May the peace of Allah be upon you.

There is this question that keeps coming to me: How can a Muslim country not rule by Allah’s Law – Shari`ah? How can we not apply the Shari`ah and instead we apply laws invented by human beings? How can we believe in Allah and believe that the Qur’an is the Word of Allah, sent down upon His slaves and then go and rule by laws of human invention? Is Allah’s Law too difficult to apply? Was Allah’s Law and His Book just for a certain era – the time of the Prophet, his companions and their followers, but we are not responsible for implementing it in our time? If Your Honor’s answer is that it is compulsory to apply Allah’s Law in every time and place, then how can we accept being ruled by anything else? Are we required to work towards applying Shari`ah in the country we live in?

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful,

All praise is due to Allah, and may peace and blessing be upon the Messenger of Allah, upon his household, his companions and those who have followed him. To proceed:

May Allah make you ever more protective of His Deen and ever more insightful, my dear boy. Not ruling by Shari`ah is the reason for all that the Ummah is afflicted with, of misfortune, neediness, adversity and disaster. If only they would uphold the Book of Allah and apply His Divine Law, they would eat from above them and from below their feet. Allah would give them authority in the land, and He would remove from them the humiliation which has enveloped generations and which has grabbed them by the throat. The toils of our laborers and the trials of our patient, long-suffering preachers and troops stationed at every entry point, guarding the religion, have not been undertaken except to uphold the Religion of Islam and Shari`ah Rule! Nevertheless, it has already come in the Book of your Lord that among His slaves are those who are damned and those who are saved, and that Heaven has its multitudes as the Hellfire has its horde. As for why they do not apply Shari`ah, it is because Iblis (the Devil) has already proved his expectation of them true, and they have closely followed him [see: 34:20]. He has made the misconceptions, which have taken them away from the path, seem appealing to them, and he has deceived them into believing that the Shari`ah is not appropriate for every time and place and that applying it is a means to factional conflict. Likewise, he has made it seem to them that applying the hudud, or felony penal code, is harsh and barbarous, that riba (usury, interest) is an economic necessity and that the world around them will not accept them if they do it [implement Shari`ah rule], along with a host of other misconceptions which I have explained in my book, Tatbeeq al-Shari`ah wa Da`âwâ al-Khusoom (The Application of Shari`ah and the Allegations of its Opponents), so you can refer to that on my personal site [only available in Arabic] <http://el-wasat.com/assawy/>. May Allah bless you, increase you in insight and make you ever more protective of the religion.