The classical scholars considered the Caliphate and ruling of such vital importance that they included this topic within their ‘aqīdah (creed) works. The Lebanese academic, Yusuf Ibish, states “there is hardly a book on uṣūl [beliefs] that does not contain, a long or short, discussion of it [the Imamate]”
“It is not permissible for Muslims to abandon working for Islam and the establishment of its state on the face of the earth, waiting for the appearance of the Mahdi and the descent of ‘Isa, peace be upon them both, feeling despair and imagining that is not possible before (they appear). This notion is false.” [Shaykh al-Albani]
Allah has commanded us to enjoin the good and forbid the evil, and this duty cannot be rendered without power and authority. Likewise, all other social duties such as jihād, maintaining peace and order, justice, organizing ḥajj and ‘īd festivals, redressing abuses, helping the oppressed, enforcing the ḥudūd, and so on, cannot be carried out without political power and authority.
The Prophet ﷺ worked with the Sahabah in his da‘wah with full political awareness and monitored the international situation and its impact on the Muslims. An example of this is how the Prophet ﷺ reacted to the conflict between two of the superpowers on the world stage at the time, Persia and Byzantium (i.e. al-Rūm, the Eastern Roman Empire). The Qur’an mentions the conflict between these two adversaries in Sūrah al-Rūm (the political significance of this Sūrah being named after a global superpower cannot be ignored)
"The scholars have agreed that it is not permissible for two caliphs to be appointed in the same time, irrespective of whether Dar al-Islam [the Abode of Islam] was widely spread or not."
Allah criticizes those who ignore His commandments which include every type of righteous good thing and prohibit every type of evil, but they refer instead to opinions, desires and customs that people themselves invented, all of which have no basis in His dīn. During the time of Jahiliyyah, the people used to abide by the misguidance and ignorance that they invented by sheer opinion and lusts. The Tatar (Mongols) abided by the law that they inherited from their king Genghis Khan who wrote Al-Yasiq for them. This book contains some rulings that were derived from various religions, such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Many of these rulings were derived from his own opinion and desires. Later on, these rulings became the followed law among his children, preferring them to the Law of the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger ﷺ. Therefore, whoever does this, he is a disbeliever
One of the excuses for ignoring the emphatic Shari‘ah obligation of re-instituting the Caliphate is the claim that it is an impossible dream which cannot be realised. According to this argument, the Caliphate is deemed to be a Utopia which present-day Muslims cannot bring to fruition. This is despite the fact that the Caliphate previously existed for several centuries and succeeded in spreading Islam to many lands.
Our disunity as a Muslim Ummah is painfully apparent every Ramadan. We cannot agree on when to begin fasting and when to celebrate Eid. This reality is pointed out with glee by the enemies of Islam. Even countries which are neighbours announce the beginning and end of Ramadan on different days. It seems that when it comes to this issue (among a vast array of others), we are still suffering from the historical decisions of the colonial powers which divided our lands (as was the case with the secret Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, which partitioned the Ottoman Caliphate).
Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman said: ‘Islam is divided into eight parts. The prayer is one part, zakat is one part, fasting is one part, hajj is one part, ‘umrah is one part, jihad is one part, commanding what is known to be right is one part, and forbidding what is recognised as wrong is one part. Disappointed is he who has no part of Islam.’
[Al-Būshanjī:] Al-Muʿtaṣim returned to Baghdad from the Byzantine front in Ramadan of ’18. It was then that he tried Aḥmad and had him flogged before him. A trustworthy associate of mine reported to me what he was told by Ibrāhīm ibn Muṣ‘ab, who at that time was standing in for Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm as al-Mu‘taṣim’s chief of police: “I’ve never seen anyone brought face to face with kings and princes show as little fear as Aḥmad did that day. To him we were nothing but a cloud of flies.”
The Caliphate 