What is the ruling on these demonstrations by the young men and young women

The Shaykh : Praise is to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our own souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whoever Allah guides, none can misguide, and whoever He misguides, none can guide. And I bear witness that there is no god but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. , , . As for what follows:
One of the means prescribed by Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) in His Book and in the Sunnah of His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) for receiving knowledge is what came in His saying (the Exalted): . Based on this, we say: Ask, and let your questions be directed, without chaos, mixing, commotion, or noise, but rather by raising the hand as a sign of permission. Let us start with the person on the right. Please.

The questioner : ... In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, seek His forgiveness, and seek His guidance. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our own selves and from the badness of our deeds. Whom Allah guides is the rightly guided, and whom He leaves astray, you will find no guiding guardian for him. As for what follows:
His EminenceThe Shaykh : I have some very important questions, and they concern some of the youth. These are the questions, and I ask the forgiveness of my noble brothers because they are very important for the Ummah, that I pose them to your eminence. They are: First, what is the ruling on these demonstrations? For example, many young men or young women gather, then they go out to...

The Shaykh : And the young women as well?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : What Allah willed!

The questioner : Yes, this has happened; they go out into the streets to condemn certain actions committed by the tyrants, or certain things these tyrants order, or what other opposing political parties demand. What is the ruling on this action in the Shari'ah of Allah?

