Political Activity in Its Proper Place

Political activity has a place, but it comes within a necessary sequence. The obligation of politics is not denied. Rather, the logical continuity of the Sharee’ah requires beginning with creed, then proceeding to worship, correct manners, and education. Only after these foundations have been established should the stage of politics, as understood by the Sharee’ah, be entered.

Politics here means managing the affairs of the community. This definition raises an important question: who is responsible for that management? It is not the task of just any person who establishes a political party, heads a movement, or directs a group. Taking such a position does not by itself give someone responsibility for the community’s affairs.

That responsibility belongs solely to the ruler who has been pledged allegiance before the Muslims. Knowledge of the political situation and the administration of that situation are therefore the ruler’s responsibility. Political management is not presented as an unrestricted activity for every individual or group to assume independently.

The criticism of current preoccupation with political activity must be understood in this order. It does not amount to a denial that political administration is obligatory. The problem is diversion: political activity is occupying attention before the prior work of creed, worship, manners, and education has been carried out. Politics belongs in its proper stage and under the authority responsible for managing communal affairs.

Accordingly, the sound order is not politics first. It is correct creed, followed by worship, then correct manners and education, and finally the administration of communal affairs when its stage arrives. This preserves political responsibility while placing both its timing and its management where they belong.

When Muslims are not united, political responsibilities must be considered in light of actual authority and ability. Some matters belong to the ruler, who bears responsibility within the limits of his capacity. If people who possess no authority occupy themselves with thoroughly understanding matters they cannot establish, that knowledge brings them no practical benefit.

Current wars against Muslims in their lands illustrate the problem. Igniting people’s enthusiasm may produce strong emotion, but emotion alone does not provide the means to act. The required Jihad should be led by a responsible leader to whom allegiance has been given. Where Muslims have neither such unified leadership nor the authority to establish the matter, mobilizing them around it is futile at that moment.

This judgment concerns timing and conditions, not the underlying obligation. It does not mean declaring that Jihad is not obligatory. Rather, it means that the issue has been advanced far ahead of its adequate time and place. A responsibility may remain obligatory while agitation concerning it produces no benefit because the leadership and authority needed to carry it out are absent.

The crucial distinction is therefore between denying an obligation and recognizing present incapacity. The first rejects the duty itself; the second acknowledges the duty while refusing to treat enthusiasm as though it were unified leadership, recognized authority, or the ability to act.

Correct creed, worship, and behavior belong to the individual obligations from which no one is exempt. Every Muslim must become firmly grounded in the correct understanding of Islam and hold to it. The work of the call should therefore concentrate on teaching correct Islam and cultivating people through proper education.

This does not mean that every other concern is unimportant, nor that every other matter has the same ruling. Some other issues are collective obligations.

A modern example is what has been called “understanding current affairs,” together with preoccupation with political activity. Political activity is described as an important affair, but not the most important affair. Benefiting from it is the responsibility of people who occupy positions of power. Authority therefore matters: those who have neither power nor authority in their hands are not in the same position as those able to act.

When people without such authority busy the masses with political affairs, they can divert them from the correct understanding that they personally need. Enthusiasm and emotion may then displace the work of becoming firmly grounded in the call. The criticism is not that current affairs have no importance. It is that concentrating the masses upon them can distract people from obligations that admit no exemption: correcting their creed, worship, and behavior.

The constructive priority is consequently clear. Muslims should busy themselves, and those whom they call, with learning correct Islam and being educated upon it. Collective concerns remain in their proper category, while the immediate individual duties of sound belief, worship, and conduct are not neglected.

Some Islamic callers gather large numbers of Muslim youth around them, yet divert from teaching those young people the correct creed and the proper understanding of worship, manners, and behavior. The criticism is not simply that they discuss public affairs. It is that political activity takes the place of the instruction and education that the youth need.

This problem can be seen when callers become occupied with political work and attempt to enter parliaments that rule by other than what Allah has revealed. Their parliamentary involvement then becomes a diversion: instead of concentrating upon the most important issue, they become busy with what is not important in the present state of affairs.

The proper priority is therefore the education of the Muslims who gather around these callers. Correct creed, worship, manners, and behavior must not be neglected while attention is directed toward political activity. When activism displaces this work, the callers leave aside what should receive their foremost attention.

Islamic society contains people with different levels of knowledge, and their responsibilities are not identical. What is obligatory upon scholars is not necessarily obligatory upon those who are not scholars. Allah gave believers a clear principle:

“Ask the people of remembrance (the message), if you do not know.”

Quran 21:7

This instruction divides responsibility between the learned and the unlearned. Those who lack knowledge must ask the people of knowledge. They are not required to assume the scholar’s role, but they are required to seek guidance about what concerns them.

The scholar, in turn, must respond when people ask questions. He must also call others to the true call, working within the limits of his capabilities. Recognizing this duty requires differentiating between people rather than placing the same demands upon everyone without regard to knowledge or ability.

For those who are not scholars, the immediate responsibility is to ask about matters that affect them personally and matters affecting those for whom they are responsible. This includes asking about the needs of one’s wife, child, or others under one’s care. Their task is therefore practical and close at hand: they seek the knowledge needed to guide themselves and fulfill their responsibilities toward those entrusted to them.

Both scholar and learner act according to what they are able to do. The scholar teaches and answers within the bounds of his capacity; the non-scholar asks about what concerns him and those under his care. A Muslim who establishes himself upon these responsibilities according to his ability has succeeded, for Allah says:

“Allaah does not burden a soul with more than he can bear.”

Quran 2:286

Muslims are living through a tragic period of weakness and division. The nations gather against them, while they cannot respond as one unified force. In an authentic hadith reported by Aboo Daawood, the Prophet warned:

“The nations will gather upon you just how those who eat gather.”

When the Companions asked whether the Muslims would be few, he answered that they would be many but would resemble the froth of the sea. Fear of them would be removed from the hearts of their enemies, while al-Wahn would be placed in their own hearts. He explained al-Wahn as love of worldly life and hatred of death.

This weakness is not merely a lack of numbers. Muslims are divided, neither gathered in one country nor united in one rank. They do not possess the material capability to repel those who gather against them, and even if such capability were present, they would still be unable to move together. Governments, leaderships, and ruling authorities in many Muslim countries follow policies that do not agree with legislated politics.

Under these conditions, people must take every legislated means in its proper place. They are responsible according to their actual ability, for “Allaah does not burden a soul with more than he can bear”.

The work that remains possible

People of knowledge must exert themselves in Tasfiyah—purification—and Tarbiyah—education and cultivation. They must teach Muslims the correct belief in Islamic monotheism, Tawheed, while correcting creed, worship, and behaviour according to the full extent of their ability.

Muslim callers can undertake this important responsibility wherever they are able, including in countries whose politics are not founded upon legislated politics. Their constructive work is to come together upon purification and education, building correct understanding, worship, and conduct. This work is joined to hope in the promised day described as “The Day when the believers will be pleased with the help of Allaah”.