Islam21

International
Forum for
Islamic Dialogue
(IFID)
A Global Network for Muslim Intellectuals & Activists

www.Islam21.net

Double Issue Nos. 43-44 Jan-May 2007

Editorial:
Mailing address
Reclaiming History through Politics
BM Box 5856
London WCIN3XX
United Kingdom
Islam is God’s own text for eter- to God’s call. It is not the show-
Email:
inquiry@islam21.net nity. Man is the context for which ground for man’s uncontested do-
the eternal text was revealed. This minion over nature, nor a stage for
Editor:
S Parvez Manzoor is how we perceive our faith: tran- enacting man’s uncontrolled pas-
scendentally anchored in the com- sions. The Muslim’s stake in his-
Mission Statement: mand of a unique, all-wise, all- tory is for the realization of his
To establish a humane, merciful Being, but existentially moral commitment and it commis-
democratic, Islamic
thought by maintaining affirmed in the moral will of hu- sions a politics of humanity, be-
and developing a dy- manity. The dialectics of God’s yond the messianic violence of
namic dialogue.
Text and man’s context have al- Islamism and Empire.
ways been the source of much To reclaim our place in history
contemplation and action for us is to accept the ‘worldliness’ of
For, the sovereignty of God, un- words and things. It is to acknowl-
In this issue: contested and unproblematic in edge the ‘secularity’ of the histori-
the order of nature/creation, is not cal world, without falling prey to
Islamist Options 3
by a given for man: it can only be the dogmatic claims of
Abdelwahab Al-Effendi claimed and testified through an ‘secularism’. Secularism means all
Fundamentalism or the act of submission (islam). things to all men. For some, who
Second Great Fitna? 5 But for man’s primordial cove- take a humble view of it, it is
by
Mohamed Sharour nant, Adam’s acceptance of the merely a method of governance
custodianship of the earth, the based on the rejection of ecclesi-
IFID Activities 15
world of history, man’s world astical authority. Its main attraction
Promoting the Universal would be bereft of meaning and is that it is able to deal rationally
Charter of Islam 16
by purpose. It is through this cove- with the mundane affairs of a pol-
Najah Kadhim nant that man receives his privi- ity and is better equipped to cope
Islam, State and
leges and enjoys the mandate of with the problem of pluralism. Oth-
Morality 22 being God’s deputy on earth. It is ers, who are not immune to the
by
Asghar Ali Engineer
the basis for man’s mission to im- lures of meta-theory, regard it as
part morality to creation and to nothing less than a philosophy of
IFID Activities 27
make history in alignment with the history, a creed of atheism, or, in-
will of God. All the children of deed, an epistemology of human-
Adam, Muslims included, are thus ism. Only to its fundamentalist
obliged to have an uninterrupted fringe does secularism appear as
dialogue with history. the metaphysics of immanentism
History is humanity’s response that corresponds to the ultimate
www.Islam21.net
 Page 2
scheme of things!
Needless to say, not every expression of
the secular, this-worldly, conscience and
piety is antithetical or inimical to Islam We
cannot banish ourselves from the world
merely because secularists have made it
their estate. Nor can the unsubstantiated
claims of ‘metaphysical secularism’ – a the-
ory of everything that is – be our argument
for the denial of transcendence. On the
contrary, the misery of nihilism, secular-
ism’s ultimate gift to humanity that now
wears an ‘Islamic’ mask, alerts us to the
fact that the worldliness of the human situa-
tion is indispensable for all morality. An
‘Islam’ which has no stake in history and
which is indifferent to the fate of humanity
would be a contradiction in terms.
Muslims today are committed to renew-
ing their dialogue with history. Theirs is the
resolve to reclaim their rightful place within
the fold of humanity. To court history, to be-
come an actor on its stage, however, re-
quires a political vision and a will to match.
We may be the most history-intoxicated
civilization on earth, but it is history as the
remembrance of times past that is our pas-
sion, not history as the vision of a foresee-
able future and the method of getting there
through collective action. History has cer-
tainly passed us by and unless we do
something about it, we too would belong to
the have-beens of the world.
Earlier, we thought, our rulers had let
history slip out of our hands. Our ire was
directed against them. Belatedly we are re-
alizing that our decline in history may have
been caused by our divines. At least, they
appear to be the most formidable hurdle in
renewing our dialogue with history. For
them, Islam as eternal text and its formative
history as context are congruent. Islam
finds its full expression only in its primordial
settings. And if Muslim history has moved
away from that context, it is their claim, it
must be brought back to its original moor-
ings. Both history and society are static in
this vision, and the real actor in history, the
Ummah, has no other vocation but to act as
the guardian of an unchanging order, fro-
Islam21
zen in time and forever under the sway of
the jurist’s logic. She stands disfranchised
and has no means of expressing her po-
litical will save through the mediation of
the cleric!
What is missing in this logic however is
the simple fact that even in the discourse
of the fiqh, the living community has
precedence over (closed) juristic texts.
And politics, conceived as the pursuit of
the Ummah’s collective interests in history,
requires a ’sovereign’ self-governing com-
munity. Representative democracy is the
best, most viable, means of ensuring the
legitimacy of Muslim public order. It alone
provides the Ummah with a mandate to
chart its coarse in the troubled waters of
history. Without the testimony of the politi-
cal will of the living community, ‘Islam’
would just be a corpus of texts with no
role in the historical world.
It is with the insight that history is indis-
pensable to Islamic commitment and mo-
rality that our contributors review the
quandary of ‘Islamist’ politics. Abdelwahab
El- Affendi wonders whether Islamists are
the last remaining obstacle to democrati-
zation in the Arab world and offers some
realistic scenarios for their future policies.
Mohamed Shahrour presents an intimate
historical analysis of the current impasse,
renounces all attempts to force Muslims
turn their back on the modern world, and
has some sobering thoughts on the future
of political order in Muslim societies. Na-
jah Kadhim makes a passionate plea for
pursuing the universal moral charter of
Islam. A state-centred vision of politics, he
argues, only finds favour with the un-
enlightened and retrograde groups who
would make Muslims pariahs of the world,
totally out of step with our times. Asghar
Ali Engineer makes a similar plea for envi-
sioning Islam as moral order rather than
as a polity. And in these pages, we have
presented an Islamic argument for accept-
ing the worldliness of man’s historical en-
terprise without endorsing the claims of
doctrinaire secularism.
S Parvez Manzoor
 www.Islam21.net
Editorial:
ISLAMIST OPTIONS
Abdelwahab El-Affendi
Are Islamists the last remaining obstacle to
democratisation in the Arab world?
This legitimate question leads to the follow-
ing reflection regarding their possible
choices:
As things stand, Islamist groups appear
to have four different options. They could, if
they were bold enough, go for a full revolu-
tionary take over on the basis of their cur-
rent programmes, and face the conse-
quence. The experience of movements
which took this root (in Iran and Sudan)
does not look very encouraging. However,
one must add here that there was nothing
inevitable about the disastrous perform-
ance of Islamists in power in those coun-
tries. As was indicated by the experiments
with the Mehdi Bazargan government dur-
ing the early phase of the revolution, and
the more recent Khatami presidency (or
even the Banisadr interlude). Other options
were and are available in revolutionary
Iran. In Sudan as well, the conclusion of the
2005 Naivasha agreement, which ended
the civil war in the South on the basis of a
power-sharing arrangement between
Islamists and their main rivals, indicates
that the pragmatic route remains open even
in post-takeover situations.
Alternatively, Islamist groups could with-
draw from politics altogether and act as
mere pressure groups in the way ulama
have done for centuries and continue to do
today. They could then support political
parties or governments which are more
sympathetic to their worldview and oppose
those which are not, without contributing to
a political impasse as is the case now. This
role in fact may be the one more suitable
for the current stance of Islamist groups,
since it can combine a maximalist agenda
with a minimalist commitment to effective
political action. Pressure groups are differ-
Page 3
ent creatures from political parties. And al-
though some pressure groups did consti-
tute themselves as political parties (the
Greens, the UK Independence party, anti-
immigration parties, etc.), such parties are
very unlikely to be elected to power. And if
they were, their tenure is likely to be very
short and very disastrous. Single issue
agendas do not sit well with the complex
business of government and the endless
compromises it demands. Islamist groups
have been rather successful in the role of
pressure groups in many Arab countries,
although not always with positive conse-
quences. The problem has often been their
emphasis on marginal issue having to do
with personal conduct or freedom of ex-
pression, a tendency which has both dis-
tracted from more important issues and in-
vited incumbent governments to engage in
even more restrictive practices.
The third option for Islamists is to build
broader coalitions in support of change.
This has the advantage of not demanding
any radical revision of Islamist ideology or
programmes. The compromises reached
could be legitimised as temporary and con-
tingent. In fact, this is the substance of
what Islamists have been doing in practice,
whether in accepting to work within secular
systems or in allying with secular parties. In
Lebanon, Islamists have fully reconciled
themselves to the secular constitution and
therefore pose no problem to democracy
there. In countries like Kuwait and Mo-
rocco, Islamists also support the constitu-
tion, and similarly play a constructive role in
the democratic process. The problem only
arises when the opponents of Islamists
raise the question of the sincerity of
Islamists in the compromises they make,
and continue to express the fear that these
temporary compromises are just that: tem-
porary. They could be reversed any time
the Islamists felt powerful enough to do so.
 Page 4
And then there is the AKP option: that
of radically restructuring Islamist pro-
grammes so as to attract a broader de-
mocratic coalition and make for a more
stable political structure overall. The diffi-
culties posed by such a radical break with
what all traditional Islamism stood for is
understandable, especially since Islamist
groups have been experiencing a resur-
gence in support for their agenda as it
stands today, as we have been discuss-
ing. It is going to be psychologically very
demanding for Islamist groups to openly
give legitimacy to “un-Islamic” arrange-
ments and share power with former rivals
on a diluted agenda. It is also likely to
alienate a section of hard core support-
ers, which might do no more than dis-
place the Islamist dilemma.
This latter development is not new,
since it has already occurred over the is-
sue of violence and involvement in de-
mocratic politics. A significant section of
Islamist opinion has rejected the peaceful
democratic approach, and this schism,
which is the heart of the debate on terror-
ism, has contributed significantly to the
current crisis. Ironically, many regimes
have used this as a pretext to punish the
peaceful groups keen on joining the politi-
cal process, and thus given credence to
the argument of the radical groups about
the futility of peaceful political involve-
ment. However, this polarisation has nev-
ertheless been instrumental in de-
legitimising and marginalising the violent
extremist groups.
This leads us to our conclusion.
Islamist groups are, to reiterate, by defini-
tion those groups which have success-
fully and credibly appropriated a sizeable
portion of the community’s spiritual capi-
tal in a context where such a success is
politically relevant (i.e. through the exis-
tence of a sizeable constituency for which
the locus of religious authority matters).
This success can only be achieved with a
combination of credible religious commit-
ment and political entrepreneurship. What
we are witnessing with the current im-
Islam21
passe is the limits of this entrepreneurship.
Islamist groups have successfully appropri-
ated the politically valuable spiritual capital,
but then sat on it, not knowing what to do
with it, in the same way as governments
have achieved monopoly of political power
but also failed to use it creatively, leading to
political stagnation. One or both of these
actors needs to move and invest its capital
to achieve a dynamic outcome.
We have mentioned before that incum-
bent regimes have proved unable and un-
willing to move forward in a satisfactory
way. Quite the reverse, in fact; regimes
have been punishing successful political
entrepreneur, whether Islamist or liberal,
and continue to stifle civil society. But since
this is a meeting about the Islamist role, we
can only address our concerns to the party
which is present. And we are not being pre-
scriptive here, at least not in a condescend-
ing way. All we are saying is that, from
where we stand, it looks as though Islamist
inaction is blocking the path of reform and
providing incumbent regimes with sufficient
excuses not to discharge their duties in pro-
moting positive change. We would like to
see them adopting a more flexible stance
so as to build broader democratic coalitions
that could push reform forward. Else, we
would like to listen to what they have to say
about how they intend to pull their weight in
the cause of positive change and reform.
What is unacceptable is the continuation of
the present stalemate, where the major op-
position group is often unwilling to bid for
power, but also reluctant to stand aside and
allow others to get on with the business of
politics.
Abdelwahab El-Affendi
Senior Research Fellow
CSD, University of Westminster
London UK
Secretary of IFID
(Excerpted from the author’s paper pre-
sented at the CSD Workshop,
London, November 2006)
 www.Islam21.net
Fundamentalism
Islamic Politics or the Second Great Fitna?
Mohamed Shahrour
Before anything, I wish to address the basic
question and shed some light on what is meant
by al‑uşūliah (fundamentalism), a term that has
occupied, and continues to occupy under this
rubric a large space within both Arabic and for-
eign literature. Significantly, the same term also
has received much attention in Muslim history
under the name of its promoters, the Kharijites
or the Secessionists. The general linguistic
sense of uşūliah is ‘returning to the
uşūl’ (fundamentals). For some, al‑uşūl mean
only the Holy Qur’an and the Sunnah of the
Prophet; for others, the Sacred Text (Qur’an)
and the şahih (authentic) Sunnah; for the Khari-
jites, it includes the principle of “Judgment is by
God Alone” (similar to the “Sovereignty of God”
cry in the modern era). Others believe that
the Shar’ia is the Holy Book and the oral or
practical Sunnah. The discourse of fundaments
(uşūl) however has nothing to do with violence.
Hence, despite all the variations in the usage of
the term, most Muslims, of whom I am one, do
not practise violence or believe in terror. Uşū-
liah as a sectarian movement is part of modern
Christianity, it is not part of the Islamic heritage.
It is a purely political movement belonging to
our times.
The confusion arose when political move-
ments, organized by Muslims who practised
violence and terror, were described by foreign
observes as fundamentalists or jihadists. When
we talk today about violence and terror in al-
uşūliah al‑islamiyyah (Islamic fundamentalism),
we really mean those armed political move-
ments, not the moral or legislative Islam or the
Islamic rituals, in which all Muslims believe.
I shall now return to the basic question posed
earlier. The legitimacy of the Umayyad rule (the
Sufyanids and Marwanids) was buttressed by
the fuquhā’, who provided the required legal
façade for their authority. Their system was
based on the key concepts of al‑jabr of qadā’
and qadr (fate and destiny). In other words,
everything that men do had already been deter-
mined and prescribed. Later, they consolidated
their hold on the mosques and other religious
institutions for their political goals - supposedly
Page 5
implementing the sayings of the Prophet, but,
in reality, the sayings of the Umayyads – to
consolidate their power. As a result, protest
movements began to appear under their reign.
Ultimately, these protests culminated in the
overthrow of the Umayyads by the Abbasids.
During the first Abbasid period, however, we
witness the rise of the Mu‘tazilite School, which
adopted intellect, reason and free thought, as
those concepts were understood in those days,
as the cornerstones of their Islamic methodol-
ogy.
There was also another protest movement
that practised violence under the name of the
Kharijites. Eventually, the Sunni community’s
allied itself with the Abbasid rulers, an act
which appears as a coup d’état to their critics.
During the rule of al-Mutawakkil (Abbasid Ca-
liph 247 AH), the caliph succeeded in the further
consolidating the party of Ahl al‑Sunnah wa
al‑Jamā‘ah: here was the beginning of a very
powerful and far-reaching alliance of political
power and religious authority. In other words,
the ‘ulamā’ and the fuquhā’ of those times sur-
rendered their religious authority to the holders
of political power, a situation that remains true
of the Muslim world to this day. The Grand
Mufti or the Head of the ‘ulamā’ or the Shaykh
of Islam, an office which was established by the
Ottomans, is appointed by the ruling power in
most, if not all, of the Arab countries. This reli-
gious authority has provided the greatest sup-
port for oppressive rulers. When, for example,
Imam A’az ibn ‘Abd al‑Salam began protesting
against the Mamluk rulers in Egypt regarding
alcohol and the emancipation of slaves, etc., he
