Every province has an assembly elected from its people and championed by the governor. The assembly has the authority to participate in expressing opinions on administrative matters and not on ruling; and this would be for two objectives:

Firstly - providing the necessary information about the situation of the governorate and its needs to the governor and to express their opinion about that.

Secondly - in order to express their contentment or complaint about the rule of the governor over them.

The opinion of the assembly is not binding in the first instance and is binding in the second – if they complain about the governor he is removed.

It is not known that the governors of the Messenger (pbuh) used to have a provincial assembly and it is not known from the actions of the Messenger (pbuh) that he selected a provincial assembly, and in the same way, nothing similar is known from the righteously guided Khulafaa’. From this, the provincial assembly is not part of the ruling apparatus or the Shari’ah rules, since the ruling apparatus is every action from the acts of ruling that has a Shari’ah evidence and anything which has no evidence is not from the ruling apparatus. Rather it is examined, and if it is a branch action that is derived from a root, then it follows that root and is from the styles and means that are permitted to be acted upon - in other words, from what is called administration; and if the root or branch action has evidence, then it is not correct to undertake it except in accordance with the Shari’ah evidence.

The provincial assembly is a branch action that is derived from the actions of the governorship, since the governor undertakes the ruling and administration, and the people of the province are more knowledgeable than him regarding the reality of their province and what occurs within it. Accordingly, it is vital that he has information that he can rely upon in order to undertake his actions and this information is present amongst the people of the province. Based upon this, it is imperative for him to refer to the people of the province while he is governing them.

This is from one angle, and from another angle his ruling of the province must be upon a basis that the people of the province are not angered, since if they are angry with him, then it would be upon the Khalifah to remove him, since the Messenger (pbuh) removed Al-’Ala’ b. Al-Hadrami as his ’Amil over Bahrain since the delegation of ’Abd Qays complained about him as mentioned by Ibn Sa’d in Al-Tabaqat. Accordingly, it is imperative that the opinion of the people of the province regarding his undertaking the ruling over them is known as to whether they are content or not.

Additionally, it is imperative for him to refer to the people of his province while he is governing them, due to the following two reasons: to gather the information which the governor requires and for his knowledge of what the people of his province think about his ruling – ,therefore, it is necessary for him to refer to the people of his province. To facilitate this reference, the governor establishes a provincial assembly which is elected from the people of his province, so that he can refer to it for the two issues: gathering information and knowing the opinion of the people of the province regarding the rule of the governor. Accordingly, this assembly does not have any consultation (Shura) or taking of opinion and nothing to do with the practice of ruling; rather it is to look into the administrative action. Its opinion is not binding but rather it is present in order to assist the governor. The first one who created this assembly was Umar b. ’Abd Al-’Aziz, since before he became the Khalifah, he was the governor over Madinah, and if he conducted a leadership assembly, he would meet two men of the opinion formers and leaders of their tribes, and said to them “It is an assembly of evil and strife, and you two have no action other than to examine me (monitor me), so if you see something which does not agree with the Truth, then remind me of Allah and make me fear Him”. So the origin is to refer to the people of the province and the observation of the governor from their side and in order to achieve this reference, a provincial assembly is created beside the governor.