As for the variety of fields and the need for specialists to cooperate with one another, I meant by raising that issue only two points.

First: I would like you to notice something that escapes many of today’s devout, educated youth—let alone others. Thanks to the efforts and writings of certain Muslim thinkers such as Sayyid Qutb (may Allah have mercy on him), al-ʿAllāmah al-Mawdūdī (may Allah preserve him), and others, they have learned that the right to legislate belongs to Allah alone; no person or institution may share it with Him. They expressed this with the phrase “al-ḥākimiyyah li-Llāh” (“sovereignty—the authority to rule—belongs to Allah”). That meaning is explicit in the Qur’anic and prophetic texts cited at the beginning of this talk.

Yet, at this very moment, many of those same young people have still not realized that any human participation which conflicts with Allah’s sole sovereignty is equally forbidden—whether the one who encroaches on Allah’s domain is a Muslim who errs in a single ruling, or a disbeliever who sets himself up as a legislator alongside Allah; whether he is learned or ignorant. All of that contradicts the very principle our youth, praise be to Allah, have embraced.

That is what I wanted you to be alert to and to remember: “So remind, for the reminder benefits the believers” (Qur’an 51:55).

I have often heard some of them deliver fiery sermons, filled with praiseworthy Islamic zeal, proclaiming that sovereignty belongs to Allah alone and condemning the unbelieving systems now in power. This is admirable, even though, at present, we are unable to change those systems. Unfortunately, within many of our own hearts there remains something that conflicts with that very principle.