was not aware that he was ultimately protesting
against an legitimacy of a repressive power
rather than its abuses.
If we look at Europe, on the other hand, we
find exactly the opposite picture. The religious
authority in Europe during the Middle Ages was
supreme. Political power was, in theory if not in
practice, subordinate to this authority. It was
the Pope who appointed the kings and not the
other way round. The ceremony of ‘anointing’
 Page 6
was meant to demonstrate his sovereignty over
the political realm, the ‘worldly sword’ of the
Christian Commonwealth. One may say, from
an objective historical viewpoint, that the Old
Testament worldview formed the basis of the
Christian understanding of the universe and its
laws including the realm of government.
The utilitarian, or secular movements that
began in Europe had two objectives in mind:
1) The separation of political power from reli-
gious authority. The principal reason was that
the Papacy claimed the right to appoint kings
and princes. If someone acquired the throne
without the consent of the Pope; or if some king
wished to challenge the authority of the Pope,
he was forced to establish his own church as
well. This is what happened in England [in the
sixteenth century], leading to the establishment
[by King Henry VIII] of the Church of England,
which asserted its independence from the au-
thority of the Pope. Thus, the monarch became
the head of both church and state.
2) The emancipation of scientific knowledge
from the Church. Following new discoveries it
was found that the Biblical vision of the uni-
verse and its laws, which had been adopted by
the Church, was not correct. According to
some, this transformation was made possible in
Europe because there was no original legisla-
tion or legislator at the heart of its faith. Christi-
anity became separated from Judaism by aban-
doning the Law of Moses. In other words, the
principles of legislation in the Holy Book of the
Old Testament were rejected by Christians,
with the exception of the Ten Commandments,
which are generally moral in nature. Therefore,
the establishment of parliaments and the imple-
mentation of secular legislation by the Chris-
tians did not come in conflict with the Church,
at least in theory, as there was no sacral legis-
lative institution. This situation enabled the de-
velopment of the alternative, secular intuitions
of the parliament, the legislative council and
popular rule. What we see in Europe is in my
view the logical outcome of the Christian rejec-
tion of the sacred law.
The king used to be appointed by the
Pope, but later, rulers were appointed by the
people. In those countries where the institution
of the monarchy was retained, it was stripped
of all its political power and it became a symbol
Islam21
of the country, of its traditions and of national
unity. The interpretation of the universe and its
laws had been based on the text of the Old
Testament and the Church’s understanding of
it. Later, it came to be explained by scientific
research, based on an empirical and analytical
approach, that led to the development of cen-
tres of scientific research which contributed to
the spread of scientific knowledge. In the ab-
sence of Canonical Law, parliaments and legis-
lative councils began to emerge and legislate in
the name of the people. The Ten Command-
ments now became the basis of the moral
code.
All these events were in harmony with
the inner logic of Europe’s historical develop-
ment. All the movements of political and intel-
lectual renaissance that emerged had their be-
ginning in this process of secularisation.
So much for Europe, but what about the
state of the reform and renaissance move-
ments in the Muslim world?
The political attitude of these move-
ments, as for as the king was concerned, took
its legitimacy from the idea that obedience to
the ruler (wali al‑amr or the Guardian) was
obedience to the Prophet, and obedience to the
Prophet was obedience to Allah. The definition
of qadā’ and qadar (divine decree and destiny)
remained the same as it had been during the
Umayyad period, that is, everything had al-
ready been prescribed, as according to the
Qur’anic verse: “Say: ‘Nothing will afflict us
save what Allah has ordained for us; He is our
destiny’” (9:51), or the old popular saying:
“What is written on the forehead must have
been seen by the eye”, that is, Allah already
has the knowledge (and hence approval) that
the Bani Umayyad will rule; that it is their des-
tiny; whereas fate (qadā’) is the enactment of
this knowledge and its fulfilment in reality. Nev-
ertheless, obedience to Allah is separated from
obedience to the Prophet and to the ruler, as in
the Qur’anic verse: “O you who believe! Obey
Allah and obey the Messenger and those in
authority from among you; then, if you quarrel
about anything, refer it to Allah and the Apos-
tle” (4:59). However, the ‘ulamā’ ignored that
completely because they were under the con-
trol of the repressive government. The two con-
cepts of qadā’ and qadar (fate and destiny) and
obedience to those in command/authority (wali
al‑amr) were accompanied by unauthentic Say-
 www.Islam21.net
ings of the Prophet, such as that which was
reported by Huthifah ibn al‑Yaman that the
Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “Listen to
and obey [the amir], even if he hits you on the
back and confiscates your money.” (In the mod-
ern language; if he taxes you unjustly.)
In addition, there was the lineage of the
Quraysh or Ahl al‑Bayt, which may have been
envisaged as the equivalent of the Pope during
his repressive rule in Europe. Then came the
usage of the title of Caliph or Amir al‑Mu’minin
(Commander of the Faithful) which legitimated
political power, with its right to coercion and
control, in religious terms. Even before the col-
lapse of the Ottoman Caliphate, some reform
movements were talking about the Just
(coercive) Ruler. But they did not discuss the
election of the amir or his powers or the dura-
tion of his rule, because the religious authority
was under the control of the Caliphate.
When the Caliphate collapsed in 1924, there
collapsed with it the legitimacy of repression, a
situation that has continued to this day in the
mind of general public. That is why we find an
astonishing mixture of regimes in power in the
Arab and Muslim world. Rulers have realized
that their legitimacy is insufficient or non-
existent and have resorted to oppressive meas-
ures to bolster their regimes. An example is the
institution created by the Iranian Revolution,
that of walyat al‑faqih, which may suspend any
legislation issued by Parliament; for, the gov-
ernment merely represents the middle link be-
tween popular consent and the ultimately un-
challengeable authority of the jurist (walyat al-
faqih.)
The Arab and Muslim world differs from
Europe in what is known as the Shari‘ah. What
I mean by the Shari‘ah is the [Qur’anic] verses
of legal rulings (ahkām al‑Qur’an) covering so-
cial and family relations, legal penalties, inter-
personal transactions (mu‘amālāt), and per-
sonal affairs. These are issues that certainly
could not be separated from the state. It was
possible to separate the religious rituals such
as Hajj, prayer and fasting, as the Holy Prophet
himself had done so. However, it was not pos-
sible to separate issues of marriage, divorce,
heritage, upbringing, adoption, buying and sell-
ing (cash or credit), and consumption and in-
Page 7
vestment laws. Europe did not face this prob-
lem at all.
Although Europe could dispense with the Old
Testament interpretation of the universe and its
laws, the people of the Arab and Muslim worlds
could not do that, for the old interpretation be-
came firmly rooted in their traditional literature.
Some of these were originally known as the
Israelite traditions and contained a maxim,
supposed to be a hadith of the Prophet (peace
be upon him), that exhorted the Muslims: “Talk
as much as you wish about Bani Isra‘il.” Many
enlightened Muslims today reject the traditions
based on the Old Testament exegesis, which
found their way into various Islamic disciplines,
such as Qur’anic tafsir, hadith, Nasikh wa
Mansukh (abrogator and abrogation), and As-
bab al-Nuzul (Occasions of the Revelation.)
These protests or rejections however do not
affect the fiqh (jurisprudence), which is the
main pillar of Muslim civilization. Even now, we
continue to hear fatwahs (legal opinions) or
read books demanding that anyone referring to
the spherical shape of the earth should be sub-
jected to takfir. Muslims have discovered that
the problem is one of interpretation and that of
a legislative fiqh based on that interpretation.
What has complicated the matter further is the
division of the Ummah into sects, each having
its own authoritative texts, scholars and fiqh.
This situation has produced a quantitative and
accumulative heritage of traditions, parts of
which do not complement one another; some
even contradict the other. Not only is it difficult
to co-ordinate the various parts, to screen
them, modifying or accepting in parts, but also
it is impossible to ignore them. All this has af-
fected the behaviour of the fundamentalist Is-
lamic movements and their different stances.
The liberal movements in the Muslim world fol-
lowed the European path and rejected fiqh
(jurisprudence) and its rulings, though they did
not reject Islam as a unifying, divine message;
nor did they abandon its rituals and supreme
values. Their demands for the separation of
religion from the state meant the separation of
fiqh and the Shari‘ah, not the separation of
prayers, fasting or the Hajj, nor the separation
of the penalties for murder or dishonesty. Nev-
ertheless, these liberal movements did not
possess the philosophical acumen that would
 Page 8
allow them a foothold in the religious space of
the Arab/Islamic culture. Thus, they remained
alienated and removed from the culture of the
people. I do not doubt at all the sincerity, inten-
tion and rationalism of the adherents of West-
ern liberalism, which was taken in its original
format from Europe without being transformed
into a format suitable for Arab/Islamic culture.
As for the Marxist movements, they
were even worse. These movements began
from their own absolutes and established their
revolutionary legitimacy with their own concepts
or slogans. They considered the inevitability of
the judgement of history in a similar way to the
inevitability of qadā’ and qadar as directed by
The nationalist movements empha-
sised the concepts of science, progres-
siveness and modernity, but transformed
them into a dogma. Freedom was hijacked
under the slogans of Arab unity, social-
ism and progressiveness.
the repressive Umayyads. Their belief in the
transformation of human societies was absolute
and, according to them, the Marxist historical
scheme would unfold in stages until humans
achieved communism. In many ways, their
thought was dogmatic and rigid. Then they
moved on to regard laws of societal develop-
ment within these stages as purely physical
laws, ignoring human freedom and its propen-
sity for debate and participation as well as the
role of society in the march of history. They re-
garded nationalism in the same manner as the
Mamluk and their fuquhā’, for they believed that
the holy tradition of Islam could act as a melt-
ing-pot capable of dissolving all nationalistic
affinities. An even greater failure was their ten-
dency to espouse secularist atheism. Their ef-
forts and ideas focused on deconstructing relig-
ion instead of struggling against the religious
authority that had taken hold over people’s
minds and bodies. As justification, they blame
the repressive feudal Church and her clergy,
such as Rasputin [known as the Mad Monk], for
the reaction of Marxism and Marxists towards
religion. However, all they have done, in my
opinion, is to block the spring under the pretext
that the estuary is polluted.
Islam21
The nationalist movements empha-
sised the concepts of science, progressive-
ness and modernity, but transformed them
into a dogma. Freedom was hijacked under
the slogans of Arab unity, socialism and pro-
gressiveness. They settled for the terminology
of “reactionary”, “agent” or “traitor”, as op-
posed to the Islamic terms of kafir, “atheist”
and mushrik (polytheist) and the communist
terms of “capitalist”, “imperialist” and “enemy
of the people”.
Then there erupted the war of 1967,
the greatest debacle and unmasking, of these
movements, for it showed that the modernist
projects in the Arab world did not deliver on
their promises. Nationalism had become a set
of romantic ideas empty of a philosophical the-
ory for building a society and state, or achiev-
ing justice or the reconciliation of conflicting
interests. The best that the nationalist move-
ments could produce was a police state that
denied people their freedom, as if the flowers
in the meadow can be crushed by the heals of
the boots.
Finally, we come to the Islamic move-
ments. The religious and political authorities
in the Arab world were separated from each
other. Historically, the religious authority
wholly submitted to political power, so that its
role was confined to justifying the behaviour
of those in power. Not inconsistently, the po-
litical Islamic movements were based on the
following principles:
Promoting the slogan “the sovereignty
of Allah” in order to take away power from the
political and traditional religious authorities,
they relied on the historical Islamic literature
of fiqh and books of the Prophet’s Hadith with
the aim of finding a new unity between politi-
cal and religious power. This was impossible
in the world of Sunni Islam, for these two
powers had been separated since the period
of Mu‘awiya ibn Sufyan, when the manage-
ment of the mosque was taken over in sup-
port of those in government. This explains the
mutual repulsion that exists between repre-
sentatives of the political Islamic movements
and the scholars of the religious authorities. It
also explains the emergence of Jama‘at-e-
Islami, al-Qa‘idah and others, just as both the
political and the religious power had a single
authority during the Taliban regime of Af-
ghanistan.
 www.Islam21.net
Since the political Islamic movements
have relied completely on the literature of the
heritage (turath), they have not offered any-
thing new, or added anything substantial to the
theory of state and society; nor have they re-
flected on what the twentieth century has pro-
duced in terms of advances in science and in-
formation technology. These advances have
enabled certain concepts to become common-
place – which was not possible before – such
as the state, civil society, general freedom, indi-
vidual freedom, right of expression, constitu-
tion, and the rights of women in the workplace,
universal suffrage and governance. For exam-
ple, the constitutional theory of law and state,
which limits the power of the ruler, the duration
of his/her rule, and the method of his/her elec-
tion; these issues do not exist at all in the his-
torical Islamic literature. The concept of individ-
ual freedom, for instance, is compared with the
system of slavery. In that literature, the free
people are only those human beings who are
not bought or sold in the marketplace! Today,
in contrast, the concept of individual and gen-
eral freedom has many different meanings. Fur-
ther, the concept of public opinion and parlia-
ments was unknown. In the traditional Islamic
fiqh, there was no value attached to public
opinion, and most people were not even al-
lowed to have an opinion.
According to the jurists, the general
public is to follow the religion of the rulers and
fuquhā’. Although in the traditional fiqh, there is
a legitimate exercise of fatwah (personal opin-
ion), yet there is no referendum. Where is the
Islamic theory of the state that provides a con-
stitutional space for public opinion and parlia-
mentary referendum? I have personally re-
viewed the literature of some of these move-
ments and groups and discovered that I am
facing people who are very sincere concerning
their religion, yet they are a group that treat
problems of the state and modern society with
the utmost political naivety. Why, then, do
some resort to violence and terror? I believe
that it is for the following reasons.
The weakness of their ideas and the
promotion of binary politics, to which I have
referred earlier. The mixture of politics and
kufr, politics and faith, piety and rituals, jihad
and armed violence, and ignoring the verse of
the call to Allah (da‘wah) with encouraging
words and replacing it with the verse of the
Page 9
sword. The symmetry of the terminology has
been achieved through an arbitrary under-
standing of the Text, resulting for instance in
equating fighting (qatal) with killing (qatl). For
them, it is a feat of original reading! All this has
occurred owing to the lack of an original and
modern Islamic theory of the state and society,
which would have put jihad, piety and public
debate in their proper places. This misunder-
standing and confusion, even when accompa-
nied by a sincere religious emotion and true
love for Allah, the Prophet and the Holy Book,
could lead to incidents of armed violence.
Probably the greatest error into which human
beings fall is that they fight, kill and die in de-
fence of their ignorance, as happened during
the events of 11 September 2001 in the United
States.
There is a purely political reason as
well. The Arab and Muslim world is full of re-
pressive governments, which are aware, deep
down, that their legitimacy is incomplete and
that it is actually on the wane. So, they appeal
for the support of the official religious authority.
It is only natural that they resist the attempts of
the movements striving to strip them of their
political power, and this causes violence. Then
The symmetry of the (Islamist) terminol-
ogy has been achieved through an arbi-
trary understanding of the Text, resulting
for instance in equating fighting (qatal)
with killing (qatl). For them, it is a feat of
original reading! All this has occurred ow-
ing to the lack of an original and modern
Islamic theory of the state and society,
which would have put jihad, piety and
public debate in their proper places.
the problem becomes, which came first? The
chicken or the egg? It is known that when re-
pressive authority uses violence in response to
anyone who tries to remove it from power, it
not only targets the Islamist movements and
groups, but also confronts anyone who poses a
threat to it, be they Islamists, communists or
nationalists. In the light of the last point, in par-
