A question about some of the rulings of the pledge of allegiance?

The questioner : Okay; also, regarding the issue of the pledge of allegiance, if a young man asked that he had taken an oath and pledge of allegiance upon himself, is it permissible for me to break it, or is it considered broken?

The Shaykh : ... broken, .

The questioner : Okay; now, since there is no pledge of allegiance, and there is no caliphate—for example—how is the unity of the Muslims? How is their cohesion? What is their position regarding the one who dies and has no pledge of allegiance upon his neck? How is that, I mean?

The Shaykh : The hadith is often raised, and the hadith is understood: for a person pledged to by the Muslims; so he dies and did not pledge to him, so he dies the death of ignorance. But if the matter is not as we have depicted—meaning: there is no caliph to be pledged to—then the meaning of the hadith is: the one who did not strive to establish a pledge of allegiance dies the death of ignorance.

The questioner : Yes, how is the striving?

The Shaykh : The striving is where the problem lies, the striving by what I call "purification and upbringing"; that is, that the group works.

Those present : Purification and upbringing.

The Shaykh : That the Muslim group works on these two fundamental points, even if they live the lifespan of Noah (peace be upon him) in purification and upbringing; I mean by purification that, without a doubt, our Islam today from the jurisprudential aspect is not like the first Islam; is there a doubt?

The questioner : No, there is no doubt.

The Shaykh : Ah, and without a doubt, the pure treatment that bore that fruit, the comprehensive, ripe, and abundant one, cannot return a second time except by the same cause that brought about that fruit; which is pure Islam.

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : So it is obligatory for the true group to work to purify Islam from what has entered it, so that the fruit returns ripe and beautiful, but this is not sufficient; it must be accompanied by upbringing; that is, that this generation is raised on this purified Islam. This requires tremendous efforts from sincere scholars, above all, and true researchers, and those who sweep the wide Islamic circle which has no limits; here people work, and there people work, and so on; then the first signs of the fruit we refer to begin. As for the Muslims being confused, not only in jurisprudence and rulings but in creed, and this confusion, or rather this disagreement, is among the strongest—if I do not say the strongest—causes that divided the Ummah and took away its wind and strength; so there is no way to unify their ranks ever except by returning to the first, pure Islam. And we do not have now a Prophet to whom revelation is sent who knows the right from the wrong, who knows the authentic hadith from the weak one; it requires efforts and tremendous efforts, then understanding the truth from these texts that have been verified. This is the path and this is the way to establish the Islamic society which establishes the caliph who must be pledged to.

The questioner : Yes, may Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : People have actually turned things upside down, so a party like the Tahrir Party, for example, imagines that by calling Muslims to political action and establishing a person to be pledged to, with his flaws and all, this is what will restore the caliphate and restore the Islamic society; "the one who lacks a thing cannot give it"!! And the Muslim Brothers, of course, we believe differently from those, but their path is also not straight, and especially since their own methodology is not unified.

The questioner : Many splits and many disagreements and positions, yes.

The Shaykh : Ah, so glory be to Allah!
"Sa'd drove them, and Sa'd was wrapped up *** This is not, O Sa'd, how camels are driven"
The questioner: It may have reached you that people went to "Saddam Hussein," and if we say they pledged to him, they agreed with him, then they turned back; did you hear anything of this?

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : Ah, yes, how did this happen? For three-quarters of a century you have been calling that the Qur'an is our constitution, and Muhammad is what? Our leader, and I don't know this recorded slogan they have, how do you go to seek victory from a person, the least that can be said about him is that he is a Sunni, a faction of the Muslim Brothers adopts him, a faction of the Muslim Brothers fights him, what is this unity? What is this policy that divides Muslims in their worship? It is not here... the author of "Fiqh al-Sunnah" as you know is "Al-Sayyid Sabiq".

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : "Al-Sayyid Sabiq" is from the disciples of "Hassan al-Banna," how is his book fought by the Muslim Brothers? It is one of the wonders!! They have no ideological unity at all, and therefore the matter reached them, in a period of the strength of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt, that they brought into the circle of the Muslim Brothers and in some sensitive positions some of the Shi'ah.

The questioner : There are Christians, I heard Christians.

The Shaykh : I don't know, what I know is Shi'ah.

The questioner : I don't know if their statement is true or not, they mentioned their names, but I did not verify the matter, because the matter was not much, I mean that...