What is your vision for political work in light of the current circumstances?

The questioner : The question is outside the scope of the Ikhwan session, meaning, I saw you once in the seventies when I was a bit young, the Muslim Brotherhood in its day held a seminar in...

The Shaykh : "Al-Zarqa"?

The questioner : "Al-Zarqa," yes, so that was the only session I sat with you in, and this is the second.

The Shaykh : Welcome.

The questioner : ...After that, I was an expatriate, meaning abroad in America.

The Shaykh : Praise be to Allah who has returned you to us.

The questioner : Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.
Regarding the issue—Shaykh—meaning, what is your vision for political work in light of the current circumstances, which are the rule of capitalism and disbelief in the tyrants?

The Shaykh : Our view is well known in this matter and recorded on many tapes, and also recorded with the intelligence services, whom we informed that Islam includes politics, and treatises have been composed on this by the great scholars of the Muslims, including the treatise of the Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, "Al-Siyasah al-Shar'iyyah" (The Shari'ah of Politics). After that, some contemporaries have also composed on this. But we believe that the Muslims are not prepared to undertake this duty of political work now. The Muslims today are not prepared to undertake this duty. I think the answer to your question is clear up to this point?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : Fine, but naturally, I believe the matter requires some detail. Most Muslims today do not do well in performing what Allah has made obligatory upon them of worship, whether daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. This is due to their distance from studying Islam from its pure sources, their distance from studying Islam by taking it from its pure sources. Perhaps you have heard or read often the saying of our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): . They said: Who are they, O Messenger of Allah? He said: .
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, so let the scholars of the Muslims, let alone the common people, take their fiqh and knowledge of their Islam, first of all, not from these various groups, which are one single group, the saved group, and which is a mixture of this humanity spread across the earth for many long centuries. Let them take the purified knowledge; they must return, first of all, to the Book and the Sunnah. And here, regarding the Sunnah, we must pause. The Sunnah—as is known to all scholars—has had things mixed into it that are not part of it. I think you have an idea of this; meaning, there are weak and fabricated hadiths, and they are widespread among the Muslims in old and new books, magazines, and newspapers, and so on.
So those who want to return to the Sunnah must carry out a process of purifying this Sunnah, distinguishing its authentic from its weak. This does not exist today in this very, very wide Islamic world except for a few scattered individuals in this wide Islamic world. So, returning to the Book; the Book is preserved by Allah's preservation of it, as is known. The Sunnah has had things mixed into it that are not part of it; the Sunnah needs purification. And before I move on to the Companions, where the Messenger (peace be upon him) mentioned his Companions along with his Sunnah; before I move on, I say and draw attention to a very important fact: understanding the first source, the Qur'an, is based on the second source. If we accept the second source as it came to us, with its authentic, weak, and fabricated parts, and we apply this Sunnah to the Qur'an and its interpretation; we will not interpret the Qur'an as Allah (Mighty and Majestic) intended, and then as our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) intended.
So the Qur'an cannot be understood correctly except by the authentic Sunnah. And now you know that we have inherited from our righteous predecessors, from the imams of hadith, tens, indeed hundreds, of classified books. These books are a favor from Allah (Mighty and Majestic) upon the ummah that He made their authors available to narrate their hadiths with chains of narration. And you know what... this chain is the only way that enables the scholar to distinguish the authentic Sunnah from the weak. I said earlier that these books are in the tens, indeed hundreds. The books that were composed from this massive collection and specialized in authentic hadiths only are far fewer than... than this Sunnah. You hear, for example, of "Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim"... these are counted on the fingers, very limited. The remaining tens, indeed hundreds, of other books need purification. So where are those who purify the Sunnah... so that they can thereby interpret the Qur'an correctly? And it is not hidden from you that the correct interpretation of the Qur'an is the foundation of all Islamic jurisprudence in its worship, its transactions, its morals, its conduct, and so on. And from that comes some matters related to the Shari'ah of politics. We have now inherited this... in all its forms and shapes... so that we may prepare the base, we prepare... which, if Allah wills, will be prepared for the establishment of the Muslim government... prepared.

The questioner : The government, Shaykh, is the same as the caliphate in your opinion?

The Shaykh : How?

The questioner : The government, in your opinion, is the same as the caliphate?

The Shaykh : Of course... ruling by what Allah has revealed.

The questioner : Meaning, he is the caliph of the Muslims himself?

The Shaykh : Yes, it is necessary.

The questioner : Meaning, it is an extension of the caliphate that stopped?

The Shaykh : Yes.