Press Release
The Civil State is Exactly the Same as the Secular State
Which the Jordanian Regime is Attempting to Render the Ummah Blind about
(Translated)

The following was mentioned in the Sixth Discussion Paper for the head of the regime under the heading “The Sovereignty of the Law is the Basis of the State”: “The civil state is the state that refers to judgment to the constitution and the law which is applied upon all without favouritism. It is consequently not synonymous with the secular state. That is because the Deen within the civil state is a fundamental factor in the building of the moral system and societal values and it is a part that cannot be separated from our constitution. In respect to that we have an example in the Messenger of Allah (saw) when he wrote the document of Al-Madinah following his Hijrah to Al-Madinah Al-Munawwarah for the purpose of regulating the relationship between all of the factions and groups within it.” It also mentioned: “The absence of the sovereignty of the law and the just application of it is a main factor leading to the situation that we are currently witnessing.”

We in Hizb ut Tahrir in the Wilayah of Jordan which is working with seriousness and sincerity for the sake of the resumption of the Islamic life via the establishment of the rightly guided Khilafah "Caliphate", from the angle of ordering the Ma’roof and forbidding the Munkar, the political method and intellectual struggle, and in following the method of the Messenger of Allah (saw) in his Da’wah to establish the Islamic state which is being sought after and yearned for by the vast majority of the Muslim Ummah in Jordan and the whole Islamic world, we reiterate the following:

The idea of the civil state is exactly the same as the idea of the secular state and it is synonymous with the secular state. However, after the regime and the secularists have despaired in having the Muslims approve of a secular state, they sought to lighten its impact. Consequently, they began to promote it with the terminology of the civil state and added to that certain wordings such as “The Deen within the civil state is a fundamental factor” and like “A civil state with an Islamic reference”. All of which was done in an attempt to mislead and slowly poison minds, so that the Muslims are made to feel that the state does not oppose Islam nor contradict it.

The concept of the civil state is the same concept as the secular state and completely contradicts the Islamic Aqeedah. That is because it doesn’t make the right of ruling belong to Allah Subhaanahu Wa Ta’Aalaa but rather allocates the right of rule-making to man. The civil state has begun to be presented as an alternative to the Islamic state; as a state that separates the Deen from it, from politics, the setting of legislation and indeed from all state institutions. This is the full and accurate meaning that is intended by it. There has nothing to do with the sovereignty of law and the constitution, which are from the basic premises of the definition of any state, as the corruption is in the law and constitution itself, the legislation of which depends upon people and councils elected from the people, and not from the Islamic legislative sources which are the Quran and the Sunnah. Also, it doesn’t mean that the state is Islamic when the constitution states that the Deen is a fundamental or main factor in respect to the building of the moral and value system. That is because the ruling in Islam is not satisfied unless the right of ruling is absolutely and unrestrictedly to Allah (swt). Consequently, it is not accepted for it to be a source from amongst its sources of legislation because Islam alone is the source of legislation within the Islamic state. The Almighty said,

﴿وَأَنِ احْكُم بَيْنَهُم بِمَا أَنزَلَ اللَّـهُ وَلَا تَتَّبِعْ أَهْوَاءَهُمْ وَاحْذَرْهُمْ أَن يَفْتِنُوكَ عَن بَعْضِ مَا أَنزَلَ اللَّـهُ إِلَيْكَ﴾

“And judge, [O Muhammad], between them by what Allah has revealed and do not follow their inclinations and beware of them, lest they tempt you away from some of what Allah has revealed to you” [Al-Maa’idah: 49].

Therefore, the conflicts, corruption and Fitnah is not caused by the absence of the sovereignty of the law and it is definitely not a main factor for reaching the situation that the Ummah is living through. Rather, its only reason and cause is the removal of Islam from the ruling, the state and making it the basis for ruling in all human affairs. Allah Ta’Aalaa says and He is the Most Truthful of Speakers:

﴿وَمَنْ أَعْرَضَ عَن ذِكْرِي فَإِنَّ لَهُ مَعِيشَةً ضَنكًا وَنَحْشُرُهُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ أَعْمَىٰ﴾

“And whoever turns away from My remembrance - indeed, he will have a depressed life, and We will gather him on the Day of Resurrection blind” [TaHa: 124].

