(The Ummah will not unite behind one man, so a caliph must be declared) - Discussion of this argument
Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.
Discussion of the Proposal: "The Ummah will not unite behind a single man, so it is necessary to declare a Caliph"
In this statement, we address a question posed by some brothers who say: It is necessary to establish the Caliphate. Since Muslims will not agree on a single man, and since they are weak and deprived of power in the first place, is it not right for a group among the groups to appoint a Caliph and extend their sovereignty, even by force, to the word of the Muslims?
We say at the outset: As for their statement that it is necessary to establish the Caliphate, its establishment cannot be done by declaring it without the presence of its prerequisites. Among its prerequisites is that the Muslims must have sovereignty over their lands and their word must be united. Since none of this is present, the duty of the time is to restore the sovereignty of the Muslims and unite their word through calling to Islam and jihad, not by participating in the usurpation of the right of the Muslims to sovereignty over their land, nor by calling for the Caliphate for a person, which leads to a conflict that does not bring us closer to restoring sovereignty and uniting the word, but rather distances us from it.
The Necessity of Establishing the Caliphate Does Not Mean the Release of the Name
The necessity of establishing the Caliphate does not mean the release of the name of the Caliphate to any side or entity, so that this entity becomes, by this name alone, a Caliphate. For then it would be like a prayer for which the Prophet (peace be upon him) said to a man: "Return and pray, for you have not prayed"; because its pillars were not completed.
And if the workers for the cause of Islam are not able to establish the Caliphate in any time, this is something that does not harm them nor do they sin for it, and they are not tasked with hastening the declaration of something whose prerequisites do not exist. They are commanded to establish the religion in any case, and their establishment of the religion and their pursuit of the truth in their work will inevitably lead to a reality suitable for the Caliphate.
For they have a promise that the outcome is for them, and empowerment will be achieved for them if they are upright in the matter of Allah: {Allah has promised those among you who believe and do righteous deeds that He will surely make them successors on the earth, as He did for those before them, and that He will surely establish for them their religion which He has chosen for them and that He will surely substitute for them, after their fear, security}. This is a promise from Allah, the Exalted.
And there is a prophetic promise that there will be a Caliphate upon the method of prophethood. This is good tidings and a promise, not a command to hasten something that does not exist and we do not have the power to bring it about in this moment. The duty is for the workers for the cause of Islam to occupy themselves with what Allah has tasked them with, not what He has promised them. And they must correct their actions from everything that contradicts the truth and justice, and they must be upright in the matter of Allah with all that they possess, including taking hold of the legal means of empowerment and striving to establish the Caliphate in its legal form.
Response to "The Ummah Will Not Unite Behind a Man"
It will be said: The Ummah will not unite behind a Caliph in your way, so how will it unite behind a man when it can hardly unite behind anything?
The answer is that this is a transgression against Allah. For there is a promise from the Prophet (peace be upon him) of the return of the Caliphate upon the method of prophethood, and the method of prophethood is by taking the pledge of allegiance from the Muslims for a man whom the Muslims have consulted about, and the people of his household and his contract, and this does not include, of course, those who fight against the establishment of the Sharia and hate it.
The realization of the promised promise may be preceded by the establishment of Islamic entities and emirates that are distant and mujahideen groups, and the suitable ones among them will contribute to the realization of this good news, even if it is after a while, but none of them has the right to claim the Caliphate and nullify the emirates or dissolve the banners of the groups.
The Confusion Between Overpowering and the Pledge of the People of Authority and Contract
It will be said: Who told you that our Caliphate was not established upon the pledge of the people of authority and contract? And sometimes it is said: Rather, it was necessary to overpower in the shadow of the division of the Muslims.
It is strange that some groups confuse overpowering with the pledge of the people of authority and contract, then they stumble in defining the people of authority and contract, and they produce a patchwork of these terms to put on the title of the Caliphate on whom they have appointed as Caliph. So that this group appoints from among its individuals those whom they claim to be the people of authority and contract representing the Ummah.
And in order to justify not consulting anyone from the Ummah, not even its mujahideen and scholars, they see this Ummah divided into a betrayer, a traitor, a fighter, a democrat, a joyful, a Muslim Brotherhood, a Shiite, and others. So this group has become, in the end, the Ummah, and without it, they are not worthy to be consulted or to be among the people of authority and contract, but nothing is of use with them except overpowering and coercion by force.
And we do not know whether the Ummah, in their view, is an Islamic Ummah to be consulted or an infidel Ummah to be coerced. For the method of prophethood is not based on coercing the Muslims. And if there is no one in the Islamic Ummah, with its scholars and Islamic groups and mujahideen groups, from Afghanistan in the east to Mali in the west, to be consulted, then the Ummah has been greatly wronged and there is no need to establish the Caliphate, but rather wait for the Hour!
