Do we have to obey the rulers?

When I first came across this video, I considered responding to it at that time. But frankly, I hesitated because the topic is just so annoying, to be honest. Because it just feels like one of those issues that every generation of Muslims has to just go through over and over again as if the matter has never been clarified, as if there's been no educational progress. But then precisely because this is that kind of issue that every generation seems to have to pass through on their way to maturity and knowledge, I thought it might be potentially useful to address it. So I'm just gonna play the clip and pause throughout to respond.

Are we required to obey the rulers today as Muslims considering that the rulers are tyrants, they torture people, kill people, they steal everyone's wealth, they collude with foreign nations against their own people. Most importantly, they rule with other than what Allah has revealed.

Okay. Stop. Right off the bat, he's throwing out generalities and accusations as if they are indisputable facts. So this is what you need to do if you're interested in having a serious discussion. Which rulers are we talking about?

Which rulers are tyrants? Which rulers are killing and torturing people and stealing everyone's wealth? Which rulers are colluding with foreign nations against their own people, and which are ruling by other than what Allah revealed. And each one of these allegations has to be substantiated. And I mean substantiated in terms of both proving that the torture and killing and theft and collusion are factually taking place, but also in terms of proving that none of this is justified on the basis of national security or providing for the general welfare of the society.

Now with regards to ruling by other than what Allah revealed, that is a complex discussion. I mean, you have to prove that they are ruling by what is contrary to what Allah revealed and or that the sharia does not form the fundamental basis for the laws and policy making of the government. Because the mere existence of unrevealed law, non Wahi based, non sharia laws and regulations in their legislation does not constitute ruling by other than what Allah revealed. It constitutes ruling by what Allah revealed as well as by rules and regulations and laws that are dictated by situational necessity that are not stipulated by the sharia, that are not stipulated by Quran and Sunnah. Matters that are mubah, which is something they are allowed to do and it is something that every Muslim ruler has always done throughout all of Islamic history.

Furthermore, you have to prove that the extent to which they are ruling by other than what Allah revealed constitutes open kufr or that certain aspects of the Sharia are not just being compromised for reasons of, again, national security or the general welfare of the population of the people. There may exist some sort of imperative or necessity that requires compromise. And are those aspects that can be compromised? This is a very complex discussion. And frankly, you can't actually talk about whether or not a country is ruling by other than what Allah revealed unless you're Fatih because it's not as simple a matter as you might think it is.

There's some Muslims out there. They say that we are required to obey these rulers and not rebel against them, not even speak out against them in public based on the hadith of the prophet who orders us to obey the rulers, not rebel against them and not speak out against them in public and so

Yes. There are many many hadiths commanding obedience to the ruler even if that ruler is a tyrant, even if they are killing and torturing people and stealing their wealth, even if they are colluding, even if they're doing all manner of things that you do not recognize as acceptable Islamically. Even if they're ruling by other than what Allah revealed as long as that does not constitute open kufa. Now when I was younger, these hadiths were very hard to swallow and I totally understand why any young people today would also have a hard time with them. Though the disastrous rebellions in Egypt, in Syria, in Libya, and elsewhere should make it a little bit easier to understand the reasonableness and the wisdom of these hadiths.

So how does this apply today? Well, the whole thing comes down to a pretty simple point, which is contracts. In order to understand this, look at a contract between, for example, a contractor. Say he's gonna build an extension or fix something. Imagine that the a contractor barges into your house and just starts building stuff. And

after he finished building, he says, you owe me a lot of money. He say, I don't owe you anything. He says, but the prophet said you have to pay the worker before his sweat dries. The thing is there was no valid contract. So he doesn't have any of the rights afforded to a person who has a contract for such work.

And the same thing for the ruler and the rule. The position of the ruler is a position that is contracted. It's an agreement, and it's called the bayah, which is a pledge of allegiance between the people and the ruler. That the ruler rules with Islam and the people obey him as long as he's ruling with Islam. So if you don't have a valid contract, you have none of the rights that Islam gives the ruler, and the people have none of the responsibilities that they have towards the ruler.

And therefore, all these hadith and all these ayah that talk about the ruler and so on, they only apply to a hadith that is legitimate according to Islam, according to the conditions of a valid ruler ruled contract. And therefore, people who say that we have to obey the rulers today, no, we don't.

Okay. So now we get to the crux of his argument, which is that he has found the ultimate loophole for, justifying rebellion against the rulers. There's no contract. There's no bayah. There's no formalized consent of the governed.

