.
We're not talking about the broader concept of
this ummah being 1 ummah that the like,
the collective singular
faith or religious community. We are a collective
singular religious community. We are 1 ummah,
in the broader sense.
We have loyalty and allegiance to the believers
of there is no question about this.
We're not talking about order versus anarchy. We're
not talking about the concept of imam
as in having
order versus anarchy.
We're not talking about the Sharia
and the implementation of the Sharia. We're talking
about a particular
point, which is
the obligation of having
a singular
global
political
leadership
for the entire Muslim community
or a centralized
government
for the entire Muslim community
as
some people
imagine that we can have
a central government
in Baghdad
that would rule over
all Muslim nations
or Muslim communities
from Casablanca to Jakarta?
That concept
is what we want to discuss. We want
to discuss,
you know, whether it is founded, whether it
is desirable, whether it is feasible.
But the other concepts, loyalty to the believers,
the unity of this,
the obligation of cooperation, coordination, integration,
in in in various
aspects,
the the importance of order versus anarchy,
the importance of the Sharia as the backbone,
the
central peer pillar around which we organize
as, Muslims.
All of these concepts are not
basically up for debate. There there there is
no controversy there, and it's inconceivable that there
would be any
controversy there. Now the Khalifa, someone may say,
is the political expression of that unity,
or the hilafa is the actualization
of that unity in the political sphere. Someone
may say this,
and they would be justified to this to
say this.
And it would be justified to say
that
that it would be desirable.
Like,
if it if it if it is feasible,
then it would be desirable
to have a singular,
global leadership
for Muslims,
because it would be basically the actualization
of that unity that we talk about, that
one Ummah that we talk about
in the political
sphere.
So
I I think that,
you know,
this may be an end goal, or, of
course, our our ultimate end goal is the
pleasure of Allah
that for every Muslim. And
we should not lose sight of this. This
is the ultimate end goal
for Muslims, the pleasure of Allah.
Dakilafa,
as sheikh Abul Hasan Nadwi Rahimahullah,
in his
amazing and and and genius,
writings,
particularly his book tafsir I siyasi that islam
or the political interpretation of islam
pointed out
would be a fruit a result
of
our of
our basically commitment our religious commitment our commitment
to the deen of
Allah our devotion to Allah it will bring
about righteous governance and it will bring about
unity and it will bring about
that political manifestation or actualization,
lake rain brings about vegetations.
So it is a result.
It's not the ultimate end goal
and it is not the effective cause
it is not a necessary or sufficient cause
for renaissance
for Islamic life. It's neither a necessary nor
sufficient
cause
to have an Islamic life
but it is a product,
a result
of having an Islamic life.
Jayed, so Sheikh, in this case, the technical
term would be it is
for you?
I'm asking. Okay.
It it it would be,
what is it exactly that is far? Establishing
an imam in different areas,
is, of course, afar.
The prophet
said
Whoever dies without having pledged an allegiance to
an imam, he will die in a state
of,
which means that
you should not basically be
promoting anarchy
or rebelling against the legitimate authority
or, Muslims should not ignore the importance of,
order,
you know, an an hierarchy,
political hierarchy.
Now
is it a
must to have
a singular global leadership
for Muslims.
I think that
it is a fard
to work towards unity
and to actualize of that unity,
whatever it is that can be actualized
given the sociopolitical
realities
of the different times.
I let me let me be clear with
you here. I would not have any faith
crisis
if we never had a falafel
until the day of judgment.
It would not cause me any faith crisis.
It would not cause me any this, like,
discomfort
about my faith.
There is a particular hadith that people quote
often.
I grew up quoting this hadith. I grew
up believing in this
wholeheartedly.
The known hadith is reported by Ahmad from
an Omani ber bashir in which Khadaiifa
conveyed from the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
that he said
And so the prophet said that that that
you will have the prophet with among you
for as long as Allah wills and Allah
will then raise it or remove it when
he wills. And then there will be a
khilafa,
on the prophetic method,
for as long as Allah wills, and then
Allah will raise it when he wills. And
then there will
be a kingship, a reign of oppressive kingship.
Mhmm.
For as long as Allah wills and and
Allah will raise it and then there will
be a reign of compulsive kingship. And
then in
and then there will be
then there will be
on the prophetic message on the prophetic message
We were
certain and that is basically the problem of
the problem of lack of knowledge.
We were certain that this meant that we
are waiting for
a
on the prophetic method. Growing up, I was,
like,
when I was 17, I I had given
my first jumah when I was 17, and
it was about Al Hakimaiyah.
No. That was your first jumah. Yes. That
was,
you
know, like overconfidence
that I have
regretted afterwards.
But anyway,
so so I was certain that this is
this would be this is we were expecting
this. Mhmm. And it would have caused me
faith crisis then,
to have been told that,
that no this may never
materialize.
You know a singular global leadership, political leadership
for all muslims
may never materialize
because
this hadith meant to me and and other
and end times hadith or traditions
meant to me that this is what we're
waiting for
and and we were also certain that Mahdi
would not be the first Khalifa. Sometimes we
thought that it may be. Sometimes we thought,
the the then we came to learn that
no. It's likely not going he's not going
to be the first Khalifa.
And,
our understanding of the end of times,
traditions also was was pretty
strict and, to a great deal, literalist.
And I am a scripturalist.
You know? So some people that would be
unkind to me would say literalist, but I
believe I'm a scripturalist.
So I don't, be that the importance of
of,
those reports, but I have,
like, a a little bit more flexible understanding
of them. That is not, say, in metaphorical,
but, I am someone who subscribes to contextual
language theory,
And I I have a little bit more
flexible understanding of those reports. Now this particular
hadith this particular hadith,
this is how I would look at this
particular hadith that that would be basically,
presented to Muslim use to tell them
that you must believe
in this,
as you believe in,
you
know, Allah being,
for instance,
above his throne or you must believe in
this as you believe in
the day of judgment
being true,
you know, and,
and the angels and and and all of
that stuff. I don't believe so anymore
for several reasons. One of them,
to begin
with, being a scripturalist,
I believe
in what Rima Shatabir said
that which means that the rank of the
sunnah
is subsequent to the Quran, is not equal
to the Quran. It's subsequent to the Quran
in consideration.
The the of
not the Amal Quran.
Sunnah is speculative,
mostly speculative,
and certainty is with the Quran, not the
the sunnah. And this is. It's nothing. It's
just not your sha'atabi. This is the default
of those. Yes. This is but
certainty is not with the sunnah. Sha'atabi himself
says that certainty applies to the sunnah to
the collective body of the sunnah not individual
hadith.
Not individual hadith.
So you may say that you belong to
a Hanbali tradition, and I do.
That does not mean at all that we
don't have basically the concept of textual textual
critique
or the the concept of critiquing the of
the Hadith,
not only the.
So we recognize
that the, you know, Isnat needs to be
critiqued, but the mutton also needs to be
critiqued.
There is there is a particular book by
Imam Al Tayyim Rahimahullah called the Manar al
Munif, which
would translate to
the lofty
lighthouse
concerning
the authentic and the weak.
In in which he says
that
there is a report from the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam
you know in which the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam was reported to have said reported
to
have said
So when a man sneezes while in conversation
it's a sign on his truthfulness.
So Ibrahim Al Qayim
says despite the fact that
some have authenticated the chain of narration
this the the observable
reality
contradicts the Hadith. The observable reality contradicts the
Hadith.
A very sensitive topic, Sheikhan. Of course, we
this this quotation,
it causes consternation amongst many who don't even
know this is from our own usul. Many
even salafis or ahadith.
The the notion of using aqal
and common sense to look at an isnaad.
And Ibn Al Qayyah mentions this for multiple
examples, and this is not the only one.
That when something is observably,
patently false, right, then if you find some
solitary chain that it it even if some
people might think that the chain is authentic,
observed reality is going to be more important
than a one knee chain. Right? And this
is something that, again, I also brought up
a number of my lectures,
with regards especially eschatology because this is another
issue I wanted to mention. And that is
it's understandable
that especially at a young age, we all
went through that eschatology
and and,
science that the day of judgment, they they
they occupy or preoccupy
a type of obsession
that actually perhaps even is not as useful
as other sciences and disciplines. And we've been
all been through that phase here. So this
hadith you mentioned that Sheikh,
are you saying that it is
a, not authentic
or b, misunderstood
or c, both?
No. I am saying that it if even
if it if it were if it, if
it is authentic and it you know, many
scholars authenticated it, then I that's fine. It
could be authentic, but it's still a singular
report
A hadith, shall we? Is that it does
not confer certainty. Mhmm. If it is authentic,
and I am someone who says that, you
know, you should not be going around critiquing
the matna of the Hadith if you're not
qualified.
Of course, this would be chaos.
And in the you know,
individual Muslims should not be going around critiquing
this hadith, critiquing that hadith because
they're unable to comprehend it,
because now you will make your haqli, your
hawai, your your passions, your desires, your biases,
the ultimate judge and that is not what
islam is about
but qualified scholars
have critiqued the matten as they critiqued
the isnaad or the chain of narration of
the hadith
and singular reports do not confer
certainty so
it would not cause me a faith crisis
if it did not materialize
but once again I would go back and
say
what what is the meaning of this hadith?
The idea
of eschatology end times hadith you have to
have a flexible understanding
You're basically you should get the moral lesson
from the hadith
but how they materialize
unfold in the future
you should not have a rigid understanding of
this. We paid a very hefty price during
the like Mongol conquest for instance. People thought
that these are Yajud and Majud, and people
were defeated before they even,
like,
confronted them. Yeah yeah
yeah so
so this hadith Habib ibn Salim for Habib
ibn Salim one of the narrators and the
person who person who narrated from Anurman ibn
Abasheer,
said that
Habib,
he is a narrator, and you you know
that we privilege the understanding of narrators. Okay.
Habib
thought that this Khalaf alim Hajj al Nabuwa
happened already during the time of Omar ibn
Abdul Aziz.
Yeah. And he he actually communicated this,
to, through Yazid ibn Oman to Omar ibn
Abdul Aziz. And Omar Aziz
sort
of were happy to hear it. Yeah.
Like the dot can test this interpretation. We're
happy to hear it. It gave him
bushra
to hear
this. So Arunar Razi has also agreed with
this understanding
of Habib
that it actually did materialize, already happened.
So now you're waiting for it and the
narrator of the hadith thinks that it already
happened. Exactly.
So that that once again, that basically
underscores the importance
of,
like,
a a flexible understanding
of these, traditions.
And by the way, this is as you
know, Shail, this is a common theme in
eschatological
reports
that every generation
pretty much thinks that what is happening in
their time is exactly what is predicted in
their traditions. This is a routine cycle every
single time we see it. And the same
thing is happening now as well,
where our, you know, Shabaab, they read these
a hadith. And once again, they're like, okay,
well, it's as if they're trying to write
the script or trying to understand it directly
in our times. And this is something that
our ulama have warned against.
Don't write scripts or imagine those traditions to
be applying to your time until there is
certainty in this regard. But sheikhana pushing back
a little bit and again this for the
viewers because obviously at many levels I'm sympathetic.
But, I wanted to quote you
quotations that are well known in our tradition.
And I will quote very quickly, but it
needs to be quoted because these are quotations
always found,
in these discourses online.
So for example, then Nawawi says,
That there's a jamaah
that the Muslims have to elect, or,
put up a leader. And of course,
That there is no difference of opinion given
in the entire Ummah except for the markazidi
al assam. And then he made a pun
because Al Aslam means the one that is,
deaf. And so he said he was deaf
or mute from the,
Sharia. So there is no Khalaf,
that,
there must be an imam and a khalafa
that is,
established. And Ibn Taymiyyah says in the Siya
Shur'i, his famous book,
that
and then he goes on and on. This
translates as, it must be known that the
that the leadership for the, affairs of the
Muslims is of the greatest
of Wajibat of this religion.
