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Islam21

P.O. Box 21272

London W9 3YN, UK

Tel/Fax: (+44) 870 0130286

Email: [email protected]

Homepage: http://islam21.orgA Global Networking for Muslim Intellectuals & Activists islam21

Issue No. 25, October 2000

TheInternationalForumforIslamicDialogue(IFID)

Editor: Dr.Mansoor Al-Jamri

For about five centuries, between the eighth to thetwelfth centuries, Muslims possessed the most bril-

liant civilisation in the old world. It was a golden agethat lasted from the forming of the House of Wisdom inBaghdad as a centre of translation, a library and anastronomical observatory in the eighth century to thedeath of Averroes(Ibn-Rushd) in Morocco in 1198. TheIslamic civilisation was a borderless society that enjoyed peace and prosperity in key parts of its history,thus producing some of the greatest achievements inhumankind history.

The misfortunes of Muslims were to come whendespotismspreadand enlightenedthinking was turnedoff in the name of religion. Muslims, as would be

expected, turned to their beliefs as a refuge from themiseries inflicted on them by the mismanagement of their political affairs. Some Muslims, out of despair,have turned toutopian visions anda yearning for a pastthat has long been lost.

The Muslims were to lose an important phase inhumanhistory, that of industrialisation and moderni-sation. Ever since, there has been clash on what toconsider as authentic and acceptable to Islam andwhat is not.

Nowadays we live in a post-industrial era. It is an era

when borders as well as concepts arebeingincreasingly blurred by the rapid developments in communicationand information technologies thathavetendedto bringthe remotest parts of the world within easy reach.Muslims exist all over the globe, and the "globalization"process is notonly influencing theviewsand visions of communities around the worlds, but is also shapingnew conceptions about all aspects of life. As ProfessorNielsen points out in his article on page 6, Europeansand Muslims have long been interconnected and they share a common history, and today, more than any other time, they need each other

While historical connections were more connectedwith exchange of goods, the present phase of interac-tion is concerned with cultural, as well as material,flows amongst nations. The argument for a better and

speady interaction between differentparts of theworldfor trade purposes canno longer be separated from the

cultural and political impacts brought about by theglobalized environment.The drive to have a globaltypeof shop, a global type of meal, and global sets of variablesfor the many needs of human kind have theircost-benefit analysis. As Muslims, we have no choicebut to face up to the challenges posed by the newenvironment.

There are many ways and views as to the bestapproach to be adopted in the newage of globalization. These views range from a confrontational attitude to anapproach that sees Muslims as an integral part of today's world playing their role as participants in the

process. It is our view that Muslims ought to have theiroriginal contributions to offer rather than being purely "on the receiving side". Many Islamic thinkers arestressing the need for seeking solutions to the prob-lems facing Muslim societies through a dialogue proc-ess towards the "other"witha view for full participationin contemporary societies leading to a solid belief inpluralism. Yet, there are other Islamic groups whichadvocate a rigid interpretation of Islam.

Islam21 agrees with the views of Dr. El-Affendi (seepage 9) that "those who think that Muslims areincapable of living according God's will unless a

dictatorial rule imposes on them this conduct, that theonly guaranteefor Islam to thrive is to deprive Muslimsfromall freedomanddeprivethem fromparticipationinrunning their affairs.." are presenting a pathetic ap-proach that is contrary to both Islamic tradition andreason.

It is pathetic because these groups are calling onMuslims from Dakar to Jakarta to eliminate theirdiversity and to relinquish their humane nature.Muslims, according to this impoverished view, shouldbe part of a utopian,yet lifeless, body of an Ummah thatis commanded by a supreme dictator in the name of

Allah. These calls, however, remind the many open-minded Islamists that they can not afford to be apa-thetic and that they have a duty to present an enlight-ened vision for a better future.

Muslimsdeserveabettervisionfortheirfuture

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PAGE 2, Islam21, October 2000

Civilisation:

Let me begin with civilisation. A British philosopher,

Bertrand Russel, once said 'civilisation was born out of the

pursuit of luxury'. Because luxury was pursued you ended

up with great works, music, the Palace of Versailles, the Taj

Mahal etc.Then muchcloserto our times you had civilisation

interpreted more in economic terms, and you had Adam

Smith virtuallywho said that civilisation, or at least Western

civilisationwas born outof thepursuit of profit. Andthen also

closer to our times Karl Marx saw civilisation and the march

of history as borne out of the pursuit of surplus.

I will propose a slightly different idea in this lecture: that

civilisation was born out of the pursuit of creative synthesis.

The synthesis may be between ethics and knowledge, be-

tween religionand science, betweenone cultureand another.

The central dynamic is creative synthesis.

We also start therefore in this lecture from the premise

that Islam was at its most creative when it was ready to

synhthesisebetweenethicsand knowledge, betweenreligion

and science and between Islam and other cultures.

Doctrinally Islam became a synthesis of three religions:

Judaism, Christanity and the message of Mohammed

(pbuh).There is a lot about the Torah and of the Old Testa-

ment in the Quran and the substantial recognition of the

Jewish prophets. There is a lot from the New Testament in the

Quran, from thevirgin birth of Jesus,to hissacred miracles.

Andthen there arethe contributions of the Prophet Moham-

medhimselfand hisown times in Meccaand Medinah. Islam

as a civilisation began as creative synthesis.

Between the 9th and 14th centuries Islamic civilisation

also demonstrated a high capacity for scientific and techno-

logical synthesis.Just as Islamhad beenreceptive to Judaism

and Christanity in the sphere of religious doctrine it demon-

strated receptivity to ancient Greece in the secular field.

Enter peoplelikeIbn Rushd in 1126- 1198CE. Many regard

Ibn Rushd not just as a confirmed Muslim but Aristoteleanas well as being an early Muslim convert to the conclusion

that the world was round.

IbnSina980 - 1037CE wrote extensive commentarieson

Greek philosophers.Many haveinterpreted IbnSina as being

in some senses neo-Platonic in many of his dimensions. He

is credited with the single most important medical work of

medieval times, which is itself a synthesis: The Canon of

Medicine which became a standard medical reference book

at European universitiesuntil well into the 17th century. So

Islam has learned from ancient Greece and educating medi-

eval Europe.

Civilisation as a processof creativeculturalsynthesis was

unfolded. Fioloblia and Filoscience have preserved more

than 100 of Ibn Sina's works across cultures. Filobiblia is a

love of books and Filoscience is a love of knowledge. Islamic

filobiblia and filoscience go back to the first verses of the

Quran. When those first verseswere articulated the Prophet

Mohammed didnot realise, I would imagine, that these were

thefirst wordsof what wasdestinedto become theQuranand

destined to become the most widely read book in its original

language in human history. The bible became the most

widely read book in translation. But every day of the week,

today, yesterday and the day before yesterday, the Quran is

ready in its original Arabic by millions of worshippers across

the world. When those simple first verses were proclaimed

14 centuries ago the stage was being set for a culture of

reading - a civilisation of respect for knowledge.

What were the origins of this filoscience and filobiblia?

Muslims believe that those first words from the Prophet

Mohammed were indeed about knowledge and God's first

command to the prophet was the imperative iqra'a (read!).

Those earliest Quranic verses linked the biological sciences

with the sciences of the mind. Moreover by proclaiming that

all knowledge is ultimately from God warned of the arrogance

or pseudo omissions among humans. Science was morally

accountable. So we were told by Quran "read in the name of

thy Lord who created man out of a mere drop of congealed

blood. Read and they Lord is most bountiful. He who has

taught by the pen men which they knew not, yet man doth

transgress in that he looketh upon himself verilyto theLord,

the final arbiter."

So God taught by the pen and used the pen in doing so.

Andthe pentoday couldbe interpreted asthe computer.God

taughthuman beings what they didnot know andthese were

absolutely theveryfirstversesof theQuran. They were about

knowledge and a warning against ignorance. They were

therefore a respect for skill.

Today more than ever we know that power resides not

among those whoown what, in spite of Karl Marx, butamong

those who know. The first verses of the Quran were a

prophecy of the triumph of knowledge and the potential

tyranny of skill. The first verses of the Quran have echoed

acrossthe centuriessincethe first pronouncement of Islam,

directed at acquisition of knowledge as the basis of ultimate

creative synthesis.

Globalisation

The Muslim world in the 21st century is likely to be one

of the battle grounds of the forces of globalisation, for better

or for worse. The phenomenon of globalisation has its win-

ners and losers. In the initial phases Africa and much of the

Muslim world have already been the losers. It has been

increasingly shown that we are paying the price. There are

universitiesin the United States which havemore computers

than computers available in the whole of Bangladesh orSenegal. This has been the great digital divide. The distinc-

tion between thehavesand thehave-nots hasnow coincided

with the distinction between the digitilised and the deprived

or the de-digitilised.