ticular, we see that these movements will not
fade away or cease as long as there exist pov-
erty, unemployment and ignorance in Arab so-
ciety. Violence and force cannot eliminate
these movements, for their popular base is
widespread in society. As long as there is an
unequal distribution of wealth and privileges
 Page 10
among the social classes, and as long as un-
employment among the youth of Algeria, for
example, remains at more than 25 per cent, the
violence will not cease and the political move-
ments will not fade away, be they Marxist,
Islamist or anything else.
The failure of the modern movements in
the light of what the results of the 1967 War
have shown, and the descent of the Arabs and
Muslims into a national, cultural and intellectual
vacuum, which the Islamist movements have
been enabled to fill. However, they have filled it
with an outdated content, based on the experi-
ence of ancient times, and created by people
for their times. They have crystallised the most
dangerous trend in the Arab mind, namely,
yearning for the past, just as they have been
helped by the official religious institutions in im-
plementing this policy up to the present day.
This policy includes the use of violence to im-
pose a return to the past as if it were a religious
duty.
Therefore, we think that it is impossible
for the political Islamist movements to succeed
in gaining legitimacy until they present a mod-
ern Islamic theory of the state and civil society,
establish the concept of the democratic state,
and provide space for opposition and public
opinion. They should also provide a space for a
representative government, a parliament, free-
dom of belief, greater public role for women,
and public and private human rights. None of
We think that it is impossible for the po-
litical Islamist movements to succeed in
gaining legitimacy until they present a
modern Islamic theory of the state and
civil society, establish the concept of the
democratic state, and provide space for
opposition and public opinion.
this will be possible unless the concept of legal
evidence (al‑adillah al‑shari‘ah) is thoroughly
analysed. It is the concept of legal evidence,
established in the second and third century AH,
which needs a complete revision, not Islam it-
self.
Without this revision, the danger is that the
fundamentalist forces will increase in power to
the point where they could threaten or even
prevent the development of a civil society and
Islam21
its institutions. Let us take the following exam-
ple. The Islamic literature and books of
Qur’anic interpretation, Hadith, Abrogator and
Abrogation, Reasons for the Revelation, etc.,
are the texts that have been adopted and
taught by the Taliban and al‑Qa‘idah. They are
the same texts that are taught in al‑Azhar, Zy-
tuna (in Tunisia) and in Shari‘ah colleges every-
where; they are used for the science of the
Qur’an and Hadith in the universities of Damas-
cus, Cairo, Mecca and other cities. What I
mean is that the curricula, the books and litera-
ture that have fiqh of mu‘amalat and an inter-
pretation of the laws of the universe will by ne-
cessity produce merely different versions or
models of the Taliban regime.
This is what Muhammad ‘Abdu once pointed
out, yet he was labelled a kāfir (unbeliever) by
the traditionalists, who accused him of being a
Freemason and an agent of the West. What I
mean is that Islamization is, in reality, a purely
sociological process. As a result of this proc-
ess, the civilized society will produce a civilized
Islam, and the Bedouin society will produce a
Bedouin Islam.
Probably the worst that Muslims have pro-
duced are political Islamist movements that use
violence and force in an attempt to lead Arab
and Muslim societies back to the past under the
slogan “Implementation of the Islamic Shari‘ah”.
Under this system, the Islamic Shari‘ah be-
comes a mere façade, because the private in-
terests of the rulers are the real politics of the
state. Afghanistan under the Taliban was the
biggest producer of drugs in the world. Muslims
are no different from other people and, like
them, can be seen to carry out all sorts of as-
tonishing acts when they gain power.
Let us reflect at the phenomenon that
emerged in the 1970s, after the 1967 War. It
was called ‘Islamic awakening’ (şahwah). This
phenomenon emerged, as we have said, as a
result of the failure of the modernity’s projects,
because modern ideologies and methods did
not redeem their promises. It was felt that there
has to be an alternative, and that alternative
was found in a return to the cultural heritage.
However, the much proclaimed Islamic awak-
ening did not progress beyond rituals and wor-
ship (‘ibādāt), as understood by the people of
the heritage of prayers, fasting, the Hajj, reli-
gious retreat in the mosque (mahrab), in addi-
tion to the growing of beards [for men] and the
 www.Islam21.net
compulsory hijāb for women. These became
slogans and political symbols worth fighting for.
None of this has troubled the repressive rulers
in the slightest. On the contrary, they encour-
age and participate in it, as long as these activi-
ties keep people occupied and distract them
from assessing and evaluating the rulers’ per-
formance. What concerns the repressive rulers
and frightens them are activities such as consti-
tutional fiqh, scrutiny of the conduct of the gov-
ernment and the accountability of state officials,
motifs not originally found in turath literature.
Only the fact that copies of the books about the
cultural heritage are sold (and reprinted) by the
million is regarded by the people as evidence
of the Islamic awakening.
The official religious institutions have also
support these activities, as long as they further
their own interests. The other part of the cul-
tural heritage that is accessible is in the domain
of the Shari‘ah or the legislation covering the
ma‘amalāt and personal affairs. Though, it of-
ten sectarian in nature, displaying a multiplicity
of legal opinions, most of them mutually contra-
dictory, it still points the researcher towards
some kind of historical insight. Nevertheless,
even this apparent advantage hides an inner
disadvantage, namely that these conflicting
views do not help us understand the true
maqşad (intention) of the Lawgiver (Shari’).
Confirmation of the sighting of the new moon
(hilāl) at the beginning of the month of Rama-
dan by using modern techniques was approved
by some and rejected by others. The interest
charged by a bank on a mortgage for buying a
home was legalized by a shaykh of al‑Azhar
and rejected by an imam in Damascus, who
issued a fatwah on the Internet concerning the
falsehood of the Shaykh of al‑Azhar. Perhaps
the most ridiculous of their differences is the
interpretation of the amputation of a thief’s
hand. For some, it refers to the fingers; for oth-
ers, the hand should be amputated at the wrist;
for some, at the elbow; and for some, at the
shoulder. In the opinion of al‑Suyuti amputation
of the hand can include the legs, when the
crime is repeated. However, according to Abu
Muslim, amputation of the hand is only a figure
of speech and is not to be taken literally. There-
fore, the Islamic awakening and revivalism
has limited its inquiries to matters regarding
what has been agreed upon concerning the
rituals, and, of course, the compulsory hijab.
Page 11
Some believe that the call (da‘wah) for the
legal implentation of the Islamic Shari‘ah will
represent the rejection of religious, political and
cultural pluralism in society. We should discuss
this matter and define precisely what we mean
by the Islamic Shari‘ah. If it is the Holy Qur’an
and the Sunnah of the Prophet, then this
means that Allah and His Prophet are opposed
to cultural, political and religious pluralism
within the borders of the Islamic State. This is
impossible. Allah states, loud and clear, that
…... the curricula, the books and litera-
ture that have the fiqh of mu‘amalat and
an interpretation of the laws of the uni-
verse will by necessity produce only dif-
ferent versions or models of the Taliban
regime.
there is “no compulsion in religion” (2:256) and
“if your Lord had wished, surely all those who
are on the earth would have believed, all of
them; will you then force men until they become
believers?” (10:99). At some level, it is of
course a matter of verbal games, or word play,
for other elements have also been introduced
into the definition of the Islamic Shari‘ah in ad-
dition to the Holy Qur’an and the Sunnah. In
the same way, books on şuhah, al‑masānīd,
mut‘āt and sunān have been introduced into
the Prophet’s Sunnah under the assertion that
they are Sunnah. How can the Islamic Shari‘ah
contradict what is not contradicted by Allah in
His Book and the Prophet (peace be upon him)
in his Sunnah?
If we remove the Holy Book and the
Prophet’s Sunnah from the term Islamic
Shari‘ah, then there remains what we mean by
it, that is, books on fiqh that are easily accessi-
ble. Examples are al‑Umm by al‑Shafi‘i,
Hāshiya Radd al‑Muhtar by Abu ‘Abidīn, al-
Muwāfaqāt by al‑Shatibi, rules of the imāmah
by Abu Ya‘lā, al‑Ahkām al‑Şulţaniyah by
Mawardi, as well as other books on fiqh, whose
titles we cannot remember. Nevertheless, all
these books are the product of the human en-
deavour and there is no doubt whatsoever that
they carry the stamp of history. These books
were formulated by their authors according to
the legal evidence and fundamentals (uşūl),
 Page 12
which are themselves human products and
thus carry the stamp of history. If the intention
is to apply the content of these books about
uşūl (fundamentals) to the current reality of the
Muslim society, then I say that the Taliban will
become a reality in every Arab and Muslim
country, depending on the conditions in the in-
dividual communities. This not only contradicts
pluralism and civic society, but also represents
a disaster that will take the Muslim community
back to the Middle Ages, and not to the era of
the Rightly-Guided Şahaba (Companions). We
know that a religious state is necessarily a re-
pressive state as it has greater difficulties ac-
cepting the Other on equal terms.
However, we understand that the Islamic
Shari‘ah comprises of the verses of the ahkām
(legal rulings) mentioned in the Holy Qur’an
and the Prophet’s Sunnah. To note however is
the fact that the first actual application of these
ahkām was not only within a dynamic society,
but also within a defined historical period and
geographical location. We say this because we
want to esnure that there is no conflict with plu-
All these books (of the fiqh) are the prod-
uct of the human endeavour, carrying the
stamp of history, and express their rul-
ings according to the legal evidence and
fundamentals (uşūl), which are them-
selves human products and thus carry the
stamp of history. If the intention is to ap-
ply the content of these books about uşūl
(fundamentals) to the current reality of the
Muslim society, then I say that the Taliban
will become a reality in every Arab and
Muslim country.
ralism or with a civic society. What remains is
that we should make full use of our intellect as
believers and produce a new fiqh which is
based on the new evidence (adilla) and the fun-
damentals (uşūl) enshrined in it, it should be a
fiqh which does not oppose democratic society
or pluralism and it should accepts the Other
and the plurality of different opinions under the
umbrella of parliaments, elections and refer-
enda. What is entrusted to us is that we should
do what our predecessors did in their time,
when they read the Qur’anic verses of ahkām
with the Prophet’s Sunnah as the primary
source of guidance suitable for their circum-
stances and in tune with their age. We should
Islam21
read the verses and Sunnah as a secondary
reading to give us new uşūl (fundamentals) for
fiqh and legislation.
As I see it, we should begin from the following
principles:
The supreme values of morality have been
subjected to a development and modification,
from the Holy Prophet Noah to the Holy
Prophet Muhammad, and have carried the
great universal human values and injunctions
such as dutifulness to parents, not killing hu-
man beings, keeping promises, and not telling
lies, etc.
The religious rituals, which are an important
part of faith, such as prayers, fasting and Hajj,
have been subjected to variation. Prayer exists
in all beliefs; fasting exists in Judaism and
Christianity and it is imposed on all believers for
a specified number of days. For Muslims, it
takes place in the month of Ramadan, and for
others it takes place at other times. All these
are forms of fasting and all are unproblematic.
Therefore, we say that pluralism and variety in
religious rituals should be acceptable in a state
and the presence of places of worship –
churches, mosques and so on – next to one
another should be acceptable in a democratic
society, so that we see it as a reality in most of
the Muslim countries and in other countries of
the world.
The Shari‘ah based on the ahkām verses
(apart from tawhīd and rituals) has undergone
development in the understanding and applica-
tion of its principles. What distinguished the Is-
lamic Shari‘ah was that Prophet Muhammad
brought the final version of earlier legal codes
that had undergone development based on
change and reform. The Prophet brought a
Shari‘ah based on ahkām (rules) that were
characterized by limits, known as the “limits
imposed by God” or the hudūd of Allah, and
were part of the finality and universality of the
Islamic message. Although the punishment for
a murderer is the death penalty, this is the up-
per limit, which should not be exceeded. The
sentence can be reduced to a more lenient
penalty than execution. There are countries
that decree execution, based on the most se-
vere penalty, and there are countries that have
abolished execution and consider life imprison-
ment sufficient, for example. Both systems are
Islamic and correct. Another example is that the
most severe penalty for theft is the amputation
 www.Islam21.net
of the hands (far from the most extreme varia-
tions mentioned earlier). There are countries
where the hands are amputated and others
where a more lenient penalty is imposed. Both
systems are Islamic and correct. The character-
istics of hudūd (limits) and ahkām gave the
Shari‘ah a flexibility in that everyone could ap-
ply it on the basis of fiţrah (nature): “The nature
made by Allah, in which He has made men;
there is no altering of Allah’s creation” (30:30).
Haram (forbidden) is absolute, comprehen-
sive and eternal, and (its prescription and an-
nulment) within the jurisdiction of Allah Alone.
No one has the right to make anything haram,
be it prophet, messenger, Companion, ijmā’, or
qiyās. We find the tahrīm in the Holy Book of
Allah (Qur’an): in particular, twelve that had
been collected from the time of Noah to Mu-
hammad (peace be upon them), which are ma-
jor vices. At the top comes shirk or polytheism,
followed by the ill treatment of parents, murder,
obscene behaviour, swearing false oaths, and
giving false witness.
These harams are not open to analogy or
discussion or voting or the opinion of the other
or a referendum. Nor can the rule, “necessity
permits the forbidden”, be applied to them
unless there is a clear text and a sound reason,
such as eating forbidden food when the alter-
native is starvation. However, there are some
fuquhā on the Internet who allow that which is
forbidden, that is, they are legalizing the har-
ams. We advise them to go back and study the
Arabic language. Using analogy as an excuse
for eating forbidden food out of necessity and
extending that to allowing ribā (usury or inter-
est) is clearly not the action of anyone in his
right mind. If the Prophet was not allowed to
make anything halal or haram, except what
God had instituted, then how can those fuquhā
and fatwah councils take it upon themselves to
do so? And what about the tahrīm that one
hears daily from the fuquhā’ and the issuers of
fatwahs?
The rule that “necessity permits the forbid-
den” applies to prohibition (al‑nahy), which is
mentioned in the Holy Book of Allah. Prohibi-
tion is less strict than tahrīm, for it has some
flexibility. Spying and talking behind people’s
backs (ghībah) are prohibited though not abso-
lutely forbidden. This is why spying on enemies
and finding out what they are doing is a duty,
as is for instance spying on murderers and
Page 13
murderous gangs. It is also a duty to give a de-
tailed account about one of your relatives to
someone intending to have financial dealings
with him or to embark on a joint commercial
venture with him. This is not the ghībah or
backbiting, against which God has warned us.
From all this, we can say that the Prophet
was not authorized to decide for himself what
was halal (permitted) and what was haram
(forbidden). However, he was free to give or-
ders and warnings, and he needed to be aware
that prohibition was subject to flexibility and
context, for it was not absolute, comprehensive
and eternal like tahrīm and tahlīl. This insight
Those who are aware and are bold enough
to speak out are our only guarantee for
the truth and our bulwark against violence
and terror. I say that the road to all these
goals and objectives is long and arduous
and I do not deny that we will have to mix
a good measure of utopianism with our
sober hopes to achieve them.
provides us a path for the interpretation and
understanding of the Prophet’s Sunnah.
There is one last point that I have considered
for a long time. For, how long can we say that
the fundamentalists are capable of sustaining
this collective effort? After I have examined all
the principles on which fundamentalist political
Islam is based, realistically, ideologically and
legally, I can only foresee the following picture
of what is possible in the future, and attempt to
draw the conclusions as best as I can. High-
lighting as well as discussing it and finding an
answer to it is a matter of interest for all the
parties concerned, including the political
Islamist movements themselves. I am inclined
to focus the discussion on the central topic
without including all the fundamentalists, some
of whom are not fully aware of the opinions of
the other movements. At the top of the list is
the fundamentalism of the official religious insti-
tutions. The discussion of this question and the
answer to it are not as easy as we might imag-
ine. Although the question mentions “collective
effort”, it does not clarify the objective of the
collective effort and its intention. Does it aim to
reach the corridors of power?
 Page 14 Islam21

