Does The Ruling Regarding Protests And Demonstrations Differ Between The Muslim and Non Muslim Countries Since In The Non Muslim Countries It Is The Civil Right of The Citizen To Protest? by Shaykh Dr. ʿArafāt ibn Ḥasan al-Muḥammadī

Pivotal Quote

“When Allāh’s Messenger ﷺ was in Makkah, he was a minority in a kafir land. Did he ever tell the ṣaḥābah, “Let’s go protest!”, did he ever tell the ṣaḥābah, “Let’s go demonstrate and riot!”?  This is misguidance! Did he ever say to them, “This is not a Muslim land so we don’t have to follow the rules of Islām”? This is clear misguidance.

What he did ﷺ, was enjoin the good and forbid the evil to the extent possible with the means that were permissible and possible. Protests are not from the means that are permissible. They are forbidden in the Sharī’ah; from the root up, protests and demonstrations are forbidden and ḥarām in the Sharī’ah of Islām.

Question:

a.) Is the ruling regarding protests in the western lands different from the ruling regarding protests in the Muslim lands because there is no Muslim ruler in the west who is obligatory to obey? Due to this fact, the texts that prohibit revolting against the ruler, does it apply to us in the west?

b.) Protests in the West are considered a legal right and the rights of the citizens. As such, is there problem with people exercising their rights

Answer:

When Allāh’s Messenger ﷺ was in Makkah, he was a minority in a kafir land. Did he ever tell the ṣaḥābah, “Let’s go protest!”, did he ever tell the ṣaḥābah, “Let’s go demonstrate and riot!”?  This is misguidance! Did he ever say to them, “This is not a Muslim land so we don’t have to follow the rules of Islām”? This is clear misguidance.

What he did ﷺ, was enjoin the good and forbid the evil to the extent possible with the means that were permissible and possible. Protests are not from the means that are permissible. They are forbidden in the Sharī’ah; from the root up, protests and demonstrations are forbidden and ḥarām in the Sharī’ah of Islām.

Protests and demonstrations don’t bring about any good, they bring about harm. Historically, where did protests, riots and demonstrations come from? This is from the sunnah of the atheists. They are the ones who invented this. This has been part of their dīn and their way of life. This is from the lifestyle and creed of the atheists. Do you ever find any of the scholars of the Sunnah say, “Let’s go demonstrate and riot!”?

Furthermore, let’s look at the reality of what happens during riots. Does any good come about, or is there a bunch of destruction of public and private property, a bunch of bloodshed, a lot of people getting injured and clashing with the authorities, things getting broken down, a bunch of businesses getting burnt down and looted and a bunch of police stations getting burnt.

Is this from the dīn of Allāh? This is corruption upon earth! There is no place for this in the dīn of Allāh.  Allāh says,

وَإِذَا تَوَلَّىٰ سَعَىٰ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ لِيُفْسِدَ فِيهَا وَيُهْلِكَ ٱلْحَرْثَ وَٱلنَّسْلَۗ وَٱللَّهُ لَا يُحِبُّ ٱلْفَسَادَ

“And when he turns away (from you O Muḥammad ﷺ ), his effort in the land is to make mischief therein and to destroy the crops and the cattle, and Allāh likes not mischief.” (Sūrah Al-Baqarah 2:205)

Riots and demonstrations are corruption from the root up, there is no good in it.

Furthermore, who do you find participating in the riots, demonstrations and protests? Do you find the mashāyikh and ulamāʾ participating?  Do you find the people diligent in establishing their five daily prayers in the jamā’ah participating? Or would you find the fusāq, you’ll find the people that don’t even pray at all, if they are even Muslims. Particularly in the West you’ll find a bunch of naked women out there and you’ll find sexual harassment and women taking of their clothes, you’ll find all types of fāsad. Where is this in comparison to the religion of Allāh?

No one is going to say that the demonstrations that are taking place in our day and time are in accordance to Islām, expect an ignorant person who knows nothing about the religion of Islām, a person who has never even smelt the scent of knowledge about the religion of Islām.