GlobalisationandtheFutureofIslamicCivilisationBy:ProfessorAliMazrui

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So let us begin with the challenge of a definition. What is

this globalisation? At one level it consists of processes that

leadto global interdependence and the increasing rapidity of

exchange acrossvast distances. As we begin the newmillen-

nium it has acquired three different distinct meanings:

1) Information meaning of globalisation:

Forces whichare transforming the informationpattern of

the world andcreating thebeginningsof whathas been called

the information super highway. Expanding access to data

and mobilising the computer and the internet into global

service. Is the Muslim world marginalisedunder this defini-

tion of globalisation?

2) The economic definition of globalisation:

Forces which are transforming the global market and

creating new economic interdependencies across vast dis-

tances.Africaand theMuslimworldare of course affected but

not central. It is possible that parts of the Muslim world arenot central to this economic sense of globalisation. Why?

Because very often they produce petroleum which has en-

tered the engines of the economic side of globalisation.

3) The third meaning of globalisation is comprehensive:

Allforceswhichare turning theworldintoa globalvillage,

compressing distance, homoginising culture, accelerating

mobility and reducing the relevance of political borders.

Under this comprehensive definition, globalisation is the

gradual villagisation of the world. These forces have been at

workintheMuslimworldandintherestoftheglobeforalong

time. The word may be new but this sense of globalisation isold.

For the comprehensive senseof globalisation four forces

have been major engines of globalisation: religion, technol-

ogy, economy and empire. These have not necessarily acted

separately. On the contrary they have often reinforced each

other. For example the globalisation of Christanity started

with the conversion of Emperor Constantine I of Rome in

313CE. The religious conversion of an emperor started the

process under which Christanity became the dominant reli-

gion notonlyof Europe but alsoof many othersocietieswhich

Europe later ruled.

The globalisation of Islam began not with converting a

ready made empire but with building an empire almost from

scratch.The Ummayads and the Abbbasids put together bits

of other people's empires - former Byzantium, Egypt and

Persia and created a whole new civilisation. The forces of

Christianty and Islam have sometimes clashed. The two

religions in the expansionist movement have themselves

contributed to globalisation in the comprehensive sense.

Voyages of exploration have been another stage in the

process of exploration. Muslim seafarers travelled the east

but missed their chance westwards. Europe moved botheast

andwest.Vaso de Gama andChristopherColumbusopenedup a whole new chapter in the history of globalisation.

Economy andempire were themajormotives.There followed

the migration of people.

IslamontheReceivngSide:

I am prepared to learn from Aristotle. I am prepared to

learn howother culturesare doing and then to lookafreshat

my Islamic culture and see how it does. My father was

polygamous. I don't say this in a censorious family. I did not

live in an oppressive extended family. Thepart I remember is

that my father wanted me with him all the time: both when

he was with my biological mother and with his other wife. I

wastherefore with both women whenever he was with them.

The other woman treated me as her own child. The point I am

raising is not whether there is an objection to polygamy.

We can discuss this if you wish. The point I am making is

that my father dieda long time ago. The second woman, who

is not my biological mother, is still alive today.And I love her.

And so do my children. And I take them to her and they tell

me she looks much younger than me and although I protest

I have to agreewith them. This ismy secondmother andfrom

theday I started earning my first pound oneof my obligations

included my other mother. My father died in 1947. Thisloyalty continued to the present day. I think it is a combina-

tion in my case of two cultures: my Islam and my Africanism

where you maintainloyalties beyond the life of the father.The

extended family is real.

So constructing thenext civilisationis notjust thepursuit

of luxury as Bertrand Russel has said. It is not just the

pursuit of surplus that Karl Marx tried to convince us.

Civilisation wasnot born outof thepursuit of profits asAdam

Smith told us. There are other things that include creative

synthesis even in family relations andthere arerulesof family

from culture which need to be made availableto the next set

of standards in the future.

I would like to believe that in Islamic culture and in

African culture there are family rules which are still being

followed today andwhich mightbenefitthe West as well. And

if there is a civilisation to be reconstructedthat is one element

thattheseat the moment endangeredcivilisations,in the face

of Western power, can contribute towards moderating some

of the tyrannies of triumphalism. Thank you very much.

DISCUSSION,QUESTIONS&ANSWERS:

Q: We can learn from the West as far as technology isconcerned butdo we have anything to learn from them as

far as morals and values are concerned.

Mazrui: On theissue of values, genderrelations, that are

disadvantageous to women are unfortunately widely de-

fended in the name of Islam, by rulers, ulemas as well as by

husbands.I don't disagree with youat allthatwe shouldlook

at Islam in ways which are fair to women. But that requires

particular fatwa that arein my terms more enlightened than

in Muslim societies. So a body of knowledge does not exist

independently of its interpretation. Similarly Islamicdoctrine

does not exist independentlyof itsinterpretation. Manyof the

interpretation of Islamic doctrine have been made in wayswhich are disadvantageous to women.

We do not want to say we are learning from the West. We

want to saywe arehaving a newfatwa.The trigger mechanism

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may bethe Westbut the situation in the Muslimworld isnot

one in which we can say we have no problem in gender

relations. With the sister's point about whether we can have

a common language in Arabic, may be we need a religious

interpretationwhich is almost theequivalent. If onlywe could

find a religious interpretation that is mainstream and at the

sametime progressive. Thiscould apply to relationsbetween

men and women. This would be ideal.

We have formed a group in the USA which is called the

Centrefor theStudy of Islam andDemocracy andit is diverse

in points of view. We do not say you should belong to this

point of view. We just want to provide a context in which

people can debate how Islam relates to democratic values,

whether there is a particular Islamic approach to democracy

or whether Muslims say we do not want democracy, there is

something else we would prefer. So we have created this and

we arehaving lectures andconferences andnewslettersand

we hope to expand our activities on campuses.

My own position in classrooms in the USA is that I teachcourses on Islam notfrom a traditional point of view but from

the point of view of Islam in world affairs and Islam and

democracy and that sort of thing. So I would ask students

which factors in Islam are democracy friendly and which

factors are democracy challenging? Invariably the issue of

gender relations comes are democracy challenging. Very

often Muslim women take that position. Whereas on race

relations there is considerable consensus that Islam is

democracy friendly. For 1400 years Islam has been ahead of

most other cultures in regarding skin colour as irrelevant.

With regard to zakat and economic justice, we have discus-

sions and we decided that it is democracy friendly, but is it

democracy friendly enough. That has been debated by stu-dents in the classrooms.

Q: First of all you tried to define civilisation in a

number of terms but I did not hear you mention creative

challenge - the successful response to a particular chal-

lenge is what characterises civilisation. Secondly you

have made controversial assertions about Islamic

globalisation and globalising Islam. But you have prob-

ably noticed the homogenising aspect of Islam by

creating strong globlisation. When you go to Nigeria or

when you go to Malaysia you probably find yourself at

home when you are a Muslim. People in Indonesia and

Senegal whospeakno Arabic still witnesses a certainkindof homogenisation according to Islam. At the same time

what does this infer now?

You seem to oscillate between whether you support

democratising religion - globalisation is after all the free

exchange of cultures and values like the market and in

the end areyougoing toproduce a better thing.Or areyou

of the more Marxist view that this is not genuinely free

and fair. There is a clear hegemonic aspect to it.

Q: We Muslims whohave had a glorious civilisationin

the past. But to keep clinging to the old civilisation will

not create another one? And secondly don't you think

thatthe technological gap between Muslimsand the west

is so great that it is not so easy to become a new

civilization?

Mazrui: DidI exhaust the definition of civilisation? I don't

think so. I gave three and thenI had my own. Challenge and

response isanother definition. Whether Islam is itselfa form

of homognisation. It is true thereare elementsof Islam which

homogenise and that is what makes people from otherwise

different cultures recognise each other. They ask 'are you a

Muslim too' and then something clicks. But because the

religion has lacked a centralised priesthood and the equiva-lent of the Vatican or the archbishop of Canterbury on the

whole there has been considerableaccommodation of diver-

sity of cultures. Senegalise Islam is very different from

Indonesian Islam. The remarkable thing is that despite this

the one thing in Islam which has not been culturally

accommodationist is the language of the Holy Book. In

Christainity people do not even know what language Jesus

spoke.