I shall assume the truthfulness of the and the Sunnah of His Holy Prophet from the
adopted slogans about justice, equality, shūrā, perspective of our own realities. Even if our
fighting corruption and strengthening public se- own reading comes to differ from the earlier
curity. Nevertheless, all these slogans should readings of our illustrious fuqaha, we’ll still
have mechanisms to implement them, and pro- have love and respect for them. Those who are
grammes for those actions that must inevitably aware and are bold enough to speak out are
follow this implementation. None of these fac- our only guarantee for the truth and our bul-
tors exist in the Heritage upon which funda- wark against violence and terror. I say that the
mentalism is based. The basis of al‑uşūliah road to all these objectives is long and arduous
(fundamentalism) is the view that the Heritage and I do not deny that we will have to mix a
and its people (the people who created our tra- good measure of utopianism with our sober
dition and heritage) are beyond criticism and hopes to achieve them. Yet, I can see no other
therefore they should be followed literally, de- clear way to the final destination or salvation.
spite their shortcomings and contradictions.
Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.
The promoters of al‑ūşūliah feel obliged to put
the cart before the horse so that they can force ———————————————————-
the person to return to the past in every detail
and abandon the present and all that is new, in
order to apply the texts of the Heritage, not one *Mohamed Shahrour (PhD) is an engineer
letter of which should be altered. All of these and eminent Islamic thinker resident in Damas-
actions are performed under the slogan of the cus, Syria.
fundamentals. If their aim is participation in
power, as well as enjoying its privileges, then Translated by Najah Kadhim
with whom will these movements be able to co-
operate? With the nationalists or with the liber-
als? Or will they transform themselves into an
official religious institution under a new name
with a mission to give legitimacy to a ruling
power that is itself a participant? In our opinion,
the aim of the fundamentalist movements is to
gain power. Whether to enjoy it or take part in it
will leave the door open for all the movements
in their wake, whether religious or not, to bring
back violence, though after exchanging rulers
and positions.
We are experiencing a new phenomenon in
Lebanon: a fundamentalist movement of princi-
ple and ideology that is proving that terror has
no place in it and that its violence is directed
exclusively towards occupation and colonialism
and it is trying to find its place in the political
and cultural jigsaw of its society. It is not possi-
ble to predict the extent of this movement’s
ability to co-operate with other nationals and its
influence inside the country. The outside world,
East and West, perhaps will not allow, owing to
its historical experience, the emergence of col-
lective action of any kind led by a religious and
fundamentalist movement.
What the rest, of whom I am one, are calling
for is that we should begin with individual hu-
man beings and their intellect (faculties of rea-
soning, (‘aql). There must be a fresh, modern
reading of the Supreme Book of Allah (Qur’an)
www.Islam21.net Page 15