Rather, the religion cannot be established except through
it. And that is because the,
masala or the
necessary requirements of good of the children of
Adam will never take place unless they come
together, and help one another. And when they
do so, there must be a leader amongst
them like the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said.
If 3 people go on, traveling, then one
of them should be in charge. And let
me quote 1 or 2 more because again
these are the quotations that are given.
That,
and the and the and the and the
and the and the shia, All of them
have agreed that it is Wajib to have
an imam and that,
it is obligatory upon the ummah to then
submit to a just imam. And then of
course you have al Mawaridi and I'll finish
here and I have other quotes as I
have a whole bunch of quotations.
Because again, this is the whole point. Anytime
you start about this, you're immediately bombarded with
these quotations. So let us discuss them. Al
Mawardi, of course, is one of the few
people who has written a treatise on Islamic
political science. We wish more had been written.
But as you're aware, this is a topic
that is, not elaborated on it. We can
maybe discuss this later on in this in
this podcast.
That, the imama is,
a basic continuation in translating by, by meaning
of the, Khalifa that the prophet
established and it is a protection of the
deen and it is, the politics of this
world. It is how,
we run this world
and to establish it,
for those who are gonna be sufficient for
it, it is wajib
for this ummah by ijma' of the scholars.
Now I can go on and on as
you're aware there's so many quotations.
So
one could say, your sentiment at the beginning
5 minutes ago seems to clash with all
of these quotations.
What would you respond to this?
It doesn't. It may appear so, but it
does not.
I
said in the beginning that we have to
separate
between,
Imamate or
Imama
as an order versus anarchy,
versus having 1 imam for the entire ummah.
These are 2 different discussions.
So
Al Imam al Jawayni,
his book at Irshad,
points out that difference,
that one is for Min Al Kawata, and
one is not Min Al Kawata.
One is a certainty, which is the importance
of install installing an imam or appointing an
imam
basically to defend the weak, to protect
the borders, to establish,
law and order.
There is no
question about this
whatsoever.
This is min al qawata.
Now plurality of imams
multiplicity
of imams versus singularity
that is a different discussion
realistically speaking
we have 1 imam for a very short
period of time
and thereafter we have not been
all under 1 imam for the vast majority
of our history
But theologically
speaking,
you know, speaking from the the Fiqh
viewpoint,
the first one is a matter of consensus.
The second one, you know, can we have
several imams,
several khalifas?
If you use
the word khalifa in its linguistic
sense, which appears to be how the Sahaba
viewed it, Omar Ibn Khattab himself
said,
if
you
say,
and then Mughira said to him,
He said, okay. That works. So Omar Khattab
said, if you if you say the successor
of the successor
of the Messenger of Allah, Abu Bakr was
the successor of the Messenger.
If you say the successor of the successor
of the Messenger of Allah this will be
long.
Then Muhir al Musaaba said to him and
other reports to others that we are the
believers you are our leader
or prince amir
So you are the leader of the believers.
You are Amir al Mumani. And Omar said
that works.
Okay. So they understood the word of Khalifa,
and Khalifa did actually appear in in different
traditions,
prophetic traditions
that we can talk about,
later.
But
but they they they seem to have had,
like, a more flexible
understanding of the word, the Khalifa, someone who
succeeds another.
You know, replace me. Be in my take
my place among my people.
You know,
So take my place in my people. Someone
who is left behind
to take care of
someone's affairs,
someone who succeeds another to take care of
the affairs of that person or their their
family or their ummah,
etcetera.
So plurality of imams
is is is a little bit controversial.
And as I said, Imam Al Jawayni said
it's not.
You
know, al Imam Abu Abbas
critiqued,
the the that
Al Imam Hazmer
reported
about the,
you know,
the the singularity of, or the the the
the wajub,
of having a singular,
or the obligation of having 1 imam for
the entire,
and Imam did not contest to that it
is Wajid
because he himself
recognizing
that sometimes it is unfeasible,
but he he says
that,
the sunnah
he says the sunnah
is to have a single imam.
But if it happens
that because of masayyah or a sin from
part of the ummah an incapacity
of the other part that we have more
than 1 imam. And this already happened from
the time of Abdulrahman at Dahil,
you know, when he basically,
broke off with, Andalusia.
We have not been under a a single
imam,
from that time. So it it already happened.
It's not like we are the ones who
are making this.
It had already happened.
There were, like,
more than
before this, during the time
of
Aliyah said they were both imams at the
same time.
Abdullah ibn Zubair, you know, he had his
he had Abdul Leibniz of
Eir had the majority of the Muslim lands
under him during the Umayyad dynasty. He had
Al Arab. He had Al Hajaz Yeah. Al
Haramain.
He had Egypt also for some time. And
so so the Umayyads had, you know, the
greater Syria or Sam or the Levant and
then the parts north to the north of
this but they have very little compared to
Abdullah ibn Zubayr.
So it's not like a new thing. This
massaya
if you if as as Imam Al Temia
says it's a massaya
had already happened
he then says he then says if that
is the case
then each one of those imams
recognizing the legitimacy of this arrangement
each one of those imams
should
fulfill the rights of people, establish
the Hudud,
establish the law,
and fulfill people's rights and protect people and
so on and so forth.
So he's
basically,
this is a shift of focus,
and this is an important shift of focus,
and this is the only way we can
survive
from the Khalifa to the Sharia
where the Sharia becomes the center center pillar
around which we organize
the formative thesis for Islamic life, the central
pillar around which Muslims
organize,
not the Khalafa.
The sharia is bigger than the Khalafa.
The Khalafa
is
one manifestation,
of of the unity.
One goal that we must be working for
as an end goal
that will motivate,
energize,
us
that will
that will cause progress.
You see how Erdogan said, you know, we
want to join the EU. We want to
join the EU just to to bring about
progress within Turkey
towards like this idea
even though or towards this objective
even though he may have never believed in
it. You know?
But but this is not this is not
the same thing not the same thing. Khalifa
is not like joining the EU. I'm not
saying this it's the same thing but you
have an end goal that will motivate and
energize people and that will bring about progress
towards unity.
It is important
economic integration
between muslims
you know
mutual
sort of cooperation
on on various
issues,
and, you know, the defense also, defense treaties,
mutual defense, all of that's
the Khalifa will will basically be the catalyst
of all of those manifestations
of unity,
cooperation,
and coordination
between Muslims.
Now
having,
having more than one imam
has been the position
of some scholars.
You know,
we have 3 different positions here. We have
those scholars who said, without any reason, you
can have more than 1 imam.
Al Karamayyah said this.
And and, certainly, you may blame me, but
these are still Muslim. I Of course they
are. I I yeah.
So they are Sunnis. They're not just Muslims.
They're with a So Otherwise, they're within Sunnism
by and large. Yeah. Generic Sunnism. Yes. So
Karameya said this. They have their their own
excesses and,
but, yes, they are within the Sunni, fold,
but, they had their their own excesses.
So Zaidiya said this. So some of the
Zaidiya said this. Some of the said this
without any reason. You can have more than
one imam.
Some people said
that
you can have more than 1 imam if
it is logistically difficult to have 1.
Those are the people who said that you
can have more than 1 imam means
the lands of Islam
became too vast for 1 imam to control,
Too far away from each other, too vast
for 1 imam to control. If the tasaaatulhutah
you can have more than 1 imam. And
those are not a few people or basically
negligible.
The the
Imam Al Jawani reports this from
and the.
This was also the position of Al Qutobi
in Al Baghdadi.
This was also the position of many of
the.
This was also the position of
I would argue that
this is what
is indicating
when he he says that if at some
point
for a or a sin committed by people
we,
split up or,
you know, or we became
divided
and because of the incapacity of others, then
having more than 1 imam is a legitimate
arrangement of the legitimate alternative.
So you have those 3 different positions. Now
am I denying
that the vast majority
of Muslim scholars said that
having more than 1 imam is not acceptable,
that the obligation is to have a
singular political
entity
for all Muslims. I am not denying this.
This this
this is the majority.
This is the decisive majority.
Decisive majority
of our Muslim scholars
said
regardless
of the vastness of the Muslim lands
regardless
of logistical
difficulties
it is
obligatory
to install 1 imam for all Muslims.
Now
is this a matter of certainty? No. It's
not a matter of certainty.
That is what I want to go back
to.
This is the the the majority position.
But
more and more people starting to become more
sort of accepting of the reality of
the the
Diversity of Diversity
of communities
and the the the difficulty
of installing one imam that would rule over
all Muslims of
throughout the Let let me just push back
a little bit here.
How do I say this gently so that
Shush. And the the the the the imam
Shokani say
that that people who argue about this, the
multiplicity of imams, the legitimacy of this alternative,
of multiple imams
should not be
argued with or should not be presented with
evidence because they don't comprehend it. Yeah. Imam
Shookhan in Salazar has a very
open minded reality that this is you the
you know, you're gonna have different imams in
different places, and everybody should be following the
Imam of their place here. But sheil, my
point here and I'm trying to be gentle
because I have to be conscious of how
words are easily misconstrued online.
Don't you find that this discussion
of the quantity of Imams and how they
should be seems to be disconnected from the
historical reality of the Ummah,
meaning that all of this discussion is happening
almost
almost as if it is happening in a
vacuum
with regards to even in the same time
frame as those authors are writing.
Because
even
the Abbasid and the Uthmani and whatnot Khilafas,
the majority of their own domains
were just by name even.
There was complete,
separate systems of government, taxation,
sometimes even not even a nominal nod towards
the Khalifa. And you've always had many hierarchy
hierarchical,
dynasties
within all of these after the time of
the Umayyads.
And then you've actually had complete disconnect like
between the,
Mughals and the,
the the Ottomans, for example. Right? There is
a complete
disconnect between the two of them. There's a
nod here and there, but the Mughal emperor
never submitted, Yani, to the the Ottoman Sultan.
And so
this whole notion of how many imams should
there be and whatnot
seems to be disconnected from the wakr reality
that since the time of the 2nd century,
I. E. A 100 something Hijra, we have
always had competing,
Imams and competing dynasties and competing
provinces
that were for all practical purposes and sometimes
officially
completely disconnected from one leadership. What do you
say to that? I agree completely, wholeheartedly.
I I
how could how could you contest to this?
I mean, it's it's just like you would
be lying. Jayed. And, like,
yeah, ideologues lie about the history all the
time
to live,
their their own fantasies. So I agree with
this.
We we
and and it's just, like,
indisputable reality.
And, as I said, this
is even before this, you know, from the
time of,
some people consider that they were both imams
at the same time.
Abdullah ibn Zubair was an imam at the
same time as,
you know,
Yazid Al Muawiya, his son, and and then
Marwan, and and then, Abdul Malik, and and
so on.
And he was he was the better imam,
you know, in all honesty. I mean, he
was.
How could you compare?
Without a doubt. Without a doubt, he was
the the better of the 2 at the
time. Yeah. Yeah. So
so the idea that, yes, this is this
is a, a reality that has always existed.
Now
this did not
change their their
Theory.
Theory Yeah. About the the singularity.
But where does the theory come from? Here
is the the important part here is the
theological foundation
of this theory. The theologic theological foundation,
or the legal justification
of this, theory.
And so they reported to the Quran, the
It's
like usual.
There is not a single
explicit
aya in the Quran
or close to explicit
or even apparent.
A verse in the Quran that
demands
a singular
political
entity
for all Muslims.
You know, so what is it that you
can come up with?
This
nation of yours Well, they say they say
they bring their their evidence.
