How to bring about societal change in the Muslim world?

There are three primary obstacles that stand in our way in any land where we work to re-establish the khilafah:

- The beliefs of the people regarding their laws and way of life
- The loyalty of the people to the current regime
- The loyalty of the people of power (usually the military) to the current regime and system

In order to change any society, these three things must be corrected.

And in order to achieve any of the above three objectives, we first require people capable of doing so. Therefore, we require a group to carry the da'wa and we require the members of this group to be put through a culturing process that enables them to carry the da'wa to fix the above three issues.

Once the group is set up and the members are cultured to carry the ideas, then the group must go out and discuss with the masses, both on an individual level as well as on a societal level, addressing:

- The beliefs and convictions of the people regarding their laws and their way of life (beliefs such as freedom, democracy, nationalism, secularism, good, evil, Halal, Haram, etc)

- The loyalties of the people towards the current regime, removing any loyalty the Umma might have towards rulers that implement Kufr (such as people defending Erdogan, AAl Sa'ud, Yasir Arafat, Jamal Abdul-Nasser, etc)

- The members of the military and the people of power, remembering that these people are just regular people from the Umma and will be affected - to varying extents - by the same public opinion that affects the rest of the Umma in that land.

Once these three things are corrected, the people will:
1) demand Islam as their laws and way of life,
2) demand rulers that only implement Islam and reject anyone who implements Kufr laws and
3) the military will lose its faith in the system and be willing to support the call for the khilafah.

Each of these above three objectives, as well as the forming of the group and culturing of the members of the group, are taken from the actions of Rasul Allah (saw) in Makkah, which are Wahy from Allah (swt). This is a hukm from Allah (swt) and not just a logical assessment.

Therefore, regardless of whether we are talking about Turkey or Egypt or Saudi or anywhere else, this is the method of Islam, designed by Allah (swt), for change. It is entirely forbidden to take power in a Kufr government, implement Kufr laws, ally with the Kuffar and then think that will lead to Allah (swt) honouring us with his Nasr and the re-establishment of the khilafah.

Working on yourself does not lead to changing the Ummah's condition.

This is because the elements that define a society and that must be changed to revive the Ummah are not the same as those elements needed to change/reform/revive individuals.

The 4 components needed to reform any person in accordance to Islam are:
(1) Aqeedah as established by Islam,
(2) Worship: fulfilling the personal obligations (prayer, fasting, zakat etc) and abstaining from the prohibitions.
(3) Morals: being trustworthy, honest, truthful, abstaining from backbiting, slander etc.
(4) Transactions: conduct when selling/buying, in trading, business, marriage, relationships with others.

However, reforming individuals will not result in any change in societal matters, and when individuals abstain from munkar this does not lead to removal of munkar from society. E.g. if a person stops dealing with Riba, the riba system is still implemented in the society and will not just go away by itself!

Allah will not change the condition of the collective by merely having upright individuals (this is an incorrect understanding of that famous verse - explained at the end). This is certainly not what the messenger of Allah did.

Our beloved messenger of Allah (SAW) did not just seek to nurture upright personalities around him, and subsequently Allah changed their collective condition for them as a result. Rather he (saw) raised his Sahabah to become upright AND to be reformers - who confronted the societal norms, practices, beliefs and the oppressors until they were able to change the reality to conform to what Allah revealed. And THIS is what needs to happen to change our collective condition.

This is testified by the many texts that deal with changing the societal munkar, e.g.

Many verses condemning and attacking the societal practices and way of life of Quraysh.

And ahadith:

إن الناس إذا رأوا الظالم فلم يأخذوا على يديه أوشك أن يعمهم الله بعقاب
"Verily, if the people see an oppressor and they do not seize his hand, then Allah will soon send punishment upon all of them."