Activities of IFID

ELECTING ISLAMISM
Islamist politics and the prospects for Arab democracy

Three-day workshop organised together with the Centre for the Study of
Democracy, University of Westminster, London W
(3 - 5 November 2006)
The recent string of electoral successes by Islamist parties in a number of Arab coun-
tries, of which the victory by Hamas in Palestine is the most dramatic, seems to indicate
that this phenomenon is far from transient. It is a highly significant and potentially trans-
formative trend and calls for an urgent examination of its impact on democratization and
political stability in the region. In response to these developments and in order to ad-
dress new challenges posed by “electing Islamism”, in the Arab world, the Democracy
and Islam Programme (in partnership with the University of Durham, the Program for
Dialogue between Civilizations, Faculty of Economics, Cairo University and the Interna-
tional Forum for Islamic Dialogue) organised a three-day workshop in London, at which
invited participants from the Arab World, UK, Europe and the United States had the op-
portunity to review and discuss current developments with academics, policy-makers
and opinion-builders from these regions.

The prominent guests and speakers included the following:

Dr Abdelwahab El-Affendi (UK), Ambassador Hans-Gunther Gnodtke (Germany), Dr Ibra-

him al-Jaafari (Iraq), Sheikh Rachid al-Ghannoushi (Tunisia), Dr Nasir Al-Sani’, MP
(Kuwait), Dr. Radwan Masmoudi ( USA), Dr Abdolkarim Soroush (Iran), Dr Samir Khalaf
(Lebanon), Dr Abdul-Majid Manasra (Algeria), Mr Muhammd Al-Mansouri (UAE), Dr Rafiq
Abdussalam (Tunisia): Dr Asma Afsaruddin (CSID), Dr Robert Springborg (SOAS), Dr Jo-
hannes Reisner (Germany) Dr Bilal Tlaidi (Morocco), Dr Burhaneddin Duran( Sakarya Uni-
versity-Turkey) , Dr Saeed Shehabi (UK) Dr Laith Kubba (Iraq/US), Dr Simon Joss, CSD
(UK), Prof John Keane, CSD (UK), Dr Maria Holt, CSD (UK) and Dr Najah Kadhim (UK).

The International forum for Islamic Dialogue (IFID), the Muslim Institute and the
City Circle hosted a seminar in London on 31 October 2006, on:

Islam and State: Rethinking Muslim Politics

Dr Asghar Ali Engineer was the Keynote Speaker.