I ask people in my classes in the USA and half of the

Christainsdo notknow what language Jesusspoke.The bible

is read in a language which has nothing to do with either

Jesus or the people who crucified him. Whereas with Islamthe one thing that isnot accommodating is that the Quran is

read in its original language, prayers are conducted in their

original language, the muzzein calls the believers to prayer in

the original language. So despite the absence of centralised

control this has remained constant in civilisationswhich are

otherwise very different. This is remarkable. So there has

been some homogenisation - you are right.

And is globalisation just another world for Westernisa-

tion. That is alwaysa danger, youare quite right. Sometimes

we used to talk about modernisation and that was just

another word for Westernisation very often. Have we just

made another step forward to globalisation? Are we justplaying with words describing the forces of the West under

differentnames. In reality there is a factorwhichinvolvesthe

planetand how muchof the planetis affectedby the West, so

there is a planetary factor which it makes sense to call

globalisation. But it is right to warn out thatthis could carry

hegemonoisation at the same time.

The Muslims today comprise of a civilisation - a frag-

mented one. There is enough there in the form of homogeni-

sation to compromise a civilisation. It is a very fragmented

oneand notpolitically. Thevalue systems have been affected

by distance and by the impact of other forces. Curiously

enough one of the factors which has slowed down thefragmentation is the technology which has come from the

West and the extent to which Muslims have communicated

with each other more as a resultof theWest. TheWestinspite

of itself has slowed down the fragmentation of Muslims

civilisation. It has helped it to retain some degree of coher-

ence so that we can have the Organisation of the Muslim

Conference, banks in the Muslim world, radio stations etc

and we can try to influence each other as Muslims.

Are people who havehad civilisation in the past prisoners

of nostaligia that cannotget outof nostalgiaand buildfuture

civilisations?

I don'tthink so.If that weretrueno civilisation wouldhave

developed as all groups have nostaligia. There has always

been a culture in the past before somebody else built a new

one. So Muslims if it is Muslims who want to do it, or Arabs

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or theshah whotriedto go both backwardsand forwards. He

wanted to go back 5000 years and at the same time link up

with theWestwithregardto Persia.So itis dual, youcanhave

a culture of nostilgia and link it up with a culture of

anticipation.

Is the technological gap too wide between the Muslims

and the westerners that there is no hope of us having any controloverwhat happens?It isa seriousdangerthatwe may

not have adequate control especially since we do not have

rebellious elites or rulers who want to rise to the challenges

posedby theWest. So thetechnologicalgapis notadequately

closed by political will.

Q: How do you view the call for implementing Sharia

in Nigeria?

Mazrui: The shariahdebate in Nigeria (I was in Nigeria last

month). It is true there are major tensions over this issue

between thenorth andthe south andthose particular states

in the north which are moving in the direction of adoptingIslamic law. The major factors (I know you are interested in

capitalpunishmentbut the audience may not knowwhat the

issue is about). Until last year there was an uneasy equilib-

rium in Nigeria with political power exercised substantially

by the north of the country and economic power and control

substantially in thesouth. So it wasa bit like Malaysia where

the ethnic Malays are in control of the polity and ethnic

Chinese are in control of the economy. So with the election

last year that particular equilibrium changed. A southerner

was elected president.

Paradoxically he would not have been elected president

but for the north. The north supported Obisanjo to becomepresident. But the north in my opinion prematurely think

they have been let down. So they feel they have been both

marginalised economically, as they have always been, they

are now being marginalised politically as a new oppression.

How do they respond to that? One way is through a retreat

to cultural origins. Since the north has a large Muslim

populationone way of doing itis to say we wantto goback to

Islam and they say they want the Sharia. Some of the states

have huge nonMuslim minorities. That cancause tension in

those states and in the wider federation of Nigeria there are

major tensions that would shake the federation. They have

not resolved that issue. The present president, Obisango,

because he is a southerner does not want to take on theSharia issue head on so he is hoping it would gradually fizzle

out. I don't envy him politically, he is in a very delicate

situation at the moment. So we wish Nigeria the best.

On the issue of capital punishment if you are interested

in my personal view, I do not believe in capital punishment

andthis isnot justin relationto thedebatein Nigeria.My own

position has been that there are things which God intended

usto learn acrosstimebut there is oneone messengerof God

who was not a human being like Mohammed and that was

time. Time teaches us more about crime, more about its

causesand how tocontrol and justas itmakes sense thatwe

should listen to Prophet Mohammedas thelastof thehuman

"rasul" we should also pay attention to time as a "rasul."

I first went public on that issue when I condemned

Salman Rushdie and at the same time objected to the death

penalty. Not for Salman Rushdie. I objected to the death

penalty, period. I think his book was disgraceful, he just

played to the gallery of the West.

Q: When Allah speaksHe makesit clear that thehands

of thieves have to be cut. Where does Allah speak of

democracy?

Chairman: there are only a few minutes left to respondto

theremaining questions. In themeantime I wouldliketo take

theprerogative of thechairto respond to thecomments from

the brother. In response to the brother who said there is

nothing in theQuranabout democracy, there is also nothing

in the Quran about dictatorship.

Mazrui: You all have very big questions and I have only

five minutes. Let me deal with it by putting it this way : Why

didthis grandcivilisation gradually stagnateand become left

behind to be colonised?

The thesis of my lecture is when you stop learning from

others. That is thewhole point of creative synthesis. At some

point in the history of Islam legalism took over and walls

against systhesis were created. And from then on Islam was

on the downward trend. We know we are down. Half the

questions here areabout whether we areleft behind, can we

ever catch up, what shall we do. We are behind, we were

colonised, we can't even get our own petroleum out of the

ground. We do not have the skills to exploit our own re-

sources without foreigners doing it for us. We can't even get

to our own wealth without foreigners doing it for us. So ask

yourself what happened? The thesis of this lecture is that

Islam stopped prospering when it stopped learning fromothers. This is what the thesis of creative synthesis is all

about. The walls of legalism which were created by distin-

guished ulema whom we have refused to overrule for centu-

ries.

The walls have to start being dismantled if we were to get

out of thissituation. We must learn to learn from others, it is

as simple as that. It is true that Allah's word is supreme but

Allah's word is interpreted by human beings. The Quran is

notavailable to us with Godhimself talking to us.The Quran

is available to us from the texts printed probably next door,

proof ready by somebody else. It is available to us because

it has been handled by human being, interpreted by humanbeings, with books andbooks and sometimesinterpreted by

human being centuries ago. They felt more free to interpret

itthanwe do. The word of the Quran isnot independent of its

interpreter.How canit be?We arehuman beings. We arenot

God. Wecannot say weknow exactlywhat Godmeant.We are

not God. We are only human beings therefore some human

being whointerpreted it this way, is that human being God?

He is not.Why can't another human being reinterpret it? So

I make a plea: do not let us forever be confined to the walls

of legalism created some ten centuries ago and for us to

remain impervious from learning from others, we are just

condemning ourselves.

(Professor Mazrui was speaking at a seminar held at

the Project on Democracyin the Muslim World, London,

on 5 September 2000).

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For a variety of reasons, the relationship between Islamand Europe has become one which, in recent years, hasincreasingly exercised academics, politicians and spiritualand secular community leaders and, around them, formersof public opinion such as journalists. These reasons can besought in recent events like the Iranian revolution, theRushdieand headscarfaffairs, conflict in Bosnia,Sudan andAlgeria. Butinterpreting such events as part of a wider 'clashof civilizations', as was suggested in a now famous- ornotorious- article in the US journal Foreign Affairs, presup-poses an existing framework of referenceand interpretation.

This already existing frame of reference can be identifiedas being rooted in the collective consciousand subconscious

levels of European and Muslim identities. These identitieshave been formed out of a common history, where somedimensions have been remembered and cultivated in thelong process of nation- building, and others have beenforgotten or suppressed. This collective identity, with itsvarious levels of consciousness, reacts in all its national,regional and local variations- to a variety of factors.

In thisreflection I want to try, first, to present some of themost important of these factors; and to suggest why suchsuperficially isolated factors have provoked such heateddebate and fears. There are, very specifically, factors whichseemto set thecontext, built upoverthe lastdecade, inwhichwe are now acting.

Within Western Europe, we have experienced increas-ingly vocal Muslim communities whose origins are to befound in the imperial and post-imperial eras. In the areaswhich were formerly under European direct or indirect rule,Islam has become a potent rallying point of autonomy. Thecollapse of Soviet power has opened wounds of religion andethnicity in the East which had been suppressed for severalgeneration.

Firstly, Muslim communities today account for anythingup to ten million of the population of the western half of Europe. Statisticsare notoriouslyunreliable,especially whendealing with religion, but one can recognize populations of

Muslim cultural background of fourmillionin France, nearly two million in Germany and over one million in Britain,several hundred thousands in each of Belgium, the Nether-lands, Italy and Spain and from tens to thousand to onehundred thousand in eachof Austria, Switzerland,Denmark,Sweden, and Norway.