So
so this nation of yours is 1 nation
and I'm your Lord, so worship me alone.
This was basically addressing the
line of prophets essentially from the Of the
civilizations,
yeah. And then
even if you say it applies to Muslims,
it applies to our
collective singular faith
community.
It's not a political
In the religious sense, not in the political
sense. Okay.
And then
There's no evidence. Yeah.
Obey Allah and his messenger and those in
authority among you, it was actually in plural
form. Exactly. Exactly. It against it. Yeah. But
Sheikh, okay. Let me take So now we
take the sunnah.
Mhmm. Now we take the sunnah.
Yeah.
So if if the is given to 2
khalifas, kill the latter.
Whoever gives the the pledge of allegiance to
an imam, then he should obey him as
much as he can. And if if another
one comes to dispute him or to overthrow
overthrow him, then kill the
Kill the other. Kill the other. Okay.
Now
here is the issue.
Is the prophet
talking to
Muslims,
you know, this is just like the global
moon sighting and the local moon sighting.
Is he talking to Muslims in different localities
that you should not have more than 1
imam
within the same dominion or the same territory?
That's a possible interpretation.
That
is accepted authenticity of those reports
and we accept
them. Isn't it a possible interpretation
that the prophet
was talking to different Muslim communities in different
places
saying that you must not have
2,
imams at the same time,
within the same dominion, within the same territory.
It's a possible interpretation. It is. So there
is no certainty here that the prophet
is saying
and then the the then the
then the then the is reported.
The is
reported.
But didn't the Ansar say, Amin Amir Romankom
Amir? You know, the when the Ansar convened
at
or the shed of Bani Saeeda
or the portico of Bani Saeeda, whatever you
call it,
did did they not say, you know, they
will appoint an emir from our side.
They said to the Muhajarin.
If this matter
is of such importance,
you know,
I I just want people to to reflect
on this. By the way the arguments that
Ubaka
gave back were Akli and Montaqi and not
Sharai. He didn't quote a hadith. Yeah. He
used an Akli argument to say you can't
have 2 amirs. It's not gonna yeah. And
this is an important point as well. But
anyway, yeah. The the whole discussion in in
Saqifat Bani Sinhaeda, people need to just reflect
on it. It's very deep. I don't wanna
go there, but it's a very deep even
theological issues but that's not for today's contest.
So so if
the if this matter
if the governance of God
is the crux of
our is
the basically the most important
manifestation
the the ultimate goal of our which is
what
Sheikh Abu Hassan Nadawi critiques and has
tafsir as he has he did Islam the
political
interpretation of Islam.
Would the Sahaba be so
like
unaware
of this matter
and the the details
the the the finest details of this matter?
Would would them answer
be unaware,
you know, to this extent?
Would they have this much disagreement among themselves?
The pushback, Sheikh, from their side and again,
this is a discussion. Obviously, I'm sympathetic to
your your stance here. The pushback from their
side is
that you are neglecting the fact that
the sahaba understood
that this was so important
that they delayed the burial of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam or even if you
don't say delay it they didn't even
wait for his burial
until they had elected Amir. So for them
having an Khalifa and having a Islamic political
entity
was so important
that even the burial of the prophet, sasam,
did not take precedence over that. So they
argue to us, this is ijma'a of the
sahaba
that you must actively
work towards establishing
an Islamic polity.
I completely concur.
That's order versus anarchy. That is not singular
political entity. So then this leads us to
the the the the other point, which is
a very difficult one.
And the just keep in mind that there
are many Ijma'as that have been reported on
many issues.
Like, look at the Ijma'a for instance that
the Khalifa has to be a Qurashi. Isn't
that an Ijma'a? Well, no. Because of al
Hanifa and others in the Mathesida. But, yeah,
some have said there's a Jema'a. Yes. Many
many Many have said there's a Jema'a. Many
reported this jama'at. Even though as usual there's
no jama'at but ked. Yes. There's we reported.
But can can can you neglect Al Ansar
who who said that Did she even know
it was there? Exactly. My point is this
incident has a lot of deep Can you
also neglect to Umar radhiallahu anhu said if
Abu Ubaidah were alive I would have not
thought about anyone else and if he were
not
and if he was not, then I would
have chosen Mu'az. And in some other Hadith,
he said,
Both Mu'az and
are not from Quraysh. They're not even so
even says that people who are reported as
as, they need to figure out how to
reinterpret
this statement. They they can either say it's,
you know, to say that Umar,
changed his mind later
or that the idma happened after Umar.
And
anyone who knows about this knows that the
difficulty of having an izma after Umar. Yes.
You know the difficulty of establishing an izma
after Umar.
So so you have Ansar, you know, unaware
of the of
of this sort of indubitable
fact of the aqeeda of the Muslimin. Clearly
developed after. What's the second? Then Omar,
also unaware that that is just it's this
is not
Montes This is just not logical. Jayed. So
then, Sheikh, let me then let me then
be very explicit because you're in my humble
opinion, you seem to be squirting around a
very awkward reality. And I wanna verbalize it,
and so let's deconstruct this reality.
You seem to be
very clearly
insinuating
that these
hadith or let me just say the concept
of Imara and Khalifa and leadership and whatnot
that as long as there is civil
order and as long as anarchy is eliminated
that
to a great extent
the spirit of what the Sharia wants us
to do has been accomplished.
And therefore, it seems to me that since
we are
living in lands where at least many lands,
not all of them, many lands where anarchy
has is does not exist. There's not complete
lawlessness and chaos.
There there is civil order. There is a
means of people cooperating together for the greater
good. It seems that the existence of these
systems
mitigates in your eyes,
this notion that other
Islamist movements have of working towards what they
call the khilafa. Am I correct in this
verbalization?
So so as I said I believe that
it's an obligation on us to work towards
the khilafa as an end goal
towards
work towards Muslim unity
or the political expression of that Muslim unity
or actualization
of that Muslim unity.
But
there are many other priorities,
and it it depends on what we mean
by the Khalifa
and
which strategies we we will adopt
to achieve that political unity
and
I don't believe
that
we can just have the Khalifa
drop down from the heavens on us. Like,
you know, we we just can't have We
can't start by the falafel. This notion
that we will overthrow the government in in
Morocco, for instance, and march the troops
from Morocco to Jakarta
and and use, you know, some uprisings here
and there to enable us By the way,
Morocco is just an example.
Just not we're not intending any cool record
here. It's just, like, it's just an example,
guys. But but but but but this thought
Yes. That you overthrow the government in one
place, you take over the that one country,
and then you marshate the your troops
and,
bring everybody under that that that,
central
rule or government
is is not realistic.
It is not realistic.
It does not sound feasible.
Now
then
we have to figure out, yes,
working towards Muslim unity is an obligation.
Working towards Muslim,
coordination,
cooperation,
integration
is an obligation.
But what do we mean by this, and
how do we go about it is the
question.
And
when you bring, you know,
what what I was
trying to say
is that
certainty belongs to
the Islamic
values and ideas, not a specific detailed
system of governance.
But Islam brought about
certain values that are extremely important for righteous
governance
that we should not neglect.
I have always said this to myself
about
what we have done to Islam,
what we have done to the Quran.
You know,
I I have
I've been saying to myself
We
we basically ignore that silence
it silence it
when it spoke,
and we
made it to speak when it stayed silent.
Mhmm.
Which which means what?
There are certain concepts that are very important
Islamically
for righteous governance.
Shura is one of them.
And this is not because of liberalism, and
this is not because of modernity.
This is an this
is a surah in the Quran that was
named after Shura. Two verses that spoke explicitly
of
You know, their their affairs are conducted on
the basis of mutual consultation and consult them
and a Surah that was named after Surah.
Justice
is an extremely Islamic value.
Equality
bet between equals is an is an important
Islamic value.
Separation of powers. You know, the
and
the the story of the shield that dis
disputed over the the Jewish man and went
to the judge. Separation of,
powers within, you know, the independence of the
judiciary
or the judicial
branch
is is an important and so on. So
there are important some Islamic concepts. Some people
argue
that Islam provide a system of governance.
I I don't get entangled in terminology.
So if you think that Islam provided a
system of governance,
system the so I'm not gonna argue with
you over the word system.
I don't believe that Islam provided
details
with regard to governance. Islam provided principles, and
that is the beauty and the genius of
Islam.
Mhmm. Because certain things need to be delineated
in great detail such as because they never
change. And other things are You know? Other
change Generic advice. Be adjusted to adapted to
circumstantial
realities that are variable, that are changing all
the time.
So so think about the Sharia as having
constant objectives
and overarching
maxims and then flexible legal framework.
Allah's address to us is not moving.
It is the reality that is moving.
So
different
basically
circumstances
will bring about different
rulings not because the Sharia is moving, it
is because the reality is moving, the Sharia
is fixed, but the Sharia is based on
principles and manata,
effective causes,
you know, the legal justifications or effective causes,
the whatever,
ratio, whatever
you call it.
So those
are fixed.
Those maxims are fixed. The reality is moving.
So when the reality changes,
this particular custom or this particular
matter would
fit under a different principle of Sharia.
The principles are fixed. Mhmm. So the reality
itself is moving like this under the fixed
principles of the Sharia. So the flexible legal
framework or the Sharia will accommodate the differences
in,
in the different times and and different places
as,
you know, the verifying Erudite scholars
have, you know, over and overstated
and emphasized
and reiterated.
So
in this particular area, you
know the area of politics, the sphere of
politics.
Things change all the time.
You know the geopolitical
realities, the sociopolitical
realities
change all the time. Therefore
having
a fixed detailed
system
would not be
appropriate.
Yeah. Would not That's why the yes. And
appropriate. And even historically we have seen different
iterations of systems. Of course. Like whoever said
that Al Ahad
is part of is is recommended by Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Al Ahd, which is basically
passing the covenant on.
So
you you spoke about Adi Ma'adi
and having a book on,
Siyas Saraiyah called the Rakam al Sultanayyah. It's
a it's a great book.
But
how much of it is, is direct revelation
from god, and how much of it is
the Sure. Illusions that he had reached and
Yeah. Based on,
his his interpretive effort and the realities that
he was surrounded by. At the same time,
our Hambari imam,
had written a book called the Rakham Sultanah
also.
Which has a lot of overlap
over there today. Lot of similarities
who who A bit too many, but But,
but that's fine.
But but at any rate,
is it a product? Is it basically the
explicit
revelation? No. Absolutely not. Like,
read it. Read it impartially. See how many
hadith,
are are being quoted there.
See see how explicit the implication of the
hadith that are being quoted there. So when
imam
says that there are 3 different ways
of,
having legitimate
leadership,
or installing an imam.
One of them is mutual consultation
or the Haqq,
you know, the idea of the Haqq, the
contract. This should be the only one.
This is the only one that that is
based on Islamic values.
Al act, a contract.
We are
the we,
the people, the Muslims,
are.
We are
basically
the,
the sort sort of one party in this
act.
We may have,
like, an agent
to represent us. Those are those
who bind and unbind, but their role is.
It they they are our agent
in choosing an imam,
but we are
basically
the people entitled to this right.
We, the Muslims,
are the people entitled to this right. And
if there are if there is a group
of people called,
they are our aqid, our agent,
in signing this contract,
in signing this contract with the imam. It's
a contract.
And all the basically the conditions of contracts
would apply to it and we can basically
modify the contract. We can adjust the contract,
we can adapt the contract because Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala
or the prophet Sallallahu Wa Salam said that
Muslim
wrote to him.
We we will get to how much we
can modify as we go on today. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But but what I'm trying
to say is now there.
Yeah.
Now
says that it is also established through,
the covenant that is being passed on, the
covenant. What does the covenant mean?
The the concept of,
the crown the crown prince
the crown
prince. This concept, where does it come from?