The Shaykh : I say—and success is from Allah—the answer to this question falls under a rule, which is the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in the hadith narrated by Abu Dawud in his Sunan, from the hadith of Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As (may Allah be pleased with them both), or from the hadith of Ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both)—I am uncertain now—which says: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . The point of this hadith is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): . Thus, a Muslim imitating a disbeliever is not permissible in Islam. This imitation has levels in terms of ruling, starting from prohibition and descending to dislike. The Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) detailed the discussion of this in his great book titled "Iqtida' al-Sirat al-Mustaqim Mukhalafat Ahl al-Jahim" (Following the Straight Path: Opposing the People of the Hellfire) in a detail we do not find with anyone else (may Allah have mercy on him).
I want to point out another matter that students of knowledge should pay attention to, and not assume that imitation is the only thing prohibited in the Shari'ah. There is something else more subtle than that, which is opposing the disbelievers. Imitating the disbelievers is doing their actions, whereas opposing the disbelievers is intentionally differing from them in what they do, even if the action coming from them is one they have no control over, unlike what is imposed on them by cosmic necessity, such as gray hair, which is a cosmic law in which the Muslim does not differ from the disbeliever, because it is not in their power or their will, but rather it is the law of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) in humanity: . And yet, it is authentically reported from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that he said: . A Muslim may share with a disbeliever in gray hair, which is imposed on both with no difference; you will not find a Muslim who does not grow gray except very rarely, just as you will not find a disbeliever who does not, a fortiori. Thus, there is a sharing in appearance between the Muslim and the disbeliever in a matter they do not control, as we said earlier. So the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) commanded us to intentionally oppose the polytheists by dyeing our hair, whether it is the beard or the hair of the head. Why? So that the difference between the Muslim and the disbeliever is apparent. What do you say if the disbeliever strives to do something, and then some Muslims do their action and are influenced by their deeds? This is more severe and more painful than mere opposition. Therefore, I wanted to point this out before proceeding to explain the answer to the question that was asked.
Once you know the difference between imitation and opposition, the sincere Muslim in his Islam always and forever tries not to imitate the disbeliever, but rather intentionally opposes the disbeliever. From here, our Sunnah is to wear the watch on the hand, because the custom of the disbelievers, who invented this watch, is that they wear it on their left hand. This is what we derived from his saying (peace be upon him): . Do you know this hadith? . As the Shaykh al-Islam (may Allah have mercy on him) says in that book, his saying (peace be upon him): is an explanatory phrase indicating that opposing the disbelievers is intended by the Wise Lawgiver wherever this opposition is realized. Therefore, we find its application in some other rulings, even if it is not in the category of obligation, such as his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): . It is known that praying in slippers is not obligatory, unlike letting the beard grow, which is obligatory, and the one who shaves it sins. As for praying while wearing slippers, it is a recommended practice. If the Muslim persists and is consistent in establishing the prayer always and forever barefoot, not wearing slippers, he has opposed the Sunnah, and he has not opposed the Jews who are extreme in their religion. It was reported in some of the dictionaries of the books of the Sunnah that Abdullah ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) was in a gathering and the prayer was established, and among them was his companion Abu Musa al-Ash'ari (may Allah be pleased with them both). He put him forward to lead the people in prayer as imam, because Ibn Mas'ud knew first that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was pleased with the recitation of this Abu Musa (may Allah be pleased with him), where he said to him one day: . Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . When Abu Musa heard this praise from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), he said: "O Messenger of Allah, if I had known that, I would have adorned it for you with adornment." Because of what Ibn Mas'ud knew of the Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) satisfaction with the recitation of Abu Musa, he put him forward as imam, even though Ibn Mas'ud was not inferior to Abu Musa in excellence in recitation; rather, he was perhaps higher and more noble than him in that. And the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said about him: . Nevertheless, this in reality gives us a practical lesson, we Muslims, in the last of time; where we may find an awakening in knowledge, but we—regrettably—do not find with it an awakening in behavioral and moral conduct. So do not hold me accountable if I tell you: I feel that when you enter this place, you push and shove and compete, and this is not of Islamic morals. We must represent the awakening in both its aspects: in knowledge, and in conduct and morals.
The point is that Ibn Mas'ud—in our view—was a more proficient reciter than Abu Musa, and yet he humbled himself before his companion and preferred him, so he put him forward to lead him and the people present in prayer. So Abu Musa (may Allah be pleased with him) stepped forward—and the point is—he was wearing his sandals, so he took them off. Then Ibn Mas'ud said to him, expressing the strongest disapproval: "What is this Jewish practice? Are you in the Holy Valley?" He was referring to his saying (peace be upon him): . Once you know these two realities—the prohibition of imitating others on one hand, and the exhortation to differ from the polytheists on the other—then it is obligatory for us to avoid all manifestations of shirk (associating partners with Allah) and kufr (disbelief), whatever their type, as long as they represent imitating them, and so that we avoid being overtaken— we, the people who adhere to the Book and the Sunnah—by his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): . This is a report from the Prophet (may Allah bless him and his family) that contains a warning, and that is because this Ummah (Muslim community)—he (peace and blessings be upon him) said in an authentic hadith, indeed a mass-transmitted hadith: , and in another narration: . So the Messenger (may Allah bless him and his family) has given us good news in this authentic hadith that the Ummah will remain in goodness. So when that serious report comes——it does not mean that every individual in the Ummah will follow the ways of the disbelievers, but rather that it will happen within this Ummah. So when he says: , it means a warning; that is: beware of following the ways of those before you, for there will be among you those who do so. And in another narration outside the "Two Sahihs"—which is established in my view—the Messenger depicts the imitation of the disbelievers to a dangerous degree that a person hardly believes unless he is a pure believer, and reality confirms this. He (peace be upon him) said in that narration: , commits zina (unlawful sexual intercourse) with his mother, and he is not covering himself, nor his mother, but rather in the sight of people and on the side of the road. There will be among you those who do that.
Modern history today confirms what the Prophet (may Allah bless him and his family) foretold about some of this Ummah following the ways of those before us; it has come to pass to a far and very far extent. And although I believe that this following has a remainder, it is mentioned in some established hadiths that the Prophet (may Allah bless him and his family) said: , which is the great sin, . This is the ultimate imitation of the disbelievers.
Once you know the prohibition of imitation and the command to differ, we return now to these demonstrations that we saw with our own eyes in the time of France when it was occupying Syria, and we heard about them in other countries, and this is what we heard recently in Algeria. But Algeria surpassed the other countries; it surpassed the other countries in this misguidance and this imitation. Because we did not see the young women—also—participating in the demonstrations. This is the complete imitation of the disbelievers and disbelieving women. Because we see in the pictures—sometimes—and in the news broadcast on television and radio and the like, thousands of disbelievers coming out; whether they are Europeans or Chinese or the like. They say in the Shami expression—and you will like this expression: "They come out, women and men, a mixed crowd." This is how we say it: "a mixed crowd." They jostle shoulder to shoulder, and perhaps buttock to front! And the like. This is the complete imitation of the disbelievers: that the girls come out with the boys to demonstrate!
I am saying something else: In addition to the fact that this demonstration is a phenomenon that imitates the disbelievers in their methods of protesting some laws imposed on them by their rulers, or displaying their satisfaction with some of those rulings or decisions, I add to that something else; namely: these European-style demonstrations, then adopted by Muslims, are not a Sharia (Islamic sacred law) means for reforming the governance, and thereby for reforming the society. And from here, all groups and all Islamic parties err who do not follow the path of the Prophet (may Allah bless him and his family) in changing the society. The change of the society to the Islamic system is not achieved by slogans and shouts and demonstrations, but rather it is achieved through silence and spreading knowledge among the Muslims and educating them in this Islam, until this education bears its fruit, even if after a long time. The educational means in the Islamic Sharia differ completely from the educational means in the disbelieving states.
With this, I say briefly: The demonstrations that take place in some Islamic countries are, in principle, a departure from the path of the Muslims and an imitation of the disbelievers. And the Lord of the worlds said: —in everything—.