Question
A Mufti has written that to abstain from voting in the country's elections is haraam. He says that a vote is exactly the same as a shar'i shahaadah, and to refrain from voting is tantamount to concealing shahaadah. Thus it is a sin. He says that all the laws attached to shahaadah are applicable to voting and that elections are also part of the Deen. Please comment.
Answer
It appears that an advanced stage of senility has overtaken this mufti. He has spoken pure drivel on the voting issue. He does not even understand the meaning of haraam nor does he have a proper understanding of shahaadah, hence he labels abstention from voting for the kuffaar system of law as haraam. On the contrary, in most cases it is haraam to vote for kuffaar political parties and for even Muslim political parties in Muslim states. Leave alone intelligence, by what stretch of imagination did this miscreant mufti conclude that voting for a kuffaar system of government is fardh, and abstention is haraam? All systems of government besides the Shar'i order, are haraam and kufr. Prohibiting such kuffaar forms of rule, the Qur'aan Majeed states: "Those who do not rule according to that (law) which Allah has revealed, verily they are the kaafiroon." Something is drastically amiss with the thinking of this mufti.
- Source
- themajlis.co.za
- Published in
- The Majlis Vol 22 No 01
- PDF page
- 3
Appears under Questions and Answers (approximate).