Capability (الاستطاعةُ al-istita’ah) and Its Impact on the Shariah Obligation to Declare the Islamic State and Establish the Shariah: From Preventive Inability to Making Excuses for the Neglected Ability
- Part Three -

By Thaer Ahmad Salameh
https://www.alwaie.org/archives/article/20018

The first and most crucial pillar of the state is the ideological and intellectual foundation that shapes the Ummah’s vision of life and determines the form of government it chooses to be ruled by.

The entity of the Islamic state consists of systems of ruling governance built upon an aqeedah and intellectual foundation in which the Ummah believes, and according to which it is committed to acting and living in accordance with the Shariah rulings derived from it. That is, based on a set of concepts, criteria, and convictions through which the glorious Shariah shaped the Ummah’s vision of life and defined for them the form of government that Allah willed for them to be ruled by.  Therefore, they willingly accepted that their affairs be managed in accordance with that aqeedah and intellectual foundation, the details of which included rulings regulating the systems of ruling governance for political relations between the state - as an authority based on a Bayah pledge of allegiance that empowered it with the Shariah obligation of implementing the Shariah on behalf of the Ummah, and entrusted it with the responsibility of managing affairs and protecting rights - and the subjects, as well as Shariah rulings governing relations among the subjects themselves in social, economic, judicial, and other systems. These rulings are connected to the principle of the supremacy of divine Shariah Law and are commands and prohibitions from the Lord of the Worlds, they bestowed upon the authority that governs according to these Shariah rulings, whilst that authority is chosen by the people willingly and not by force.

In accordance with the unchanging Shariah of Laws of Allah (swt) governing societies, which show no favoritism to anyone, the stability of the Islamic state, like the stability of any political entity, depends on the extent to which the Ummah or society believes in that intellectual foundation and its soundness. It also depends on the ability of that set of concepts, criteria, and convictions to effectively manage their affairs, achieve justice, uphold rights, and prevent corruption and wrongdoing.

Islam, however, forged the Ummah in the crucible of the Islamic aqeedah and Shariah Law. The aqeedah was embodied in revolutionary aqeedah concepts unparalleled in history. Reflection and contemplation upon these concepts yielded manifestations of absolute certainty, born of radiant evidencing, that the truths of belief disseminated in the Noble Quran and Prophetic Sunnah are firmly established in their authenticity, and accord to reality. Thus, the believer's awareness of the existence of Allah and all His divine attributes, and their connection to the most minute details of life, became intertwined with certainty and a positive, contented, and pleasing relationship. In this way, the aqeedah concepts were able to captivate minds, filling them with a firm conviction that they had fully grasped the essence of truth. Then, the intrinsic power of truth permeated those minds, mingling with them until it permeated them, taking control of their reins. Hearts were opened to its guidance, and the radiance of these concepts permeated them, after they had been cleansed of the remnants of ignorance, reviving them and filling them with tranquility. And as for humanity, this aqeedah did not accept the mixing of its concepts with concepts stemming from other systems. It prohibited the establishment of societal relations based on the tribalism, idols, or customs of pre-Islamic ignorance. Instead, the realization of “There is no god but Allah” necessitated, first and foremost, the purification from all ideas, beliefs, standards, and convictions of disbelief. This purification was not merely a matter of rejecting them, but required repentance and considering them impure, along with remorse for having held them. Thus, repentance cleanses the heart of all these impurities, preparing it for complete submission to what the Beloved Prophet Muhammad (saw) brought, and subsequently, for adorning it with the Islamic aqeedah and submitting to the Sharia. Allah (swt) said,

[إِلَّا مَن تَابَ وَءَامَنَ وَعَمِلَ صَٰلِحٗا فَأُوْلَٰٓئِكَ يَدۡخُلُونَ ٱلۡجَنَّةَ وَلَا يُظۡلَمُونَ شَيۡ‍ٔٗا]

“Except for those who repent, believe and do righteous deeds. Those will enter Paradise and will not be wronged at all.” [TMQ Surah Maryam 50].

