is utterly worthless. Some people imagine that returning to the Islam practiced by the earliest generations of this ummah is unsuited to the modern age—God forbid. They have not grasped that Islam is the judge and is never to be judged, and that it does not change with times, places, or people. Islam is Islam. Therefore, if we truly believe in Allah and the Last Day, let us return to the Book and the sunnah: “That is better and yields the best outcome” (al-Nisāʾ 4:59)—that is, it brings about the finest end and the soundest well-being.

The Exalted then says: “Have you not seen those who claim to have believed in what was sent down to you and what was sent down before you, yet they wish to seek judgment from the ṭāghūt (false authority), though they were commanded to reject it” (al-Nisāʾ 4:60). The interrogative here conveys astonishment: are you not amazed at people who claim faith in what was revealed to you and to those before you, yet they are unwilling to submit their disputes to Allah and His Messenger and instead want to refer them to the ṭāghūt—that is, to any system that contravenes Allah’s sharia?

Among such people are the rulers with whom Allah has tried the Muslims—rulers who seek to judge between people by misguided statutes far removed from the sharia, codes authored by this or that unbeliever who knows nothing of Islam, who lived in a different era and in a nation unlike the others.

Regrettably, some Muslim lands that were once colonized by disbelievers adopted these laws and began enforcing them upon their Muslim populations, heedless of their contradiction to the Book of Allah—exalted is He—and the sunnah of His Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, while they