The following is an answer by Ustadh Abu Khaled al-Hejazi.
3- The saheeh hadith which has been accepted and is narrated by Ubadah ibn Samit in the hadith of bay’ah where he says, "
“There will be leaders over you, (who will do things) you recognize (as part of the Deen), and things you don’t recognize. Whoever recognized he would be relieved (of sin), and whoever denied (the wrong), he would be safe”. Hadith, Abdullah ibn Amr “If you see my Ummah afraid of telling the oppressor: You are an oppressor, it is farewell to the Ummah” [Suyooti]
Question: Accounting the rulers does it have
to be open, if so how does one reconcile it with the below hadith: "The Messenger of Allah Muhammad
(salallaahu'alayheewasallam) said, "Whoever desires to advise the one with
authority then he should not do so openly, rather he should take him by the
hand and take him into seclusion (and then advise him). And if he accepts (the
advice) from him then (he has achieved his objective) and if not, then he has
fulfilled that which was a duty upon him."
(Reported
by Ahmad (3/403) and Ibn Abee 'Aasim (2/521) with a Saheeh isnaad.)
Answer:
The hadith you quoted concerning
accounting the rulers, is incomplete and further the isnad (chain) is not intact,
rather it is broken (it is mursal). Ahmad ibn Hanbal has reported it from: Abu Mugaira, from Safwan, that Shuraih ibn Ubaid al Hadrami and
others said: Iyad bin Ganam became angry with Hisham bin hakeem, and after that he apologized,
then Hisham said to Iyaad, haven’t you heard the saying of the Prophet (saw), "the worst of
the people in azaab are the ones who are the harshest on the people in the dunya"
so Iyaad bin Ganam said: O Hisham bin Hakeem
Iyaad bin Ganam was a sahabi and
he was among the ones who gave the bay’ah of ridhwan and he died in the year 20H and Hisham
bin Hakeem ibn Hazam was a sahabi and the son of a sahabi and he died during the reign of Muawiyah. Almazi says in tahzeeb al kamaal that the ones who narrated this
hadith are people of trust, as for shuraih ibn ubaid al
hadrami he is tabee (generation after the sahaba) and he is trustworthy but his narrations from the sahabah are mursal, and
it is said in tahzeeb al kamaal (muhammad ibn Auf was asked that did shuraih ibn ubaid narrate from
abu dardaaa? so he replied “no”. Then he was asked that did he hear from any of the Sahabah
of the prophet? So he replied that I don’t think so and that is because when shuraih
reports a hadith he does not say that (I heard) and he is trustworthy.
Hafiz Ibn hajar also called
Shuraih Mursal. So how could it be that Shuraih who narrates and reports this hadith have met Abu
amamah ibn ajlan (died 87H) or miqdaam ibn madi karb (died 87 H) and if shuraih did not meet
them then how could he had met hisham ibn hakeem who died during the beginning of the reign
of muawiyah or even iyaad ibn ganam who died in 20H (during umar ibn khatabs reign)?
What is clear here is that shuraih
only narrated a story and there is no evidence that he actually witnessed the incident or
even heard any one from the ones present there, and therefore this isnad
clearly is broken. As for Ibn Asims report which is found in
"assunnah", he says Amru ibn uthman narrated, from
baqiya, from safwan ibn amru, from Shuraih ibn ubaid that he said that iyaad ibn ganam said to
hisham ibn hakeem that have not heard the saying of the prophet where he said "
whosoever wants to give naseeha to some one in authority he should do so in privacy, and if he accepts
(then he has achieved his objective) and if he doesn’t then he has fulfilled his duty".
All the narrators here are people
of trust but there is no evidence that shuraih narrated from iyaad and hisham directly
(i.e. that he heard either of them). This is what haithami says in "almajma": Note that
shuraih ibn ubaid is narrating an incident and there is no evidence that he was present there or that he heard
from any who were present there, therefore the isnad is broken and is weaker than earlier.
These are the two evidences to
show that the hadith is Mursal and the isnad actually is broken.
But even if we consider it to be
correct (Saheeh) and we assume that the prophet said that "if you want to advice the
sultan then do so in privacy....." the hadith. There is no notion in this hadith which gives us an
indication of Wujub (obligation/ fardiya) rather it only indicates that it is only a
permission (rukhsa). The daleel (evidences) for that are:
1. The Prophet (saw) said "
and if he does not accept then you have completed your duty" which could lead the addressed ones in
this hadith to understand the obligation of advice (naseeha) which would lead them to face the
one in authority, and the prophet here clarified that the issue is to fulfill the obligation
of naseeha and not facing the one in authority in public. This clearly shows that the naseeha
is obligatory iI.e
amar bil maruk wannahi anil munkar but the style adopted could be private
or public.
2. The saying of Iyaad bin Ganam,
" ,
there is no evidence to show that the privacy is
obligatory and neither does he indicate that the public and aggressive style is haraam.
And there should be nothing to
wonder here since the prophet said, “”the master of martyrs is hamza and
the man who stands to a oppressive rulers and then he does amr bil maruf wannahi anil
munkar and for that he is killed". [Reported by Muslim and Bukhari]. The
question in front of us is that " will
someone who stands to an Imam in seclusion and
then advices him, will the dhalim kill him? the answer is off course not" the killing came as a
result of the public advice i.e nahi anil munkar in public which may lead the one in authority to
kill the man in revenge.
3- The saheeh hadith which has been accepted and is narrated by Ubadah ibn Samit in the hadith of bay’ah where he says, "
4- The hadith of the prophet where
was asked about the best jihad and he said that, "the word of truth in front of a tyrant
ruler". These 4 points are after we are simply assuming a weak hadith which
is mursal and with a broken chain to be correct.
It is very clear that the correct
way of naseeha to the ones in authority is publicly. the evidences along with the opinion
of the ulema verify this.
Tariq ibn Shihab all narrated that
the Messenger (saw) said : “The best of Jihad is a word of truth in the face of a tyrant
ruler” [Abu Dawud]
“The master of martyrs
is Hamza and any man who stands in front of a tyrant ruler and orders him (with good i.e. the
implementation of the Deen) and prohibits him (from the evil of other than the Deen)
and is slain by him”. [Authenticated
by Ibn Hajr al-Hathami in majmoo’ al-Zaaid]
“There will be leaders over you, (who will do things) you recognize (as part of the Deen), and things you don’t recognize. Whoever recognized he would be relieved (of sin), and whoever denied (the wrong), he would be safe”. Hadith, Abdullah ibn Amr “If you see my Ummah afraid of telling the oppressor: You are an oppressor, it is farewell to the Ummah” [Suyooti]
Ibn Hajr in his Fath al-Bari also
states that if he becomes a Kafir, or changes the Shari’ah he should be fought and removed.
This view is also mentioned in Nayl al-Awtar and supported by Imam Shawkani. That is,
if the ruler rules by other than the Shari’ah he is fought until he either repents or is removed.
The ahadith on doing amar
bil maruf wannahi anil munkar are many and they all are Mutlaq (unrestricted) and they emphasize
on doing it publicly and hence in today’s reality it is of utmost importance
that the advice is giving publicly specially because it has 88 years and
there is no caliph and one of the main culprits are the rulers who do not rule
by Islam.
Abu Khaled al-Hejazi
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