These communities were immigrantshave settled. A largeproportion of the immigrant generation came from villagesaway from the large urban centers. This gave them a set of quite specific characteristics, in which Islam played a role -butoften not the Islam of the urban-based literary tradition.

In addition they bought with them the baggage of theirparticular regions, notably North Africa, Turkey and thenorthernIndo-Paksubcontinent.Their children, now leavingschool, and entering the employment market in growingnumbers, are in varying degrees departing from their par-ents' culture and entering into the European.

Some of them aresuccessfully negotiating both together,rediscovering the essentials of Islam, shorn of cultural accre-tions associated with the parental culture, and adaptingEuropean cultural expressions to match: they re formingvariants of the European Islam of the future. Others arebecoming marginalized from their parents'way of lifeand areremaining marginal to their new social and economic envi-ronment, in extreme cases drifting into petty crime, drugsand cults.

Secondly, the changes in Eastern Europe have exposedsome of the fictions of European civilization. The Cold Warorder, even thought based on the deterrent fear of mutualdestruction, had lulled Europeans into feeling that a degree

if stability had been achieved which would 'never again'seduce the continent into the clashes of religion and nationwhich has so bedeviled its history since the 16th century.

With these changes, the great threat to the East, the 'redperil', had disintegrated. But after the initial sense of relief andtriumph, somebeganto lookfurther or elsewhere. Surely history could not have ended - and so the scenario movedfrom the triumphalism of Fukayama's end of history to theapocalypse of Huntington's clash of civilizations.

Thirdly, this is all taking place at a time when thecontinents bordering the Mediterranean are experiencing arevival of Islamic political participation. 'Islamism', as the

French have usefully translated it, is a major trend today inmany Arab countries and in Turkey, observers are quick tosee expressions of it in Eastern Europe, the former SovietUnion, and amongyoung Muslim groups in Western Europe.It is this perception of a politicized Islam which encouragedtalk of Islamic fundamentalism as a threat to Europe, theWest, and the international order.

Of course, such a revival has not come about simply outof the blue. Islam has always had a strongly political dimen-sion. This has been mobilized on a various occasions indifferent parts of the Muslim world in response to Europeancolonial rule.

It is only short memories which have blocked out suchprevious Islamic revivals in the last century or so. However,the present spread of political Islam is different. It finds itssupport and motivation among broad sectors of the popula-tion which have recently become urbanized, whose youngpeople are the first generation into higher education, andwhose expectations of material progress have been disap-pointed in the slums of the big cities.

These are not the old urban middle class who over severalgenerations haveadoptedto concepts and modesof thinkingoriginating in the West, concepts andmodes which theyhavemade their own and which are now denounced as secularistand, in Francophone regions, as deracine.

The ideas which appeal to and mobilize the new Islamistsare expressed in the Islamic idioms which have been at thecore traditional culture. But the theorists and intellectualsproducing these ideas are a new breed. Granted, the Azhargraduates arestill there epitomizedby someone like Yusuf al-

Europeans and Muslims:

IdentitieswithaCommonHistoryBy:ProfessorJorganS.Nielsen

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Qaradawi, and in Iran the turbaned classes are centralthough even there they are farfrom holding a monopoly. Butmanyof the newIslamicthinkershave comethrough a highereducation in the natural and technicalsciences- or they areeducationalists, often trained in the West at some stage.Educationalists are prominent in Jordan's Islamic ActionFront. Syed Qutb came though a similar route,and teachersare prominent activists in Turkey's Welfare Party.

UsingtraditionalIslamicidiom these people are filling theconcepts with newmeaning,what a former colleagueusedtocall "the semantic breakthrough", and exploiting the geniusof the Arabic language to create new words full of oldassociations.

The "hakimiyya", the rule of God, of Maududi and Qutb isbut the most prominent. From the same stable has come aradical reinterpretation of "jahiliyya", one strong enough tohave provided the legitimization for violence.

Let usbe quite clear what isgoing on here. In my view, weareactuallyexperiencingthat "reformation" of Islam which so

many western observershave been calling for since the 19thcentury.

And there are some fascinating parallels, at least super-ficially, with the Protestant Reformation of 16th century Europe. There is no space or time to go into them here, butcentralis a theologicalrethinkingwhich is muchmore closely associated with the Islamist movements than with peoplewhom Western observers found more sympathetic.

Western observers tend to feel close kinship with thehistorical and literary critical approaches to the Islamictextual sources exemplified in previous generationsby suchas Ali Abd al-Razzaq and Taha Hussein. The so called

fundamentalists treat Qur'an and Hadith as if they werecompletely fresh texts, revealed and recorded this morningwithout the baggage of 1400 years tradition.

But isn't this essentially what Luther did? The texttradition only came three centuries after him. the Jeddah-based Saudi sociologist Prof. Bagadir has recently made theinterestingpoint thatit may be the so-called fundamentalistswhomay be laying thefoundationsof a pluralist Islam ratherthan those scholars in the Muslim world who have adoptedexclusively western methods.

The various actors - states, institutions,parties, commu-nities- on both sides of theMediterranean, andintermingledwith each other in Europe's urban centers, view thesedevelopments through different spectacles, because they bring to them different histories.

This statement may seem simple and obvious, but it hasto be recalled that the countries which our Muslim commu-nities came from, were in their majority those which were orhadbeen colonies of the countriesof immigration. Thereforepart of the history they bring with them is the mirror imageof Europe's historical baggage.

Equally on the Muslim side of equation it has to be saidthat the old secularized urban groups have in various waysadopted the European historical baggage as their own. Thisintermingling of histories within a common space is takingplace at a time when both "orthodoxies" - Muslim andEuropean/Western - are under interrogation and thereforefeelings insecure.

Here is one immediate reason for the heat generated

around the relationship between Islam and the West today.In fact, the heat is not new - and that may be why therelationship is heated. Both western and eastern Christen-dom have a centuries-long experience of encounter with theMuslim world across a broad and intensive front. It is thebreadth and intensity of this encounter which makes therelationshipbetween Islam and Europe is distinct and preg-nantwith potentials goodand bad: therelationships between

Europe and, for example, the Hindu or Buddhist worlds aresimply not of the same order.

Muchhas beenwritten about the mutual stereotypes andpolemics which grew up over the centuries: Islam as aChristian heresy, encouraging wantonness and fatalism,spreading by the sword; the crusading andimperialism of theChristian west, itsmore recent ungodlinessand moral decay.

Nothing is gained by repeatedly going over that ground.Butit is a ground which publicopinionconstantlyrecalls andis recalled to. Edward Said's Orientalism is matched in theMuslim world by an "Occidentalism" which is less destructiveonly because it is not currently as close to the centers of

economic and cultural power in the world.

Both 'isms'operate on simplistic caricatures of theother:the Muslim world is violently unstable, and Islamist move-ments are bent on destroying forces of moderation andcommon sense, through terrorism if necessary; the West is inthegrip of a newcrusadewhose purposeis tocrush Islamandis currentlyengages in expunging the Islamic presence fromChristianEurope.

Suchconstant caricatures obscure the enormous variety of views and tendencies on both sides. In fact, it could beargued that the variety is so great that to talk of sides isprobably not justified. In the Muslim world little is mono-

lithic. There are varieties of opinion, purpose and personali-ties within even the most Islamist groups.

Seyed Fadlallah, thespiritualguideof Lebanon'sHizballahis a figure widely respected in Lebanon and has recently publisheda very positive consideration of Muslim-Christiandialogue. The Muslim Brotherhood represents a wide spec-trum of very serious and critical thinking, as do sections of Algeria FIS.

The trouble is that it is very difficultfor Europeans to hearthat what they are saying, let alone to engage with them. Forone thing there is the simple difference of language. Butmuch more serious is the fact that this variety and develop-ment - this reformation, onemight say - is being drowned by the noises of dramatic headlines.

In the pressurecooker of everyday events suchvoicesfinddifficulty is being heard in their own countries. Sympathizersandpotential followersare regularlybeingtempted or forcedinto polarized positions, a process which is fundamentally assisted by an insistent western repetition of accusationsagainst Islamic extremism - so that even a man like KamalAbu'l- Maged was once characterized in a Danish journal asa hard-line Islamist.

It works the other way as well. Many in Europe wouldagreein despairing at themistakes- even perversity - of somerecent European andUS policystances toward certaineventsrelating to the Muslim world.