Abu Bakr radiAllahu anhu
endorsed Omar.
Imam Zaynayr
clearly says that this endorsement
is not appointment by Abu Bakr. He did
not appoint Omar. He endorsed Omar. Had Omar
not been chosen by the majority of the
companions It wouldn't have this endorsement would not
have meant anything. Yeah.
Likewise, when Umar gave the bayah to Abu
Bakr Rahad, Abu Bakr not been given bayah
to by the majority of the companions,
Omar Zabei would not have meant anything,
you know, in in Saqifat Bali's side. So,
now
now this
or this
endorsement
had a different interpretation
according to later
scholars in later times.
What is it? It it became binding. Binding.
Binding. Yeah.
So it is not endorsement. It is passing
the covenant
on to your son or to your brother
or to whomever.
And we know this as well when Wa'awiya
instituted it for his son, there was a
serious backlash amongst the senior Sahaba Of course.
And the sons of the Sahaba and Haifa,
their brothers, multiple. Yeah. So it's not that
simplistic in this regard. Yeah. Absolutely not. So
Okay. So but this became
this became the norm. Mhmm. Historical norm. Historically.
This became the norm. Where is this? And
and the the
I would say I would say
that I appreciate the pragmatism of the fuqaha.
Mhmm. Because they wanted to keep peace and
order. Peace and order, yeah. Yeah. I appreciate
the pragmatism of the fuqaha.
I do not appreciate the rigidity of the
people who read those books
and consider
this to be Islam.
So the pragmatism of the fuqaha, the flexibility
of the fuqaha,
rigid people now read those books and they
consider this to be sort of this is
what Islam says.
No. This is basically the Fuqaha being flexible
for their time frame. Being pragmatic
for their their times.
And
that was the norm in in their times.
So, Sheikh, I mean, the other thing that,
again, historically,
theory is one thing. The reality is that,
there have been multiple occasions in our history
where
people have overthrown, people have taken power. I
mean, the classic example is Umayyad and Abbasid,
civil war that took place between the Muslim
Ummah and the,
Umayyads were massacred and the Abbas' came to
power. And then the same thing happened at
smaller scales within the Abbasid dynasties
multiple times. So obviously, we get to the
issue of al Mutagalib here, and what do
you have to say about the the theory
versus the reality of this?
Well, Ilima Abuiala himself has said that Ilima
Mahmed indicated that Al Mutaghallib would have legitimacy.
So when he talked about the 3 different
ways of installing an imam
one of them as we said was cut
the contract the other
one is rahad passing the covenant on to
the next one
and the third is a mutagaddib
and imam Awiara said that imam Mahadah indicated
and that became basically the norm in us
in in our 5th
tradition it's not a peculiar position of Imam
Mohammed became the norm in our fiqh tradition
that whoever
seizes power by force
will will become an imam a legitimate imam
and his bayah will be binding
and everybody has to accept it and that
became
basically the norm
for
a very big portion of our history
and that resulted in someone being a Kharijite
today and being an imam tomorrow so they
they are cursed Kharijites today
and they're imams tomorrow and the only difference
is they won
that's the only difference
had they been defeated they would have been
condemned to
the strategized
status for the rest of their lives.
But
just because they won, they became the legitimate
imam that we have to pray for and
that we have to
basically give him the
clasp of our hands and
the fruit of our hearts.
So
this this was the reality,
and that is why and and this is
an extremely important,
you know,
point that we have to emphasize here,
because I have
been
open enough to talking to people who are
not like me.
People that may be described as secular Muslims,
for instance.
I have been willing to talk to them,
to hear their concerns,
and their trepidations
and
their reluctance about the concept of khalafa, their
fear
from this concept,
their
They're basically
paranoia
about
this concept because they have
traumatized
memories, particularly the people who were under the
Khalafah, the people who are
a little bit more on the intellectual side,
and they do read the history, and they
are a little bit more familiar.
So whatever it is we, and I have
considered myself always to be one of,
of the people who
want
for Islam to have its rightful place in
the public
space or the public
sphere.
Whatever we present to them it brings about
you know
like bad memories nightmares
for them
And because
many of our were bloodthirsty
lunatics.
Many of them.
And that
I I I have never shied away from
saying this, and I will never stop that
many of them were bloodthirsty lunatics.
And they use the ummah as a father
for basically their pursuit of power and their
pursuit of consolidation of power and their pursuit
of tyrannical power and their pursuit of, basically
acting as the khalifa of Allah, as basically
divine agents
on on earth or this is how they
thought of themselves. This leads us to the
very awkward reality. I've said this so many
times in my lectures that our history is
human. Our religion is divine.
And one of the biggest, in my humble
opinion, impediments to this discourse
and again, we're having a very frank conversation.
So you said something that,
many of our Khalifa were bloodthirst lunatics.
I want to emphasize here that unfortunately,
what we have is
almost a high school level understanding of Islamic
history amongst people that are actually not at
high school level. And they have a very
romanticized
notion of the past. And they're fed either
half myths or complete myths or complete tropes
that have no legitimacy to them. And they
perform or they form an image of the
past that is closer to a fantasy
than it is to reality.
And there are so many examples. I mean,
I I wanna give a library chat. I
have a series called Library Chats. I wanna
give a library chat where I literally go
over the top 5 or 10 quotations from
which we form this this collective romantic memory.
The famous story of Waimu Atasimha for example.
Right? I mean, it's complete. Found 500 years
later. There's no hustle to it. I'm not
saying it never happened but for sure we
don't know what happened. It's just a complete
type of fairy tale esque type of story
or the notion that Umar ibn Abdul
Aziz,
eliminated poverty in his entire Khalifa. I mean,
how can any person actually believe that amongst
30,000,000 people, there is not a single faqir?
This is a misunderstanding of a report found,
of a very specific issue. I don't wanna
go there. It's a deconstruction.
My point is that when you are fed
these simplistic tropes, right, that the Khalifa was
this grandiose
affair where a single lady who was harmed,
the Khalifa himself would rally the troops to
see her on the other side of the
of the land. That, you know, there was
not a single poor person. They were for
Quran at the time of the prophet and
on you think that that ibn Adri is
gonna eliminate poverty. When you have this There
was Ahmed Majal at the time of his
grandfather. Of course. Exactly. I mean, it's just
I mean, to to to then assume that
there's this utopia
out there.
In my humble opinion, and this needs to
be said, we've lived through the 9/11 crisis.
We lived through the Kyrgyz and ISIS crisis.
Now we're living through another mini crisis in
this regard.
Why
are so many people
attracted to this
unrealistic,
idealistic,
romanticized notion?
One of the main reasons is that they
have been taught a version of events that
is divorced from reality.
And they have this perception of the past
that is simply not true. And hence, when
you have
radical groups or even fundamentalist groups that are
not violent,
propagating views that are unrealistic.
Right?
So many people
jump onto this proverbial bandwagon
because
they're
wanting this elusive myth of a utopia that
has never existed. And when you preach to
them this reality,
they push back because it's a fairy tale
they've been taught their whole lives. And they
you literally deprive them of something that they've
been yearning for for so long. And you
said it so bluntly. So many of our
leaders in the past were not righteous people.
Dare I say, and this is again very
harsh to say, perhaps that is almost the
default
that the people in charge were not worthy
to be in charge and what things that
happen under them. And I said this so
many times that the reason why the khulafa
rashjudun are the atypical exception is because they
were the exception, you know, to the default
of what happened after them. So when people
understand this reality, it changes their perception hopefully
and they become a little bit more mature.
But to get back now, so let's fast
forward now. We're talking about past and theory.
Let's get to modernity.
Let's get to our current state of affairs
where we are divided into 57
nation states where every single country in the
Muslim world,
you know, has its own,
political authority
where some of them some of them are
genuinely,
in terms of civil order doing relatively well.
Even GDP wise and others amongst them are
not doing so well.
What now do we do as a Muslim
within these Muslim majority? Let's get to begin
with them. Muslim majority lands. You talked about
Muslim unity. You talked about idealizing. Oh, sorry.
You talk you talked about working towards some
type of,
type of of notion.
But then let's get back to political order.
What is the role of the Muslim in
a Muslim majority land to bring about a
political
system of laws in conformity with the Sharia?
Yeah.
Well,
let let's talk about this because this is
important. But,
when it comes to the history, as as
you said, as you indicated, that's that's a
major problem. I think that people need to
learn a little bit more about the history,
particularly if you will be,
if you if if you will
be like an activist or a preacher or
you you'll put yourself in a place
where you actually should learn a little bit
more,
before you,
assume that, position or that place.
And we do not want to basically
also shake people's confidence in their
history or in their.
We want to be we want to be
fair. We want to be just,
but we don't want to basically
sweep anything under the rug and,
pretend,
like, something that you know, or or or
present to people something that is completely unreal,
completely divorced
from reality or, completely unfactual.
So our history has
what we need to to do to say
is is multiple things when it comes to
our history and our, recollection of our history.
One thing is we should compare ourselves,
we should compare those
to
their times, not to our time. Mhmm. Because
it would be unfair also that presentism,
like,
people in Europe were not having,
basically,
liberal democracies in the middle ages.
So we should compare them to their times,
and they had actually adapted to their times.
Mhmm.
They
were more about their times than they were
about the Islamic ideals.
So the Umayyads,
and and and the wickedness that was practiced
by them. Well, if you believe in the
the prophet saying, it's
it's oppressive
kingship.
The prophet
in a hadith said
This is the hadith of Safina.
Falafa in my will be only for 30
years and thereafter
it will be kingship.
And kingship
in the in you know this has like
negative connotations negative connotations. So he's saying that
it would only be 30 years and this
was clearly what it was. So the narrator
of the hadith said:
The narrator himself, the Safina himself did.
So then,
some of our righteous predecessors
used to dislike calling anyone Khalifa after Hasan
ibn Ali radiAllahu anhu. So their cutoff is
Al Hassan ibn Ali radiAllahu Anhu. This was
our last Khalifa. And here here we are
romanticizing
every single one of them.
After thereafter were were kings. Mhmm.
And the majority of Al Asal Barawi says,
they don't mind calling
the them Khalifa, but in the the linguistics
sense, you know, a successor in the linguistic
sense. So we we have to compare them
to their times, because they belong to their
times
more
because they belong to their times more than
the than their,
style of governance belong to the Islamic ideas.
The second thing that we have to also
recognize is that
their violence,
their wickedness
is not intrinsic to the concept of Khalafah.
So we have to also clear the concept
of Khalafah
as in,
you know,
simply political expression of Muslim unity
or political a the actualization of Muslim unity
in the political sphere. There is this their
violence and their wickedness is really not intrinsic
to this concept. This concept
can be worked towards
without,
basically bringing back those authoritarian regimes, and we
have to make this clear to the rest
of the Muslims.
The Muslims outside of our echo chambers
because oftentimes we talk like we talk as
if we were talking to this group or
that group, but the vast majority of Muslims,
the 95%,
are
side outside of our echo
chambers we need to comfort them we need
to tell them that
we need to put things in perspective for
them and tell them
we wanted them to be proud of their
history. We wanted them to
be proud of
the
accomplishment
of
our nation as a nation, as a people
As a civilization. The accomplishment of the civilization,
the accomplishment
the Sharia being the backbone of this, you
know, the Islamic law, Islamic rule being the
backbone that protected
us, that kept like a thriving civilization,
kept us from chaos, kept us from,
like,
perpetual strife, kept us from backwardness,
and pushed us forward and caused the progress
and development and so on.
The Sharia, not the Khalifa,
was the backbone of this. The community,
not the Khalifa,
was basically the driving force of this. And
we wanted
people to be proud and people to have
confidence in their history. And we wanted to
assure them
that we're not
calling for the return of
such oppressive regimes.
