Most of the rulers today do not judge by what Allah has revealed, nor do they raise the banner of jihad in the path of Allah. So what is the obligation of the Muslim youth today?

The questioner : There is a question here directed to you, O Shaykh, from one of the brothers. He says: Most of the rulers today do not judge by what Allah has revealed, nor do they raise the banner of jihad in the path of Allah. So what is the obligation of the Muslim youth today?

The Shaykh : The obligation of the Muslims is: . The obligation of the Muslims is to gain knowledge of the religion, to raise themselves upon this religion, and to raise those who take refuge with them, whether a spouse, a child, a brother, a neighbor, or a friend, in this manner. And we are always repeating two words: purification and education are necessary for establishing the Muslim state, and without them there is no way to establish it, ever, ever, ever. Purification and education are not an easy matter, as the honorable professor indicated earlier, that we who have lived to the age of forty or fifty, or more, may not witness the establishment of the Muslim state, all the more so. This is because history must repeat itself . If the believer truly believes that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is his model in everything, and one of these things is the important matter that Islamic groups today, with their various inclinations and methodologies, are constantly repeating, which is establishing the Muslim state, then we must adopt the means that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) adopted until he was able to establish the Muslim state. This is with the observation of a very significant difference, namely that Islam at that time was being revealed directly from Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) upon the heart of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). Therefore, the Companions of the Prophet did not need to search in books of hadith, books of tafsir, books of language, and so on, which are the prerequisites by which a Muslim today cannot understand Islam in the correct manner. The earliest Salaf did not need such prerequisites because they were taking the rulings of Islam directly from the Prophet of Islam. So all they had to do was raise themselves upon this correct Islam, and this is what the Messenger (peace be upon him) did with his noble Companions. As for us today, before we say: we want to raise ourselves upon Islam, we must understand Islam. Is the path to understanding Islam made easy and facilitated as it was in the first period of Islam?
The Shaykh: The answer, without any disagreement, is no. A very, very simple example: at that time, there was no science called the science of hadith, because they were receiving the hadith directly from its source. There was no science called the science of grammar and morphology, why? Because they were pure Arabs. But today, the Arabs themselves have become non-Arabs in their understanding. Because of that, in order for them to be able to understand the Qur'an correctly, they must study their language which they have forgotten. So look, if there are many, and very many, obstacles before us to enable us to apply Islam to ourselves, we must learn this Islam, and we cannot do so except by adopting the means by which we can understand Islam. And here is a Syrian joke they mention, and it does not matter to us if it is true, or it may be a joke containing wisdom, and it is: "They claim that a non-Arab Muslim man met a Jewish man on the road, so he drew his dagger from his waist, threatening this Jew, saying to him: First, accept Islam, or I will kill you. He said: What am I supposed to say? He said: By Allah, I do not know." This is just an example. If this is the threat, what is its benefit when he does not know his Islam? This joke has a very great impact on our reality, for most Muslims, as we always say, and always, do not know their Islam, even in creed. In fact, I will say it plainly: they do not know their Lord. The principle is that the Muslim knows his Lord, not like the polytheists, but better than the polytheists. Otherwise, what is the difference between him and the polytheists? The polytheists, their Lord the Exalted said about them: . So the polytheists were not disbelievers in the Lord of the worlds. So what about the Muslims today who say "Allah," but do they know Allah? Meaning, one in His essence, which is called by the scholars tawhid al-rububiyyah (oneness of lordship), and one in His worship, which is called by them tawhid al-uluhiyyah (oneness of worship) or tawhid of worship, and one in His names and attributes. Most Muslims do not know that at all. They do not understand the good word "La ilaha illa Allah" except with the polytheistic concept, meaning our Lord is one, no partner with Him, meaning no one creates with Him, no one provides with Him. The polytheists were like that. But these polytheists, their Lord the Exalted described them in the Noble Qur'an by saying: . This is the reality today among the Muslims themselves. Those who go, they claim, to visit the awliya (close friends of Allah) and the righteous, do not go to visit them to achieve the cause that the Messenger (peace be upon him) mentioned in some of his hadiths, after he had forbidden them from visiting graves, he said to them: . But today, they do not go to visit the awliya and the righteous to remember the Hereafter, but rather to seek aid from them and to seek blessing by supplicating at their shrines, and so on. All of this contradicts the testimony "La ilaha illa Allah." So where are the Muslims who want to establish the Muslim state, when most of them still do not know tawhid? And this is a very broad field.