A student speaks with Shaykh Al-Albani about a modern classification of Islamic societies based on events from the Prophet’s biography and the Shaykh’s comment on it.

The student : The classification of Shaykh Adnan of the societies, and perhaps you have looked into his classification.

The Shaykh : Perhaps, but I do not remember what he says.
The student : It seems he divides them into six or seven societies, including the Meccan period or the Meccan society, the Abyssinian society, where he saw the Muslims there under a disbelieving government and a Muslim ruler, and the Medinan society, which is the establishment of an Islamic state, strength, and jihad, and the Yemeni society, where the people of Yemen came as Muslims.

The Shaykh : Excuse me, if you please, we are not... Islamic societies.
The student : Islamic societies.

The Shaykh : What is the relation of the Abyssinian society?
The student : The situation of Muslims under a disbelieving state, and the ruler is Muslim.

The Shaykh : So does this become an Islamic society?

The questioner : He looks at it, I believe...

The Shaykh : No, but I mean, we are understanding an opinion, but in this way: if a group merely migrates to a country ruled by a non-Muslim, but he is just compared to the other kings, is it correct in your opinion to call this an Islamic society?
The student : No, it is not in his opinion, it is not in his opinion an Islamic society; rather, it is the society surrounding the Muslim. He means that this society surrounding the Muslim is... the whole society is Muslim, and around it... Islam... First, the Meccan society: the Muslims are oppressed, and the call is established, and so on. He sees that the society is Islamic societies.

The Shaykh : Did you notice what my question to the professor there was? Is it he who divides these sections into seven or six sections? Is the title "Societies" or is the title "Islamic Societies"?
The student : Societies.

The Shaykh: Yes.
The student : No, I made a mistake.

The Shaykh : Yes.
The student : I made a mistake.

The Shaykh : Praise be to Allah.
The student : I say "Islamic societies," not "the societies."

The Shaykh: How.
The student : The problem is with the definite article.

The Shaykh : Islamic.
The student : Societies.

The Shaykh : Societies or Islamic societies?
The student : No, perhaps he means societies.

The Shaykh : Yes, perhaps it is a problem.
The student : With the intention that it is "the societies," yes.

The Shaykh : Well, perhaps someone will come and bring them to ten.
The student : I did not say the number, did I, or not?
Another student: You said six societies, he divides them.
The student : He divides them like this, yes.

The Shaykh : He says about you.
The student : Yes, he divides them into six or seven, yes.

The Shaykh : I did not say about you.
The student : Of course, someone will come after him and make it ten.
Another student: Well, in your view, whether we speak to Shaykh Abdul Aziz, is there any time or Islamic environment or Muslims that are not under one of these societies according to his classifications?

The Shaykh : And what... this classification.
The student : Where am I as a Muslim, and who are those around me? And naturally, the responses to the partisans and their sayings follow from it, including rules like "taking the lesser of two harms." Where are we? To which society are we closest now? Each society has an environment and conditions. So if we agree, for example, with this society, we must adhere to the conditions that matched that society in that time, such as establishing an Islamic state. And if we are in something close to the Meccan society, we must do purification and education, and we must have knowledge, action, patience, and the call. And so on. A Medinan society, for example, an Islamic state, strength, jihad. And so on. An Abyssinian society, for example, Muslims under the shadow of a disbelieving state, patience, and sometimes the call may not be permissible for them according to the conditions between them and the ruler. A Medinan or Yemeni society, even if they came and declared their Islam, but the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) clarified their condition by saying: meaning what they are upon regarding prohibitions. So let the first thing you call them to be the testimony that there is no god but Allah, tawhid first. And so on. And he responds to the parties according to the environment we are living in now, meaning linking the past to the present, or the present to the past.

The Shaykh : I have not heard this hadith from him, and from a distance. If he were present now, I would have raised the question with him: does he not innovate new classifications? Because it opens up discussions for him, perhaps from those closest to him in thought and creed. So if we leave these classifications aside and apply the rulings that each of these societies requires with Shari'ah evidence, we would not have lost anything. But to set up such rules is a matter of extreme precision.
The student : He knows that there is precision in it.

The Shaykh : Therefore, it is not befitting for a person to mean that he should squeeze himself and distress...
The student : Perhaps in the classification, O Shaykh, it is an approximation of the image for students of knowledge.

The Shaykh : It is possible for him, but that hadith narrated in "al-Sahihayn" from the hadith of Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both) did not cross my mind: The hadith is long, What is the name of the society in which that prophet was, and what follows from it? Can this image be repeated? A scholar in the true sense, and he found himself in a society and continued to call and call, and no one responded. What concerns us now is that we say, "Let us see if this is the fourth section, or the fifth, or the sixth, or the seventh." Rather, we know that this is his obligation. This is a person. So if one person believed in him, what is the obligation of the second person who followed the first? And so on. So I fear that things will follow from this intellectual organization that we are not calculating for. Who knows... when it is thrown to him as an intellectual organization, or not? The Abyssinian society, according to your expression about it, what does he say about it? For example, what rulings follow for them?
The student : Regarding the ruling or the ruler, if he is Muslim or not. Does the righteousness of the ruler necessarily mean the righteousness of the subjects? We have the Tahrir Party, and righteousness, as they say, is from below and not from above. If it were from above, the Abyssinians would be more deserving.

The Shaykh : It might be a correct ijtihad, I mean. Here, the Tahrir Party does not accept that if the ruler is righteous, the people must necessarily be righteous. But they see that it is necessary to start from above. This is one of their illusions and errors. But in terms of real correlation, this is something a rational person cannot say. Noah (peace be upon him) stayed among his people for a thousand years minus fifty years, so there is no real correlation. I mean, the matter is not one of extreme precision and obscurity. I do not know what the professor's opinion or observation is.
The student : ... opinion, but this is the reality. The truth of this classification is that this group follows the path that one society can be divided into six other societies, and each society has a specific ruling that differs from the other society. And so on, one ruling splits until it becomes many rulings. So I say, if this detail is truly unprecedented, meaning a new classification that we have not known or recognized anyone in the predecessors pointing to, we do not say that ijtihad in this area is not permissible. But this ijtihad in this specific issue, in reality, does not lead to much benefit first, because the intended goal is the application of the Shari'ah rulings that the revelation began to descend with from when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) came or was sent, until it ended. Then notice also that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) was only in two societies, which are the Meccan society and the Medinan society. So the first experience must be formulated practically by the Messenger himself (peace and blessings be upon him) so that the application between it and the practical reality that people live in this and that is correct. Therefore, in reality, I see what our Shaykh did not see, that this classification is questionable.