The Brainstorming session discussed the relationship between Islam and the state, the
impasse of Muslim politics under the banner of radical fundamentalism, and the moral
and practical challenges of democracy, secularism, human rights and the promotion of
a just world-order.
 Page 16
Promoting the Universal Moral Order of Islam
Arguments for a Rational, Humane and Democratic Political Order
Najah Kadhim
Introduction
The question that needs to be asked is: Was
Islam revealed in order to determine the politics
of a certain historical community? Is its goal, to
use the current jargon, merely the establish-
ment of an Islamic state? Or, is it so that Islam
is essentially a universal message that ad-
dresses the moral and social malaise of man-
kind?
Today, we are told by most, if not all, of the
ideologues of the Islamic movements that the
role of Islam is to establish an ‘Islamic’ state, a
political entity whose mission is to safeguard
virtue and protect the moral fibre of the society.
The Shari‘ah, accordingly, is its mechanism for
carrying out this mission. (Such a model of Is-
lam is obviously a failure. We need only to think
of the modern “caliphate” or “emirate” of Af-
ghanistan, the Taliban regime, to realize the
fallacy of this claim! There do exist, of course,
other contemporary examples of catastrophic
failure in social and economic growth or imma-
turity, as for instance in the case of Sudan and
Iran!)
The other view, which gives an affirmative
answer to the second part of the question, is
based on the emphasis on society and its
needs. One example is the government of Er-
dogan in Turkey. Paradoxically, however, while
Turkey is a secular state, where women wear-
ing hijab are banned from the universities and
state employment and men wearing baggy
trousers and beards are banned from employ-
ment in the civil service, yet, the presence of
moral and practising Muslims in the govern-
ment, proclaiming virtue by example rather than
by passing laws and implementing political di-
rectives authorizing the halals and harams, is
very much part of the Turkish scene. Indeed, it
is also a legitimate form of Islamic response to
the question of Islamic identity and its rele-
vance in the public sphere. The aim of this ap-
proach is to meet the requirements of a twenty-
first-century Muslim society and its life through
an ethical vision. Its mechanisms are the mod-
ern institutions that combine Islamic culture and
Islam21
secularism, seen as a separation of religion
from the affairs of the state. This does not
mean the reduction of Islam to an individual
moral dimension, but the establishment of a
just society by the creation of a range of social
institutions that embrace the whole population.
The empowerment of the whole society and
community is an effective means of limiting any
excesses of political power. One might ask:
What is the role of the Shari‘ah? If it is per-
ceived as dynamic and modern, then it must be
incorporated into the social dimension of the
community, albeit not in its present form as a
medieval political system and methodology.
The Qur’anic View
The Qur’an states: “And most surely you con-
form to sublime morality” (68:4); “We sent you
but a mercy to the world” (21:107); “This Book
– there is no doubt about it – is a guide to those
who guard [against evil]” (2:2). The Prophet
(pbuh) said “ ‫[ اﻧﻤﺎ ﺑﻌﺜﺖ ﻷﺗﻤﻢ ﻣﻜﺎرم اﻷﺧﻼق‬I have
been sent to complete the moral guidance] (1).
These are just a few of the many verses and
the prophetic sayings that strengthen the socie-
tal argument that the task of Allah’s Messenger
was to create a community. The Holy Qur’an
stresses the establishment of a just society,
even producing new terms such as ihsān,
whose nearest meaning in English is
“benevolence, or kindness; even generosity”, a
virtue particularly appropriate to the social com-
munity rather than to the politics of a state.
The example of the Prophet in Madinah al‑-
Munawwara in establishing the Covenant of
Madinah is clear enough: Islam was not to be
imposed on the other communities. Each com-
munity, according to Abu Ishaq, the earliest
biographer of the prophet, was treated as an
autonomous unit. By guaranteeing the rights
and duties of the whole population, the Prophet
created a very basic multi-cultural society which
could be considered a kind of secular (or Plu-
ralist) experiment at the Dawn of Islam. A study
of this early model shows that the characteris-
 www.Islam21.net
tics of this type of community were voluntary
work and various contributions by the individu-
als. This is indicative of social rather than politi-
cal activity.
The emphasis of many verses in the Holy
Qur’an on Arabic words like qawm and
jama‘ah, meaning groups and their organiza-
tion in various forms and contexts reflects the
importance of groups and communities in the
believer’s work and daily life. There are even
two instances of the Caliph being selected by
the efforts and approval of the community. The
first occasion was the selection of Abu Bakr by
the elders of the Quraysh, who swore alle-
giance to him (bay‘ah). The second occasion
was the case of the fourth Caliph, ‘Ali, who did
not even accept the oath of allegiance from in-
dividuals, but insisted on the collective alle-
giance (bay‘ah) from the Ummah, for he con-
sidered the Caliphate a social contract between
him and the whole community.
Perhaps many could argue that these two
examples rather strengthen the message of
political Islam. Nevertheless, a sociological
analysis shows that there are practices in these
and other examples to explain the societal ob-
jectives, for the Holy Prophet’s emphasis were
on the moral and ethical aspects of community.
As in Madinah, there was huge scope during
the Caliphate for doing ma‘rūf or actions that
were generally considered beneficial. This was
another social term that Islam created to vali-
date good social deeds. Voluntary assistance
to the poor and sick was also an outstanding
characteristic of this period. That the Compan-
ions of the Prophet and members of the public
challenged the Caliphs such as Abu Bakr and
others indicates the empowerment of the com-
munity rather than the power accumulated by
the Caliphs, as was the case in later times.
Some of the injunctions were never enforced,
thus preserving the freedom of choice so as not
to contradict the spirit of the Qur’an. For exam-
ple, people were not to be forced to contribute
to the Public Treasury (bayt al‑māl) or attend
the dawn (fajr) or other time’s prayer in congre-
gation (jamā‘ah) at the mosque. These actions
were to be performed voluntarily out of convic-
tion or through faith. It was these practices
which provided the grounds for not imposing –
as some fuqahā’ saw it – the Shari‘ah on Mus-
lim society.
Page 17
Some might remind us of the Qur’anic
verses, such as: “ ‫[ ﻓﺎﺣﻜﻢ ﺑﻴﻨﻬﻢ ﺑﻤﺎ أﻧﺰل اﷲ‬And rule
among them by that which Allah sent down]
(5:48, 6:57, 12:40) or [….. the true one, now
surely His is the judgment…] (6:62). These
verses could well serve as sources for legisla-
tion but hardly for political power. Other ask,
what about the “Wélayat” that is mentioned in
the Quran?. The answer could well be the
creation of social institutions to act as checks
and balances to prevent corruption, suppres-
sion and oppression, etc., as well as protecting
citizens’ rights and promoting the transparency
of government. Clearly, the concepts of free-
dom and rights have no meaning if there are no
institutions to safeguard them. These institu-
tions should be effective in protecting the moral
code and working for social justice, which was
the objective of the Qur’an.
The Qur’anic verse “And that man shall have
nothing but what he strives for, and that his
striving shall soon be seen” (53:39–40) is dis-
cussing society and the economy. It shows that
social mobility has an essential role to play in
economic activity. Yet, who initiates such an
activity? It is the people who activate a society.
It is their human interests and motives, which
activate society. It is the social and moral atti-
tudes by means of binding institutions, which
regulate interests and motives.
It is the reduction of Islam to a political ideol-
ogy and political control and the inherent ten-
dency of the human psyche to wield some form
of power, which exacerbates the vested inter-
ests and motives of those seeking power
through religion. Throughout human history,
wars have been caused by human interests,
motives and attitudes. More often than not, po-
litical power was the “legal” vehicle for waging
war. It is political ideology that underpins com-
munalism, which, in turn, encourages the hu-
man thirst for power and egotism.
Even the effective terms produced by Islam,
such as “brotherhood”, “Ummah”, etc., which
were the early manifestation of political sociol-
ogy, place the emphasis on society. The Say-
ings of the Prophet, such as “ ‫آﻠﻜﻢ راع وآﻠﻜﻢ ﻣﺴﺆول‬
‫[ ﻋﻦ رﻋﻴﺘﻪ‬Each one of you is responsible for him/
herself and for the community] and “ ‫اﻟﻨﺎس ﻣﺘﺴﺎوون‬
‫[ آﺄﺳﻨﺎن اﻟﻤﺸﻂ‬People are equal like the teeth of a
comb] were aimed at activating people and put-
ting a limit to the level of an individual’s power.
It was probably an early and very simplified ver-
 Page 18
sion of what we call today as a civil society. It
did not last long, however, for the use of relig-
ion for hard-line politics, as we understand it
today, was strongly apparent in the power-
struggle at the end of each Caliphate, particu-
larly that of the Umayyads and the Abbasids.
Power was shifted to satisfy personal ambitions
and agendas instead of being based on a col-
lective effort for the service of the community.
The Umayyads and Abbasids set the stage for
the acquisition of political power by an individ-
ual or a clan with all the privileges and wealth
that come with it. They even created new terms
such as “sultan”, which is still in use today in
the Muslim world. The Arabic word Sultān
The example of the Prophet in Madinah
al‑Munawwara in establishing the Cove-
nant of Madinah is clear enough: Islam
was not to be imposed on the other com-
munities. Each community, according to
Abu Ishaq, the first biographer of the
Prophet, was treated as an autonomous
unit. By guaranteeing the rights and du-
ties of the whole population, the Prophet
created a very basic multi-cultural soci-
ety.
(powerful) is derived from Sultah, which means
“power”, that is, the sultans empower them-
selves to safeguard their vested interests. This
can be achieved only by disempowering the
Ummah (community) and by the use of oppres-
sion and violence, as has been documented
throughout Islamic history, to keep possession
of that power. This situation has continued to
the present day, when the equation of state–
society is totally in favour of those in power,
and democracy and freedom are the exception
in the Arab/Muslim states. In today’s world,
Muslims cannot revive the Caliphate and other
early models, owing to the differences in inter-
national relations and socio-economic condi-
tions, not to mention the immaturity of Muslim
society as well as its widespread illiteracy and
general lack of education.
Current Muslim Contradictions
The model presented by the Islamic move-
ments is based on a utopian political ideology,
whose components or tools are either ancient
or borrowed from other ideologies. It is the
function of the Islamic state, they believe, to
Islam21
enforce virtue and maintain social order. They
have a naively idealistic political vision, that as
long as they ‘apply’ Islam, as long as they im-
pose certain injunctions, then all their problems
will be solved and their aspirations achieved.
As long as they are very religious, discarding
the human aspect of society and trusting Allah
alone, then all their dreams will come true. We
are not given any details of the understanding
of the dynamics of history, politics or human
nature and the role of all these factors in the
workings of the human society.
The dismantling of the Ottoman Empire (or
the politics of Islam) in the mid-1920s in Turkey
and the announcement of the political message
by the Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1920s in
Egypt was no coincidence. This was clearly a
reaction rather than an original act. In other
words, Islam was used as a tool to justify poli-
tics rather than serving the society. It meant
that the state was to look after religion and so-
ciety was to adapt to the requirements of the
state. Islamization to suit today’s reality would
follow the purification of Islam as envisioned in
the Middle Ages. All political institutions would
undergo Islamization to give the government
the necessary legitimacy to rule.
The Shari‘ah, in its medieval form and out-
look, would become the basis for enforcing
“puritanical Islam”. Further, its ancient, and to
the critics quite fossilized, rulings could be in-
terpreted only by the fuqahā’ (jurists), the intel-
lectual elites of our civilisation who have in fact
become social elites. Therefore, only the fu-
qahā’ would be the source of power to interpret
“God’s rule on Earth”. The absolutism of belief
(‘aqīdah), as has already been seen, would be
transformed into the absolutism of practice, al-
lowing political power to enforce what would be
considered truth (haqq) or right, and forbid
what would be considered false (bātil) or
wrong. This would later be transformed into the
absolutism of the social aspects of government,
as clearly envisioned by Osama bin Laden, al-
Zarqawi and others.
However, it begs the question whether the
transformation of social absolutism from one
state to another, that is, from dogma to politics
to social application, is as simple as the trans-
formation of solid matter into a gas or liquid in
the natural world! The answer is obviously “No!”
Such a simplistic view might well explain the
 www.Islam21.net
ignorance, contradiction and the prevalence of
senseless violence in the Muslim world.
There is also another question whether the
protection of the Revelation (shar‘a) or its prac-
tice is the domain of the Shari‘ah or of the be-
lief or faith (‘aqīdah). If the answer is ‘aqīdah,
then there is no compulsion to impose religious
rites and rituals on the population, as happens
in some Muslim countries, where their enforce-
ment is the duty of the “Morality Police” or the
“Guardians of the Faith”…etc. In their nature
and practice, these enforcement groups are no
different from the agents of the Spanish Inquisi-
tion or from Gestapo and other terrorist arms of
the modern totalitarian states. .
Compulsion in religion can lead only to hypoc-
risy and confusion, and finally, to the rejection
of religion itself. Belief and faith can flourish
only in a free environment. Forcing people into
accepting Islam is against the Message and
logic of the Qur’an and the jurisprudence that
was developed afterwards. The Qur’an states
that human beings are free in this world to
choose their religion, although they are re-
sponsible for their actions and will have to an-
swer for them on the Day of Judgment. There-
fore, it is impossible to have freedom without
responsibility. Freedom of choice in this world
will incur the appropriate obligatory con-
sequences in the hereafter. Further, the stew-
ardship was granted to humankind as stated
clearly in the holy Quran (2:30). If we reject
this, there can be no freedom of choice. If we
deny the existence of the freedom of choice,
then how can we consider human beings to be
responsible for their actions?
The problem with the Islamic movements is
that their political programmes have originated
in ideas and tools from the Middle Ages or
other political systems and cultures. Most of the
Islamic movements have highlighted the slogan
“The Qur’an is our constitution”, which is a con-
tradiction in terms, even if leave aside the legal
confusion that this claim gives rise to. First,
these activists are equating the Qur’an
(believed by Muslims to be a Divine Book) and
its text with the term “constitution”, a concept
created with the development of political power
in modern times. Second, a constitution is
made by human beings and is subject to modi-
fication and change, whereas the text of the
Qur’an, which Muslims believe to be holy, can-
Page 19
not be modified or changed, for it represents
the Ultimate Truth as revealed to the Prophet.
When some of these Islamic movements
succeed in grabbing power, such as the Tali-
ban regime in Afghanistan, they are forced to
face the challenge and problems of a social
reality, and the inadequacy of their slogan
“Islam is the solution” is fully revealed to the
whole world (2). To implement the idea behind
this slogan would mean making Islam or the
Holy Qur’an a manual of science, economics
and strategy, which would be an insult to the
Holy Book. The Qur’an is a book of moral guid-
ance and ethics for human conduct, as ex-
plained above, not a manual of politics and
economic, or a handbook of strategy and labo-
ratory research!
“Islam is the solution” means that there are
rules and regulations for everything. The inter--
pretation of this concept would require an enor-
mous effort by contemporary leading experts
with the necessary technical, scientific, practi-
cal and Qur’anic knowledge. These experts
would have to know these rules and regulations
or at least have the ability to derive them from
the Text so as to apply them to the modern so-
ciety. In addition, if there do exist such ‘Islamic’
Most of the Islamic movements have high-
lighted the slogan “The Qur’an is our con-
stitution”, which is a contradiction in
terms, even if leave aside the legal confu-
sion that this claim gives rise to. First,
these activists are equating the Qur’an
(believed by Muslims to be a Divine Book)
and its text with the term “constitution”, a
concept created with the development of
political power in modern times.
rules and regulations for everything in this
world, then what is the mission of humankind
on earth? What remains for us to do as human-
beings in this life? If there are rules and regula-
tions for everything, as presumed by the sup-
porters of this slogan, then human-beings must
apply them instinctively, or else they would be
behaving like robots, without thinking (3). This
provision would be against the spirit and con-
tent of the Qur’an, which particularly empha-
sizes reasoning as well as the concept of hu-
man vicegerency on earth, as explained in
verse 2:30.
 Page 20 Islam21

