It is not a complicated equation to figure out. The political administration of our Ummah has four phases, two of which have passed, one is yet to come, and one in which we are living at present.
Rasullullah ﷺ said:
“تكون النبوة فيكم ما شاء الله أن تكون ، ثم يرفعها الله إذا شاء أن يرفعها ، ثم تكون خلافة على منهاج النبوة ، فتكون ما شاء الله أن تكون ، ثم يرفعها الله إذا شاء أن يرفعها ، ثم تكون ملكا عاضا ، فيكون ما شاء الله أن تكون ، ثم يرفعها الله إذا شاء أن يرفعها ، ثم يكون ملكا جبريا ، فتكون ما شاء الله أن تكون ، ثم يرفعها إذا شاء أن يرفعها ، ثم تكون خلافة على منهاج النبوة ، ثم سكت.”
The present phase is the Mulk Jabaryy. There will be no phase after this except the final phase: khilafah upon the minhaj Nubuwwa. Every State prior to the final phase will be defined as being from the Mulk Jabaryy.
Mulk Jabaryy can either mean that the state rules the population by means of force, or that that state is itself forcibly imposed upon the people by external powers. This amounts to the same thing, as any government that rules by force will necessarily require external support, since it will not have domestic support.
This is the phase we are in now, and we will continue to be in this phase until the return of the Khilafah upon the minhaj Nubuwwa, even if we have a state which calls itself khilafah, or calls itself Islamist, or what have you. It will be what our Prophet ﷺ said it will be.
Regarding the Mahdi, Rasulullah ﷺ said
“الْمَهْدِيُّ مِنِّي أَجْلَى الْجَبْهَةِ أَقْنَى الْأَنْفِ يَمْلَأُ الْأَرْضَ قِسْطًا وَعَدْلًا كَمَا مُلِئَتْ جَوْرًا وَظُلْمًا”
A world filled with injustice is clearly not a world in which there is an Islamic state upon the minhaj Nubuwwa. Remember, we are talking about actual injustice, not unjustified complaints falsely accusing a just ruler of oppression. The world, prior to the emergence of the Mahdi, will be full of real injustice. This precludes the possibility that Khilafah upon the minhaj Nubuwwa will exist prior to the coming of the Mahdi.
Unless you claim that khilafa upon the minhaj Nubuwwa will be established and then lost again to injustice and oppression, and then it will be re-established by the Mahdi. But, it is impossible that our Prophet would not have mentioned that among the phases.
The presence of a handful of rulers, like Noor-ud-Deen Zangi, Salahuddeen, and Omar bin Abdul-Azeez, within a period of over a thousand years is not a powerful argument. They are primarily famous precisely because they were exceptions to the norm.
Our political aims should be based upon the reality as we have been informed of it by the Messenger of Allah. Most of the greatest scholars who we admire and learn our religion from, were imprisoned, tortured and even killed by the state which called itself Islamic, often precisely because they refused to cooperate with it.
That is the correct role of the righteous. Not seeking power, not seeking to integrate into the system of oppressive power, but rather, dedicating themselves to continuously fighting and struggling for justice.
وَاعْبُدْ رَبَّكَ حَتَّى يَأْتِيَكَ الْيَقِينُ
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