Where did demonstrations come from? They are part of democracy, and what’s democracy based on? It is based on the separation of church and state; that your belief should have nothing to do with your lifestyle whatsoever; that material life should have nothing to do with the afterlife. This is the basis of democracy- not to let your dīn interfere with your lifestyle, it’s totally separate, don’t mix them, don’t let your ‘aqīdah tell you what to do. This is the origin of democracy, secularism, materialism, not letting other peoples’ dīn tell them what to do, they want to do what they want to do, what pleases their lowly desires.

Demonstrating and rioting are all part of imitating the disbelievers. This is from their way of life, not from Islām. Demonstrating and rioting are not part of the dīn of Allāh and whoever wants to rectify the affairs of his dunyá and his dīn, then let him give precedence to the affair of the dīn over the affair of the dunyá that he seeking to get.

When we look at the five sacred things that the Sharī’ah gave precedence to in preserving and protecting, at the top of the list is dīn.  All the rules in the Sharī’ah is made in preserving the dīn. Also, some of the things the Sharī’ah came to protect are: peoples’ lives, peoples’ wealth, peoples’ honour and peoples’ blood, and so riots, protests and demonstrations are a violation of sanctity of all of these things. 

We find peoples’ property getting stolen and peoples’ property getting destroyed. People are taking the rulings of the religion and throwing behind them their back when they participate in these riots and demonstrations.

How are peoples’ affairs supposed to be set straight when they are throwing The Book of Allāh behind their backs? They are simply copying the disbelievers’ way of life and they want change to come about in society? 

Whoever has been poisoned with the likes of these ideas need to turn back to the dīn and seek knowledge and rectify his ideas and stop spreading this falsehood for fear of promoting these doubts. As one of the people the Messenger ﷺ described as saying, “Whoever introduces a bad Sunnah into Islam would carry the sin of it and the sin of everyone who practices it up until Yawm al-Qiyāmah.”

Be careful of what you spread!  Be careful of what you say. The ones who take it and run with it and act on it, you’ll be carrying their sins because you’ve affected them. 

Allaah says:

يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓا۟ أَطِيعُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُوا۟ ٱلرَّسُولَ وَأُو۟لِى ٱلْأَمْرِ مِنكُمْۖ

“O you who believe! Obey Allāh and obey the Messenger (Muḥammad ﷺ), and those of you (Muslims) who are in authority.”  (Sūrah An-Nisa’ 4:59)

How are we supposed to implement this ayah when we are turning our backs on The Book of Allāh and disobeying the guidance we have been taught by those who have authority over us? How are we supposed to be guided when we simply are copying The People of the Book? As Allāh’s Messenger ﷺ said:

Abū Sa’id al-Khudrī reported Allāh’s Messenger ﷺ as saying, “You would tread the same path as was trodden by those before you inch by inch and step by step so much so that if they had entered into the hole of the lizard, you would follow them in this also. We said: ‘Allāh’s Messenger, do you mean Jews and Christians?’ He said, ‘Who else?’” (Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim)

حَدَّثَنِي سُوَيْدُ بْنُ سَعِيدٍ، حَدَّثَنَا حَفْصُ بْنُ مَيْسَرَةَ، حَدَّثَنِي زَيْدُ بْنُ أَسْلَمَ، عَنْ عَطَاءِ، بْنِ يَسَارٍ عَنْ أَبِي سَعِيدٍ الْخُدْرِيِّ، قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم ‏”‏ لَتَتَّبِعُنَّ سَنَنَ الَّذِينَ مِنْ قَبْلِكُمْ شِبْرًا بِشِبْرٍ وَذِرَاعًا بِذِرَاعٍ حَتَّى لَوْ دَخَلُوا فِي جُحْرِ ضَبٍّ لاَتَّبَعْتُمُوهُمْ ‏”‏ ‏.‏ قُلْنَا يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ آلْيَهُودَ وَالنَّصَارَى قَالَ ‏”‏ فَمَنْ ‏”‏ ‏.‏

This is what is happening by Muslims lining up behind them doing the demonstrations, doing the same as them.

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