We would be at the forefront of opposing
the a return
to such oppressive regimes.
And when we talk about the Khalifa, when
we talk about political realization of Muslim unity
or things of that nature, we're talking about
a completely different
concept.
We're talking about,
like, an a new iteration that is suitable
for the times, and that would basically be
committed to the Islamic ideals of.
You know?
And and if you say that this sounds
like the slogan of the French revolution, Adnan,
Ifar, umsoa, but these are Islamic ideas. Yes.
These are Islamic ideas.
No one can argue about this.
No one can argue about these concepts being
Islamic. So now
moving forward to like a modern conceptualization
of Al Khalifa
As I said I I you know when
I growing up I am indebted to
sheikh abir Hassan Nadawi in
in terms of,
tempering my sort of zeal for the political
discourse or the, you know, or
the
sort of the the
my prioritization
of the political discourse
within the Islamic discourse, within the larger
Islamic discourse.
And, I am also indebted to, you know,
people like Al Abderazakas and Houri who,
had a book called
or you could say
as well. It could could work.
So so the and its development or its
evolution,
Sheikh Al Abder Azak Hassan
He was not a sheikh. He was a
legal scholar or an Egyptian legal scholar,
but he he he had he was very
sympathetic to the idea of khalifa,
and he wanted to figure out sort of
different conceptualizations
modern conceptualizations
of Khalifa
in the form
of, you know, like, his idea would be,
the OIC, basically,
being effective
in,
bringing about unity, coordination,
confirmation,
integration,
confederation of Muslim states. So he was very
adamant
that it has to be decentralized.
Mhmm. This idea
that people in Bangladesh and people in
Jakarta and Morocco,
Casablanca,
Timbuktu,
and,
Bosnia,
can be ruled by one central government
someplace in Baghdad
or, in Damascus.
He he figured that that's untenable. It's just
not gonna work. It would not work.
You can't even cross the borders from between
Morocco and Algeria. Like, the borders are closed.
On because of this. Since 1994, the borders
are closed between Morocco and Algeria.
So,
yes, that is not what we're we're looking
forward
to. But again, at the same time, we
have to recognize that these are different communities
with different histories, different
many many many things.
So
it has to be
decentralized.
And then we have
to basically
realize
that unity among ourselves without,
having a compulsive,
oppressive
central government somewhere
that is basically ruling over,
the entire Muslim world.
So could the OIC be developed to where
it becomes really effective in bringing about some
of these objectives, some of these goals? Yes.
You don't like the OIC because it is
basically useless. You think it is useless. That's
fine. Call it something else. Like but it
is that idea
that idea of confederation of winning,
community. Of the law. Winning yeah. Each one
maintains its individual. Yeah. Yeah. I mentioned something
similar in Beqal. And and then the idea
of blocks also. You know the gunpowder empires.
3
gunpowder empires.
The the Ottomans, the Safavids and the Mughals.
These are the 3 gunpowder empires.
Didn't they have some great accomplishments?
Yes. Because they were bigger
blocks. More
powerful. It was not one
Khalifa. It was not, you know, a singular,
an uncertainty. The Safavids, the Yersiyyah, and then
they were flanked by 2 Sunni,
empires to the from
the right and left.
But but then, you know, as
bigger blocks, more powerful,
blocks, they were able to achieve a lot.
So
so that conceptualization,
you know, will help us
have different priorities. I don't have any problem
with people who,
aspire to, look forward to, dream of,
Muslim unity,
Muslim integration,
Muslim cooperation.
How could I? How could anyone who's, you
know, Muslim is good have a problem with
this?
So the problem that I have is,
people who exaggerate the priority of this,
people who have a rigid understanding
of what it means,
people who have an unrealistic
understanding
of
the the different strategies that we can take
Mhmm. Towards achieving this goal,
and people who have, like, an insistent fixation
on it. The the
the, you know, and and and people who,
you know, that that goes back to the
issue of priorities.
People who
consider
the
that we have
as basically a means to establishing the governance
of god.
You know, so so they have this as,
like, an ultimate,
priority,
which
which is really unfair
to to Islam.
Allah says,
those that who, if we establish them on
earth or if we give them,
establish
their authority on earth, they will,
And the other area,
Allah said,
So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and this ayat
says it old. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala had
promised. Allah promised those of you who had
faith and were righteous
that he will give them authority in the
land.
Give them authority in the land. So it's
a product
of faith and righteousness.
So
it is a product as Sheikh Abdul Hasan,
you know, emphasizes it. A product of faith
and righteousness. And eventually you have authority in
the land.
You Allah will establish your deen for you.
Allah will, substitute security for the fear the
fear that you,
were afflicted by. Then
the ultimate goal after this
is to worship me
and ascribe no partners to me. So
this is the beginning and the end.
In the middle, the product of their iman
and Amal Saleh
will be Istiklaf
will be Sheesh, let me pause you here
for these ayat.
Now I'm going to say something that I
don't necessarily agree with for the disclaimer.
But this is something that certain movements I
don't like mentioning. There's certain movements that are
so there's a whole spectrum of movements, like,
when when it comes to Islamic politics and
establishing it. There are some that are on
the very soft anti Khalifa, and there are
those that are very pro Khalifa.
Some of these movements that are on the
very not to enthuse about the Khalifa. They're
more into the terbio. They're more into, like,
Dawan, Tablir, whatever it might be. Some of
these movements,
their leaders have said, and I've heard this
myself because I was, you know, we all
grew up in the same areas and whatnot
and listening to them. The leaders have said
that this whole notion of a Khalifa,
it has never been commanded
explicitly in the Koran.
And rather, there seems to be,
Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, gifting it when we
deserve it.
And another famous one of them said,
we should not be working towards a Khalifa,
Establish a Khalifa in your hearts, and Allah
will establish it in the land.
So multiple
strands of modern Muslim movements, and there is
piety and iman and knowledge and taqwa in
them. So even though I personally don't agree
with that those strands, but multiple strands
have this notion
of extreme
quietism and apolitical
activism.
And they interpret the Quran
and Sun obviously and Sira. They interpret
this to indicate that
it is not a part of our Sharia
to
actively
challenge
the rulers and get involved in the dirty
business of politics as one of them said.
Rather, what we should do is strive to
be pure spiritually
and amongst our own, you know, circle of
influence. And when that happens,
Allah will gift us and they they read
this in the Quran in the Sira.
As
you know,
So these movements argue that in fact we
should not be
actively
working
towards this type of political,
unity
primarily because they say it's gonna backlash it.
So we and so what would you say
to that?
Yeah. That that's important. That's why I repeated
the name of Shahab al Hassan Naddawi several
times because,
because he was not,
basically,
extreme to the right or or the left.
Without the. Yeah. And now Like, so he
like, he represents me in that in that
particular area.
And, I I have referred to his book
because I think that you would benefit more
reading his book than listening to my to
my speech here.
And I don't agree with this.
People who know me know that I am
inclined towards
sentences. It does not mean the send sentences
is always right because there is no sentences
between Tawhid and Shirk. I understand
this, and I understand all the rebuttals. And
I understand that everything we said today can
be refuted, and you could write articles about
it, and you could refute it in podcasts
also and stuff like that.
I'm completely aware of this, but I have
been always inclined to our sense of this.
And I do see where they they
and and I'm I have been always
open to
and exposed to different,
thinking,
grew or
styles of,
thinking and,
approaches to the and approaches to this particular
issue.
I have never deprived myself of the opportunity
to listen
to, different groups and different people,
attentively
and without bias or prejudice.
And I do see where they're coming from
because sometimes,
every action has, like, an yeah. Every action
has an sort of an equal and opposite
reaction.
And and sometimes the the
the the exaggeration in one direction brings about
exaggeration,
and in in another direction,
people think that when they do this, the
things balance out. But I think that it
would be best for all of us
to congregate a little bit closer to the
middle, closer to the, you know,
which would be
important. If If
Muslim unity
and if if all expressions of Muslim unity
and and the political sphere is one of
this those spheres if all,
expressions of Muslim unity are desirable
we have to we have to basically ask
ourselves the question,
is this something desirable or not desirable?
Like Allah wants
Allah wants us to be 1. I don't
think anybody would argue that it is not
desirable. Okay. So if it is desirable,
why should we not be working towards it?
Why should we not
basically
be why should we not keep the dream
alive?
Why should we not keep the dream alive?
Jayed.
They would say I sat down with one
one shaykh that the people actually accuse of
being anti falafel.
Like, a very prominent and a very great
sheikh, a very traditionalist,
who will be people accused of being anti
falafel.
And I spoke I I spoke with him,
you know,
about
keeping the dream alive
and different conceptualizations,
modern conceptualization of Khalifa.
And he was not he was completely
open to this. So sometimes
when people say this sheikh is is anti
Khalifa or or
he's comes across with their language. It's it's
an accusation
that that is basically
based on the sheikh's
the sheikh's
resentment
of over fixation
or or exaggeration
or unrealistic expectations.
So he's he may sometimes say something
that would,
mean to the to to to his adversaries
that he's anti Khalifa, but no. You know,
no one no one is arguing that,
it would not be a good idea for
Muslims to actualize their unity in all spheres,
economical,
political,
you know, certainly, most importantly,
and and that would be the priority,
the the loyalty to, an allegiance to the
believers. It's one religious community. It's one faith,
community.
So
that
that social
unity
should precede all,
other forms of unity.
But then if we agree that there's something
desirable,
just like everything that is desirable, work for
it. You don't say that you know I'm,
if if you're thirsty don't say that Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala will bring me water. You
just like You work for it. Yes. So
to speak on their behalf, and again for
the record, this is not my view because
my view is very clear in the khatr.
I believe it is generic 45, but it's
just not on the top, you You know,
10 or 20 things in in the in
in my own list of priorities. But to
speak on their behalf, Sheykhana, I'm gonna mention
a name here because I interviewed him and
that interview did cause a backlash against him.
Doctor Akram Naidhui, our respected elder and senior,
I interviewed him I think a year and
a half ago. And I asked a similar
question about,
you know, Khalifa and and working towards it
and whatnot. And it came across to many
of the viewers that he was extremely dismissive
of the notion.
And he said the best,
mechanism in our times for the Muslim,
to flourish is actually
secularism
where the religion is not enforced. And he
said, look around you. You know, the most
active Muslims and the most, you know,
best organizations in western lands that allow this
freedom to do that. And look back home
and you see the repression and oppression going
on here. And so he actually, you know,
seemed to discourage that. Now I'm gonna speak
a little bit not necessarily on his behalf
to defend because he he can do that
himself. But to be clear here, and I
know the shirk very well,
it's not as if any of them are
anti Khalifa.
It is that
in their view, this notion
of where we are to how to get
to this ideal is not a possibility.
The journey
is not going to happen. And our attempts
to undertake the journey in their minds are
going to backlash on us. Right? To the
point of it not being conducive to our
flourishing and our welfare. And so from their
perspective,
the and this is
other senior ulama, the famous one, you know,
the one of the leaders of the tatasfiyatarbiya
type of movement, the leader of the tatasfiyyah
like, don't even worry about the khalaf, establish
it in your heart. Look at his own
history. The guy was with utmost love and
respect. We all love him. He was jailed
3 times. He was tortured in jail. You
know? He had to constantly monitor oppressive regimes
in his own lifetime.
So to have that type of psychological
reality where you have lived a very difficult
life and you simply want to practice your
faith and preach and teach, it's understandable
they develop a type of quietism and pacifism
in this regard
in which
it's not that they are rejecting Allah Sharia.