There is a total lack of rationality and com- dated by elections. A modern state is a reflec-
mon-sense in Islamic politics, as revealed by tion of the time in which it is situated and its
the Sudanese model, owing to the absence of requirements, that is, it is inspired or motivated
political institutions and their role in implement- by the era. Hence, the First, Second…etc. Re-
ing the checks and balances required in the publics in France indicated a renewal at long
practice of politics. There is no concept of mod- intervals. The government itself, however, is a
ern management in a state of this kind and its reflection of the status quo or the current de-
governance of society. In Iran, there are not mands of the enfranchised population.
enough institutional checks and balances to
Due to human nature, the mere presence of
prevent suppression. The result is blatant viola-
Islamists in power does not guarantee the
tions of human rights as well as a restriction of
eradication of corruption or abuse of power,
freedom that prevents the reforms necessary
just because these rulers wear the Islamic
for growth and development.
mantel. Thus the need for institutional checks
In the minds of many Islamic movements, and balance to limit power and provide the re-
there is some confusion over or lack of under- quired transparency remains crucial even under
standing with respect to the meaning of politics an Islamic government.
and the political, or over the separation of the
The other area of confusion is that the Is-
state and the governmental, administrative in-
lamic state is based on the assumption that the
stitutions. Hizb al‑Tahrir, furthermore, believes
ruler is a judge or a jurist (faqīh) with superior
that it is the responsibility of every Muslim to
knowledge of the Islamic laws, and governance
establish the Caliphate. This system was actu-
is the mere application of these laws (4). How-
ally developed by men, although it is consid-
ever, throughout the world, governance means
ered by them to be “divinely ordained”, and
the management of people’s affairs and relies
therefore to be implemented by everyone as
on rationalization and the ruler’s freedom to
the only legitimate political system for the Mus-
manoeuvre, that is, give and take or wheeling
lims. We are not provided with the details of the
and dealing (5). The term “Islamic state” is new,
roles and functions of the new Caliphate, and
for it is no older than 100 years and was devel-
whether they are separate from the government
oped with the arrival of concepts such as the
or overlap and interchange with it. In addition,
nation-state.
this policy presents a challenge to Muslim com-
munities in the West, for Hizb al‑Tahrir whole- The politics of the Islamic state, such as
heartedly rejects the West and any talk about qawm or jama‘ah, is not enunciated by the
multiculturalism or integration (not assimilation) Qur’an, but elaborated by people with terms
becomes ludicrous! like the “Sovereignty of Allah” when they were
challenged by the onslaught of European colo-
State institutions in modern politics, as we
nialism. There are some who claim that Abu
understand them, are based on laws and a
Ala’a Mawdudi coined this expression, whereas
constitution and apply equally to all citizens,
others say that it existed even before his times.
including the rulers, or members of the govern-
Whatever the truth, the equating of Allah with
ment as understood today. The constitution
human ‘sovereigns’, like a king or an amir, is an
grants the government officials legitimacy for
insult to Divine Majesty (jalal). Beside, such a
their actions. There is a clear separation be-
view drains the concept of politics of its human
tween state administration and political activi-
dynamics and renders it almost abstract and
ties and the actions of consecutive govern-
non-political. In the past, it was justified in the
ments. The state cannot be the government or
name of the “Divine Right of the Kings”; today,
vice versa, for the state is static, whereas the
it is proclaimed in the name of ‘Allah’s Sover-
government is dynamic. Static and dynamic are
eignty’. But Allah’s Sovereignty on theoretical
used as relative terms in this context. A state is
and practical levels has to be translated by hu-
static in the sense that its institutions and the
mans in decision-making processes and the
people (such as civil servants) working for the
management of their governance.
state do not change every four or five years.
On the other hand, the members of the govern- The Muslim society is badly in need of theo-
ment and its ministries change with the arrival logical reforms: intellectual revival and a culture
of a new government every few years as man- of non-violence are necessary for its economic
 www.Islam21.net Page 21

and political progress. Such a vision would con-

tribute to the development of a cohesive soci-
ety that could deal with its politics and assign a
proper role to religion in public life. The harmo-
nious marriage of the two could then create the
urgently needed new Muslim model that has
been sought for so long. This model should
limit the power of the ruler, while empowering
the Muslim society. It could take a variety of
forms, although it should include the aware-
ness of people’s rights and duties, the concept
of citizenship, freedom and democracy, and
modern education. Most importantly, in this age
of information, people should be equipped with
the tools and freedoms to acquire knowledge,
in other words, the ability to read. Let us re-
member that the first verse revealed to the
Prophet was “Iqra’!” [Read!].

Notes

1. Fath al‑Bārī, Ía°ī° al‑Bukhārī, Manāqib

Matn 3.
2. Najah Kadhim, Al-Arab: Bain Mathlade
al-Aslahand Fajwah te al-Afkar [The Ar-
abs: Between the Predicament of Reforms
and the Gap of Ideas] (Casablanca, Mo-
rocco, & Beirut: Arab Cultural Centre, in
press.
3. Najah Kadhim: Al Qwa’ Al Fahlah wa
Quran Al Qadim [Effective Powers in the
next Century] London: Al-Rafid Publish-
ers, 1994, p99
4. Abdelwhab El‑Affendi, “Iran: Islam,
Revolution and Reforms”. Seminar held
at the Abrar Islamic Foundation, London,
5 February 2004.
5. Ibid.

——————————————————-

Najah Kadhim is the Director of IFID

(International Forum for Islamic Dialogue)
and a Senior University Lecturer – London-
England.
 Page 22
State, Morality and Politics
Asghar Ali Engineer
Is Islam a political ideology or moral and spiri-
tual guidance? The answer depends on one’s
point of view. It has become commonplace to
assert that one cannot separate religion from
politics in Islam. And hence one often talks of
the Islamic state. However, this approach does
not bear Qur’anic scrutiny. If one studies the
Qur’an carefully, one does not find any mention
of the Islamic state in the holy Book. It was
sheer coincidence that a state emerged in Is-
lamic society almost during lifetime of the Holy
Prophet.
No religion comes in the world to establish a
state. It appears to remove moral corruption
and provide spiritual guidance. If a state had
been necessary to establish a religion, Allah
would have made it a universal rule and all
prophets would have established one. How
could then Islam be an exception? We do not
find any prophet in the Qur’an establishing a
state. Only two prophets Daud and Suleman
(peace be upon them) are mentioned as kings
and rulers.
In fact, except these two, all prophets men-
tioned in the Qur’an come from among the
common people and were of humble origin.
They all faced persecution at the hands of pow-
erful vested interests i.e. rulers like Nimrod or
Pharaoh or leaders of the community who
found the prophets’ moral and spiritual teach-
ings dangerous to their interests. All these
prophets were severely persecuted by these
vested interests, Nimrod persecuted Ibrahim
(A.S.), Pharaoh persecuted Musa (A.S.), and
Salih by his community leaders and
Mohammad (PBUH) by the powerful and rich
tribal leaders of Mecca.
Throughout the Meccan period Muslims faced
severe persecution and the Prophet (PBUH)
bore insults, humiliations and physical persecu-
tion with exemplary patience and fortitude. He
did not even curse his enemies.
Also, a religion can never be established by
Islam21
state authority, it establishes itself through its
own moral and spiritual force. People believe in
religion not because it is patronized by a state
but because its moral teachings appeal to the
people. Those who believe in the necessity of
establishing Islamic state indirectly believe that
Islam can be sustained only through state au-
thority and not by its own moral and spiritual
appeal.
Some people even argue that if there is no
state, how shari’ah law can be enforced? For
them shari’ah law, in order to be enforced,
needs a state authority. There is an obvious
flaw in the argument. There are millions of Mus-
lims living as minority in countries like India,
U.K., USA, France, Germany, Canada, Switzer-
land and so on. How about them then? Are
they not Muslims? Do they not follow the
shari’ah laws? In fact more Muslims today live
in minority than in Islamic states.
The Qur’an strongly believes in the freedom of
conscience and the real foundation of religion
rests on this doctrine of freedom of conscience.
A person can be truly moral only if his heart
and soul accept moral doctrines. Coercive
power can never make a person moral in the
true sense of the word. Coercion leads to ha-
tred of the authority rather than to respect for
law. Respect for law can be inculcated only
through awareness and moral education. Thus,
it is not a sound argument that one cannot en-
force shari’ah without there being a state
agency. In fact the state is always seen as a
coercive agency. Also, there is absolutely no
guarantee that state actors will not be corrupt
and will be always morally sound. Even history
of Islamic state in last 1400 years is nothing to
be proud of.
Whenever a powerful establishment like a state
establishment, based on power and wealth
comes into existence, there is struggle to con-
trol it and this obviously leads to struggle be-
tween various aspirants, resorting to fair and
foul means. Even those who were close com-
 www.Islam21.net
panion of the Prophet and morally upright and
worthy of emulation, struggled among them-
selves to control state machinery. Even blood-
shed could not be avoided and Muslims
plunged into civil war and more than 70,000
lives were lost.
This was during the period of pious Caliphs.
During Umayyad and Abbasid periods things
were far worse. State machinery was controlled
by ambitious rulers who used all foul means
conceivable to eliminate their competitors. Most
unscrupulous means were employed to obtain
or retain power. During the Umayyad period
only Umar bin Abdul Aziz was morally upright
and tried to follow the Islamic principles but
then he was poisoned by the vested interests.
Yusuf bin Hajjaj was a great tyrant who con-
trolled Iraq during the Umayyad period. He
killed about one hundred thousand Muslims
and sent to jail half that number. The Umay-
yad’s were overthrown by Abbasids resulting in
a great bloodshed. So much blood was shed
that the leader of the Abbasid insurrection
came to be known as Saffah i.e. one who
sheds a lot of blood. The Abbasids did not
spare even newborn Umayyad babies.
The Rightly Guided Caliphs could not last for
more than thirty years and three out of these
rightly guided caliphs were assassinated. Thus
one can easily say that even pious caliphs
found it very challenging to establish a just
state, a state which really could rule according
to the moral and spiritual guidance of the
Qur’an. And even if the ruler at the top is just
and scrupulous, there is no guarantee that peo-
ple around him will not be tempted to become
corrupt in order to accumulate wealth and
power.
In fact the whole history of the so called ‘Islamic
State’ is a history of coercion and bloodshed.
States never succeed in establishing morality
and spirituality in the society. Morality and spiri-
tuality can be imbibed only through inner an
transformation which is possible only through
inner conviction. Thus it is conviction which is
more fundamental in moral and spiritual mat-
ters than coercion. The state always represents
coercion, not conviction.
II
Page 23
The Qur’an not only emphasizes freedom of
conscience in matters of deen but also exhorts
the Prophet (PBUH) not to act as a (musaytir)
(88:22). Thus even the Prophet (PBUH) is only
a moral guide, not a warden or supervisor. The
Prophet further is not required to perform state
function, let alone establish a state in order to
impose deen on anyone. Thus, not only the
Qur’an does not refer to any concept of state, it
does not recommend to Prophet to become a
musaytir.
It should also be noted that Islam has spread in
the world not due to any state machinery, but
due to those who led pious and exemplary
lives. In fact at times the state became an im-
pediment to the spread of Islam. During the
Umayyad period when some enthusiastic
preachers converted large number of people to
Islam in Iran, it affected the state income as the
jizya amount was reduced. The Umayyad Ca-
liph thus wrote to the Governor of the province
to restrain the preachers from conversions as
the state treasury was being adversely af-
fected.
The Qur’an advises the people calling others to
the way of Allah to do so through good words
and wisdom (16:125). Thus it is certainly not for
the state to organize da’wah. Its only function is
to legislate in the interests of people and main-
tain law and order and provide impartial ma-
chinery for justice.
Now some may, and many do, argue that the
state can only impose shari’ah law and cannot
legislate, as the shari’ah law is itself a divine
law. The state can only implement what is al-
ready given as DivineLaw. Thus some Islamic
states follow only the shari’ah law and do not
legislate. But even Islamic jurists agree that it is
only the rules of ‘ibadat (rules pertaining to
arena of worship like prayers, zakat, haj, etc.)
that cannot be changed. But those pertaining to
mu’amalat i.e. interpersonal matters need
changes from time to time. The law cannot re-
main stagnant in matters of mu’malat.
While principles and values cannot change, law
based on these principles and values should
keep pace with changing times. A law, for ex-
ample, thought to be just at one period of time,
becomes unjust or oppressive, at another pe-
riod of time. Thus justice is more important than
the law based on it. Many laws, which Islamic
 Page 24
jurists had thought to be quite just in respect to
women, are being thought to be unjust by
women today, who are demanding changes in
these laws. The case of hudud laws in Pakistan
is the best example of this.
Today Islam is divided into several sects (and
this division is justified by our ‘ulama on the ba-
sis of a hadith ascribed to the Prophet that Is-
lam will be divided into 72 sects and only one
sect will be naji i.e. on right path) and every
Muslim country has several of such sects in its
geographical boundaries. Each sect has its
own laws, its own shari’ah. Then the question
arises, which of the various shari’ahs law may
an Islamic state enforce? If the state follows the
laws of one particular sect, other sects will be
coerced into following that law. Thus it will vio-
late the principle of freedom of conscience.
Also, any law imposed coercively will not bring
about real moral transformation which is the
The Qur’an strongly believes in freedom
of conscience and the real foundation of
religion rests on this doctrine of freedom
of conscience. A person can be truly
moral only if his heart and soul accept
moral doctrines. Coercive power can
never make a person moral in true sense
of the word. Coercion leads to hatred of
the authority rather than respect for law.
Respect for law can be inculcated only
through awareness and moral education.
main purpose of the Islamic shari’ah. Only in
the case of crime, the state should be permitted
to use coercion. Thus if someone steals, or
rapes, he/she has to be punished, just as such
crimes need to be coercively prevented.
In all other matters, which pertain to moral and
spiritual elevation, coercion cannot be permit-
ted. Islamic states are coercively imposing
even dress code, particularly where women are
concerned. And this dress code is often cultural
rather than religious. Such imposition has no
meaning because these women, given a
chance, will wear mini-skirts and one finds
Saudi and Iranian women wearing even outra-
geous dresses in other countries. This defeats
the very purpose of shari’ah law. Shari’ah is not
meant for coercion, but for moral transforma-
tion.
Islam21
If you set up an Islamic state, it is the ‘ulama
who will control the state machinery in the
name of imposing the shari’ah law. The elected
rulers, will have to fear them and ‘ulama, who
are not accountable to the people, often rule by
proxy. Thus technically an Islamic state cannot
become truly democratic. In Iran, any law
passed by the parliament cannot become law
unless approved and signed by the supreme
faqih or by a council of fuqaha’ who will exam-
ine it from the point of view of shari’ah as com-
piled in early Islamic period.
The ‘ulama do not even allow any re-thinking of
the shari’ah provisions in the light of new devel-
opments, as their interests can be protected
only if the shari’ah remains immutable. They do
not allow even to use the doctrine of ijtihad
(creative interpretation) to make shari’ah law
more relevant to people’s lives. They go on in-
sisting on laws that are no more relevant to
modern age. They even negate the true spirit of
the Qur’an which is the most dynamic book for
guidance for any age.
The Qur’an stresses certain values as funda-
mental, such as equality, truth, justice, compas-
sion, benevolence (ihsan), freedom of con-
science and wisdom. All shari’ah laws should
be based on these values and, as pointed out
above, these values are more important than
any law, unless the law embodies these values.
Our shari’ah laws were undoubtedly quite pro-
gressive when they were formulated by the
great jurists but in the contemporary world they
need to be revisited.
Our ulama who control state power do not allow
shariah law to be revisited and that is why all
Muslim countries which have proclaimed them-
selves to be Islamic states are stagnating in the
field of modern knowledge. There is not a sin-
gle Muslim country with an Islamic state which
can boast of modern laboratories for the study
of nuclear or atomic physics or other institutions
of higher learning. The Qur’an lays great stress
on learning and even says that
‘scientists’ (‘ulama, not in traditional sense)
alone can understand this universe and praise
its creator (see verses 3:190 and 35:28).
A Modern state cannot confine itself to tradi-
tional knowledge but has to actively seek and
promote modern knowledge and has to encour-
age excellence in all the fields of modern sci-
 www.Islam21.net
ence. No country can play the leading role to-
day without achieving such excellence in the
fields of modern natural and social sciences.
An Islamic state is constrained by traditional
sciences and the whole stress in such states is
on religious learning rather than on modern sci-
ence and technology.
True religion can flourish only if there is free-
dom to choose and the state does not dictate
anything to its citizens. The more a person is
free, the more he would be able to develop his
religious and spiritual thoughts. If a state is en-
cumbered by a particular sect or school of
thought, it will not grant freedom to other
schools of thought. This is the dilemma of all
ideological states. Only a narrow interpretation
of the ideology on which a state is based, is
permitted and it is the official interpretation
which prevails. This totally curbs freedom to
advance thought in the public realm.
Freedom of conscience is most fundamental for
true spiritual enterprise and for moral excel-
lence. The Qur’an also requires all believers to
choose freely and to use power of reasoning
and intellect to reflect and make moral choices.
‘When angles argued with Allah, saying that we
always pray to thee and thou art creating a hu-
man person who will defy thee. Allah replied
you do not know what I know and created the
first human being.’(2:30).
What mainly distinguished human beings from
angles was freedom of choice. Human beings
can choose between good and evil, whereas
angels have no such freedom. They have to
follow the good without any option, as they
have been created as such. Human beings, on
the other hand, are free to choose, and yet, if
they choose to be good it makes them superior.
Thus it is freedom to choose which made them
superior to angels. Hence, angels were asked
to bow before Adam.
Any ideological state does not allow such free-
dom of choice. It is only the modern democratic
state, unconstrained and unencumbered by
any religious dogmas, which can allow people
to choose and be morally superior. Human
spirit demands freedom and only a free human
actor can be held responsible for his/her con-
duct. One cannot be a free moral agent in any
ideological state.
Page 25
III
In fact, Islamic state is not a deeni concept (i.e.
pertaining to matters of faith) but a historical
construct. If one wants to understand how the
concept of Islamic state evolved, one has to
look to history not to religious principles. I have
already thrown light on the Qur’anic values and
claimed that what the Qur’an aims at is a soci-
ety based on these values, and not a state.
When the Qur’an was being revealed in Mecca
and, also during the first few years in Madina,
there was nothing like a state structure. More-
over in Mecca the Prophet (PBUH) and his fol-
lowers were in small minority struggling to form
a community (ummah), rather than a state. In
Madina the situation changed somewhat in
later years when the Prophet emerged as a su-
preme authority, not only in religious but also in
secular matters. It was a historical, not religious
need.
The whole emphasis of the Qur’an, even in the
Medinese period, is on prophethood, not on
No state can be run today with strong bi-
ases for or against one particular religion
or a religious sect. Such a state run by im-
perfect human beings cannot be expected
to be impartial towards other religious
communities or towards other sects of the
same religious community. Even in Muslim
-majority countries a state, not based on a
single religious dogma, can be adminis-
tered properly. What is desirable is not an
Islamic state but a society based on the
Qur’anic values.
kingship or being ruler. Even throughout the
Medinese revelations, Muhammad (PBUH) is
referred to as prophet. Thus his pre-eminent
position was that of a prophet. He never raised
any army or police or imposed any taxes.
Whenever Madina was attacked, people were
persuaded to volunteer themselves, and hence
the emphasis on martyrdom (shahadat). Those
who fought with the Prophet were not paid any-
thing; on the contrary they had to contribute
weapons, camels and horses and other provi-
sions. Thus it was a purely voluntary force as
long as the Prophet was alive. No state struc-
ture of any kind was evolved during the
Prophet’s lifetime. Zakat was also a religious
obligation rather than a state tax. There were
no other employees of any kind.
 Page 26 Islam21

