The Shaykh Al-Albani’s clarification of his position regarding governance systems that rule by other than what Allah has revealed, and an explanation of his role and status in spreading knowledge and teaching it to the people.

The Shaykh : I worked on an unpublished abridgment of Sahih Muslim, which I abridged by hand. Then, after three months, they expelled me. The point is, am I obligated to announce to the people that I said it clearly: I do not support this system because it is contrary to Islam? But I was not created for that; I was created for study, reading, and knowledge, and I work within these limits. — My lord, pardon me, may Allah reward you, take your ease. — So I am not a partisan. I am called upon from time to time, and the truth is, I say there: I am living between the millstones, the rulers on one side and the sheikhs of misguidance on the other. So I am living in a continuous jihad, and praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. But I do not publicize my jihad, because it is not my policy to publicize it. That policy might be for others, but my policy is knowledge. I once said to the head of the political section there in Damascus, about two or three years ago: he called me, as usual, and said to me: “You are holding meetings, and this is against the law. The decision was issued that any meeting exceeding three people is prohibited. You are holding a meeting in your house for men, and another meeting for women, and you are calling for the Wahhabi madhhab. How do these people know so much about the Wahhabi madhhab, if not for the sheikhs of misguidance? They are teaching them this.” A long discussion took place between us regarding these matters. I said to him: “I am not meeting in a room with locked doors, but the door is wide open, and whoever wishes may enter. In fact, in my house in the Muhajireen area, I have three rooms that I open every Tuesday, may Allah know, and I have internal loudspeakers, of course, and whoever wishes may enter. I said to him: “Naturally, they must attend, in the course of their duty. We are talking about matters of religion; we are not involved in politics.” That was my conversation with him, in which he asked me questions and I answered in detail. In the end, he found nothing by which he could hold me accountable in any of these aspects. He said to me: “Go back to your teaching, but do not engage in politics.” I reminded him of my previous statement that we are not involved in politics. I said to you before, but now I will tell you something I have not told you before: the clarification of the truth so that you know that I am not a hypocrite. We are now saying that we are not involved in politics because we see that the politics of the present is to leave politics and engage in building the foundation. I did this for him from below. He smiled and laughed and said to me: “Goodbye.” So we are always going back and forth, going back and forth, but there is nothing by which they can actually hold us accountable regarding public demonstrations. So I am surprised by the questioning of these people! I sometimes say to some of the extremists from some of the groups we mentioned earlier, from which we gave you an example: what do these Salafis have besides the Sunnah? Moving the finger, and hanging the spray watch in the mosque is an innovation. They know that they are feeding from my books, but may Allah fight envy. I say to them: “O people, suppose I am a book teacher. A book teacher with small children whom I am teaching. Am I fulfilling my duty or not? No one would say: No, you are not fulfilling your duty. Do these children who need to learn not need to be prepared to enter university?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : So, who prepares these small children? Who teaches them? The university professor, the respected doctors today? Of course not. The sheikhs and dervishes like us. So I consider myself a book teacher fulfilling this duty. What do you want from me more than this? Fulfill your duties: strive in the path of Allah, and so on. And I wish, where is the striving in the path of Allah? We do not want to sit and enter another aspect now. My purpose is to say: our jihad now, may Allah establish us, is in purifying this Islam as much as possible, as much as we can, and presenting what we can also, because I have books piled up. I do not say that a small one can produce them or otherwise. So, as much as we can in authorship and publication, we are presenting to the Muslim world. This is what I am able to do. So what do you want? Must every individual among the Muslims raise the banner that he is the enemy of the disbelievers in all the lands of the world, even the lands where they rule with Islam? It is not necessary. This is a matter that is premature. And I always say on such an occasion: the Sufis have some wisdom, and it is not necessary that we take the term Sufis and equate it with disbelief and misguidance, and that there is no wisdom or anything else. Among their wisdoms is: “Whoever hastens a matter before its time is afflicted with its deprivation.” Do you see this is profound wisdom? So I believe that we must truly begin with building the foundation, and raise the Muslim people, the conscious people, on this, not on university salaries!