Certainly there is a widespread popular sympathy in theMuslim world with the epithet of the Great Satan as appliedto the US. But this risks becoming self-fulfilling prophecy if

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the great variety of views andinterests to be found in Europeand North America is not acknowledged. The western pressis not monolithically anti-Muslim - in fact without the west-ernmediathefateofMuslimsinKosova,BosniaandChechnyawould haveremained virtually unrecorded.The churchesarenot united in anti-Islamic missionary zeal. The perceivedanti-Muslim policies of the former French minister of theinterior Charles Pasqua were often opposed by his counter-

parts in the French foreign ministry.

And even the foreign policy establishment in WashingtonDC includes significant elements sympathetic to Arab andMuslim perspectives. Constantly issuing mutual blanketcondemnations plays into the hands of the hard-liners onboth sides.

Such mutual demonization actually does injustice to ourown history, a history which is deeply interdependent andwhich we on the European side need to revisit.

This is not merely a question for academic enthusiasts,having gone to school in both Copenhagen and London

during the 1950s and early 1960s, what sticks in my mind,on later reflection, is the extent to which so much of theteaching we were exposed to was centered around thenational myths which had developed during the twopreceding centuries. This was the case with the teaching of history, of course, but also in geography, language andliterature.

Missing from this were not only the perspectives, inDenmark, of Norway and, in England, of Scotland, IrelandandWales, butalsoat thewiderEuropeanlevel, of thetrans-Mediterranean. It is only at a very superficial level that ourcollective European awareness remembers that nine centu-ries age we learned a few things from the cultural, economic

andpoliticalresourcesof theMuslimworld,then reachingupthrough Spain and southern Italy.

As Europe, at least Catholic Europe began to assert itsautonomy and to chart its own course from the humanistawakeningof the12th century through to theRenaissanceitstarted by learning from Islamic civilization. Historically,Arabic is as much a European classical languages as areGreek and Latin.

As its self-confident grew, Europe began to forget itsindebtedness to Islamic civilization, a process strongly en-couragedby the very fact thatit was Islamic incontrastto itsown increasingly strong Christian identification, especially

as this grew around and out of the Crusades.

Drawing a psychological parallel, it could be suggestedthat Christian Europe suppressed the Islamic-Arabicdimen-sion of its parentage. What has been retained out of thehistory is the memory of the conflicts. Earlier Europeangenerations needed to recall the battles and the victories-

just look at the significantthat Karl Martel's defeat of a minorArab-Berber raiding party at Poitier/Tour in 732 has beenaccorded - to help reinforce their independence of thetutelage of perceived heretics.

There are certainly parallels here with much modernIslamic thinking. It is difficult to assessfullythe influenceof

the German 19th century philosophers on both Arabic andwider Muslim thought, whether of secular and nationalisttendencies or of more explicitly Islamic trends.

Much contemporary Islamic thought is of necessity fol-lowing agendas set by the need to respond to western

challenges. Even the structures of ideas of such Islamists astotally reject western influence bear the fingerprints of western modes of thought - this has for example beensuggested of Syed Qutb. So it is possible to argue that muchof the Islamic revival is indebted to western precedents,which due to that very identity also have to be denied andsuppressed.

This combinationof a suppressed history and a new post-nationalism experience of a multi-cultural and multi-reli-gious society, forces us to revisit what we, as Europeans,stand for. Are we actually tied into institutional and consti-tutional stances, or is it reallythe processesand dynamics of response which constitute our stance?

Someparts of the political are religious spectrain Europe,including those being presented by some immigrant andreligious ethnic minority groups, appear to have lockedthemselves into the inflexibility of institutions and systemsachieved. For them, history hasstopped; we have reachedtheultimate - or dead end - of human social order.

I am reminded of thesmallbrochure I sawsome years agoin a Swedish collegeadvertising the centenary celebrations of the great 19th century Danish thinker and liberal politicianGrundtvig; he was there described as the person who hasfinally defined what it meant to be Danish. Grundtvig musthave been turning in his grave at such presumption!

Grundtvig, as also many of his contemporaries aroundEurope, would have been the first to recognize that thecollective identity of a people isa liveand livelyanimal.It doesnot freeze and imprison.

The experience of individuals and groups within theoverall collectivityis cumulative; it adds on to what hasbone

before;and it changesit in parts andreplaces it in other parts.As individuals and groups depart and other join, so thecollectivity changescharacter. This change shows itselfin thestreet, in shop signs, in the spoken language, in the faces, infood and in the media, and ultimately in education, law andpolitics.

The changes take place and are mediated in many waysincluding conflict - and remember that conflict, properly managed, canbe constructive. There is a strong argumentforsuggesting that the Rushdie affairs has, in Britain at least,hada moreconstructive thannegative outcome.The changesare alsomediated through dialogueand negotiation. There islittle doubt that over the last two decades, Europe has

accumulated a growing debt to the small group of peopleacross the continent who have actively encouraged the localand national meeting of Christians and Muslims.

If Muslim individuals and organizations today in France,Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and elsewhereare not only still willing, but actively seeking to engage withtheir European environment, it is in large part due to theperseverance of the few who have insisted that dialogue andcommon exploration is the way forward.

On the wider political scene, Prof. Samuel Huntington'sthesis has been widely rejected, by academics, serious

journalists and diplomats - even though they are always

exceptions. But Huntington has ironically done us a favour:his scenario was so frightening that sensible people andinstitutions on both sides have been mobilizedinto action toseize back the initiative from the extremists and pessimists.

To the small band of Christians and Muslims have been

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added many others, people and institutions from the main-stream of public life. Willi Claes, NATO's former generalsecretary, must often have regretted his unguarded com-ments about theIslamic enemy given the widespread officialcondemnations.

The Swedish Foreign Minister's initiative in holding aconference on Islam and Europe in Stockholm in June 1995

was expected to be matched by Germany, Britain, theNetherlands, Spain andFrance areall activein thesame field,each in their own way.

During the last couple of years I have been enormously encouraged by what I have experienced of interest andcommitment to not only Muslim-Christian dialogue but alsobridge-building between Europe and the Muslim, especially the Middle Eastern Muslim world. Certainly this includeslong-standing activities such as those sponsored by the

Jordanian and Moroccan monarchies, as well as less publi-cized initiatives in specific issues on the part of other Arabstates.

In recent years initiatives have also come from Iran and Turkeytowards theVatican andthe World Council of Churchesas well as more humble religious and academic institutionsinitiatives which I know have been responded to positively.

But the constructive interest and contacts are not limitedto officially approved persons and agencies. There has beenextensive interest also from non-governmental and opposi-tion Islamic tendencies. If course, many such initiatives arenarrowly and often manipulatively political. But many arenot. And whatever the initial motivations, we must allow forthe possibility that changing circumstances and the proc-esses of dialogueand conversationin themselves can changethe purpose into a more constructive and long-term one.

After all, if founded on many centuries of accumulatednegative experience the tension cannot be dissolved merely by a couple of friendly meetings in five-star motels.

Individuals and agencies - officially sponsored or other-wise - are seeking to practise similar processes which all theuncertainties and risks involved, both in terms of outcomesand it terms potential confusion or misunderstanding be-tween government, institutional and individual short-andlong-term interests.

The very fact that such initiatives are being taken as to beacknowledged and welcomed, and their own owners have tobe given credit for some degree of realism.

After along period of overwhelming outside influence theMuslim world is seeking to rediscover its historical continu-ity.The Islamistmovements represent a desirefor autonomy,dignity and self-respect, not a threat to the West.

It is, I would venture to suggest, in Europe's long-terminterest to welcome this, evenwhen some developments may seem to be adverse to our immediate interests. A Muslimcommunity which is not comfortable in itself is a cause forconcern, whether it is in our inner cities or across theMediterranean.

In our independence world, Europe and North American

attitudes andactions inevitably have an effect. Thewell-beingand self-respect of the Muslim world is in our own interest,and it is in our own interests to ensure that western policiesand discourses acknowledged the Islamicness of the Muslimworld.

Debating Islam & Democracy

The on-going debateamongst Islamists in discussion foraon the Internet provide a contrasting rainbow of ideas andinterpretations.

There are those who assert that "democracy contradictsIslam completely in the fundamentals and in the details,".Once such discussant state the following points to prove hisview. He says:

"(i) Democracy gives the sovereignty to the people andentrusts them with the whole matter. Hence, people are thesupreme reference in everything. According to the rules of democracy, people are the source of power. Thus people arethesource of thelegislativepower, thejudicial power andtheexecutive power. It is people who legislate the laws, appointthe judges and establish the rulers. This is contrary to Islamwhich makes the sovereignty to Shari’ah andnot to people.In this way the whole matter is to the Shari’ah and it is the

supreme reference in everything. As for the powers, Islamhas made the legislative power for Allah (swt), not to people.

