Who Should Rule

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan speech
Published in Muslim Murasu, September 2011

Man is created as Kalipha is the view of Quran. The dictionary meaning of Kalipha is successor. One who replaces the previous one. One incident follows the next. This is how human history proceeds. One king is replaced by another. Jinns lived on earth at some point of time. Then man took over the reins. To my knowledge, Jinns do not have successors. Iblis is leader of Jinns. There is no concept of Kilaphat or offspring there. But man will have offspring. One will pass away and another will take that place.
Man does not live forever. This applies both to individual and society. Leadership and position will change. Man is master of earth. Man decides the course of history.
Surah 3, verse 140, “Such days (of varying fortunes) We give to men and men by turns”. Ownership of earth will keep changing hands. No one has been given monopoly in this matter.
This is the philosophy of history in the light of Quran. This has been proved repeatedly. We have past 4000 years of history recorded. Roman empire ruled the world for 2000 years till seventh century. There were small tribes before that and they were quarreling most of the time. Romans brought a huge part of land under one rule for the first time and brought a semblance of peace, albeit forced peace.
Then came the Islamic rule. It was followed by British rule and American era of late. There will be stirrings in human life. It should not stagnate. When a new ruler comes, they take the world a step further. Each rule will start stagnating and then deteriorating after some time. Allah’s will is to bring new talents and new achievers.
During Muslim rule, education was made common for all and people were given freedom. Earlier education had been restricted to people belonging to select classes. There was peace in Roman rule, but it lacked freedom. A common man had no rights to question or advise the ruler. There was nature worship in those times. Muslims stopped nature worshiping. It laid foundation for modern science. Muslims conquered and harnessed nature. Then Muslims started stagnating.
This brought British rule. They brought technology with them. Human labor was replaced with machines. Machines were used for energy instead of cattle. They generated energy from water and steam. World saw new developments with these innovations. Allah gave dominance to Europeans.
Then America became super power. Their achievement was communication breakthroughs. The concept of global village was introduced by them. Now America has started deteriorating.
On a smaller scale, Jews have been given the reign. Contribution of Jews in documenting history by archaeological surveys is huge. Muslims are harboring intense hatred towards Jews. It is Jews who gave historical perspective to many incidents narrated in Quran through their archaeological works. They unearthed a whole city where Prophet Ibrahim had lived, during their excavation works in Iraq. Many relics from the period of Prophet Ibrahim were found. This is the result of stupendous work done by Jews. Another huge contribution by this community is dry-land irrigation. When conventional flood irrigation failed in desert landscape, they invented drip irrigation. Through this they achieved good harvest in desert terrain.
Allah will eliminate a society when it stagnates. Stagnant water is prone to germs. Running water and currents in water will keep it fresh and useful. Society will keep changing and continue improving.
Muslims are continuously harboring negative and counter-productive thoughts. They believe they and only they have the right to rule this world for no reason. Kilaphat is part of freedom; it is not part of Imaan (faith). Whoever takes the world further gets the right to rule. Muslims are fighting against Allah’s will.