those worldly affairs without which religion cannot survive. This task has two principal aspects:
- Distributing wealth to those entitled to it;
- Administering punishments to aggressors.
When the ruler strives—so far as he is able—to set right both the people’s religious life and their worldly affairs, he becomes the finest person of his time and is ranked among those who wage jihad in the path of Allah.
It is related: “A single day under a just ruler is better than sixty years of worship” (reported by al-Ṭabarānī, 11/337).
And in the Musnad of Imām Aḥmad (10790) the Prophet ﷺ said: “The most beloved of Allah’s creation to Him is a just ruler, and the most hateful to Him is a tyrannical ruler.”
7 – Other spheres of authority include: the superintendent of a charitable endowment, the executor of a will, the guardian of a minor or incapacitated person, an agent acting on behalf of a living party, a man over his household, and a woman within her husband’s home, and the like. All of these are guardians over whatever lies in their charge, and they are encompassed by the general wording of the hadith: “Each of you is a shepherd and each of you will be questioned about his flock” (reported by al-Bukhārī, 893; Muslim, 1829).