If the Mullah Omar, whom Sheikh Usama pledged allegiance to, and the Taliban, who sacrificed an Islamic emirate in refusal to hand over some mujahideen, are not worthy to be consulted. And if the one who spent his life in jihad and all his sons were killed in it is not worthy to be consulted. The one who established the Sharia and the world fought him for that. And if the branches of Al-Qaeda and the mujahideen groups for the establishment of the Sharia in Yemen, Sinai, Libya, the Maghreb, and Somalia are not. And if the scholars who spent their lives in prisons in support of jihad and mujahideen and in defense of the Sharia of the Lord of the Worlds are not. If all these are not worthy to be consulted, and you have reduced the Ummah to a council of a few people, none of whom you know their condition, their justice, their knowledge, or who has trusted them from the people of knowledge and jihad, then of what Caliphate upon the method of prophethood do you speak? And with what mind and religion is it said: How can we consult those who have disassociated themselves from us and opposed us?
Is his disassociation and enmity towards you in itself a reason to disregard him as if he has disassociated himself from the religion of Allah, or is it a reason for you to look into yourselves regarding this opponent of yours? And we have not mentioned the rest of the Ummah who do not have what would disqualify them from being Muslims working for the cause of Islam or scholars to be consulted, and we have not presented them as marginalized, but we have mentioned those who agree with you in a general agreement on the principle of the method. If the claimed Caliphate does not include these people except reluctantly and submissively without participation or consultation, then what is the condition of the rest of the people of the Qibla?
The Islamic Emirate and Dominance
This is in terms of the caliphate following the prophetic method. As for speaking about an Islamic emirate in a region of Muslim lands, the claimant to the emirate must determine whether he achieved his emirate through dominance or through the pledge of allegiance from the people of authority and influence in that country. These two cannot coexist. If the people of authority and influence had indeed pledged allegiance to an imam, he would not have needed to use force and dominance, because the people of authority and influence are those who permit and prohibit, and their pledge of allegiance to a man for the emirate would spare him from dominating the people by force. The confusion between the pledge of allegiance from the people of authority and influence and dominance is disorder and chaos.
Then, when discussing the declaration of an Islamic emirate, several questions must be raised: Is the rule of the Muslims actually established in this land? Does the liberated area have the requisites for an emirate? Does the establishment and administration of the emirate distract from continuing to repel the aggressors and liberate the Muslims in the rest of the country? Does the establishment of the emirate contribute to the division of the country from the Muslim lands, increasing the ability of the disbelievers to control the rest of the country? These questions are posed to any Islamic emirate project, not just to the claimant of the caliphate.
We wish to clarify here that it is misleading to use the term "dominance" as if it were a legal term to justify an image that is extremely corrupt. The scholars who spoke about the dominant imam were discussing a power struggle in the abode of Islam where the Muslims are in a state of strength and security. Among those who validated the imamate of the dominant imam, they did so with conditions, including that the Muslims accept him and that he rules them according to the law of Allah the Almighty. They validated his imamate after the Muslims accepted him, not before. Their statement was not a permission for dominance from the beginning in any way, but it is forbidden even when we validate the imamate of the dominant imam with conditions as a solution to an existing situation.
As for the Muslims being in a state of war with an infidel enemy and having liberated some lands from this infidel, then someone comes and dominates the Muslims and competes with them over the lands they have liberated, distracting them and distracting himself from the war against the infidel enemy, this is corruption in the land and not even the condemned dominance by the law, which requires conditions to accept the imamate of its owner, but it is corruption. Those who do this cannot use the extent of their control afterwards to claim that they are exclusively the people of authority and influence, nor can they speak of a correct Islamic emirate in a land where they have done such things, let alone declare a caliphate that dissolves the emirates and groups and obligates the Muslims in the farthest parts of the earth to pledge allegiance to it.
This is not to mention the credibility of ruling by the law of Allah from those who have been called repeatedly to adjudicate, nor the justice or ignorance of the judicial apparatus entrusted with ruling by what Allah has revealed in this alleged caliphate.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we are amazed by the superficiality of some people's thinking when they assume that calling for the caliphate unites the word of the Muslims, and that everyone who is keen on uniting the word must support it and pledge allegiance to it. If the alleged caliphate has not received the support of the scholars, the scholars of jihad and its leaders, and if it has not received the support of the previous jihad groups in the world, but is only supported by the young and the ignorant whose minds are captivated by slogans and whose intellects are stolen by names and resonant speeches, then is the result of this gathering or further division of the Muslims and their jihad groups?
And what makes you see yourself as the group when you have no one from the scholars of the nation and its jihad groups with you? Whoever wants to unite the word from the rest of the Muslims must join you, and whoever does not do so is an envious person who divides the group. We ask Allah to rectify the affairs of the Muslims. Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah.