The Approach of Converting to Islam (7)

The Source: The Publication of the Muslim student union in America in 1977.

The Main Importance of the Muslim State

By moving to the biography of the Prophet (peace be upon him), I find it necessary to justify the statement that I said about the goal of the Prophet (peace be upon him) behind the establishment of the Muslim State.
The goal of the Prophet as a messenger of Allah was to convey the message of Allah to His Servants, and that was a fact, however, trying to establish the Muslim state was an important part of that message. It was said: If one of the objectives of the Prophet (peace be upon him) was to establish such a State, he would not have refused the offer that came to him from Makkah to assume presidency. It is well known that the Prophet (peace be upon him) turned down the offer, but the reason was not to accept him as a leader of an Muslim State but as a leader to a group of people who did not believe in his message. They offered him that post as a bribe to urge him to stop calling to Islam, and a person who accepts such an offer is not a true prophet, but be a man who is possessed by desire to power and claiming prophethood is just a mean to achieve that desire.

The fact that the Prophet (peace be upon him) was eager to establish an Muslim State appears clearly when we realize that in addition to his attempts to convince the people to embrace the new religion, he exerted his utmost effort to accrue the support of an organized and independent group to be as a stronghold of that new religion. To achieve that goal, he used to communicate with the heads of different tribes, especially in the time of the annual markets in Makkah and asked them to accept him as a prophet and to be protectors of the new religion. Finally, two tribes from the Madinah, namely Al-Aws and Al-Khazraj accepted that and supported the establishment of the first Muslim State on earth.
Suppose that a number of Muslims have decided to work to achieve that end, how can they benefit from the Biography of the Prophet (peace be upon him) in the Makkan phase?

Two Extreme Attitudes:

A large number of people adopted two different positions:

First: since the message of the Prophet (peace be upon him) had been completed recently in the form of the Qur’an and the authentic Sunnah that are in our hands today, the first stages that message has been through do not fit the type of system that we must follow to publish or exercise that message. However, our religion is full and must be exercised as a whole and it is not possible to stop or postpone the implementation of any part of It for any reason.

The other position is: people have reverted to type of Makkan ignorance that prevailed at the time of message of the Prophet (peace be upon him); therefore we must begin from the same point from which the Prophet began and pass by all phases that he has been through until we finally be able to establish our Muslim State.
Both positions are not defendable. The first ignores the important fact that we have mentioned previously, namely, that Islam is a message and a system, and method by which the message is transmitted and exercised is an integral part of the message itself, and hence cannot be ignored. If we accept that matter, we can always put before us the methods that the Prophet (peace be upon him) used in his lifetime.

The second position is not defendable too because it is impossible to convey a full historical situation from a period of time and impose it on another period; that is what the second position demands.
We can see the results of such an attempt in the example of some youth whom I know who tried to follow that method as a result of their objective understanding to the writings of the great Muslim writer Sayyid Qutb. They started to establish a group and elected a leader. The group was supposed to be identical with that first Muslim community, but they ignored the fact that those believers who gathered around the Prophet (peace be upon him) were the only Muslims on earth. In order to achieve this point, they called themselves the Muslim community which suggests that they are the only Muslim group. They believed that anyone who does not belong to that group is not a Muslim or as their moderates said: “His status is not known.” When I asked some of them one day: How could you deny someone who utters the testimony of faith, offer Salah, and is known by his moral integrity. The answer was: "In order to be a Muslim, you must belong first to the Muslim community, but these people are living in ignorance."
I said: "If you mean that the Islamic society is like your own society, there are many other Muslim communities like yours." They said: "Those communities are not Muslims because they accept those who live in the ignorant communities as Muslims, and any person who considers such people as Muslims is not a Muslim!"
They thought as long as they are in the Makkan phase, they must follow the example of the Prophet (peace be upon him) by calling the people to the principles of faith, and never talk about things such as economics, politics, social justice, etc. A discussion was raised to whether they themselves should apply the legislation part that was revealed in Madinah or not? There were two opinions on that issue, and at least one of the two opinions was calling the other non-Muslims!
The group that believed they should not exercise that part of the Shari`ah that was revealed in Madinah went extreme to the point that they had neglected the study of Qur’anic Ayahs that were revealed in Madinah.
As for the part of the group that believed they should practice the Shari`ah as a whole went to lash a member of the group who admitted that he has committed adultery.
I believe that the example set by those enthusiastic and faithful people is an appropriate warning against that kind of extremism.