So this man has pledged allegiance to the imam, yet he did so for the sake of this world—­not for religion, nor out of obedience to the Lord of all creation. If the ruler gives him some money, he keeps his word; but if he withholds it, he reneges. Such a person—­we seek Allah’s protection—follows his own desires, not divine guidance, and shows no true obedience to his Master; his entire pledge rests on caprice.

Someone might object: “We never pledged allegiance to the imam; not everyone has done so.” This is a satanic, baseless doubt. When the Companions—may Allah be pleased with them—­pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr, did every single individual do so, including the elderly woman in her home or the youth in the marketplace? Certainly not. The pledge is undertaken by the ahl al-ḥall wa-l-ʿaqd (those qualified to appoint and depose the ruler), and once they give it, authority is established over all the inhabitants of that land, whether they approve or not.

I do not think any Muslim—or even any rational person—would claim that every last individual must personally pledge allegiance, even if he were hiding in his house, whether an old woman, an elderly man, or a small child. No one has ever said this. Even those who trumpet “democracy” in the Western countries and elsewhere do nothing of the sort; they are deceitful, and their elections rest on fraud and falsehood, driven solely by their whims.

In Islam, once the ahl al-ḥall wa-l-ʿaqd agree to pledge allegiance to an imam, he becomes the imam, whether people like it or not. The entire matter is theirs to decide. Were it left to the general populace—young and old, men and women, even those without an opinion who themselves need guardianship—no imam would ever remain, for the people would inevitably disagree.