The Meaning of the Hadith: “Whoever dies without an imam dies the death of the pre-Islamic age of ignorance”

Question:
May Allah reward you with good and do you good. I ask you about the saying of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) found in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad (may Allah have mercy on him). The Messenger said: Is this the imam to whom one must attach oneself and whom one must know? And who is the imam in our contemporary time? May Allah reward you with good.

Answer:
The one in authority. The imam is the one in authority in the country you are in among the lands of the Muslims. So the one in authority of the Muslims, the one in authority of the Muslims in any country, is their imam. It is obligatory to obey him and to gather under his banner, so that you are with the community of Muslims and under Islamic authority. Whoever rebels against the obedience of the imam of the Muslims, whether he is a general imam or an imam in a specific country that is separated from the domains of the Muslims, where every domain has an independent governor, in any case this is an Islamic authority. It is obligatory to obey it, submit under its banner, and join the community of Muslims. This is the intended meaning. And whoever leaves the authority of the Muslims and lives outside the community of Muslims, while he is able to live with them and join them, he dies the death of the pre-Islamic age of ignorance. This is because the custom of the pre-Islamic age of ignorance was that they had no imam; rather, they were tribes or scattered individuals, not united by an authority and not gathered under a single word. But when Islam came and Allah granted this religion, the Muslims became one community, and their imam is obligatory to obey for them, as long as he does not order disobedience. If he orders disobedience, the disobedience is left, but he is obeyed in everything else of his orders, in order to unite the word and preserve the interest of the Muslims.