The Shaykh’s clarification that the obligation now is purification and education, and that political work is part of the religion, but this is not the time for it.

The Shaykh : And on this occasion, I recall that I was invited more than once to the Syrian intelligence. One of them was a discussion. As you know, unfortunately, there are shaykhs who accuse us of being Wahhabis, because they believe that anyone who calls for acting according to the Book and the Sunnah is a Wahhabi who hates the Messenger, does not love the Messenger, and does not send blessings upon the Messenger. They use this false accusation as a pretext to inform the rulers there about us. And the rulers there, as you know, are secular and do not care about religion, whether it is Islam or otherwise. When the investigation, questioning, and interrogation by the head of intelligence there took place, I answered that our call is based on the Book and the Sunnah and the methodology of the righteous Salaf, and that we are a group for reforming the ideas and beliefs that have entered among the Muslims, starting from tawhid (the oneness of Allah) to purifying the books of the Sunnah from weak and fabricated hadiths and some of the jurisprudential rulings, and so on. After that, when the man heard my answer, he said: The complaint was that this man holds lessons. And indeed, I was holding lessons, but not in the mosques, rather in a headquarters we had there. So they wanted to prevent us from teaching, even in some houses, because the youth, what Allah willed, were eager, with a number like this or more sometimes. When they heard what I was doing, this interrogator said to me: Then go and teach, but do not approach politics. He said this word, and I counted it. I said to him: I told you just now that we do not engage in politics, not because politics is not part of the religion, because it is sufficient for us that the Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah wrote his famous treatise called *Al-Siyasah al-Shar'iyyah* (The Lawful Politics). But – here is the point – the point is, I said: But I see, in my opinion now, due to the much deviation that has surrounded the Muslims from the creed and from the Sunnah, that from politics now – this is my opinion – leaving politics is the way, not because politics is not part of the religion; politics is part of the religion, but I see now in our situation in this country – I mean there – that from politics, leaving politics is the way. So he said to me: Goodbye.
So the point is: I do not believe that political work is contrary to the Shari'ah, otherwise how would nations and peoples be governed except by lawful politics? But each has his path and each has his time. So now we need to make the Muslims understand, on two matters that I always keep returning to:
What I call purification and education.
And in my belief, these two obligations are such that the scholars of the Muslims today, if they directed their ambitions and efforts to achieving these two foundations or these two pillars, would not be able to do so except after many long years, because reforming what has become corrupt over the years and centuries is not easy to renew its structure. And this is what urges us to persist and continue on what our brother was upon. Our brother 'Abd al-Rahman, and as you know, he is a graduate of the Islamic University, and he was also one of my students. So he should have committed himself to the da'wah (calling others to Islam) and educated those around him on this foundation, and not occupied himself with political work, especially since he lives under a rule that has not practically declared the judgment of the Shari'ah of Islam. As for it being taken as a slogan that the state is an Islamic state, even the Syrian state says this in the constitution, but as they say: "It is merely ink on paper". For this reason, I do not see political work at all, because of the danger of harming those who engage in it regarding many of the rulings of the Shari'ah, and especially after his statement of that speech. This is what comes to my mind now as an answer to that question.