Middle East

The announcement claiming Khilafah

What’s apparent is that the claim of the announcement of the Khilafah and the pledge given to Al-Baghdadi has been rejected by the whole Islamic world accept by the organization itself and a few individuals.

It is believed the step to announce this Khilafah will open the door or in fact has already opened the door to research matters pertaining to the Khilafah in a practical sense, i.e. in terms of the Ahkaam that form the Tareeqah (method to see the shariah implemented, protected and propagated). For example, that the Khilafah sate is a specific and unique system that is different from existing states.

Similarly that the state is an entity responsible for the implementation of the collective thoughts, convictions, and criteria upon which the state is established.

This requires that the whole Ummah understands the meaning of the state, that it is a method for the implementation of Islam, that it is an implementing entity for Islam, the whole of Islam and not just some ritual acts of worship, and punishments.

And from this whole are those unknown aspects that the people have been distracted from for decades and decades, such as the form of the state itself with its institutions and the use of these institutions in taking care of the affairs of the people whether they be commercial, agricultural, industrial with its different types, judicial, educational, or related to foreign policy.

Indeed, it is important that it becomes self-evident to people that the Khilafah is a state, that the state is the implementing entity of Islam, not a group, or a collection of militant organisations, since Jihad is a function of the state amongst its many functions which has its own department within the institutions of the state.

It is also important to bring our attention and general awareness to the fact that the Islamic Ummah is the first and most important entity in Islam, in its message and in its function, and not the state. Where the Ummah is formed of the believers, and the state, notwithstanding its importance, comes after the ummah in importance. Rather, the state is a function of the ummah, or a responsibility for her. The first entity and the most important is the existence of the ummah, while the state is not the ummah. Its definition differs from western definitions in terms of the state being composed of people, land and a state. Rather it is only a state or ruling authority, in other words it is an implementing entity for what Allah has obliged upon the ummah to implement.

The state emanates from the womb of the ummah and it is from among the obligations upon the ummah to deliver it to the people from her womb, since it is like the head, the heart, the hands and the feet for the ummah.

So the entity of the state emanates from the entity of the ummah; with it the ummah is able to stand, and when the Islamic State exists the ummah’s heart starts beating and it will practically begin to exist.

Verily our work and our goal relies upon an idea and a method. Verily Hizb ut-Tahrir has been remarkably successful in making this idea exist in the ummah; that is the sovereignty of the shariah. Moreover it has also been successful in general aspects of the method, for example, that the implementation of Islam necessitates the existence of an Islamic state, i.e. the Khilafah.

You can find the idea within the ummah. However, the method has not got the same presence or conviction in the ummah. Therefore, we find many calling for the Khilafah, in fact almost everyone is saying the Khilafah is what we seek, is our goal and our dream, however they are taking a variety of different avenues (manahaj) to reach this goal and this is the differences we find in the method (tareeqah).

I see that the most important cause for this and for the ummah’s delay in adopting the method is the absent mindedness and the absence of thinking within the ummah and the Shaikh’s and those who are observing the issue. I am specifically referring to political thinking, i.e. practical thinking that gives rise to linking objectives with the means that lead to them. The such an extent that people want to achieve their ends through actions that are not the means to those ends, and will not lead them to the objective; like the person who wants the revival of this ummah and seeks to be closer to the establishment of the Khilafah through charitable deeds and memorisation of the Qur’an etc.

For indeed a decisive or almost decisive blow has been struck on political thinking and to a large extent on legislative thinking. Due to this you began to see wholesale fatawaa are issued by their people, then rivalling fataawa are given rebutting the others in their entirety, while ijtihad has declined to the extent that its source has become benefit and harm, justification of the forbidden, leniency etc… and so on.

Furthermore, political thinking became separated from the shari’ah and in fact from reality as well as from the laws and manners of life in terms of linking causes with their effects. It is for this reason that we find someone who declares this Khilafah in a way that epitomises the calamitous deficiencies that are the disintegration of the legislative thinking i.e. ignorance within the application of the sources of legislation and legal edicts, churning out fataawa and extrapolations, the authors of which deserve that it is said about them that they are foolish dreamers. Likewise, the closed and narrow understanding of political reality and the effective political work that would result in the desired change. Therefore, we saw what we saw with the declaration of the Khilafah.

I repeat that the cause of this backwardness is the absence of political thinking and the deficiency of minds in this matter.

What is occurring now with regards to the declaration of the Khilafah without it actually existing is one of the results of this deficiency. Despite this the Khilafah occupies an important position and the Ummah has become connected to it and hopeful of its realisation, so this declaration turned heads and had an effect. So, it has opened the door to questions, such as:

Has the Khilafah actually been established?

Is this the Khilafah?

Do we live today with nobility, honour and victory?

Ideas have interacted between confirmation and rejection. Here is where the benefit lies, and this is where the leap to the path to awareness will occur, on the path of engaging the minds and serious thinking about the realities, in a practical way making the link between the reality and the goal, this is political thinking. This is why the declaration of this Khilafah with the permission of Allah will have among its results the actual propagation of the method among the Ummah as well. This is because it has begun to achieve two matters within the Ummah; namely: the beginning of political thinking broadly. Secondly: thinking about the meaning of implementing Islam and what is Islam, is it just punishments and ritual acts of worship, or what is much more than this. I believe the soil is more ready and fertile for growing and harvesting than ever before?

Ustadh Mahmood Abdul Karim Hasan