It
is rather they are seeing
that the way to get from point a
to point b
is
fraught with not just dangers but
death. You're not gonna get there and you
will end up harming
the Ummah. And so from their perspective because
their priorities are the worship of Allah and
Tasfiya and Tarbia or Taww and Taww, whatever
it might be, from their priorities,
it doesn't make sense to jeopardize that which
is more important for that which is lesser
important.
Would you disagree with my analysis of theirs
of their work? No. And and since you
mentioned the name of the sheikh, I didn't
want to mention the name of the sheikh,
but it is sheikh Akram Nadwi that I
sat with. And I told them, why can't
we keep Khalafaa as
a or like a like a final Exactly.
And I wanted to defend that that he's
not anti Khalafaa.
He's Yeah. So this Surat of would
be not the effective cause of the Renaissance,
not sufficient cause, not necessary cause, but basically
like a final cause, like an ultimate goal
or idea
that will attract us, that would motivate us,
energize us, or pull us towards
that end goal of sort of more Muslim
unity,
and this actualization
and different spheres including the political sphere. And
the Sheikh was completely open to the so
I see. Yes.
Yes. No. Sheikh is gonna deny. If you
were to offer us Abu Bakr Rasul radiAllahu
an right here, who's gonna say no to
that? If the issue comes where we are
now to how to get there. Right? Yes.
So so so,
basically,
the
and I don't always agree with Erdogan or
you know? And and I have my own
sort of
reservations about things that he does and things
that he says and things that he did
in the past. But look at
his model. I mean, I look at, you
know,
where Turkey was when he assumed leadership
and where Turkey is now.
Do you see
improvement?
Do you see improvement on the religious,
front? Do you see improvement on the economical
front? Do you see improvement on the political
front? Yes. I understand that people are very,
upset with Turkey now because of letting down
the the people in Gaza.
And I I'm not,
it's not a defense. This is not
yeah. So I'm not but at the end
of the day, just point a and point
b, where, like, where Turkey was when he
assumed leadership,
where Turkey is now.
Do you see improvement?
Do you see
similar improvement
in other places? I don't.
Like, you know, Malaysia had, like,
some degree of improvement under material a great
deal of improvement.
And, you know, I I pray for the
success. I pray for the progress.
But I have not seen anything in modern
times That comes close even. Comes close to
this Erdoganite
Exactly. And when you say this, the idealists
always point out that long list of negatives
which are true. And I can't defend that.
Yes. But compare compare that to others out
there is all that we're saying. Exactly. So
I think that's what Shahakar Mladui is is
trying to say is, like, you know,
make this a model,
towards, like,
improve the betterment
of the Muslim condition
in in different countries like
and and start at the local level. It
has to be local. Mhmm. You'll have to
prioritize,
you know, the the local community.
Because how do you how do you get
to a Khalifa?
How do you get there? You want people
that are willing.
What what you're trying to do is what
you're trying to do is like this idea
of marching the troops is not going to
work.
That this idea of basically shaming people into
it is not going to work. Like you
know you you have countries that have per
capita GDP of
$130,000 You have countries that have per capita
GDP of,
$1500
How do you convince those people who have
a per capita GDP of
$130,000
to share their money
with those who have a per capita GDP
of $1500
Like, how do you convince Qatar to come
into a union with Egypt, for instance, and
share their money with the 100,000,000
people in Egypt.
You know? It's not going to happen. Yeah.
So, like, you can't march the troops. You
can't shame them into it. So it has
to be like an alliance
of the willing, you know, like an alliance
of willing communities, willing nations
that that want to basically,
benefit
from from,
unity,
from cooperation
coordination
integration
you know why don't we start at the
local level why don't we figure out our
problems within each one of those countries? Why
can't we look towards righteous governance in the
individual countries? And people keep on saying that
this type of pragmatic,
this type of pragmatic
discourse
has failed to capture the imagination of the
youth, has failed
basically,
to make any dent in reality or capture
the imagination of the youth or to have,
like, a bold vision.
And
and I I I do have great respect
for for for those people, but sometimes
there are 2 two concepts here that get
conflated. The idea of thinking outside the box
is a is a great idea. You do
need to think outside the box,
but what box are we talking about? There
has to be common sense.
There has to
be an objective reality.
So sometimes
I feel that some of our great
you know, 1st and second generation
Muslims in the west,
are actually
captive of postmodernist
relativism.
Mhmm. And this idea of thinking outside the
box
is basically a product of postmodernist
relativism,
more than it is like a bold vision
or Can you elaborate on that, Sheikh? Okay.
By example, what do you mean?
You know,
thinking outside the box, basically,
presenting
clearly unrealistic ideas,
or clearly unrealistic solutions.
And can you know, considering
the opposition
to be
too
what
Unable to
to have sort of, greater
vision or bolder
vision,
captive to
their,
captive to their timidity,
captive to their,
intellectual
deficiency.
So when it comes to to to the
Khalifa and when it comes to,
proposing,
you know,
ideas that would sound to the rest of
the people
unrealistic,
unfeasible.
So
to be clear then, one of the examples
in your mind
are those movements that
are demanding
an immediate,
political entity without
going through requisite steps. Is that one of
the Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You know? Okay. Yeah.
Just that would be clear. Yeah. So basically
So, Sheikh, let's get now a bit more
again specific now. And again, excuse me for
my bluntness, but this needs to be we
need to speak very specifically about these realities.
We're well aware that the Khalifa,
the Ottoman Caliphate, despite its ups and downs
of our history, at least we had something,
but the Ottoman Caliphate came to an ending
literally 100 years ago, a month ago. And
since that point in time,
multiple thinkers, multiple movements, multiple strands
have attempted to reengage the Ummah,
in different ways. And by the way, just
coincidentally, I'm literally before you came, I was
reading this book, I'm reading The Finishing Up
by Sheikh Rashid Dridah,
Al Khilafah, Ulymama's al Uthma, you know? Which
is a series of articles in Al Manaar,
that He was one of the very active
people. Yes. And so he began writing there's
like, well, 15 articles. So the first article
was written when the Khalaf was on its
downfall. Mhmm. And the last article written in
the Khalaf was gone. And so it's 100
years ago, literally. So I'm just reading this
now to get over. And it's just I
personally resonate a lot with the Imam Sheikh
Rashid in many aspects, including this one. So
after the collapse of the Ottoman Khalifa,
we saw a myriad
of thinkers and movements
attempt to renegotiate
the ummah.
And factually speaking, I'm not taking a side
here. I'm simply analyzing the bird's eye view.
All of these movements
stopped making the Khalifa
and the reurgence of the reemergence of the
Khalifa at the very top of the list,
except for one primary movement.
So you had an entire and since they
passed away, we can move mention some names
here. You mentioned Aja Abul Hasan in other
way. Even the Islamist parties like the Muslim
Brotherhood and the Jamaat Islami
realized that maybe the Khalifa is a bit
too long term. Let's just get with our
own countries and try to Islamify them. Right?
And of course, then you had the Tasfi
and Tarbiyyah, the Salafi movements, the Sufi movements,
the establishment, the traditionalist.
You had all of these movements. None of
them made their primary,
agenda, the immediate agenda, the constant agenda, the
establishment of the Khalifa. Some of them made
it
once in a while, and some of them
took a very
it looks anti Khalifa stance. But as we
explained,
it's that they thought that it's not feasible,
not that they didn't want it. Right. Only
one movements and, again, we know which one
it is, the followers of respect to Sheikh.
We respect and ask a lot of us
underward him. Only one movement really made this
the front and center, the the dendena, the
the the primary issue here. Right?
What are your thoughts on
why this is the case?
That all of these other movements did not
make it to the level that, you know,
this movement did? And
you yourself, you already said you you you
aligned towards Abur Hassan in Nidawi. Who else
besides Nidawi
would you find
your heart aligning to in this entire myriad
of movements here?
And I know it's a personal question, but,
I mean, I just Rashid Rada, of course,
is one is one of them, but I,
you know,
I have written a post last year about,
reviving the legacy of Rashid Reda because it
seems,
you know, I
a lot of people have,
their reservations against the Sheikh Rasheed Riddha because
of sectarian reasons and because of other reasons.
Amidst and lies. Well, life so much lies
against him. There are so many lies. Slanders.
Yeah. But he was a great scholar. And,
you know, you don't have to agree with
every scholar or any scholar. You you can't
even agree with Abu Bakr Sadiq on everything.
Mhmm. There's only one person that you agree
have to agree with on everything. But,
anyway so,
so what I wanted to say is that
people
people,
particularly,
and,
these were the turbulent times, and people had
every right
to to be sad about the,
cessation of the Khalifa.
But people also need to be
truthful, honest with themselves, realistic.
This idea, for instance, that you you hear
sometimes that had we had a Khalifa,
what is happening to the people in Gaza
now would have never happened. No, it's untrue.
It's untrue. The Khalafah is neither a sufficient
or a necessary cause for Muslim power, for
Muslim
dignity, for if you have, big blocks like,
you know,
without them being the hadifas. By the way,
the Ottomans
for a very good portion of the the
beginning
of their dynasty. They were not calling themselves
Khalifa. They even were calling Caesar,
before Khalifa. A lot of people don't know
the issue. That's what's very valid. Incorrect to
say. When they conquered Constantinople,
they wanted to actually preserve and resume the
Roman Empire. And people don't wanna say this.
It's the reality. Yeah. That's fine. Yeah. But
if we have, like, 3 big blocks like
those blocks,
you know, you could do a lot with
3 big blocks like this. You could do
a lot with, you know, regional powers,
different regional
powers
that coordinate among themselves that because
I
the we are we repeat
Muslim unity. We are 1,
and every expression of that unity is desirable,
and we should be working towards every expression
of of that unity.
But
how powerful you are matters.
If Egypt
if Egypt were as powerful as,
Great Britain Great Britain is is not much
bigger than Egypt, size wise, population wise. But
even if Egypt were as powerful as Great
Britain,
would you have expected,
different
sort of behavior
from from Egypt
during this crisis?
Of course.
Of course.
Had the spirits of my people give me
given me the power to speak I would
have spoken.
But the spirits of my people held me
back
because because of the weakness of my people.
So,
in in this idea that had we had
a Khalifa, that this would have never happened.
Well, we had the
Khalifa, and 90% of Muslim countries were under
occupation.
Kolodians are located. Yeah. We're colonized Yeah.
While
we have the Khalifa.
So
why are we not being honest? Like, why
can't we be honest?
Why can't we say that this is this
is desirable?
This is,
a a good end goal. This should motivate
us, energize us, make us work together
to bring about more Muslim loyalty, allegiance, unity,
cooperation,
coordination,
integration,
and all of that stuff,
but,
place it where it belongs in the list
of priorities.
Where would you place the chips? Mhmm. Where
would you place it roughly? In the top
5, in the top or the next 30,
or the bottom 10 out of a 100,
like, roughly?
I wouldn't because I I wouldn't be inaccurate.
But I would say that, like, for for
the individual Muslim in in in a Muslim
majority country,
he would not be this would not be
a priority for him at this time.
The you know, basically,
the Islamic way of life and as I
said we have
to
shift the focus
to the Sharia
And as in Samoori said,
it is also
reform has to be an essential ingredient in
this. So by reform you mean Fislah Hanafs
or what? No, reform
of legal reform. Okay. You know, the adaptability
of the Sharia to current realities.
Because that has to be in order for
the Sharia,
in order for the Sharia's relevance
and applicability,
continued applicability,
there has to be reform
in order for it to survive and to
continue to be relevant and to continue to
be applicable.
It has to be a reform. And as
we said, the the divine address is not
changing, but the realities are changing.
And then those realities will
fit under different principles as they change. So
you're calling for a reform in?
Legal reform. Like
like, tazdeed.