And Allah (swt) said,

[وَإِنِّي لَغَفَّارٞ لِّمَن تَابَ وَءَامَنَ وَعَمِلَ صَٰلِحٗا ثُمَّ ٱهۡتَدَى]

“And indeed, I am the Forgiving One to whoever repents, believes and does righteousness and then is guided.” [TMQ Surah Taha 82]

As for legislation, the Muslims willingly, not by force, agreed not to act except according to the standards of what is Halal (permissible) and Haram (forbidden). The Ummah considered Islamic Shariah Law as a fence, surrounding it by its Shariah rulings, as the limits set by Allah (swt), Who commanded their establishment and forbade aggression against them or transgression of them. This union was the most important pillar of the strength of the Islamic state, which set out to open horizons to the light of guidance.

Therefore, the collapse of any people’s confidence in the intellectual foundation upon which its state is based, such as finding that it does not achieve justice, leads to the erosion of the legitimacy of the regime, even if the tools of military and security power are in its hands. Revolutionary and transformative movements begin to work to change it, and the life of that people enters turns of instability until the system that it approves of and trusts is formed.

The greatest possession of peoples, and the most precious legacy passed down from generation to generation, is not accumulated wealth, nor thriving factories, nor massive armies, but, instead, the great foundational thought that shines in minds and pulsates in hearts. Material wealth, though it may appear to be a symbol of power, is but a fruit of vibrant thought, a product of a productive way of thinking that preserves and cultivates it. If a people lose their wealth and inventions, they can rebuild as long as they maintain their intellectual capital. However, if the idea collapses and the intellectual foundation is lost, wealth quickly dwindles, power crumbles, and the people return to poverty and weakness, even if their stores are full and its coffers overflowing.

Therefore, the aqeedah thought from which a Shariah Law emanates, guiding life’s affairs in obedience to Allah’s commands and abstention from His prohibitions, is more potent than weapons, with all their impact and effectiveness, and more enduring than iron. Did not the Soviet Union, at the height of its nuclear and military power, collapse when the ideology upon which it was founded crumbled, clinging to the deterministic and arbitrary tenets of the Marxist economic system, despite its devastating effects on societies and the weakening of its people’s confidence in it, as a failed intellectual and legislative framework? Conversely, did not the Messenger of Allah (saw) establish the state in Madinah without factories or advanced weaponry, but rather upon Iman, and within a single decade it rose to shake the thrones of the two greatest empires on earth, destroying the Persian Empire and inflicting crushing defeats on the Romans in the Levant? When a divine foundational thought takes root in hearts, it possesses a power that moves an entire Ummah and propels it to great achievements.

For centuries, the kafir West has tried to demolish this fundamental intellectual and ideological foundation within the Muslim jamaa’ah (community), a foundation rooted in Iman and belief. Yet, it has failed. It attempted to replace Islam with secularism and nationalism, but Muslims in Egypt rejected it, and in Pakistan and Bangladesh, they denounced it, seeing secularism as a source of corruption and deviation. Even the models the West tried to promote in Muslim lands only succeeded when they cloaked themselves in the guise of Islam, to deceive the naive. Even then, they remained incapable of uprooting the original ideology from the awareness of the Muslim community. Indeed, the West itself understands that its ideas cannot be accepted in Muslim lands, unless they are given an Islamic veneer and championed by those who have sold their Iman for a pittance. In doing so, it implicitly acknowledges that Islam is the impenetrable barrier to its project.

However, it must be emphasized that the results of those interconnected campaigns carried out by the West have led to three serious consequences:

Firstly, is the severing of the link between Islamic thoughts and their Shariah evidence and revelation in general, which required strenuous efforts aimed at restoring purity to Islamic thought by linking every thought, ruling, or opinion to evidence from the Noble Quran and Prophetic Sunnah or linking it to what was revealed.

