Press Release
In Islam, the State and People Are One! The Khaleefah Implements the Islamic Shariah and the Ummah Grants him its Obedience!

There is no concept of statecraft and there are no state interests separate from the people and their ideology. The state belongs to the Ummah because it has authority. The state represents the vision of the society for managing its own affairs internally and externally. To think about the state as having interests other than the Ummah is to not understand statehood and statecraft. In Islam, the state and society are one. The Khaleefah enjoys the obedience of the people on the condition that he will implement Islam. It is Western colonialism which separated the state from its people where the state represents Western interests, and the people demand Islam. In Islam, any dispute between the state and the ruler is resolved based on the Islamic ideology.

Islam has demanded complete obedience to the Khaleefah from the Ummah as long as the Khaleefah implements the Islamic Shariah and carries out Islam’s message to the world through Dawah and Jihad. However, Islam does not leave the implementation of the Islamic Shariah to the will and discretion of the ruler alone. Islam has made it obligatory that the Ummah accounts the ruler when he deviates from Islam, and is negligent is taking care of the affairs of the Ummah. Thus, the relationship between the ruler and the Ummah is that of obedience and accountability. The Ummah must obey the Khilafah while he must implement Islam. At the same time, the Ummah accounts for any deviation from implementation of Shariah Law. If the ruler implements open Kufr, the Ummah raises the sword to remove him. Thus, the detailed Shariah rulings of Islam about the relationship between the Khaleefah and the Ummah keep the bond between the people and the ruler strong and keep the state and the Ummah unified as one entity based on the Islamic ideology.

It is after the destruction of the Islamic Khilafah in 1924 CE and the implementation of Kufr law and rule by the Kafir colonialists over the Ummah that separation and a gulf emerged between the Ummah and Kafir colonialist rulers. The Kafir colonialists established a new state based on Western ideology. This state did not have any support from the people and was not rooted in the ideology which the people believed in. Before independence, the Ummah saw the rulers as Kafir colonialists who needed to be evicted and fought rather than given obedience. Although the Ummah was successful in evicting the physical presence of the Kafir colonialist, the state which colonialism built, remained intact in Muslim lands.

Thus now, we see an unnatural reality where Muslim rulers govern their people through a foreign state, modelled on the Western ideology. Hence, we hear about terms like national interests of the state, which are considered to be separate from the interests of the people, because the state is based on Western ideology while the Ummah yearns for Islam. This has also caused an antagonist relationship between the current Muslim rulers and the Ummah where the rulers, in their blind subservience to the West, have insisted on protecting and defending the state, inherited from European colonialism instead of establishing the Islamic state.

The revolutions in the Ummah, which we are witnessing today since the last decade and a half, actually seek to return the Ummah to a positive and powerful relationship between the Ummah and the rulers. This is where the Ummah seeks to appoint a ruler, who will establish Islam and return the Islamic Khilafah State as the natural governing entity to Muslim lands. This will again unify the Ummah and rulers as one entity, as envisioned by Islamic Shariah. The success of the revolution and the avoidance of clash between the Ummah and the rulers depend upon the sincere army officers, who need to take action, remove the current rulers and the Western colonial state and give Nussrah for the establishment of the Khilafah (Caliphate) on the Method of Prophethood.

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah Pakistan