Is it permissible to warn against a man who advocates rising against a corrupt ruler if the people of authority and decision see it so, provided that a minor harm results from it?

The questioner : There is a question from one of the brothers, who is, if Allah wills, Blessed and Exalted is He, a student of knowledge, and we see much good in him. However, he spoke about an issue. He said regarding the matter of the corrupt ruler: before he spoke about this issue, he had preceded it with something. He said that rising against rulers has not brought anything but harm since, meaning, the era of the Umayyad state and after. He says this rising has not brought anything but great harm to the Ummah. But if this ruler is deposed by the people of authority and decision, and he is corrupt, and someone better than him is brought in, even if it is with a little harm—of course, the harm is considered, meaning, was it great or small, or such—then if the harm is very little and one or two or three people are killed in it, is this man... and he said this in a private gathering... should this man be exposed, spoken about, boycotted, and warned against?

The Shaykh : Start with the right. I see, may Allah bless you, before answering the crux of the matter, as they say, of this question, which is: is the one who said this speech boycotted, or what is the other word he said?

The questioner : He is warned against.

The Shaykh : He is warned against. Before answering this, I say that addressing a topic like this in this time is, as they say today, out of place. Because first, you do not have the people of authority and decision. Who are these people? So raising an issue based on the existence of a group of scholars whose words are listened to and whose orders are executed is, unfortunately, not present today in the Islamic world. Therefore, students of knowledge should not raise such theoretical, non-practical issues, because first—and this will come in the full answer, if Allah wills—this theory contradicts the methodology of the Salaf, one of whom, if asked about an issue, would not rush to answer it unless he would say, "Did that occur?" If he said yes, he would answer; otherwise, he would say, "Wait until it occurs, and you will find someone to give you a ruling." So it is the methodology of the righteous Salaf not to research theoretical issues, or as the professor here said, hypothetical ones. But I want to say that there are issues where raising them from this angle is hypothetical or purely theoretical, but no harm results from them other than that it is an extra in knowledge, or even a luxury in knowledge, as is known about many of the old Hanafi scholars who would assume hypothetical, theoretical matters that cannot be realized. And there are many, many examples, such as, for example, a man dies and leaves behind seventy grandfathers, and seventy grandfathers—what does each grandfather inherit? It is imagination within imagination. Some of the Shafi'is preceded our Hanafi group in imagination, and they, meaning, went too far, and even, meaning, took a path that should not be spoken of. One of their scholars said, for example, if a man has intercourse with his wife and his organ splits into two, and one part enters and the other does not, is the full ritual bath obligatory on him or not? Researching these matters, as you see, means... but no harm results from them. As for what the question was about, harms result from it. Harms result from it in the form of stirring up fitnah among the Muslims and those who rule them, and ruling by other than what Allah the Mighty and Majestic has legislated. And as they say, the violations we complain of from the rulers are enough for us. What do we need now to add to these matters that we speak of rightly? To stir up the rulers by talking about how if there is a corrupt ruler, but rising against him may achieve the benefit with less harm than the speech? If the scholars see that, where are these scholars? Therefore, I say more than this. I say that the rising mentioned in the Sunnah, as you know, where he said So if we see open disbelief, also with this hadith, it is permissible for us to rise. This rising that the Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, permitted in this hadith, addressed the Ummah of Islam, meaning, the one that is able to perform the obligation of rising. So we are now asking: is there a Muslim Ummah that can rise against a ruler from among the rulers of the Muslims and overthrow him so that they can replace him with a ruler who rules by what Allah has revealed? This is not present, because the Ummah is divided among itself in the most extreme division. And division, as you know, is weakness. And the verses are known that state that division is failure and weakness, and so on. This is regarding the ruler who, meaning, has reached the level of disbelief; it is not permissible to rise against him except with the ability to rise against him and benefit from this rising. As for the corrupt ruler, this is not permissible to delve into at all, because it contradicts, first, the hadith that does not permit it except if we see explicit disbelief. After this introduction or preamble, I say that that person, or the student of knowledge as you described, if he said such a speech, I do not see that merely such a speech justifies boycotting him, because the path of boycotting in this time is like rising; it does not benefit him, because there is no one among us who does not have a word, a slip, a sin. So if we did not see an error or slip in every person and boycotted him, we would increase in division upon division. But if we do not see boycotting him, we should clarify his error so that those who do not have knowledge from the general people are not deceived by his speech. This is my answer, and in brief: boycotting is not applicable. We say today that there are people who should be boycotted from among the open sinners and the wicked, and so on. Yet if we announced boycotting, they would boycott you, as that Syrian proverb says: a man who used not to pray repented and decided to pray. He went to the mosque for the first time and found a drunkard who said to him, "You are a drunkard and I am a sinner." So if we wanted to boycott all these who deserve boycotting, we would not be asked about us, because the majority are not the righteous. When is boycotting prescribed? As the Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, did with the three who were left behind. The Islamic community, all of them, hold fast. If an order comes from the Messenger to the wife of one of them, "Go to your father's house and leave him," today if you did this today with the wife who is asking you for a ruling—and this happens to me and to the professor, my husband is a drunkard, my husband does not pray, my husband is such and such—she brings ninety-nine disasters by moving. This is not permissible. You remain under his authority. This is a corrupt man, and according to the saying of some scholars, a disbeliever. You return with your children, what do you do with them? For you? Why are you asking? Why are you asking? Since your concern is the children. I mean that the legal rulings today, we do not have a community that applies them. So if it is said to people, "So-and-so must be boycotted, why? To discipline him," who will respond to you? No one will respond to you. Therefore, the weapon of boycotting today is not effective with open sinners and the wicked. So a fortiori, we should not boycott one another for a mere slip or error that came from him from the scientific side. But on the other hand, it is not permissible to remain silent about this error, especially if a social harm results from it. This is all I have, and Allah knows best.
Abu Malik: May Allah reward you with good, our Shaykh. From the question that was also raised, I say it seems that it is, meaning, the same question. Some of it answers some of it for us. When he speaks, he says "the people of authority and decision." The people of authority and decision do not exist except in a pure Islamic community, meaning, they are the ones who decide, they are the ones who start, and they are the ones who end. And so, in truth, when we say "the people of authority and decision," it remains, meaning, an issue related to the time in which people of authority and decision exist.

The Shaykh : There are no people of authority and decision today, my sir.
Abu Malik: All Muslims today are people of authority and decision.