The next cause is the subservience of the rulers to the disbeliever and colonialist enemies of the Ummah and enabling them to gain a firm foothold in respect to the land and its people, it addition to joining them in their war against Islam in the name of “terrorism” in its intellectual and political aspects. And the civil state is nothing other than one of the tools of this war designed to distance the Ummah from the carriers of the Da’wah and their true project for revival, which is the establishment of the Islamic state that goes only to Allah for judgment.

The state in Islam is a human state; it is a political entity established upon the basis of the Islamic Aqeedah and it fosters the affairs of the people by the Islamic Sharee’ah. The sovereignty within it belongs to the Shar’a and not to the Ummah, the people or any of the legislators, whilst the ruler within it (the Khalifah) obtains his authority via the Bai’ah (pledge of allegiance). It is therefore not a “Religious state” in accordance to the modern definition terminology because the ruler does not acquire his authority and right to rule from Allah (in person) but rather his authority comes from the Ummah. Similarly, it is not a “civil state” because there is no separation in Islam between the Deen and the state. In addition, the relationship between the state and its subjects (I.e. anyone who holds citizenship) is a relationship of caretaking and mercy. There does not exist within it anything called minorities in respect to ruling and caretaking of their affairs. As such the state does not differentiate between its subjections but rather treats them all in accordance to one single treatment without discriminating upon the basis of race, colour, general of religion...

As for using the Madinah document (As-Saheefah) written by the Messenger of Allah (saw) as evidence for a civil state, then this represents another falsehood and deception to the people so as to confuse the civil state with the Islamic state. The Saheefah was an outline that defined the relations of Muslims with each other and those who followed them. It mentioned the Jews, stipulated conditions upon them and defined within it the relations of the Jewish tribes with the Muslims. All of which indicates explicitly that the relationship between the Jews and the Muslims was set upon the basis of referring to Islam for judgement and upon the basis that made it subject to the Islamic authority, restricting the Jews to what the interest of the Islamic State required upon the basis of them being subjects of the Islamic state. And that the governance in any dispute is for Allah Almighty and His Messenger (saw), it had stated this explicitly in the Saheefa.«وَإِنَّكُمْ مَهْمَا اخْتَلَفْتُمْ فِيهِ مِنْ شَيْءٍ، فَإِنَّ مَرَدَّهُ إلَى اللَّهِ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ، وَإِلَى مُحَمَّدٍ...» So what is the relationship been this reality and the civil state? Indeed, how bad is the judgement.

All of the attempts that seek to mislead the Ummah, poison her thoughts and make its awareness unclear by utilising veiled terminologies which have taints attribute to the Deen, will never fool the conscious Ummah that the civil state is exactly the same as the secular state. The Ummah will never give it any consideration and its fate will be completely ignored and cast away with all the other useless ideas through which they attempt to remove and push aside the Islamic Deen and legislation from life. Just as the Ummah pushed aside all of the secular calls previously from her apart from a small minority whom the regime has provided space for to push their poison across the media which the state has control over. None of his is happening except because the regime knows that the Islamic state is the demand of the Ummah as a whole, that it is extremely near me then those who oppressed will know the end that they will be turned to.﴿يُرِيدُونَ لِيُطْفِئُوا نُورَ اللَّـهِ بِأَفْوَاهِهِمْ وَاللَّـهُ مُتِمُّ نُورِهِ وَلَوْ كَرِهَ الْكَافِرُونَ﴾“They want to extinguish the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah will perfect His light, although the disbelievers dislike it” [As-Saff: 8].

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir

in Wilayah Jordan