والذي نفسي بيده لتأمرن بالمعروف ولتنهون عن المنكر أو ليوشكن الله أن يبعث عليكم عقاباً منه ثم تدعونه فلا يستجاب لكم
"By the one in whose hand is my soul, you will enjoin good and forbid evil or else Allah will soon send the punishment upon you. Then you will supplicate to Allah and he will not accept it from you."

Therefore, change requires groups of believers to work as a collective, just as the messenger did with his Sahabah - to:

1- Culture the collective group with the ideas/concepts of Islam;

2- Enter into an intellectual and political struggle with the establishment and ruling class. The objective of this is to expose the corruptness and fallacy of the ruling class and beliefs; present Islam as a complete way of life able to solve all societal problems. This can be seen as te battle of the hearts and minds.

The measures of success in this step are to: (1) assess whether there is now a wedge between the ruler and the ruled/masses, (2) to assess the confidence level of the masses in the current system, and (3) assess the support people have for the alternative being presented.

3- Seek to win the allegiance of those who are able to transfer the power to the believers, who would then go on to implement the Shariah of Allah.

THIS is what the prophet did, in a nutshell.

During this process, it's not required that the general population of the Muslims to be upright. In fact, they will NEVER be upright when kufr is implemented upon them - where all evil is made easy, accessible, and promoted, and all good becomes difficult and those preaching for good are persecuted and suffocated!.

When the prophet established the state in the Madinah, which is the change we all want to see today, Muslims only made up a third or less of the population of Madinah. AND amongst the Muslim there were hypocrites!

That's why for our Sahabah and classical scholars this point above was a given:

Uthman bin Affan (ra) said:

"إن الله يزع بالسلطان ما لا يزع بالقرآن"
"Allah removes through governance and authority what would not be removed through the Quran alone."

الفرد كي يستقيم حاله يحتاج إلى بيئة صالحة، ومجتمع راشد، وسلطان يصلح حال الناس ويحملهم على الخير وييسره لهم، ويمنعهم من الشر ويحاسبهم عليه.
That is because the ruler is the one that implements what is in the Quran, and many people are weak who can't become upright with what is in the Quran alone with all the corruption around them.

Umar (ra) said:

إن الناس لم يزالوا مستقيمين ما استقامت لهم أئمتهم وهداتهم
"People will remain upright as long as their leaders are upright"

Ibn Taymiya said:

"ومعلوم أنه اذا استقام ولاة الأمور الذين يحكمون في النفوس والأموال استقام عامة الناس"
"It is known that if the rulers who rule over the people and their properties are upright, then the general population will be upright"

Even in many forms of counselling for people going through personal hardships, therapy includes changing the conditions around them, that would then result in lifting them from their state of misery.

"إن أردت أن تحدث تغييرا جذريا في معتقدات الناس أو سلوكياتهم، فيتوجب عليك أن تخلق مجتمعا حولهم يمارس هذه المعتقدات الجديدة، ويظهرها، ويرعاها"
مالكوم جلادويل، صاحب كتاب: نقطة التحول، كيف يمكن لأشياء صغيرة أن تحدث أثرا كبيرا
“If you want to bring a fundamental change in people's belief and behaviour, you need to create a community around them, where those new beliefs can be practiced and expressed and nurtured.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

So this idea that "fix yourself and the society will be fixed" is wrong and flawed, from a shari' point of view as well as from a logical point of view.

Allah (swt) says:

إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوْمٍ حَتَّىٰ يُغَيِّرُوا مَا بِأَنفُسِهِمْ
"Indeed, Allah does not change the situation/state of a people(nation) until they change what is within themselves”.

Indeed Allah will not send angels to change our collective condition if we just change our personal state!

Rather, if we as an Ummah change our collective condition (أحوالنا كقوم وليس كأفراد ) i.e. we undermine and bring down all forms of societal batil in our lands - e.g. the rulers, borders, and nationalism that comes with it, and we establish the hukm of Allah/ the Khilafah that would then remove kufr/riba/fahsha/corruption - only THEN would Allah change our state from one of humiliation to dignity, defeat to victory.