Of how? Like, again, specific Sheikh because this
is all slogans. Like,
give me, like, an example of what you
in what you're trying to get to to
bring about here. Okay. So so when where,
you know,
I I can give you, like
so so if if you say that the
Sharia, for instance, says,
that the longest duration of pregnancy is 4
years or 2 years or 7 years. Refinement.
Yeah. No one would believe that. If you
say,
like So there are many opinions, Sheikh, that
are mentioned in the books of fiqh that
War. War.
The the word war. War.
Should the should the default Default. Relationship
be war or or peace? The war itself,
are we talking about the same thing? Are
we talking about, you know,
a couple of 1,000 people sparring in a
battlefield?
So we're talking about nuclear and chemical weapons.
Yeah. So
should this make a should this make a
difference? Should this make the war even a
remote or a last resort for for us?
So you're calling for a re understanding and
rethinking through specific.
Of course, this is something I've been saying
for many, many years. Obviously, the critics, they
lose track of what you're trying to say.
The accusation becomes you are a reformer a
reformist. You are making the hadith any the
hadith al sharia and whatnot. Absolutely.
Sharia is the Exactly. Objectives of Sharia,
the principles of shari'ah are fixed, which we're
talking about the different realities
that will fit under different principles. And that's
exactly what Irmin Shathari
said that these realities that that they don't
change the Sharia, but they
meet different principles, or they the the deserve
to have different principles
applied to them.
But the Sharia then
will be
at the heart of the Islamic way of
life. Of course, devotion to God is is
the utmost priority.
No one would argue about this,
but when it comes to organizing
our
Islamic way of life at the local level,
the sharia will be the central pillar, and
it is,
you know,
a moderate
in the sense a true sense of
moderate, not in basically,
what the the so called modern modernist,
sense
of
in the true sense of
that's deed by qualified scholars that's deed by
qualified scholars
to keep the Sharia relevant, to keep the
Sharia applicable,
and to organize,
our communities around the Sharia being the backbone.
We start there,
and then
when we have improved realities
at the local level in different countries, those
countries would realize
the benefit
in
the importance of and the benefit
in coming together.
We should not succumb to pressure,
you know,
by,
people adverse whether they are adversaries
or whether they are just like, non Muslims
looking at the the concept of a Khalifa.
They they have their own,
sort of,
conceptualization
of the Khalifa, and they're opposed to it.
While Europe is trying to or to to
come together, Europe has tried to come together
for decades now.
And the sentiment
that many Europeans have against the Turkish membership
in Europe is based on
religious,
Exactly. Islamophobia.
Basically. Yeah. Yeah. So why should Muslims not
aspire
to,
towards unity? Why should Muslims be,
denied
the right to aspire towards greater unity Yeah.
Among themselves?
So
but this will have to come after
we make some progress at the local level.
In in our countries,
we need to have
righteous governance because this righteous governance, you know,
if you have
representative
governance,
if you have
representative
leadership,
they will prioritize
the benefits
of the Ummah or the the benefit of
the Ummah over their personal,
benefit. And
then in this case, you know, larger unity,
bigger blocks. You know? Just
Morocco and Algeria and Tunisia come in together.
You know? They can have Libya as well.
We we can have Sudan, so it doesn't
matter.
You're Egyptian.
I'm just kidding. Just kidding. But I'm I'm
trying to say you have, like, bigger blocks
that that
that would realize the benefits realize the benefits
of coming together. Like bigger markets, you know,
like economic integration.
Who
you know who would not realize, but
we need to have
representative governments
that will realize the benefits
of coming together and eventually,
you know, working,
gradually
towards greater unity among
the Ummah. So sheikh, we've been speaking for
a long time. Let's kind of wind down
but we still have a few topics. Let's
wind down inshallah in this regard.
So listening to you, you sound very similar
to what I myself was saying, in my
khatara which again is not relevant to this
podcast. It just happened that I'm giving my
talks here. You are, I would say, a
a soft advocate of a generic unity.
You are not constantly,
obsessing with this notion of khilafah, khilafah, khilafah.
You understand that,
you know, it's a it's an it's an
aspirational
goal
which has a lot of practical impediments that
we have to be very cautious of. Not
just along the way but even when we
get to the end we don't want
a ideal you know kirafa to then easily
be corrupted into much of what we've seen
in the past as well. So,
in this regard Sheikh then, these are for
Muslim majority lands as quickly do some easy
stuff.
Obviously, Muslim minority situations us here in America.
Obviously, I've said this very publicly and very
clearly.
It is not
something that the Sharia
asks of us to do in minority situations
to aspire to,
a khilafa or to aspire to,
political dominance and to overthrow the internal system
in a coup d'etat. I've said this very
publicly. That's not what the Sharia requires of
us. That is political suicide. We are not
people of double agendas that we say something
publicly and we practice something privately.
Any disagreement with that or any caveats to
add or anything of this nature?
No. If if the US is willing to
participate in a falafel system, we're we're okay
with that. But, of course, we're not going
to force we're we're not basically going to
overthrow the government here and to make the
US part of a And this is not
just double talk. This is not just this
is this is a genuine this is and
this is a genuine
shutter How could you realistically
expect this? Like, the what did the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam ask the people in
in Habasha
to overthrow,
the system even before Najashi converted to Islam?
Was he sending them there to overthrow the
system, or was he sending them there to
find refuge,
peace, and justice?
That's what we that's what he sent them
for. Yes. And
that they continue to live in Habasha for,
you know, several years after
the establishment of Al Medina, and the the
they have not
tried while they were there to
bring Al Habashah under the fold of
the Madinan,
central government.
Jayed, so that's it is not,
a tactical goal. It might be an aspiration.
I want people in this part of the
world to embrace Islam, and I want once
they do so to join the larger ummah.
I don't have any issue with that. Uh-huh.
But it is not a tactical,
goal that we sit and plan for, make
taktiv for. Okay? Yeah. So this is we're
in agreement in this regard. Now, another,
question or point here in this regard is
that
we have spoken about all these different movements.
We have I think we're
both very clearly
we would situate ourselves centrist. Of course, centrist
is relative because those to the left of
us think they're centrist. All the time. All
the time. Yeah. But by and large, I
feel that our notions of political activism and
of Khalifa
and Islamic Yani,
political
unity, I think we're very, very similar, if
not exactly on the same point on the
spectrum here. But now the question arises,
the theoretical,
sorry, the not the theoretical. The theological question.
And this was was not planned. That's This
was not planned. Frustrated. This is the reason
Exactly. Yeah. Independent examination of the Exactly. And
sheikh, I mean, no matter how much I
love and respect you, I haven't studied under
you even though I wish I could. And
of course, you are too too. So yet
still our goals and our views are completely
in this in harmony here. Now, Sheikh, here's
the Akadi question. And I have my views
as well, but I'm gonna hear your views.
Here's the Akadi question.
We've spoken about this entire spectrum of movements,
right?
I don't mind mentioning now because we're not
gonna mention names. You have the
general tussle wolf trend around the world, which
is generally speaking
supposed to be apolitical. It is not supposed
to be involved in any type of aspirational
politics. Right? How far they are from ideal
is another thing. But generally, that is their
goal. You have, of course, Jema'at Dawat Tablir.
Okay? And you have the
mainstream Jordanian Salafism
which became global in the nineties which is
Tasfi and Tarbia and established the Khalaf in
your heart and Allah
you have all of these movements I would
say roughly in a similar
ballpark
of
not doing anything active to establish the khilafa.
Then you have on the exact opposite side,
Hizb ut Tahir and the followers of Tawhidhir
al Mhani. And I say this factually, not
any derogatory term.
That is their
constant,
I don't wanna use that term. There's their
constant, bringing up of this notion number 1
on the list and it is as if
this is the ultimate priority for them. Then
you have
the brotherhood and the Jamaat Islami, and we
both have associations with them. For the record,
I was born into such a family. My
parents were very active in Jamaat and and
what Modi's party. So I grew up with
that type of activism. So you have that
group and then you have, you know, political
Salafism and others in this. So you have
an entire spectrum here, Sheikh. The question, the
Aqadi question is as follows.
Where does one draw the line of Islamic
orthodoxy
in this entire gamut of apolitical
versus
the Khalifa is Abu Jabal Wajibat.
Right?
Where in your humble opinion is the line
of Sunni orthodoxy
such that if you go beyond it, you
become Muftadeer?
And what is the line of Kufr such
that you go beyond that you are a
kafir?
So this spectrum, I wanna hear from you.
And I have my views. I'll I'll follow
you up. But again, this guide is completely
unscripted. I have no clue what this shayl
is gonna say. So let's hear this and
then you can hear my views. We can
go back and forth.
Well, this takes us back to the issue
of Al Khalifa being a theological issue or
a legal issue. Is it, like, part of
the or part of faq, part of law,
or part of creed?
And in all honesty, you it it will
be problematized
what I would say what whatever I may
say here, it would be problematized
because of certain hadith and because of certain,
positions of the scholars or or or even
scholarly practice.
We have a hadith, for instance, like,
Whoever dies without having pledged allegiance to an
imam, he will die in the state of
Jahadiyyah. So it gives you it it makes
some people think that this may actually be
a matter of creed.
But is this talking about Khalifa, or is
just simply talking about order versus
anarchy? Is it talking about, you know,
like, shedding the Muslim blood and violating the
rights of people and
being, like,
not
joining civilization,
not not coming together and and creating, like,
a a community of,
law and order.
I think that this is basically a condemnation
of anarchy, a condemnation
of rebellion and anarchy. It is not
pointing to a single political entity,
no matter how desirable that may be.
So,
but then it it would also be problematized
by the practice of Muslim scholars who included,
you know, in their aqeedah books discussions about
the kharafa and discussions about the imam.
But from a Sunni perspective, I would say
that it belongs to law more than it
belongs to law and not creed. Excellent point.
So to reiterate,
the establishment of a Khalifa
is more of a shari'i,
meaning a a fiqi issue than it is
an aqidah one. Yes. But but why did
they include it in aqidah books? Because the
Khalifa issue, the imamah issue,
to us
was,
the trinity to Christians or the nature of
God to Christians. We did not disagree over
the nature of God. But this Ummah,
split up over
the imam. From the beginning. From the very
beginning. Audigism. So the denominations the different denominations,
that that was a defining issue
for the, you know, the breakup,
between the different sects of this.
Therefore,
it's like when they include
or,
wiping over the the leather socks
in their Akida books because it is a
defining issue.
You know, and and they they want to
basically include in the Akida books that which
sorts us out from or separates us,
distinguishes us from other sects. But is it
really a a pita issue? No. It is
not an IP the issue. I don't believe
that it is IP the issue. It's a
legal issue,
that should just be has been discussed in
the in, in the Fekka tradition.
The one thing that borders on, the issue
is the issue of order versus anarchy.
You know, that that Shaykh,
them
them not bearing the prophet salAllahu alaihi wa
sallam sorry, not yeah, until they had established,
you know, the law, khilafa. It appears to
me you're understanding this more
as a system of governance
that prevents anarchy.
Hence,
when
those movements come along and say how can
you not prioritize
the Khalifa and you're saying well it's not
the top priorities as you have said I
said it's not 10 not not not top
10 and 20. How can you not prioritize
when? And then they'll quote you all of
these quotations, and they'll quote you the very
little the process. And what they had is
your response and also my response is you
are mixing apples and oranges.
You're using all of these evidences for something
that we're not talking about. Right? And that
is that, of course, after the death of
the prophet,
they needed a leader or else there would
be complete chaos and anarchy. Right.
We have a semblance of we're not saying
we have a Khalifa.
None of these countries are. We're not saying
we have a kam was shari'a being applied,
but we're saying much of the goals
that because of which
Imam Ibn Taymiyyah and Al Qurtubi and Al
Shattu and others said what they said.
