Is it obligatory to love the Muslim leaders or just obey them and not revolt against them?

Is it obligatory to love the Muslim leaders or just obey them and not revolt against them?

The prohibition of revolting against Muslim rulers has been mentioned in many Ahadith. Similarly, there are many statements from the Imams of the Salaf, like Ahmed ibn Hanbal, and others to the same effect.

But nowhere in the Hadith corpus, or in the statements of the Imams of the Salaf do I find that it incumbent upon Muslims like or love their rulers.

In fact, the Ahaadith which prohibit rebellion against rulers point to the fact that the people will not liking their rulers, otherwise they wouldn’t have thought of rebelling against their rulers, would they?

In several narrations there is a mention of:

أَثَرة

i.e. rulers who will take up wealth for themselves and/or their relatives and not give the subjects their share.

The Ahaadith command us to be patient in such times; not that we should like or love them anyways.

In another Hadith, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ mentioned that the worst of rulers would be those whom you would despise and they would despise you. He was asked, shouldn’t we fight against such rulers with our swords? He replied: No, as long as they establish prayer. [Sahih Muslim]

In this Hadith, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ didn’t forbid despising the rulers, he forbade against rebelling against them.

Some people think that in order to prevent people from rebellion we should try and make them love the rulers, and to this end they praise the rulers day-in and day-out, and pretend that people have no genuine grievances against their rulers This can be very counter-productive. People consider such people as sellouts, and thus they increase in their hatred for rulers and their desire to rebel against them.

Instead one should address the people saying, we understand your grievances and we know about the corruption and oppression, but such rulers were prophesied by the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and he asked us to be patient and not rebel against them. He asked us to hate their corruption but remain patient and not rebel.

Moreover this constant praise goes against the way of the Imams of the Salaf, despite the fact that the rulers in their time were much better than the rulers today.

To the contrary, it has been reported from the great ascetic and renowned scholar of his time Fudhail ibn ‘Iyaadh (d. 187) that he said about Haroon al-Rashid:

ما على ظهر الأرض أبغض إلي من هارون ولا أحد أحب إلي بقاء منه، لو قيل انتقص من عمرك ويزاد في عمره لفعلت، ولو خيرت بين موته أو موت هذا (يريد ابنه أبا عبيدة) , وإنى لأحبه (يعني أبا عبيدة) قال: وأحبه لأنه جاءني على الكبر= لاخترت موت هذا. فسبحان الذي جمع بين هاتين الخصلتين في قلبي

“There is no one on this earth whom I *despise* more than Haroon, but despite that there is no one for whom I wish a long life except him. If it was said to me, you can subtract years from your life and add it to his, I would do it. If I was given the choice between the death of my son whom I love very much, and the death of Haroon, I would prefer my son’s death over his. Glory be to Allah who has combined together these two (opposing) feelings in my heart!”

[Hilyat al-Awlia 8/104-105]

The narrator who heard this, as well as Imam Ahmed (as narrated by Al-Khallal in “Al-Sunnah” 1/31), explained that Fudhail wished for Haroon’s longevity because he feared that the one who would come after him would be much worse. And that is exactly what happened, Haroon was succeeded by Mamoon who started the Fitnah of Khalq al-Qur’an.

To summarize, Allah has not made it incumbent upon us, nor was it the practice of the Salaf, to constantly praise the rulers, or justify each and every one of their actions and words.

-Via Ustadh Nabeel Nisar Sheikh (Pupil of Shaikh Uzair Shams Rahimahullah) on Facebook.