The group that has come to know its Lord - Blessed and Exalted is He - why do they not combine proper organization with teaching the correct creed?

The questioner: This group that has come to know its Lord, why is it not built upon both proper organization and the correct creed?

The Shaykh: Oh Professor, the brother "Muhammad" mentioned earlier that , every person does what he can. We are now at the beginning of the path, so the question is wrong from the start. What I believe is that we should be clear: what is meant by the organization we are asking about: why do we not combine organization with correcting the creed? What is meant by organization?
And I do not force you to answer, perhaps I will say: this organization, if it is possible, then we say: come, let us gather, not all of us, meaning a select group of us who claim to have been given some understanding or knowledge or the like. Come, let us gather and look at what organization we can achieve now? And if it is of the type that cannot be achieved, then we are deceiving ourselves before others. So now: can it be that the one who keeps talking about organization is talking about an organization that cannot be achieved? The answer: No. Okay, so we want an organization that can be achieved; I say: it cannot be achieved.

The questioner: ... You were kind enough to say ... .

The Shaykh: I say: the organization that can be achieved cannot be achieved; therefore, do not rush me; why? Because we are still lacking, my brother, we are lacking. So now, if we want to explain the question, it returns to: why are we lacking? Let us see; why are we lacking?

Those present: ... the practicing scholars.

Another questioner: We do not have any of what you were kind enough to mention ... .

The Shaykh: No, I say: the great scholar, I - for example - say about myself: a great scholar! I am lacking!!

The questioner: So ... we say ... .

The Shaykh: Be patient a little.

Another questioner: We want the answer.

The Shaykh: Meaning we do not know ourselves. There are some weak hadiths or ones with no basis, but among the wisdoms is: "Whoever knows himself, he has known his Lord." We truly do not know ourselves, but we are better than others despite that; why? Others are arrogant, thinking their state is good, whereas we are aware of ourselves that we are falling short with our Lord, with our Prophet - (peace and blessings be upon him) - with ourselves, with our families, and so on. So if we are in this state of falling short, it is not right to ask: why not? What did you say? Do we not add organization to the scholarly effort and correcting the creed?
My brother, organization requires very important things, the basis of which is disinterest in this world. Is there among us a person who is disinterested in this world, or are we all drowned in the pursuit of this world? We are all drowned in the pursuit of this world except for a few individuals. These individuals do not organize; because they are scattered, one here in the east and one in the west, and so on. Therefore, let us start - as I always and forever say - with "purification and upbringing." This is not easy talk. We must live our whole lives, meaning stay in your place, with what? "Correcting concepts," and what? "Upbringing." So if we live and do what we can within these limits, I believe we have done what is obligatory. As for why we do not organize? The experience, my brother, we are living an experience like others. We call people to gather in a specific place on a specific day; you will find this one arrived five minutes late, this one ten minutes, this one a quarter of an hour, this one did not wait until the end, and so on. Are these the ones we want to organize with, to cooperate with? As I always and forever say: a person who cannot carry ten kilograms cannot carry twenty kilograms, let alone a hundred kilograms. So for one of us to be able to carry twenty kilograms, we must train him to carry ten, then eleven, then twelve, and so on. And this means upbringing. Where is the upbringing? Where are the scholars of upbringing?! Where are the guiding scholars, my brother?!
Therefore, when you say to me: why do we not organize? I say to you: where is the organizer? Where is the organizer?! We are arrogant, that is the truth. But we can take a book of tafsir from the sound tafsirs, a book on hadith, a book on creed, and so on, correct our beliefs and concepts, and so on. Then, as each of us becomes stronger, he walks a distance, or even distances, toward the goal that all Muslims keep talking about, but most of them do not work for it; and that goal is establishing Islamic rule.

The questioner : Now.

The Shaykh: Go ahead.

The questioner: You are trying to do something, and to precede the other groups in it, and to offer this Islamic society something new, which is the upbringing of the group so that they become scholars; these are the ones who carry the organization.