And the reason why they were so eager
to have a leader
is that the absence of it leads to
complete chaos and civil war.
And so we have now infrastructures in place
that mitigate
that overall
notion that is derived from this hadith
even though what is derived from the hadith
is not exactly what we're seeing around us,
if that makes sense here. Of course. And
so so let us work on improving incremental
improvement of the systems that we have. And
I understand that people have grievances against the
concept of nation state, and they would consider
anyone who
surrenders to the
to the reality of As a state or
or worse. As a defeatist.
But but It's not. It's pragmatism. Yeah. Well
well, let's let's let's What's the alternative? Let's
fix them. Let's let's fix, our nation states.
Let's make them better so that they can
come together and realize the importance of unity.
But that is the the first step is
is to improve that, to better the reality
of different Muslim nations. Yeah. Yeah. So then
let me then
give you, in summary, my own understanding. And
again, feel free to disagree. Again, I'm a
little bit a little bit disappointed that we
haven't actually disagreed substantively about anything yet. Our
readers might think our viewers might think we
are coordinating Orchestrating the There's no arbitration. In
my humble opinion, Sheikh, and please feel free
to disagree. I wanna hear this. In my
humble opinion, all of these movements
are within
orthodoxy.
They're not even outside the spectrum of Sunnism,
proper technical Sunnism, those that are apolitical
pacifists
and are hesitant at political activism and those
that prioritize and wanna make it number 1,
in my humble opinion, just on this one
issue, they are all within the mainstream, Wafiqul
and khair. And none of them, in my
humble opinion, is more correct than the other,
and this is Iqtalafja'is
and Sa'ir.
When would it become bidah? It would become
bidah when you
narrow down the spectrum
and you claim only your segment
is the orthodox way and those who oppose
you are now theologically
deviant, by you making them deviance,
you have in effect made yourself ahlul bida
by prioritizing or by making something which, Yani,
as I said, I don't mind the movement
that prioritizes Khalifa. I don't even think that
issue of them makes them misguided. I think
they're a bit wrong. I also use the
term sometimes naive and they use it back
at me. It's a two way street here
and I understand that point. That is what
it is. But it is not theologically problematic.
But it will become theologically problematic
when they do not return the same favor
back onto us. And they say unto us
that you are misguided
Islamically
because you have not followed our interpretation.
This in my humble opinion is my understanding
of,
Orthodox in this regard. Any,
disagreement in this or any, comments in this?
No. I I I think that you like,
I I would just rephrase some some things.
Like, you said that none of them is
more correct than the other.
That would be, like, an issue that
I I'll like a statement that I would
rephrase because you said that you believe that
the particular group is wrong.
So if they're wrong, then some some of
these groups are more correct than others. Correct.
Not in a theological
From a theological standpoint There is there. I
did I did already say that this is
a legal issue.
It may,
some of the disagreement may stem from theological,
backgrounds or orientations,
you know,
where the our understanding of Qadar and our
understanding
of, you know,
you know, human agency
and and the issue of free will or
or determinism
or
so
so some
some No. No. No. No. Just to reiterate,
I'm not saying these movements are all
correct in all that they say. Yeah. I'm
saying because of their stance on this issue,
I don't make the deal of any Oh,
no. Yeah. I I don't make the deal
of any That's what I'm saying. Where they
place a falafel. That's exactly That's the priority.
That's my point. This Ikhtilaf is Ikhtilafja is
in. Yes. That was my point. Yes. Okay.
So then there is no tabdir to be
done in any of these movements for this
one issue. That was the problem. So then
we're agreement there. And Takhti Shev, honestly, I
can't see it happening
in this regard unless somebody which goes beyond
this issue of Khalifa.
They say, we don't want a ham of
Allah, which I can't imagine a Muslim or
Aqir or somebody. That's like you're talking about
the a secularist who doesn't believe in Allah's
religion.
I can't see Takfir coming
in our talk of khilafa per se in
this regard. Mhmm.
No. I don't I don't see that. But,
like, the people who have deny loyalty to
the believers,
nobody denies loyalty to the believers. Even most
apolitical people would say that,
this loyalty to the it's In fact, I'll
even go further and say the reason why
I say this entire spectrum is permissible
theologically
is the hallmark of Sunnism.
That's the whole point in my humble understanding
and my interpretation of this regard. This is
al haddil fasid between us and the Khawarij
and the
uh-uh shia right
they had they theologized
politics
and we don't do that Of course. With
Imam and for for Shia is is a
and Imam and for Shia is a complete
and,
you know And and It's a And for
the Fawarij, any disagreements became.
That's the whole point that hadd al fasr.
For us,
Adi and Muawiy radiAllahu anhu and more than
that all of these were you can choose
your side. You can fight on one side.
You don't become Ahlul Bida.
Right? If this is the case from back
then and you had political pacifist, you had
quietist, you had people on both sides, you
had people doing much more than just verbalizing
in this regard.
If you don't become a Muqtadir in this
entire spectrum, then a priori mimbabi ola, 1,400
years later, what do you do? We don't
have a khilafa. And you have all of
these movements and thinkers and ulama and mufakkireen
wanting to figure out what is the best
way forward, right? And all of them theoretically
love Allah's Sharia and want to see an
an established Sharia. It's just a matter of
different people have different perceptions of the means
and the pros and cons of the means.
And so in this regard, choose your strand
and be active in that strand, but do
not bring in the tabdihar card when it
comes to all of these mainstream movements. So
again, I think then so you agree with
me that in this issue, at least, there
is no
bidda taking place in all of the movements
I mentioned from the apolitical
to even, and I disagree with them many
ways, but there it's not a bitter issue,
the HT in this regard. Right? And,
the the the the the priority of the
brotherhood and the Islamist parties or whatnot, the
it's not even the Khalifa anymore. The priority
is to Islamicize
their societies.
Right? And that is also permissible in this
regard. And then you have again the Salafis
and the Sufis. You're just interested in the
own versions of Aqid and and and Tosef
and whatnot. This is not even a Bida'
in this regard. So and then in this
we're in agreement, so then in reality, the
only bidah would be
if you make this
so narrow that disagreement with you becomes a
theological
unorthodoxy.
And, basically, if if you if you have,
the Khalafat,
on your
sort of list of priorities or higher list
of priorities,
please recognize
that the rest of the groups are helping
you. They're not harming you. You know? I
said this as well. You're not Exactly, Sheykh.
We're doing the same thing. We're not stopping
you. So that it's like that Abiyeq Handara
brothers that go out to bring people to
the Masjid, they're they're helping. Yep. Exactly. You
know, the the the people who, you know,
who have an emphasis, the Salafis who have
an emphasis on, you know,
the
you know, the sunnah of the prophet
and the, you know, Hadith and and so
on. They're they're helping you. They're bringing more
people. They're making more people interested in, you
know, the way of the the the people
who have
an emphasis on devotion to Allah and
the the cleansing of the heart. They're helping
you. Every like, so recognize
that this is basically all.
And
and, you know, I I have my own
sort of, or, basically, orientations,
whether theological, legal,
or, the scale wise. But
but, I I can see that these people
yeah. These there are a lot of genuine,
sincere people out there that are trying to
their best to be better Muslims, and they
they wish the ummah well, and they want
the best for the ummah. And we are
all on the same wavelength when it comes
to reviving the love of Allah in people's
hearts. It's just different ways of doing so.
So Masha'Allah, we've spoken a lot. So let
me then summarize from my point of view
a few minutes and then Insha'Allah, I'll leave
the final word for you can summarize, what
you want people to go away with. My
summary for the viewers and and whatnot is
is gonna echo what I said a month
ago. My opinions haven't changed in 1 month
despite all of the pushback and refutations. It
hasn't changed because in my humble opinion, much
of it is is misunderstanding what I'm saying
as we and by the way, again, for
the record, our conversations were not scripted. I
did not know we would end up agreeing
on so many points of effect, maybe even
everything. But Khorasa, what I said,
you know, a few weeks ago, I'm gonna
reiterate here. In my humble reading of the
Quran and Sunnah, and looking at the Torah
of the udama including Sheikh Rashid Rooda, read
his book if you have time to do
so. It is clear to me in my
humble opinion, it is an opinion and she
had that.
There has always been a spectrum of of
of interactions
with rulers and with the concept of Khalifa,
especially after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
And I don't see a theological problem in
any of these strands.
And fikulin khair
my personal sympathies
are more on the centrist side I. E.
To bring about a change at the local
level rather than to think about the, the
global level. And the reason for this is
not because astaghfirullah, anybody opposes the outcome of
Allah. Anybody does not wanna see a khilafa.
The reason is because in my humble reading
of history and my own life experiences,
attempting to bring about that type of political
change is going to harm and backlash
you, your friends and family, your movement, and
frankly,
all pious Muslims because the people that are
opposing you are generally speaking not religious people.
So for people to and this is what
our Sheikh Akram said bluntly is like, the
only people that talk about the khilafa are
those that are living outside of it. The
only people that that want to establish some
Muslim rule are those living in secular democracies.
Because if you were living under those tyrannical
regimes, firstly your perception would be different and
secondly you wouldn't even be allowed to speak
at all in this regard. So
in my humble assessment,
we need to prioritize,
that which will get us into Jannah. And
that is not in and of itself a
khilafa. It is our relationship with Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala, our implementation of the Sharia in
our personal lives, our commitment to our faith
and values, and organically,
slowly, without causing any bloodshed, without causing any
hardship on on on the people that is
unreasonable,
we start propagating a larger vision of Muslim
unity and seeing what we can accomplish in
this regard. This
is in a nutshell my summary. However, anybody
who disagrees,
I don't view it as a theological deviation.
And if somebody says
even that is unrealistic,
I understand as our Sheikh doctor Akram has
a slightly different view. And if somebody says,
no, we wanna only talk about this, I
don't have a problem with that as long
as they don't have a problem with others
not being on their exact same wavelength. So
that's my khulasta and summary. Sheikhna, if you
can also summarize in a few minutes your
entire what you want the the viewer to
go away with inshallah, and that will be
our concluding remarks.
I would I would say that,
no Muslim
no Muslim in the world, I guess, who's
sincere Muslim, who's, learned Muslim
would not want to see more Muslim unity,
cooperation, coordination, integration,
allegiance, loyalty,
to to, the believers,
and all expressions,
all manifestations,
all the different types of actualization
of this unity are desirable,
but we need to have,
realistic
and grounded
understanding
of what is possible in this regard,
and we need to have also,
strategies
that are
conducive,
to this Muslim unity and that will take
in consideration
the,
the realities that the different Muslim communities
live in. Our ultimate goal should always be
the pleasure of Allah.
Is the,
ultimate,
success
to,
actualize.
And is as
sheikh Al Hassan said when he,
was trying to to,
use Imam Temi as definition of to stress
the fact,
that,
that that political,
the political expression of this is one expression.
It is not the ultimate expression. It's not
the only expression.
It is basically,
the ultimate love and adoration
mixed with ultimate,
submission and subjugation to to Allah.
And I think that
that this should be our ultimate goal,
and our work for
Muslim unity
should be
part of the realization of this ultimate goal.
We had a great time. Alhamdulillah. May Allah
accept from you. May Allah
bring about,
that unity that we aspire to. May Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala help us achieve aspirationally that
goal that we want. And, with this, Jazakumullah
khair, dear viewers, inshallah. Hope you can benefit.
And also please, if you do link to
a clip or whatnot, make sure you listen
to the entire interview and especially the concluding
statements that we both made. And with this,
until next time we have another conversation. We
do have another conversation planned inshallah. Until next
time, Jazakamullahake Assalamu alaykum Warahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh.
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