Therefore, the rulers are all illegitimate and they have no claim on the rights that are granted to them in the hadiths about obedience. Again, of course, this is not a new argument. It's an old one. And when I was first new in Islam, I would have thought it was just as brilliant as he seems to think it is, but it's not brilliant. So again, let's try to get specific.

He is alleging that the Muslim rulers have no bayah, no formal consent of the people to govern. Okay. Which rulers? There are about a 190 Muslim majority countries in the world. So which countries are we talking about and which rulers?

The Muslim majority countries that have the largest Muslim populations in the world are Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, and Turkey. Those are all officially democracies and mostly functional democracies with the exception of Egypt and currently Pakistan, but we'll get back to that later. So in these countries, with the largest Muslim populations in the world, they literally elect their rulers by democratic process. And in fact, most Muslim countries, despite what you may think, most Muslim countries have some form of parliamentary democracy whereby the the the people elect the parliament and then the parliament elects or appoints the ruler. Either the head of the party becomes the ruler or they elect the ruler or they appoint the ruler, on and so on.

So essentially, you have the MPs giving bay'ah on behalf of the people whom they represent, which is similar to the actual way that the bay'ah was traditionally conducted throughout Islamic history. I mean, historically, the Khalifa was not elected by a popular vote. He was selected by, for example, tribal leaders or other influential members of the Muslim community who would give bay'ah on behalf of the people. This group of people who gave the bayah were known as the the people who tie and untie or bind and unbind. And it just means the most powerful influential elite members of the society.

So yes, you can say that in these countries, in the majority of Muslim countries, the rulers do possess the necessary consent to rule. Now, if you're talking about Muslim countries that have monarchies, like say Morocco or Jordan, where the king does still have considerable power, he doesn't have absolute power. You still have elected legislatures And the king and the royal family, the monarchies generally, in Jordan and in Morocco, in Brunei for example, they have the support of tribal leaders, industrialists, powerful business people, and other influential players in society. In other words, they have the support of what could be called the in their countries. In the Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia, like Qatar, like The UAE, the ruling families absolutely have the support of the largest families and tribes in their territories, and they do literally receive bayah from them.

Now what he's talking about, this sort of stereotype of the, you know, imposed dictator ruler in a Muslim country, That maybe only accurately applies to countries that were Muslim majority countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union like say Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and so on. But there is pretty purely autocratic rule. However, you can be certain that even in these countries, those rulers have the endorsement of the most powerful influential corporate business military and intelligence components of the society. The most influential and powerful players in their countries support the ruler, which brings us back to Egypt and Pakistan where democratically elected rulers were overthrown. Muhammad Morsi in Egypt and more recently in Pakistan, Imran Khan.

Arguably, in both Egypt and Pakistan, the El Al Halawwal Akt is the military, and they appointed who they appointed. Now none of these methods for installing a ruler are unheard of in the history of the Khilafa, and none of these methods invalidates the bay'ah requirement because bay'ah does not necessitate popular democratic elections, but only the approval or the endorsement of the most prominent elite segments of the community. I I think it's fair to say that you would be hard pressed to find a Muslim ruler in any Muslim country who does not enjoy the support of the elites in his country, whether those are tribal leaders, industrialists, business leaders, or the army. It's kind of an awkward conundrum for these khilafaist type people in that they insist that khilafa is the only valid form of government and that democracy is kufr, but then they usually find themselves arguing for khilafa on the basis of democratic legitimacy. Abu Bakr radiAllahuahu was not elected by popular vote.

He was selected by committee, and there were various methods for appointing a Khalifa and establishing his legitimacy ever since. And none of these methods was by popular mandate. Now I have nothing against popular mandate, but you cannot honestly claim that popular mandate, popular vote, election, what have you, is the prerequisite for establishing the contractual legitimacy of a government, of a ruler, and that only by popular mandate is that ruler then covered by the rights that are granted to him in the hadiths by Rasulullah about obedience. The truth of the matter is that we had rulers who were appointed by the elites of society for over a thousand years, and that is what we still have in many places alongside a couple dozen countries where they have democratically elected rulers. So, yes, those hadiths apply today whether we like it or not.

Now if the elites, if the of our societies who are appointing the rulers, If those people are corrupt, that's a separate issue, and perhaps it would be more useful for you to try to address that issue rather than rebelling against the rulers.