The Shaykh: I hope that I am with my brothers in this regard.

The questioner: If the one who teaches or educates people in creed and teaches them how to be scholars says: I cannot organize now; how about the one who is teaching them now?

The Shaykh: All the more so.

The questioner: This person, if a person is found who can.

The Shaykh: I gave you the answer; all the more so, others cannot.

The questioner: So how will we reach organization?
Muhammad Ra'fat: The question is stay in your place!

The Shaykh: Yes, but it does not mean that we are sitting like this; we are working, my brother. I do not know, the apparent thing, as it is said: man was not called man except because of his forgetfulness. I say: the groups that dream of establishing the state without shaking their shoulders; is it logical for a person to think of building a palace while he does not own the land? Of course, it is unreasonable. Do not blame us, we are not going to be like them. Why? I am thinking now of finding the land. We have not found the land yet, and until we find it, Allah knows, I may die and my son may come, and if he walks - (if Allah wills) - in my path in knowledge and action, and so on, he may achieve the capital or he may not. But what did that pre-Islamic poet say? "We die and are excused."

Another questioner: Yes.
"So I said to him: Do not let your eye weep, for *** we strive for a kingdom or we die and are excused."

The Shaykh: "And are excused," see how? Pre-Islamic, but a word of truth.

The questioner: Meaning that.

The Shaykh : Allow me a moment.
So our duty now, my brother, is to find this land. If we keep working day and night to find this land, it does not mean we are not working, we are not working, but we are not organizing. Why? Because the time for organization has not come. When will the time for organization come? When the land is found. Then this rational person thinks: we found the land, this palace we want to build; how many rooms? How many prayer halls in it? How many what? And so on, and how many floors? And so on, the details that are not my concern, but the concern of the engineers, of course. But now, thinking in this regard, which is what the others do, is exactly like the example of that foolish shepherd who sat one day under his hut, and had hung above his head a skin bag which he had filled with all his effort with butter. So he started thinking that tomorrow I will collect such and such money from the sheep, so I will get married, so Allah will bless me with a child, so I will discipline him and command him, and by the great Allah, if I command him and he does not obey me, I will hit him on the head with this stick. And lo, the skin bag fell on his head!! All these are dreams and fantasies!!
We are now, Professor, saying a word that I hope you will keep in mind: we must establish the land; that is all! Once we have established this land, we take the second step. What is the second step? Finding the stones that are necessary to lay the foundation for this towering building. Is that correct or not? Good. Can we now think about this building, which is obligatory? No one is saying it is not obligatory, but I also see among the wisdoms attributed to the Sufis—and of course, we do not believe in them entirely, yet in our fairness and moderation, we do not declare them disbelievers entirely, because they say: "There is no god but Allah," which is a word of truth, whether they misunderstood it or got it right in another way—among their sayings is: "Whoever hastens a matter before its time is afflicted with its deprivation." And this is what happened to the others, my brother. They did not establish the desired state, nor did they establish the small state that one of their callers drew their attention to when he said a very wise word: "Establish the state of Islam in your hearts, and it will be established for you in your land." So these people did not establish this small state, and consequently, they cannot establish that state.
Just now, one of our brothers told us that he was speaking with a man with whom he had little connection. This man wanted to know which group our brother belonged to. So each of them got to know the other. Our brother found out that the man was from the Tahrir Party group. These people want to establish the Muslim state. So a discussion arose: My brother, who establishes the Muslim state? The ruler. Good. Where does the Muslim ruler come from? Here they stop and insist that the Muslim ruler is the one who must change the face of the earth.
Good. And while they were in this discussion, two women appeared. If you saw them, you would not think that one of them was the wife of the Muslim man who wants to establish the Muslim state, and the other was his daughter. Are these the ones who establish the Muslim state?! So that we do not become like these people, we must work in our place day and night. After that, Allah (Mighty and Majestic) grants sovereignty to whom He wills.

Another questioner : Our Shaykh, an observation...

The Shaykh: Go ahead.