Talk:The Coming of the khilafah

Allah (SWT) says in this Ayah from Surah Ibrahim:

"Alif Lam Ra".

These are letters that are not known to people as to what their meaning is. They are of the mutashabiyat. Allah (SWT) goes on to say:

"This is a Book we have revealed unto you, O Muhammad, in order that you may lead mankind out of darkness into the light, by their Lord's leave to the path of the Almighty the Owner of All Praise".

The reason I start with this Ayah of the Quran is because what we have assembled here today to discuss is a subject that is very important. Not just for the Muslims but for the kafireen and the non-muslims across the world. Because when we look towards the situation today of this duniya we find that it’s in a state of darkness, a state of misery, a state of anxiety, a state of absolute darkness. And Allah (SWT) informs us in the Quran in this Ayah that he sent Muhammad (SAW) to lead mankind out of this darkness and into the light of Islam.

Before I begin I just want to introduce to you the significance of the message of Muhammad (SAW). And the way I want to do this is to describe to you the situation of Mecca and the people before Islam came to them. If we look towards Mecca before Muhammad (SAW) came; we find the most miserable, the most dark activities of humanity. We find that they used to bury their daughters alive because it was an embarrassment for them to bear women, to bear daughters. It was an embarrassment. So the father he would bury his own daughter alive in the ground. They would, for example, discriminate between the Ethiopian, the Persian, the Roman; the Arab thinking the Arab was the most high. Even though there is no difference in intellect and emotions between human beings. They are all the same. Yet they would treat the Ethiopians as slaves, the Africans as slaves. They would have strange economic transactions. You would enter the market place and, rather than you giving them the money and them giving you the change and the product, you would take your robe and throw it upon the products. And whatever it landed upon it was yours to take. So you may have wanted some cheese, you threw it and it landed on meat, you would have to take that. Strange customs in the society. The social system was completely decrepit. The woman if she wanted a child she would make herself available to many men. And when she had a child she would call upon the men of Mecca and ask somebody wise to compare the face of the child with the face of one of the men, and he would become the father. An absolute epitome of the lowness of human civilisation. That was the situation of the people of Mecca completely low. They were so irrelevant. A people who were nothing in the duniya that even the Romans and the Persians felt it irrelevant to even conquer these people. They were absolute nothing. And it is to these people that Muhammad (SAW) came. And it is to these lowly people that within a few centuries he caused them to rule over the world and to expand to vast territories of the world.

Let us understand this message. Allah (SWT) says in the Quran:

“O Prophet, verily we have sent you as a witness and a bearer of glad tidings and a warner and as the one who invites to Allah by his leave as a lamp spreading light – Siraj un Muneera”.

He was the light spreading the illuminity of Islam across the people of that civilisation. Allah (SWT) uses the word very carefully in the Ayah of Surah Ibraheem, that he sent the messenger to lead, to lead, mankind from the darkness into light. Not to follow them, not to be led by them. But to lead them out of the darkness and into the light. And that’s our subject today. That it’s the responsibility of the Muslims to lead, to take the lead, and take humanity out of their darkness, out of their lowly situation and take them into the light. And that’s why we’re discussing the Khilafah ruling system today. Because it will be the lead. It will be the shining example. Just as Muhammad (SAW) was a shining example to his people.

Let us look towards our current situation. What is the situation in the world today? Let us look towards Britain. We don’t have to go too far away. What is the situation in Britain? These Western people who want to proclaim themselves as the saviours of humanity. The civilised people. The people with morals and manners. The people who have the greatest civilisation. Let’s look at their society. I was reading this morning various statistics, which I don’t have with me now, but I was reading these statistics. And what they said was something surprising. And something which you don’t have to read the papers to work out. What I read and what I am sure you have all seen is that this society is falling to the same low level as the Meccan society. So we have people in this society, children who do not know who their father is and their mothers do not know who their father is. Illegitimate children everywhere. We find that the five-year-old children of the Kafir are willing to take their parents to court to sue them if they touch them. We find within their own society all sorts of sexual perversion. People with their own kind. People with children. An absolute disgrace.

We find that they themselves are unhappy with the situation. We find with these people the only way they can find to lift themselves out of this situation is to take drugs and alcohol so they forget about life. So they can think in a fantasy world. So they don’t have to think what is happening day to day. Because life’s a misery. You wake up in the morning, you work your socks off, and you try to earn money for your family. You want more and more money every single day, which is an unachievable aim. You’re just in the same rat race every single day. You find students committing suicide, going to the towers in their universities throwing themselves off. Going to the bridges across the Thames, throwing themselves off. They can’t hack it. You know I remember when I was applying through UCAS, which I am sure a lot of you did to get to University. I remember some people in my year that wanted to apply for medicine. And they had a medicine workshop to practice for the medical interview. And there was a Kafir who came to me and said, “Man I was asked a really tough question. That if I was asked in the interview, I wouldn’t know how to answer.” The question was this. The question is: “ You are a successful medical candidate. At the end of the five years you are about to sit your finals and you have done a lot of revision. You are going to do well, you know you are going to do well. But your friend has gone to the top of the building and he wants to commit suicide. What do you do? Do you sit your exams or do you help him out?” He said “It’s a dilemma for me. What do I do? It’s a tough question? How would I answer it in the interview?” The bottom line is this is the kind of thinking and kind of mentality that these people carry. Very self centred.

And when we look towards the Muslims rather than leading these people out of their misery, out of their disgusting situation, out of their lawless society and taking them into the light of Islam, we’re finding that our countries and our people look to the west as models. So you will find Muslims, for example, looking towards America and thinking they’re a great democracy. Look at that society. They’ve got pavements on the streets. They’ve got cars that stick to their side of the road. They’ve got people who queue. They’ve got McDonald’s. Happy people, smiles on their faces, land of opportunity, land where you can fulfil your dream, where you can make as much money as possible. So they’re thinking I want to be like the Americans. I want to be like the British. Whereas we live in this society and we see that we don’t want to let our sisters out after Salat al-Maghrib, 4 o clock in the afternoon, because its dark. We don’t know what’s going to happen on the street at night. We find that when we walk home tonight, you will find at the stations people sleeping rough, you will find people begging, you will find people asking you for money, day in, day out. This is the reality of Western civilisation. It is as dark as the situation in Mecca at the time of the Quraish.

And like they had strange economic transactions, these people have strange economic transactions. Usury. My brother was telling me about a guy who took a loan for x number I don’t know, £5000 or something. And it was an interest-bearing loan. So he paid around £40 a month back every single month. After two years, he took £5000 and he was £7000 in debt. And had been paying £40 a month for two years. Strange economic transactions. Just trying to suck the blood of the people. And they are proud, just like the Meccans were proud. Proud of their darkness, wanting to illuminate others with their darkness.

I was also reading some statistics this morning about the situation in Africa. Because it’s not just these people. The situation in Africa is that people, and this is the UN World Health Agency saying this, 40% of the worlds population live on just $1 a day. You will find people in the third world have to travel miles to get water. They have to travel miles for their food. The market visits them every couple of months. They have a serious situation with malnutrition. They have a serious health situation. And there was a report that said that six out of every hundred Africans will not live to see the age of one. And eight of them will not live to see the age of five. This is what we’re finding humanity is in. Whereas Africa is a land rich in resource. I know you’ve heard this before, but it is rich. It is so rich that it is hard to describe it. It has savannah, it has forests, and it has a desert, which is a positive thing for people if used positively in the correct manner. At the time of Amr bin al Aas - when Umar ibn al Khatab was the Khalif - Umar ibn al Khatab in Medina was in a famine. And he said to Amr bin al Aas “ How dare you people in Africa, you live in such luxury, whereas us in Medina we live in poverty.” And Amr bin al Aas wrote back to him and said “O Umar, I will send you a caravan of food which when the first enters Medina the last will leave Egypt.” This is how rich Africa was. Look at it today. Millions of people can’t survive because they don’t have their basic needs; they don’t have their basic requirements. And we could go on but I’ve go to keep it to 15 minutes.

But I just want to end with the whole context to all these statistics, why am I raising all these statistics? Why I am trying to paint such a bad picture? And in fact just another point, I read on the train this morning. That there was a girl in America, twelve years old. That she was eating some chips in a subway in America and they were going to put her in prison and counsel her because she was eating chips in the subway and its not allowed. So they handcuffed her, the twelve year old girl, and they questioned her and she’s going to get counselling now, “Why you eating chips in the subway?” And that indicates they don’t know how to handle the scenario, how to handle laws within their own societies. And I am sure you have your own examples.

I don’t just want to leave it here, I want to go back to the Ayah in Surah Ibrahim. Here Allah (SWT) says in the translated meaning:

“This is a book which we have revealed unto you in order that you may lead mankind out of the darkness and into the light, that you may lead them”.

And this is the responsibility of the Muslims. Allah (SWT) says in the Quran that he sent the Messenger with the Din of truth for one reason, that it may dominate over all other ways of life. Muhammad (SAW) said in the final sermon:

“There will be no Prophet after me”.

On the night of Miraj, Muhammad (SAW) led all of the previous prophets in prayer, all of them. Where are the Christians and the Jews today in Palestine? Whose prophet, Isa and Musa (AS) were led by the Prophet (SAW) on the night of Miraj. Where are they today? Do we lead them as our Prophet led them in Salat? Do we lead them or are we led by them? Or are we under their foot? And does this Din of Muhammad (SAW) dominate or is it dominated? And Muhammad (SAW) being the final messenger means that every single man after his death should be touched by Islam.

Muhammad (SAW) said in hadith:

“I have been given five no other Prophet has been given..”

and he mentioned as one of those five

“the previous Prophets were sent for nations and tribes, I was sent for the whole of humanity. I was sent for everybody”.

And this is what we are today. We are bearers, we declare shahada, we bear witness to this message. We follow this shahadah, we follow this Islam. This means that this din once again has to lead humanity, take them from this darkness. Take them from this misery, the misery of themselves and the misery they cause to others. To take them from it and to lead them into this illuminated situation. And this illuminated situation is the Khilafah. You may say why? And we can discuss that. Why I say that is because that today, do you think that Muslims in the Indian Sub Continent, in the Middle East, in Africa, do you think they really understand Capitalism in detail? Do you think they can quote you Adam Smith? Do you think they want to follow the West because they’ve read the books of Adam Smith or Jean Jacques Couseau, they’ve read their books and they are convinced that I want to be like them? They’ve read nothing, they just see. They see a model working where people seem to be happy. Where things seem to work. Where there’s organisation and infrastructure. That’s all they see, they don’t see anything else. And just those selected images are enough for Muslims and the Africans and the people in the Far East to say I want to be like them.

We Inshallah, with the establishment of the Khilafah, want to project an image across the world that this is the society we want to be in. And that’s exactly what Muhammad (SAW) did.

Akmal