Secondly: Adding impurities and dressing Western ideas in the garb of Islam so that Muslims would accept them, and changing the way of thinking of a wide segment of the Ummah’s people and ulema, through rationalistic and reformist schools that twist the necks of Shariah texts and interpret Islam in a way that suits reality, instead of changing reality with the thoughts of Islam. This required strenuous efforts to purify Islam from these dangerous intellectual impurities.

Thirdly: severing the relationship between Iman and action, and distorting the good perception of Islamic ideas in minds, which created weak, undistinguished Islamic personalities, which necessitated strenuous efforts in developing the concepts of Islam to form distinguished Islamic personalities - intellectually and by emotional disposition - with these crystallized thought so that the perception of the Islamic foundational thought is improved in minds and reflected in behavior.

However, the effect of decades of Dawah within the Ummah has resulted in its awareness of the necessity of implementing its Sharia, and it has come to see the ruling systems, secular and otherwise, as the source of its misery and wretchedness, and it looks forward to its unity.

There is nothing more powerful than a foundational thought whose time has come. Even some of the wisest in the West have realized this. In his book “The Death of the West” Patrick J. Buchanan said, “Now the signs are everywhere that Islam is rising again... the Islamic world retains something the West has lost: a desire to have children and the will to carry on their civilization, cultures, families, and faith. Today, it is as difficult to find a Western nation where the native population is not dying as it is to find an Islamic nation where the native population is not exploding. The West may have learned what Islam knows not, but Islam remembers what the West has forgot: “There is no vision but by faith.”” This is testimony from an adversary who understands that if a foundational thought takes hold of people's hearts, it is unstoppable.

It is enough to point to what happened in the Gulf crisis; George Bush Sr. was confused simply because Saddam Hussein alluded to the Two Sacred Masjid and roused the Muslims, to give the war the character of a religious war. As for Bush Jr. he said on 20 October 2001, “The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends” in a desperate attempt to isolate the conflict from its doctrinal dimension. George W. Bush realized that confronting Islam as a unifying idea, and turning the war into a religious war, is more dangerous to them than what they intended to do in terms of confrontation under any other name.

History bears witness that Islamic aqeedah amplifies the impact of material power many times over compared to any other force or influence. At Mu'tah, three thousand Muslims faced tens of thousands of Romans. At Yarmouk, thirty-six thousand stood against approximately seventy thousand Romans. The army of conquest that swept through Persia numbered eighteen thousand Muslims, yet no banner could withstand them, and the Persian cities fell one after another. At Qadisiyah, thirty thousand Muslims defeated approximately seventy thousand Persians, despite the latter's superiority in weapons and equipment. The Muslims triumphed because they carried an aqeedah that revived hearts, strengthened resolve, and connected earthly to heavenly. The Islamic Ummah suffered a decisive defeat only twice: once in the Crusades before regaining its strength and achieving victory, and again in the Nineteenth Century CE until the end of World War I.

Thus, it is confirmed that the state based on the Islamic aqeedah carries in its intellectual and aqeedah structure a tremendous intellectual power that compensates for any material weakness, and all the premises, reasons, capabilities, and tools to build and create every possible power to preserve human dignity and life, and the state, and spread Islam and lead humanity to achieve Words of Allah (swt) Who said,

[وَكَذَٰلِكَ جَعَلۡنَٰكُمۡ أُمَّةٗ وَسَطٗا لِّتَكُونُواْ شُهَدَآءَ عَلَى ٱلنَّاسِ]

“And thus We have made you a middle Ummah that you will be witnesses over mankind.” [TMQ Surah Al-Baqarah 143]. And the witnessing over peoples is by the Muslims’ application of the divine methodology that Allah (swt) commanded people - all people - to follow, after the Islamic foundational thought is presented to them, as an integrated system of values, laws, and criteria from which the necessary rulings for the development of the earth, and the realization of the value of vicegerency (istikhlaaf) in it are derived.