It was only after the Prophet’s death that the
need for some kind of a rudimentary state was
felt. It is also important to note that the Prophet
(PBUH), unlike Jesus (Isa), was not born in a
society where there was a ruler. Jesus was
born under Roman rule. Thus he remained only
a prophet. Similarly Ibrahim and Moses were
also born under rulers like Nimrod and Pharaoh
and hence remained only as prophets.
But the Prophet of Islam was born in a society
where there was no ruler, no state. It was pri-
marily a tribal society and hence once a reli-
gious community came into existence, it
needed some kind of ruling authority to main-
tain law and order. Consequently, all four pious
caliphs ruled through mutual consultation. It
was a loosely structured state authority which
had the function of maintaining law and order in
the society and this need increased as non-
Arab foreign lands were conquered.
State’ by any stretch of imagination. In modern
times and in a globalised world, societies are
becoming more and more multi-religious and
hence the best form of statehood can be the
one which is not concerned with this or that reli-
gious dogmas but with the fundamental values
and people’s welfare.
No state can be run today with strong biases
for or against one particular religion or a reli-
gious sect. Such a state run by imperfect hu-
man beings cannot be expected to be impartial
towards other religious communities, or to-
wards other sects of the same religious com-
munity. Even in the Muslim-majority countries,
a state, not based on a single religious dogma,
can be administered properly. What is desirable
is not an Islamic state but a society based on
the Qur’anic values.
————————————————————-

Many non-Arabs, who came under Muslim au-

thority, were neither formally converted to Islam Asghar Ali Engineer is a renowned
nor did they accept some form of Islamic moral- scholar, Director for the Centre of Study of
ity. Thus with these conquests a proper state Society and Secularism (CSSS)" ,Mumbai,
authority became a must. During the reign of India
Umar, the second Caliph, when foreign lands
began to be conquered, there arose some kind
of a state structure with the trappings of a paid
army and police force. It was no longer possible
to work with voluntary services now Thus, the
caliph Umar set up an army register (he took it
over from Iran) and also shurta (police) and
even market inspectors.

The four rightly guided Caliphs tried their best

to keep the character of state as non-coercive
as possible but with the seizure of power by
Mu’awiyah, the state really became more of a
coercive apparatus mainly concerned with po-
litical power rather than creating a moral, value-
based society. The Prophet’s (PBUH) whole
efforts were directed at creating a value-based
society rather than controlling political power.
The four Caliphs tried to maintain this tradition
but the Umayyads were mainly concerned with
political power, and not with the quality of the
society.

The Islamic world thereafter never saw a period

where the main concern was creating a moral
society. On the contrary, it was to capture and
retain power for one’s own dynasty. Such
states cannot be characterized as ‘Islamic
www.Islam21.net Page 27

Activities of IFID

MCP workshop Bahrain-August 2006

MCP workshop Cairo-Egypt-August 2006

 International Forum for Islamic Dialogue
INTERNATIONAL
FORUM FOR
The International Forum for Islamic Dialogue (IFID)
ISLAMIC IFID was established in 1994 as a UK
DIALOGUE based non-profit organization. It is an
(IFID) independent voice calling for an
enlightened and modern understand-
Mailing address: ing of Islam. We believe that Muslim
democrats can potentially become a
BM Box 5856
London WCIN3XX stabilizing and a constructive force in
United Kingdom developing institutions, modernizing
Muslim societies and playing their full
Phone: : (+44) 20 7724 6260 role in world peace. The key to a bet-
ter future for Muslim nations lies in
developing interpretations of Islam,
Email: Muslim thought and attitudes that are
inquiry@islam21.net
compatible with the contemporary
world.
IFID was founded by Dr Laith Kubba,
who served as it’s first executive di-
rector (1994 to 1998). He was suc-
ceeded by Dr Mansoor Al-Jamri.
IFID’s current director is Dr Najah
We are on the Web
Kadhim.
www.islam21.net IFID aims to:
1. Identify, encourage and introduce
new, enlightened Muslim writers to
engage in debate and discussion
on key Islamic issues and establish
a network for the sharing of ideas
and experiences on the challenges
faced by Muslims today.
2. Initiate innovative ideas that pro-
voke contemporary Islamic thought
and generate much needed debate
and dialogue.
3. Assist and strengthen the efforts of
MCP workshop Basra-Iraq-July 2006
enlightened and liberal Muslim de-
mocrats in propagating a modern
understanding of Islam and it’s val-
ues, focusing on human rights, de-
mocracy, pluralism, non-violence,
civil rights, modern institutions and
in identifying future trends and
strategies.
IFID Objectives:
1. The "Friday Note" - whereby,
concise articles, by known Muslim
writers from a number of countries,
address contemporary Muslims
concerns. These are emailed on
Fridays, to our online community.
Each year a collection of these arti-
cles are published in book form.
2. T o i m p r o v e a n d u p d a t e
"Islam21.net" Web site.
3. To produce an "educational
guide", catering to the needs of
Muslims, that is modern, scientific,
and flexible - to be used by teach-
ers of religion and by Imams.
4. To publish the quarterly "Islam21"
journal, focusing on specific
themes.
5. To host Seminars, addressing
specific topics relevant to current
Muslim reality and to publish and
circulate them to individuals and
organizations.
6. To publish the quarterly Islam21
Youth, focusing on Muslim Iden-
tity from a youth perspective.