A Response to Those Who Cite the Hadith (Whoever Sees an Evil Among You, Let Him Change It with His Hand) as Evidence for the Permissibility of Rising Against the Ruler

The Shaykh : One of them, based on the previous research you just heard the completion of later.
It was reported from one of the attendees in the previous session, or in the one before that, that he said: What do we do with his saying (peace be upon him): The answer is that this argument, or this doubt, if we do not call it an argument, indicates that these people who throw themselves into destruction do not yet know Islam! I mean, they have not understood Islam correctly and purely—Glory be to Allah—and by its opposites, things become clear. There are scholars of weight among the Khalaf, and I do not say among the Salaf, who interpreted the hadith as the opposite of these people's argument with this hadith. Two opposites cannot coexist.
The truth lies between them. How is that? Some of those scholars said the meaning of the hadith is: To whom is the address? They said to the rulers: Whoever sees an evil among you, O rulers, O scholars, or among the general people.
This interpretation of the hadith is a denial, like the examples we presented in the previous session of what some Islamic sects did in the past and present, where they interpreted the texts in a way that neither the language nor the Shari'ah indicates. This distinction is invalid because you feel with me that the address is to the Ummah: "Whoever sees an evil among you," like the verse: "Among you, O Ummah," the Ummah that enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong. Likewise, he (peace be upon him) said: "O Ummah, rulers and ruled, scholars and students of knowledge, and others" . This interpretation, as you see, is invalid. Opposing it are others, and among them are those who rise against the rulers and confront them before the preparation I referred to earlier. They say: Yes, what do we do with the hadith: Yes, the rulers rule by other than what Allah has revealed, so it is necessary, yes, that we resist them.
We say: The scholars say—I do not say based on a hadith, but I mention that it is a weak hadith—but as I say in many hadiths, its meaning is correct. He said: A hadith attributed to the Messenger, mentioned in some books like Ihya Ulum al-Din by al-Ghazali, but the muhaddith al-Hafiz al-Iraqi clarified that it is a weak hadith. But we say its meaning is correct. Why?
Because there are important Islamic legal rules that every Muslim, a student of knowledge, let alone a scholar, must know about and remember that any rule the scholars establish, they have taken it from various texts, not from a single text.
Yes, this derivation is not mastered by every student of knowledge, and indeed many people of knowledge may not master it. So every scholar, let alone a student of knowledge, should benefit from the efforts of the scholars who came before him.
Among these rules is what I mentioned in this hadith: .
So now, an example of what indicates this rule: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), when Allah gave him victory over the disbelievers of Quraysh and he entered Mecca as a conqueror, performed the 'Umrah, and entered the interior of the Ka'bah and prayed two rak'ahs for Allah.
When he came out, his wife 'A'ishah (may Allah be pleased with her) wanted to do what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) did, that is, to enter the Ka'bah and pray two rak'ahs. And the Ka'bah at that time, as it is today, cannot be entered except by the special few, or by a ladder, because the door, as you who have performed Hajj or 'Umrah have seen, is high and tightly locked, and it is not opened except politically, meaning for these rulers. And among them may be one who, if there were a Shari'ah ruling, would have his head cut off, yet he enters the interior of the Ka'bah.
So, Lady 'A'ishah wanted to do what her Prophet and husband did, to enter the Ka'bah and pray two rak'ahs. He (peace be upon him) said to her, and he was gentle with his family: , and you know the Black Stone, which is surrounded by a wall: . The point is, he said: . How sweet Islam is, it is all ease!
But what the Messenger did, and this is changing evil by hand, because this was from the construction of the Jahiliyyah. The Ka'bah, for example, because I do not remember its area now, it may have been ten by ten or fifteen, was double that, meaning the Black Stone was part of the Ka'bah. So in a loss, the Messenger (peace be upon him) wanted to return the Ka'bah to the construction, to the foundation of Ibrahim (peace be upon him). The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) wanted to rebuild the Ka'bah on the foundation of his father Ibrahim (peace be upon him). He did not do it. Why? Because he did not want to change the evil, and he is the one who taught us and said: . Not because he performed a comparison between this reform and the corruption that might result from it.
And the corruption that might result from this reform is the apostasy of those with weak faith.
It came in some authentic hadiths that a man came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and asked him what is permissible for a husband to do with his wife while she is menstruating.
Why did he ask this question? Because the Jews, these misguided ones who deviated from the Torah, used to see, and perhaps those among them who still hold to the religion still remain in this misguidance, that when the wife menstruated, they confined her to a room and did not mix with her. The husband here was forbidden to her, she was forbidden to him, complete separation, because she was menstruating, as if she were impure.
So when that man asked the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) what is permissible for a man with his wife while she is menstruating?
He said: , meaning except for intercourse. Do everything with the menstruating wife. The address is to the husbands: .
When the Jews heard this news, they said: We do not see this man except that he wants to oppose us in everything.
He wants to oppose us in everything. So the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said to 'A'ishah, explaining to her what was in his plan, which was to rebuild the Ka'bah on the foundation of Ibrahim (peace be upon him), but there is an obstacle. What is the obstacle? He said: If we demolish the Ka'bah, what will the weak in faith say? They have not left us anything except that they will change it for us, just as the Jews said in response to that question: .
Here is a rule from which the scholars took their saying: If a Muslim falls between two harms and he has no way to avoid either, both are necessary, what does he do? He says: He accepts the lesser harm against his will in order to avert the greater harm.
So now, the lesser harm for Muslims in all lands of the world is this ruling by other than what Allah has revealed, because this is not of their making and not with their consent. But if people rise against this ruler under the claim of changing evil, they will not benefit anything, because this change of evil will not change it. And as they say in some countries: "The eye does not match the awl." The eye, which is of fat and flesh, does not match a stab from an awl. So these young men who are enthusiastic about establishing the rule of Allah on earth, from time to time we hear that they have risen and that they have killed, and then we hear that for every one of these soldiers or police killed, a hundred of them were killed, thousands upon thousands were imprisoned!
This is due to their ignorance of the rule: "If a Muslim falls between two harms, he chooses the easier of them." Therefore, we say that it does not contradict striving to achieve the saying of Allah the Exalted mentioned earlier: . Striving in this and turning a blind eye for now to this rising which has no benefit except harm, except "a bundle of straw on a camel's load," as they say. At that time, we say that citing his saying (peace be upon him): is negligence of the fact that the Messenger saw some evils and remained silent about them out of fear that a greater harm would result from changing the evil than the evil itself.