How to respond to those who consider rebellion against rulers to be part of enjoining good and forbidding evil?

The questioner: All right, Shaykh, may I ask a question?

The Shaykh : Please go ahead.

The questioner: I said a moment ago that these people cannot even perform enjoining good and forbidding evil. I said they are not capable of this. So how do they want to engage in jihad? From this standpoint, they say, "We want to do this thing; we want to fight these rulers who beat us and judge by other than what Allah has revealed when we try to enjoin good and forbid evil." They want to strike this ruling so that they can appoint those who, in their opinion, judge by Allah, so that they can begin enjoining good and forbidding evil. Is there any detail from the Shaykh?

The Shaykh: Of course. If you agree with us that enjoining good is easier than jihad, did they succeed in enjoining good?

The questioner: No, of course not.

The Shaykh: Will they succeed in jihad?

The questioner: Definitely not.

The Shaykh: So they tried, they tried. I mean, their logic, their reason, did not help them to address the issue with such logic. I mean, I sometimes say, for example, you have the strength and energy to lift fifty kilograms on your back or with your hand, or whatever, and you want to lift one hundred kilograms. Is this reason? Is the result destruction and defeat, or is it rising up, energy, and strength? No doubt the outcome of this will be loss. I ask, how many years have passed for these people who tried their logic, which deviates from both reason and the Shari'ah? How many years have passed for them? So estimate for yourself.

The questioner: I cannot count for you the number, I cannot count for you, but it is a long time.

The Shaykh: I mean, a year? Say, say the minimum number.

The questioner: I do not have knowledge of the number so that I can estimate it.

The Shaykh: The important thing is that the signs do not bode well, because the matter requires taking the religious and cosmic means. They have not taken either of these, and it is clear and written in its title. So many groups rose up in various Islamic lands and rebelled with such rebellions, then they returned with empty hands, or rather, not even with empty hands.

The questioner: All right, they have another objection. I once spoke, our Shaykh, with one of the brothers who said, "I went to Sweden to study computer science."

The Shaykh: To

The questioner: Sweden

The Shaykh: Sweden

The questioner: To study computer science and how to use the laboratories. And I informed him of the harms, and he was with the honorableThe Shaykh : Abu Malik, so I informed him of the harms. He was complaining, saying, "He goes from the university to the mosque and to the room where he lives." So you told him it is not permissible for him to do that. And at the same time, now we have pointed out that they want jihad but do not even possess a needle to know how to make one locally to sew a patch on their clothes. So they sayThe Shaykh : They say it is not permissible to go out until we leave the country to learn so that we know how to make things ourselves. And he also says, when we call for jihad and such, he says, "We do not possess weapons, so how do we reconcile these two contradictions? We have become, in their view,

The Shaykh: What did the Messenger (peace be upon him) do? What did the Messenger do? The Messenger is the role model. This belief has been practically abrogated from the minds of the Muslims. The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) did not defeat the Persians and the Romans, who at that time were most like America and Russia before their defeat. They were the two great powers controlling the known world at that time. Then the Muslim group arose under the leadership of the Messenger (peace be upon him). Did the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) achieve victory with material weapons as the basis, or with spiritual weapons?

The questioner: Spiritual weapons, of course.

The Shaykh: Spiritual does not contradict the use of material weapons within the limits of possibility, but the principle is spiritual weapons. Now they reverse the issue. They say, for example, as you quoted, thatThe Shaykh : He says it is not permissible to go to the lands of disbelief to learn, for example, the sciences that help them with material preparation. This is fully understood. Why does he sayThe Shaykh : This? Do they not know that the Shari'ah does not want Muslims to entangle themselves in moral harms, and perhaps doctrinal and intellectual harms? They know this truth. So they want, as some Islamic preachers today explicitly state, that the end justifies the means. That is, to be materially strong, we must be like the Europeans in material preparation. This is not acceptable. And in my belief, it is not possible for Muslims, and for the Islamic state when it is established—and we hope that will be soon—it is not possible for this state, in terms of material preparations, to be like the disbelievers, because the disbelievers are dedicated to this aspect of material preparation, unlike the Muslims, rulers and ruled alike, who are not dedicated to material preparation but are directed toward spiritual preparation before material preparation. Therefore, these people referred to by some preachers want to follow the path of the Jews, the path of the disbelievers. And this, of course, is not permissible, because Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has branded and stamped the disbelievers with His saying in the Noble Qur'an: Muslims must be in the exact opposite position, except what Allah wills, to the extent of applying the saying of Allah the Exalted: Material strength, but the primary strength is spiritual and faith-based. And therefore, this objection that I quoted from the group also indicates their deviation from the correct Islamic jurisprudence. If we say, for example, that it is not permissible for Muslim women to enter mixed universities because there is corruption in it, exposing the girls and the young men to fitnah, we will be asked, "Where do we get nurses and female doctors, and so on?" This is actually said. We say in some proverbs, "For every drop in the neighborhood, there is a catcher." Not all women and Muslim youth, and not every individual among these, has the capacity to apply the Shari'ah rulings in their entirety. So if someone says, as you heard just now, that the person who spoke from Thailand was asked, "What is riba?" If we said, "The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Do all Muslims respond to this command? The answer is no. Only a few of them do. This is despite the fact that there is an explicit text: And there is no explicit text that the general people understand as they understand this explicit text regarding riba. There is no explicit text forbidding ikhtilat, especially if it is interpreted to acquire a science from the necessary sciences. So I do not imagine that all Muslims and Muslim women will submit to this Shari'ah ruling. So the existence of female doctors, as an example, will be achieved by the deviant individuals. It is not necessary for us to be the scapegoat. It is permissible for this deviant person to be harmed, in whole or in part, in his honor or his reputation. And yet, in the end, she will be a doctor and treat Muslim women instead of being treated by a male doctor. So the end does not justify the means, and the doubt I raised just now stems from this Jewish principle.

The questioner: You quoted it, my Shaykh.

The Shaykh : May Allah reward you with good.