It is Allah (swt) alone Who legislates the rules in every-thing, be it in regard to worship, transactions, the punish-ments or otherwise. It is forbidden for anyone to legislate,evenif it was a singlerule. Peoplein Islam havethe authority - namely the rule, so it is the people who elect the ruler andappoint him. Thus people are the source of the executivepower only -they select the man who assumes the authority andthe rule. As forthe judicial power,this is assumed by theKhaleefah or whoever deputizes for him in this. It is theKhaleefah who appointsthe judgesor appointssomeonewhoappoints the judges. No person from among the people,

individuals or groups alike have the authority to appoint a judge. This is rather restricted to the Khaleefah and hisdeputy.

(ii) The leadership in the democratic system is collectiveandnot for the individual. Thepower is also collectiveand notforthe individual. Theauthority, or therule is assumed by thecouncil of ministers meaning the cabinet. The head of state,beit a king or a president, is a nominal figure whoreignsbutdoes not rule. The body that rules and assumes the power isthe cabinet. This is contrary to Islam, where the leadershipis forthe individual andnot a collective andwherethe poweris also for the individual and not a collective. It has beenreported on the authority......."

ResponsbyDr.AbdelwahabEl-Affendi:

The remarks mentioned above contain a rather largenumber of contradictionsand misunderstandings that needto be clarified:

1. He starts by saying that the people cannot havesovereignty, but in the next paragraph, he tells that oneperson, the Khalifa, musthave full, unquestionedauthority.In this he indirectly clarifiesthe question he tries to bury intoconfusion.For the issue here is not God'ssovereignty versusthat of the people. No Muslim questions the sovereignty of Godor the ruleof Shari'ah. However, most Mulsims do (and

did) have misgivings about any claim by one person that heis sovereign. The sovereigny of one man contradicts thesovereignty of God, for all men are equal in front of God.

2. The leadership in Islam is indeed collective. The

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ahadith quoted by the brother all prove this, in fact. TheHadith about appointing an amir is directed to the group. Itis the group which appoints the amir, which means that heis accountable to them, andmust consultwith them. Consul-tation in Islam is obligatory, because it is an order from God,given explicitly in the Quran. What God orders is notoptional, but obligatory. Blind obedience to one-man rule is

contrary to Islam.If youhave read enoughhadith you wouldhavecomeacross the story of the amir sent bythe Prophet tolead an expedition. One day he lit up a fire and told his mento jump into it.

They naturally refused, even though the man remindedthat the Prophet had ordered them to obey him. When they went back and related teh incident to the Prophet, he said:"If they had entered it they would never have come out of it."Meaning they will go straight to hell. Any man who claims tobea Khalifa and orders things that are contrary to reason orShariah may be disobeyed. In fact he must be. But if this isnot to lead to chaos as happened in past Muslim history, itis advisable to have insitutions which arbitrate between the

ruler and the people, such as parliaments, an independent judiciary, etc. We need not copy these instituions, but wemust recognise the useful function they serve.

3. The claim that the Prophet regularly defies majority opinion is incorrect. Whenever the Prophet issued an orderor gave an opinion, the Sahabah sometimes asked::: is thisa divineorderor just an opinion? This happened in Badr andduringGhazawat al-Khandaq.When he said it wasnot divineinjunction, the Sahabah immediately gave a different opin-ion, which theProphetthen accepted. Since anyperson afterthe Prophet cannot claim the privilege of having received adirect order from God, all their views can and may becontested. It is also wise for the ruler to do so, since if any

ruler persists in defying majority opinion, the people arelikelyto revoltand kill him, ashappenedto many rulers. Theadvantage of democracy (or any similar system based onconsensus and clear rules about how to accommodatevarious interests and opinions) is that it makes it unneces-sary for citizens to resort to force.

4.All rule inthis worldis rule byhumanbeings.There areno angelsor Prophets to take this responsibility.(By theway,the hadith about responsibility which the brother quotes tosupport his view that the Khalifa is sole guardian over thepeople starts like this: "All of you are guardians, and each isresponsible forhis ward."So is provesquite the reverse, thatall Mulsims are collectively responsible for running theiraffairs." It is thus more likely that the majority of Mulsimscould be less prone to error than one man. After all, thecommunity cannot all agree on error, as the hadith say. Soitis unlikelythat oneman wouldbe rightand allthe Mulsimswrong.

5. It is not correct to say that authority in Islam wascentralised without separationof powers.Sahifatal-Madinah,the first constituion for Mulsims, explicitly dividedresponsilibity for governance among the tribes. Islam hasalways recognised tribal, family and clan authority. Tirbeswhich joined Islam were allowed to govern themselves. TheProphet only sent them people to teach them Shariah andsometimes judges.

6. The point about legislatin and the judiciary show aseries of misunderstandings and contradictions. We are toldthat in Islam peopledo not legislateor appoint the judiciary.Butin thesameparagraph, we are told that theKhalifa does.Now if I am not mistaken, the Khalifa is usually a human

being. So it is people after all who appoint the judiciary. Thedifference is that we prefer proper instituions to do this,rather than a single person. Legislation, if it means issuingof rules,happens allthe time, andwas done by Khulafa. TheShariah has laid broad principles, but did not cover every item. In fact, the Quran has discouraged the Mulsims fromasking too many questions and requesting detailed rules for

everything. This was due to God's mercy, who wanted us touse our minds and ijtihad. And since every item of ijtihad isactually new legislation, men do legislate in Islam all thetime. Again thequestion is:do we allow this legislation to thewhim of one man, or even a small clique of men, or do weorganise ourselves so that each ijtihad is vetted by theMuslim public? I think the answer is direct and simple.

7. Theproposed distinctionbetween mattersthat "requirecontemplation and understanding" and that do not, isconfused and useless. All mattersrequire contemplationandunderstanding. And as I said earlier, all rulings of humanbeings(after tehProphet)are matters of ijtihad. Andsince wearehere arguing about these matters, andunlessthe brother

andhis supporters canproduce to us evidence they areprivy to some divine knowledge which is hidden from us, the very fact that we differ in interpretation means that we need someform of arbitration. According to him, these matters of difference have to be decided by the Khalifa. But since we donot a Khalifaanyway, and mostKhalifa's upto now havebeencontested, often by venerableulama, this does not solve ourproblem now or in a state governed by his principles.

8. Theclaim that democracyentailsimmunity forcertainofficials is a mistaken one, since it is not essential fordemocracy to function to have immunity for officials. Andinany case, there is no absolute immunity for any official indemocracies, since this would contradict the principle for

accountability.

9. The point about freedoms is also misguided, sincedemocratic systems are not based on freedom to transgressthe law, quite the reverse. The essence of democracy is therule of law. The rule of law also entails independence of the

judiciary. It is also the people who decide on what law toobserve. Naturally, Muslim people would want to observeIslamic laws.

10. Themainquestion thereforeis: howbestcan Mulsimslive as Muslims? There are those who believe that Mulsimslive accordingto their values because they want to.ThatGodwould not accept from them anything less. Therefore,freedom for Mulsims is both precondition for divine accept-ance and the guaranteefor observance of Islamic way of life.

There are, by contrast, those who think that Muslims areincapable of living according God's will unless a dictatorialrule imposes on them this conduct. That the only guaranteeforIslam tothrive isto deprive Muslimsfromallfreedoms anddeprive them from participation in running their affairs.Instead, one single individual should lord it over them, takeall decisions on their behalf and force them to do what isright. In short, the ideal Islamic state, according to thisunderstanding, ismade of onevirtousrulerand a whole loadof hypocrites who onlyobey Shari'ahbecause theyare slaves.

This is pathetic and contrary to reason, to Islam and toreality. In fact it is the ordinary Muslims who today arebraving tyranny and suberversion by corrupt rulers to keepIslam alive. And this has always been the case. Were they dependent on their rulersfor this,Islamwould have beenlosta long time ago.

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SovereigntyinIslamand Human

Accountability

By:Dr.MuqtedarKhan

There is a generalconsensusamong IslamicscholarsandMuslim laymen that Islam places sovereignty in God. TheQuran explicitly describes God as Al-Malik meaning sover-eignand Malik-ul-Mulk the eternalpossessor of sovereignty.

These two adjectives are also among the ninety nine namesof God. The Quran (51:58) also makes it clear beyond any doubt that all power lies in God; who is Al-Muqtadir -possessor of all power. Various Muslim political thinkers likeMaulana Maududi, Syed Qutb, Ayatollah Khomeini and AliShariati have argued that the basic distinction betweenWestern polity and Islamic polity is that while the formerplaces sovereignty in either the state or in Man through thenotion of popular sovereignty, the latter places it absolutely in God. Thus a simpleexplanation of theIslamicpolity wouldbethatGod issovereign and he isthe sourceof all legislation

in the form Al-Quran.