Moreover, it firmly strengthens the bond of allegiance between the ruler and the ruled. An economy without Iman collapses, and an army without Deen crumbles, while a living Iman establishes a state, mobilizes an Ummah, transforms the few into the many, and weakness into strength, and inscribes upon its banners the promise of Allah (swt), Who said,

[وَكَانَ حَقًّا عَلَيۡنَا نَصۡرُ ٱلۡمُؤۡمِنِينَ]

“And it was an obligation upon Us to aid the believers.” [TMQ Surah Ar-Rum 47] 

One of the most important things to be aware of and absolutely believe in is the infinite power of Islamic aqeedah, which forms the intellectual foundation upon which the Islamic state is built. This power enables it to guide its direction, utilize all other pillars upon which the state’s strength is built, and empower it to achieve its goals, maintain its authority, and influence the international order in a productive and effective manner. This influence is capable of thwarting any conspiracy hatched to undermine this nascent state, and of creating fruitful causal integration among the other pillars, activating them to serve the state's sustainability and stability, thus making it a bulwark against the plots of its enemies. How could it be otherwise, when this intellectual foundation represents the aqeedah of Islam and the Shariah Law of the Lord of the Worlds, with its divinely ordained systems possessing the capacity to establish justice and equity among people, improve their lives, invest their resources, revitalize the economy, and provide the moral mobilization for jihad, martyrdom, seeking the Help of Allah (swt), and making reliance (tawwakul) upon Him?

The strategic intellectual conclusion: Engineered immunity that thinks before it fights:

The decisive criterion for assessing the strength of an emerging state is not the number of tanks or the size of its treasuries, but, instead, how its pillars work together under the guidance of an intellectual foundation that defines its direction and sets its pace. When sovereignty belongs to the Shariah and authority to the Ummah, and the state functions as an executive entity for a system that enjoys popular acceptance, the seven pillars — ideology, systems, economy, military, Dawah and culture, population and allegiance, and geography —transform into a composite force that produces an enduring and engineered resilience for the adversary.

The logic of integrated composite power

Shariah legitimacy generates aware obedience: The intellectual foundation, along with the order of Bayah allegiance, governance, judiciary, and the Court of Grievances, creates voluntary compliance that closes the gaps of domestic infiltration, prevents the personalization of power, and keeps the state held by criteria, not by individuals.

A societal bond that is difficult to break: a committed public opinion, a young, capable population, and a Bayah pledge of allegiance that makes people feel that the Sultan is from them and with them; so if the external front is disturbed, the domestic security remains in place because society protects its Sultan, whom it has accepted.

An economy of actual function, not an economy of cosmetic appearance: setting priorities, such as food, medicine and energy, and mobilizing labor and human capital makes resilience possible and expansion calculated; the economy here is an arm of sustainability for the state’s mission, not a constraint on its decision.

A military force grounded in aqeedah and guidance: the army, the guardian of Islamic Shariah Law, employs a graded deterrent, including asymmetric tactics, preventing swift occupying invasions and transforming any aggression into a political and moral drain on its adversary, should the need arise. Simultaneously, the essence of Islamic military aqeedah is offensive and expansionist, aiming to spread guidance and liberate people from the oppression of other ways of life to the justice of Islam. The more the Islamic state expands, the stronger it becomes, and the more it confounds its enemies. It is unacceptable for a state to be in a defensive posture, making it vulnerable to attack, especially given its immense capabilities.

