What do we say about those who resort to parliaments?

The questioner : What do we say about this group who resort to parliaments? Are they abandoned and disbelievers?

The Shaykh : - What is this? This is too much for me. - No, we do not declare them disbelievers. First, they are either sincere or they have ulterior motives. As the noble brother mentioned earlier, regarding the wisdom narrated from 'Isa (peace be upon him), "You will know them by their fruits." If they have ulterior motives, and yet they participate with us, first in our Islam in general, and second in our Islam purified from what has entered it that is not part of it, in particular, then these people are of us and with us, but they have traded the Hereafter for the life of this world, so they are not disbelievers. However, if they are sincere, as we have come to know recently, some groups or one of the Islamic parties in Algeria—you have surely heard of it, the Salvation Front—these are our brothers in Islam and in the Salafi methodology to a great extent, but they became entangled and entered, or tried to enter, the parliament. Perhaps they will actually enter, because their votes outweighed the votes of the other parties. We can only think well of them first, but we do not support their entry into the parliament second, for the reason we always mention, and as I said briefly earlier, that parliaments are not an Islamic method. Here, we must remember the saying of Allah the Exalted: That is, if there are people with us on the line, on the straight path, and then they deviate slightly or greatly from it in some matters that do not take them out of the circle of Islam, it is not permissible for us to erase all their good deeds from our minds because of this evil they have committed. This is injustice, just as our Lord forbade in the previous verse: So the Muslim is the just one; he does not show favoritism, nor does he act unjustly, nor does he wrong people. Therefore, the word "they are disbelievers"—we must be far from it, completely. The most we can say is either that they made a mistake, and this is the least we can say, or that their goal was to reach power for personal purposes, for employment, for authority, and the like. This is a matter concerning the hearts, and none knows what is in the hearts except the Knower of the Unseen.

The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : And you as well.