The Islamic state will base its preceptson Islamic law andconstitution, theSharia, which is derived fromthe Quran andHadith. TheKhalifa,vicegerentwill rule on behalf of Godandhis endeavourshallbe to implementand enforce theSharia.

The Quran repeatedly emphasizes the unity of the sovereignand Tauheed, oneness or unity of God is the most importantarticle of faith in Islam.The denialof this unity is thegreatestconceivableviolation of Islamicprecepts (Quran,2:163, 6:19,16:22, 23:91-92, 37:1-5, 38:65-68, 112:1-4).

The sovereign by definition is universal as the Muslimcommunity is seen as one Ummah (people) which are unitedunder one sovereign by virtue of their faith and submissionto the will of God. The word Islam means complete submis-

sion to Godin thesimilarsense that theEnglish philosopher Thomas Hobbes visualized the complete surrender of powerby theindividual to thestate. TheIslamic concept of submis-sion is more powerful in that it subordinates human will tothe will and law of God unconditionally. It is an ontologicalrequirement and not a condition of any contract.

Thus to state succinctly, the Quranic concept of sover-eignty is universal, that is nonterritorial, transcendental,meaning beyond humanagency, indivisible,inalienable andtruly absolute. God the sovereign is the primary law-giverwhile agents such as the Islamic state and the Khalifa enjoy marginal autonomy necessary to implement and enforce thelaws of their sovereign. Man, as God's Khalifa on earth(vicegerent)is notonly theprimary agent of thesovereign butalso enjoys a margin of autonomy. This margin of autonomy by virtue of vicegerency is the Islamic equivalent of popularsovereignty.

At a basic theoretical level the difference between themodern conception and Islamic conception of sovereignty isclear. The operational implications on closer examinationseem to blur the distinction. The agency, or political actionremains within human jurisdiction in either case. So whichever institution (form of government) is vested with theagency to act it either followsthe Sharia (in the Islamic case)or the constitution in modern states.While constitutionscanbe amended the Quran is eternal, but it is open to differentinterpretations based on ijtihad or independent reasoning.

Maulana Maududi conceived of the term Al-hakimiya, a

derivative of an Arabic word that means "to govern'". Heintroducedit in his work Al-Mustalahat al-Arba'afi'l-Quran. The term Al-hakimiya has been used by Islamic politicalthinkers ever since to mean sovereignty. He argued thataccording to Islam, sovereignty belonged to God. He alonewas the law-giver and that believers could neither resort to

totallyindependentlegislation, nor could theymodifyany lawlaid down by God. He saw the Islamic state as a politicalagency set up to enforce the laws of God. Herein lies thecardinal differencebetween the modern and Islamic concep-tions. While modernity made the state a repository of sover-eignty, in Islam the state was merely an agency of thesovereign. Thus theIslamic state is conceptually weaker thanthe modern state.

Maududi, also recognized the vicegerency of man andexplained that each believer was a repository of the Khalifat(vicegerency).The Quranmakesthisexplicitlyclear (45:12,13)Maududi'sunderstanding of theKhalifatof Man is definitely in thepopular sense but hedoes notexplainit in conjunctionwith sovereignty. Thus sovereignty lies in God, state is anagency of the sovereign and everybeliever is God'svicegerenton Earth. This however means that both the state andbelievers can legitimatelyact on behalf of the sovereign. Thusin Maududi's interpretation the sovereign has created dualagency in the Islamic state and the Khalifat, creating abalance or division of power between state and society. Thismechanism can help ensure that both state and society follow the straight path.

The rise of political Islam has made the concept of Islamicsovereignty central to Islamic political theory and often it ispresented as a barrier to any form of democracy. Democra-cies are seen as system where human whim is the source of law where as Islamic principles are transcendental andcannot be undermined by popular whim. Unfortunately,what many of the Islamists fail to understand is that demo-craticinstitutions arenot just about law. They arealsoaboutprevention of tyranny by the state. Regardless of wheresovereignty is placed theoretically, in practice it is the statewhich exercises it in their world and not God or his angels.

TheseIslamists alsofailto seethat Muslims actually enjoy greater autonomy than even the citizens of a democracy liketheUS. It isnearlyimpossible to changeor alterthe American

constitution. It would require an enormous amount of con-sensus in the societyto makeeven a minor change.However,Islamic scholars have enjoyed a great deal of freedom, bothpolitically and traditionally, to reinterpret the Quran andIslamic principles. While in the US people with differentunderstanding of the constitution are not free to act legally according to their own interpretation, Muslims have doneprecisely that and legitimately. The presence of the variousmadhahib is a concrete proof that a constitution/sharia canbe interpreted differently and practiced.

Sovereignty is a complex concept and any attempt tosimplify it can only cause problems. Nevertheless, Muslimsmustunderstandthat while sovereigntybelongs to Godit hasalready been delegated in the form of human agency (Quran2:30). The political task at the moment is not to indulge in

rhetoric that merely emphasizes this point, but to reflect onhow this Go given agency can be best employed in creatinga society that will bring welfare andgoodnessto peoplein thehere and in the hereafter.

Muslims as individualsand asan Ummah cannotbe heldaccountable for what they do unless they have thefreedom/agency/sovereignty to do as they please. The discretion andthe judgement with which Muslims apply the given law not

just to apply it but to achieve its maqasid (purpose) consti-tutes human sovereignty. Theday of judgement is thenaturalconsequence of human sovereignty, there cannot be onewithout the other. Therefore we must remember that thefreedom to act, human agency is the most precious of gifts.But it will have to be accounted for in full. So while we

recognize the God's sovereign in all affairs, he has exercisedhis sovereignty in delegating some of it in the form of humanagency. Having said that I must also add that God alone issovereign cannot become an excuse for installing andlegitimizing governments which are not accountable andresponsible to their citizens.

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Modernity may quite simply be conceived as the cult of history. History in the modern scheme of things is not only aeuphemism for existence, it is also, as the ultimate ground forbeing, the only reality and truth that the modern manconfesses to. Modern philosophy thus reduces all truth tosense-perception, all beingto becoming and all metaphysicsto a phenomenology of pure temporality. Even for modernscience, thecosmosor theuniverse is nothingbut ‘thehistory of time’. By focusing on the experiential and the historical,however, modern man onceaspiredto attain ‘enlightenment’ and untie our humanity from its irrational – metaphysicaland transcendent - moorings.

The modern goal of a blissful humanity,so it was believed,

could be realized through the pursuit of millennial politics;through cumulative progress and development was man toreach the Utopia of societal perfection. But all this was tohappenon this side of history, here andnow,and notin somenondescript realm of meta-history, in a kingdom beyondtime.

Time however is the greatest mystery known to man andit could as easily frustrate Enlightenment reason’s bid tounmask it as a fully intelligible phenomenology as it earlierwas able to thwart the mystics’ quest for uncovering its face.Little wonder thatany conceptionof human realityas history,or of being as immanent temporality, proved as recalcitrantand intractable for Enlightenment reason as any system of transcendence ever was for theclassicalor religious intellect.

By identifying beingwith time andman with history, modernreason merely cornered itself in the cul-de-sac of its ownmaking; it inaugurated a regime that could not overcome itsown antinomies or advance beyond the dead-endsof itsownaporias. Little wonder that there’s little faith in its emancipa-tory power.

The moral and intellectual crisis of our times, the so-calledproblem of nihilism and relativityof values,thus stemsfrom the insight that reason is unable to overcome theantinomy of norm and history. Or, that history does notcontain norms for its own authentication; it cannot pass

judgment on itself and hence create meaning. Only by theinfusion of a telos does history, an aggregation of events, getstransformed into History, a narrative with a purpose and a

goal. For the creation of historical meaning, then, we aredependent upon norms which themselves are not subject tothe arbitration of history. The horizon of meaning, againstwhich historical data are projected and evaluated, is meta-historical andlies outsidethe domain of historical reasoning.

History acquiresorder and structure,becomes meaning-ful as it were, only when it ‘comes to an end’ and hence may be observed from a vantage-point that is external to it. Thepresent occupies therefore a privileged position in every historicalinquiry and can neverbe expunged from historicalconsciousness. Indeed, the most perplexing character of history according to Max Bloch is that it not only makes itpossible for us to 'understand the present by means of thepast' but that it also constitutes an effort to 'understand the

past by means of the present.' Given the fact that thehistorical imagination is always inhabited by both the pastand the present, it is not surprising that Benedetto Croceonceproclaimed that'all history is contemporary history.' Hemay just as well have said: 'All history is contemporary

political debate.' And so it is with the Islamist bid to'deconstruct' the problem of authority in early Islam: it is asmuchpart of the current preoccupation withan ideal 'Islamicstate' as it has to do with the historical experience of theformative Muslim community.