A Dawah that shapes public opinion across borders: a compelling moral narrative and a model of just living produce a soft power that amplifies the impact of every step, transforming the Muslim World into a supportive civilizational depth. The Iman of believers in Islam provides this state with the necessary information and expertise to support and strengthen it, wherever these Muslims may be. They may even threaten the interests of its enemies in those distant lands, deterring them from attacking this state, which, for them, represents the implementation of their Shariah and the glad tidings of their Prophet (saw) of a Khilafah Rashidah (Rightly-Guided Caliphate) on the Method of Prophetood. They will yearn to join it, especially since the new state does not need much time to convince all Muslims worldwide that it represents the true application of their Shariah. This is a tremendous civilizational dimension that the West takes very seriously. For example, how long did it take for the narrative of changing the reality of people’s lives in Syria, with the fall of the Assad regime, to reach such a wide audience, that it led to the displaced to return to their country in droves? The Islamic State will address Muslims throughout the world with a discourse that makes them feel, and convinces them, that it is their state, stemming from the Iman that fills their hearts!

A human and geographical arena that defies strangulating sanctions: its vast reach and numerous corridors and access points reduce the feasibility of a siege of sanctions, and compel the adversary to consider negotiation rather than recklessness. The Islamic State will not deal with sanctions imposed by America and others as Iran, Iraq, Russia, or others have dealt with this type of sanction. Instead, the Islamic State will act on the basis that any entity or state declaring sanctions against it is committing a declaration of war, and will act accordingly. It will utilize all its resources, capabilities, and geopolitical power to respond immediately in a way that strangles Western interests, forcing major powers to refrain even from contemplating a siege of sanctions. The Islamic State is capable of rapid annexation and expansion, especially since its surrounding region is fragile and on the verge of collapse, its foundations being eaten away by corruption, and its people yearning for liberation (tahrir) from corruption and the corrupt. The State communicates with the leaders and the general public of each country, presenting plans that expedite and facilitate the expansion process. This policy disrupts any plans for siege or sanctions.

The composite integration of these elements — not their fragmentation — is what creates an engineered immunity: each pillar compensates for the deficiency of the other by indicating and guiding the intellectual foundation, so the gap becomes plugged.

Why is it not enough to measure tanks and the Gross Domestic Product?

It is because material power without Shariah legitimacy and a determined public opinion erodes rapidly, and because ideology, when it takes hold of hearts, amplifies the impact of equipment and transforms a small number into a decisive force. The experiences of recent and distant history confirm that thoughts can topple armed regimes and establish peoples, before weapons factories are built.

Deterrent Factors That Force the Enemy to Reconsider

A Transnational Political Cost: Any aggression ignites widespread Islamic public opinion, threatening the aggressor's regional and international interests.

The Impossibility of a Swift Victory: Popular support, Shariah legitimate institutions, a practical economy, and an army with a strong ideology transform war into a costly war of attrition with no promise of victory.

Rapid and Effective Expansion: Relying on a deep-rooted civilization and geography makes it difficult to encircle the state and disrupts its adversaries' plans. This is the practical policy the state pursues.

The Moral Exposure of the Adversary: ​​A model of just governance and a compelling narrative delegitimize sanctions and blockades, turning tools of pressure into a propaganda liability for their perpetrators.

In Summary: The power that establishes the foundations of a fledgling state and repels the plots of its enemies is not a "pillar" in itself, but instead an integrated structure guided by ideology, framed by institutions, nourished by the Ummah, and managed by Shariah politics. Those who look at the army alone, or at the industrial and agricultural output alone, overlook the true mechanism of deterrence: aware Shariah legitimacy + committed public opinion + a self-sufficient and functional economy + an army with a sound ideology + geographical/cultural depth = immunity that makes war the option of the desperate. Then the enemy will think long and hard before attacking, because an attack does not promise a swift victory, but rather threatens a costly drain and the loss of legitimacy and interests that extend from hearts to maps.

(To be continued...)

For Part One: Capability (الاستطاعةُ al-istita’ah) and Its Impact on the Shariah Obligation to Declare the Islamic State and Establish the Shariah: From Preventive Inability to Making Excuses for the Neglected Ability

For Part Two: Capability (الاستطاعةُ al-istita’ah) and Its Impact on the Shariah Obligation to Declare the Islamic State and Establish the Shariah: From Preventive Inability to Making Excuses for the Neglected Ability