Carrying the Call and the Trust of Change
The Muslim Ummah lives in a painful reality, torn apart by crises from all sides, and burdened by political, economic, and military dependence on the colonizing West. Its lands are divided, its wealth is plundered, its blood is shed, its holy sites are desecrated, and its peoples are languishing under the rule of unjust, treacherous regimes that rule by disbelief, guard the interests of colonialism, and implement its projects. In the midst of this reality, the carriers of the Da’wah are rising with a great trust, as it is not enough to diagnose the disease, but it is their duty to offer the Ummah the cure, and to guide it to the path of true salvation, which is the path of Islam and its complete political civilizational project represented in the Rightly Guided Caliphate according to the method of Prophethood.
The carrier of the Da’wah is not merely an individual reformer, nor a religious preacher who is content with reminding people of moral virtues or individual acts of obedience, but rather a statesman who carries a practical political project, who sees in Islam a system of life, state and society, and feels the weight of His saying, may He be exalted: ﴿Let there be [arising] from you a nation inviting to [all that is] good, enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong﴾. The good that God commands to carry here is Islam in its entirety, as a creed, system, and way of life. It is unacceptable for the carrier of the Da’wah to confine his call to partial reform or to alleviate the severity of the reality, but rather his call must be to create a real renaissance based on the Islamic creed, by establishing a state that implements Islam and carries it as a message to the world.
Hence, the greatest responsibility on the carrier of the Da’wah in this time is manifested in:
1- Exposing the conspiracies of colonialism and its tools of rulers, regimes, and international organizations that control the Ummah, and exposing them to the masses.
2- Linking the Ummah to its religion and linking its awareness to Islam and its practical political creed, so that it realizes that salvation can only be achieved by implementing Islam in its entirety with all its systems, rulings, and solutions in governance, politics, economics, and society.
3- Carrying the Ummah to trust itself and its ability to change, and freeing it from the complex of inferiority in the face of the false material civilization of the West.
4- Establishing the meanings of loyalty and disavowal in the hearts of Muslims, so that their loyalty is to God, His Messenger, and the believers, and their enmity is to the enemies of Islam, no matter how they are colored with slogans of democracy or humanity.
5- Preparing the Ummah to carry the project of Islam through intensive education and true awareness, until it becomes able to adopt this project and engage in the political struggle to create it.
The conflict today is not only a conflict over borders or resources, but rather it is a civilizational ideological conflict in its essence, between Islam as a divine message and the Western civilization based on separating religion from life, and the resulting systems of democracy, capitalism, and liberalism. These crises that the Ummah is suffering from; poverty, unemployment, suffocating debts, oppression, injustice, tyranny, cultural invasion, and distortion of Islam, are all just symptoms of one disease, which is the absence of the rule of Islam from the reality of Muslims, and the exclusion of Islam from the systems of government. The ruling regimes today in the Muslim countries, in their different forms and slogans, rule by man-made laws, and do not move except by the directives of the West, and see in Islam only slogans for local consumption and deceiving people, as Al-Jolani in Syria and Erdogan in Turkey do.
Hence, the duty of carrying the Da’wah is to focus the Ummah on the root of the problem, and not to distract it in searching for patchwork solutions or partial reforms. Unless sovereignty is returned to the Sharia, and the state that rules according to what God has revealed is established, the West will continue to hold the Ummah by the neck.
The carrier of the Da’wah in this era must realize that he is standing in a great position that resembles the position of the prophets in their call for radical change. God Almighty said: ﴿There has already been for you an excellent pattern in Abraham and those with him, when they said to their people, "Indeed, we are disassociated from you and from whatever you worship other than Allah . We have denied you, and there has appeared between us and you animosity and hatred forever﴾, The carrier of the Da’wah must possess the following qualities:
Steadfastness on the truth, no matter what he faces of restrictions, prisons, or media distortion.
Patience in the face of adversity, with the certainty that victory is in the hands of God Almighty, and that He, glory be to Him, has promised succession and empowerment to His believing and working servants.
True awareness of the political rulings of Islam, so that he is not deceived by the projects of the West, nor does he slip into compromise solutions.
The ability to lead the Ummah with thought, not with emotion alone, by presenting a clear practical project, which is the project of the Rightly Guided Caliphate.
Sincerity to God Almighty, so he does not seek a position, prestige, or praise, but rather works to please God and establish His religion on earth.
The Ummah is not a passive audience that only receives ideas, but rather it is the first addressee to work to establish the state of Islam that implements its rulings and carries it to the world. The carrier of the Da’wah does not work as a substitute for the Ummah, but rather works within its ranks and among its sons to carry them to adopt the Islamic project. This requires:
1- Creating a public opinion that is aware of Islam, meaning that the Ummah has an intellectual and emotional conviction that Islam alone is the solution.
2- Moving the Ummah to overthrow the regimes, exposing their treachery, and clarifying that they are the biggest obstacle to the renaissance of the Ummah.
3- Spreading the correct Islamic culture that nurtures the Ummah to abide by the rulings of Sharia, and to reject every foreign thought.
4- Building bridges of trust between the Ummah and the carriers of the Da’wah, so that the Ummah adopts their project and rallies around them.
Carrying the Da’wah is not complete except with the interaction of the Ummah with the carrier of the Da’wah. The Ummah is the owner of power and numerical ability, and it is the one that will embrace the state when it is established, and it is the one that will defend it and extend its authority.
The Sharia has clarified that the path of empowerment is not through the ballot boxes of democracy, nor through begging from the major powers, but rather by following the method of the Messenger ﷺ in change, starting with deep education of individuals to form a bloc in which Islam is embodied and becomes its fateful cause, and interacting with the Ummah to create a public opinion that is aware of Islam and its project, in conjunction with seeking support from the people of power and protection in the Ummah, until they hand over the rule to the sincere people from the Ummah who are aware of the civilizational project of Islam and are able to implement it and establish its state. This is the method that the Messenger ﷺ followed until he established the first Islamic state in Medina, and it is the same method that must be followed today.
O sincere ones in the armies of the Ummah in general, and in the army of Al-Kinana in particular: You are the people of power and protection whom the Sharia has addressed to be supporters of the truth and protectors of the religion. The greatest betrayal committed against God, His Messenger, His religion, and the Ummah is to keep your weapons harnessed to protect treacherous regimes that hand over the country and the people to the enemy of the Ummah, guard the borders of Sykes-Picot, besiege Gaza, prevent support for Palestine, and enslave your peoples in the service of the colonizer.
Has the time not come for you to side with your Ummah and disavow the rulers who sold their religion, their country, and their Ummah? Has the time not come for you to raise your weapons in support of God’s religion, to support the sincere workers to establish the Rightly Guided Caliphate according to the method of Prophethood, and to restore to the Ummah its pride and dignity? ﴿O you who have believed, be supporters of Allah﴾.
Today, the Ummah is calling you, Al-Aqsa Mosque is crying out for your help, and the blood of the martyrs is screaming in your faces, so do not be helpers to the oppressors, but rather be as the Ansar were when they answered the call of the Messenger of God ﷺ, so he established the first Islamic state with them.
﴿O you who have believed, respond to Allah and to the Messenger when he calls you to that which gives you life. And know that Allah comes in between a man and his heart and that to Him you will be gathered﴾
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir
Mahmoud Al-Laithi
Member of the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in the Wilayah of Egypt