Though the Western debate on the goal and meaning of history was conducted within an essentially secular milieu,it had its roots in the Judaeo-Christian reflections on salva-tion. In fact, the concept of meta-history - universal history as an orderly process or an intelligible structure - is com-monly denotedby the quasi-religious term salvationalhistory (Heilsgeschichte). The philosophical reflection on the pur-pose andgoal of world history, it hasbeen contendedby Karl

Loewith, merely represents a secularization of the Christianeschatological faith.

However, despitethe discrediting ofallteleologicalschemesof universal history as 'wishful thinking', historians are notaverse to positing a distinction between history as fact(Historie)and history as meaning (Geschichte).Similarly,it iscustomary to contrast sacredhistory,history asseen throughthe eyes of faith, with secular history, history 'as it really happened'.

During the last hundred years, these distinctions havebeen employed with great skill for the elucidation of Judaeo-Christian scriptures. Today, the same exegetical method isbeing applied to the earliest Muslim texts and a radically

revised version of formative Islamic history is being profferedby some skeptical Orientalists. (Indeed, these revisionisthistorians have started influencing Muslim thinking itself!)

The argument presented here, however, is that the recon-struction of history 'as it really happened' is an impossibleenterprise; that history as 'fact' cannot be consistently andmeaningfully disentangled from history as 'interpretation'.Or, as a modern scholar, Hayden White, expresses it: 'Allhistoricalnarrativescontainan irreducibleand inexpungeableelementsof interpretation.' It would be prudent,therefore, toadopt a cautiousand circumspect attitudevis-à-visrevision-ist history which has its own metaphysical foundations andepistemological prejudices. Its foundational temporalismmay lead us to the morallybarren wastelandof nihilism thatwe Muslims so rightfully dread.

Before an Islamic attitude towards history may be delin-eated, it is imperative that we bear in mind that Islam is a'religious' faith grounded in the revelation of the Transcend-ent. The vision of Islam as 'faith', moreover, precedes thehistorical enterprise of theMuslimCommunity. In thissense,Islam is forever trans-existential and trans-historical. And

yet, this trans-existential faith embodies existential impera-tives that can only be carried out through the agency of auniversalcommunity.(Al-Qur'an:2:143; 3:103; 3:110; 22:41)Islamic commitment entails therefore the alignment of theexistentialmatrix of thehuman community withthe revealedwill of God. Indeed, notwithstanding the ineluctable tran-scendenceof theIslamic faith, so strong is Islam's bond withhistory that, as expressed by Marshall Hodgson, to have

Islamic conscience is quite simply to assume 'personalresponsibility for the moralorderingof the natural world.' Of course, the natural, i.e. created, world subsumes the worldof manand history. (Aword of caution, though: 'Islam's bondwith history' does not mean that Islam is coterminous with

FaithandExistence:TheProblemofHistory,Norm

andUtopiainIslamicThoughtBy:Dr.S.ParvezManzoor

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the historical enterprise of the Muslim community!)

The revelational directive for the moral ordering of thehistorical world,for theactualizationof theunityof faith andexistence, is as problematic and challenging for the Islamicintellect and will as any antinomy of norm and history everfacedby themodern man. Andit elicits asheroic andcreative

a response from the Muslim community as any historicalchallenge faced by another civilization. It confers upon theMuslim believer and community a permanent feeling of inadequacy andfailure,even if it also supplies them with themost cogent argument for striving 'in the path of God.'Concomitantly, notwithstanding the traditionalinsistenceonthe practicalityand this-worldlinessof the Islamic solutions,all Islamic models of historical order, all systems of societaland political thought, are incontrovertibly utopian.

TheUnityofNormandHistory

The Muslim enterprise in history (to be distinguishedfromthe trans-historical andeternaltruth of al-Islam) beginswith the revelation of the Qur'an, which is also known as theultimatecriterion and norm (al-Furqan).As a revelation fromGod, the Norm intrudes upon history from beyond: throughits 'descent' (nuzul), it enters the world of history but retainsits externality. The antinomy of norm and history remainsthereforehidden and does not make its debut until after theclosing down of the revelation.

As longas therevelationcontinued,as longas the Prophetwasin-charge of theaffairs of theMuslimcommunity,history could be made to submit to the norm. It was not merely because the Muslim will was all-powerful or utterly indomi-table, but because the norm itself could adjust to thehistorical circumstances. The norm was as 'circumstantial'

as it was timeless and could directly intervene in the mun-dane affairs of the Community. The duality of norm andinterpretation, of textand exegesis, didnot exist. Theauthor-ityof theone whoenforced thenorm, whointerpretedthe text(the Prophet) was as binding as that of the Norm itself. (Al-Qur’an: 4:80)

With the passing away of the Prophet, we enter the realmof history proper; it is now that the possibility of history defying the norm is first encountered by the Community.What transpired after the termination of the revelation may perhaps never become fully known. There's no way any historical method, indigenous or foreign, traditional or revi-sionist, objective or exegetical, can reconstruct the formativehistory of Islam with absolute, or even with reasonable,

certainty. Thisis not dueto any ‘Islamicspecificity’, butto thenature of history itself: both as the recollection of existence(historiography)and the actual existence (history) can neverbe made fully transparent and intelligible.

The recalcitrance of early Islamic history is due, in my opinion, notso much to thefactthat deliberate distortions orsuppressions of historical facts havebeen carriedout by laterrulers or their apologists, but because the history of thisperiod, an assortment of varioushappenings,has been mademeaningful through a plurality of metahistories, throughcontradictory and conflicting narratives.

History and theory, fact and meaning, are inextricably enmeshed in these records and the extant accounts, when

they are not transparently sectarianand polemical, can only be characterized as 'salvational histories'. It is within thesepious salvationalschemesthat the Community's responsetothe problem of authority and power,its vision of the primacy of the norm, is first articulatedand it is outof these reflectionsthat it may be further deciphered.

Out of the numerous 'soteriologies' (firaq najat) thatemerged after the Great Fitna, only two have triumphed as'orthodoxies',namely Sunnism and Shi`ism. Despite the factthat no formal confession or initiation ceremony separatesthem andthey arein agreement on thetwo cardinal truthsof Islam (Unity of God and Muhammad's Prophecy), their

relationship in history has been one of political antagonismand religious polemics. What distinguishes them is neithertheological doctrines nor legal rites, but their irreconcilablenotions of authority. Because of the discord on the issue of the rightful leadership of the Community, they have gradu-ally crystallized into two separate religio-political communi-ties. However, even if the disagreement between the twocommunities is presented as a clash over personalities, thedeeper motives for this discord are ideological, indeed moraland metaphysical.

It is the over the dialectic of faith and existence that thetwo communities differ. Within the same Qur'anic and Pro-phetic paradigm, they have managed to work out different'soteriologies': theymay share a single 'history', butthe 'story'

they tell is notthe same. It is not accidental then that thehistorical method is not able to deliver any unambiguous judgment on the 'veracity' of their accounts but merely perpetuates the sterile controversy. The two communities,after all, disagree not only with respect to the interpretationof the same event, they contest the actual historicity of numerousevents as well. Thedifference,in otherwords, is asmuch over sources as over interpretations.

Most of all, however, theinability of thehistorical methodto arbitrate is attributable to thefact thatwhat earlierMuslimsources present are not 'histories' but 'metahistories', notneutral accountsof existential contingencies but the unfold-ingof a sacredcommunity'spath towardsself-enlightenmentand salvation.

Given this impasse, it would perhaps be fruitful to look atthese salvational histories from a phenomenological andstructuralist point of view. Instead of the personalities, wemust concentrate on the issues that they (are made to)convey. Accepting thesemeta-histories as theyare, we must,so to speak, view them against themselves and elicit theirmeaning. Only such a hermeneutical approach can makethem relevant to our own debate.

At the moment of full maturity, Sunnism presents atheory of historical khilafa and Shi'ism that of a trans-historical imama. Sunnism, accepts, indeed sacralizes, ear-lier history, while Shi'ism rejects, indeed de-legitimizes, it.

TheSunnimodelof idealgovernment,the Righteous Caliphate,

(al-Khilafa al-Rashida) appears, to a superficial observer, asa mere apotheosis of history.

It is based upon a reading of early Islamic history as the'best of all possible worlds'. Following this logic, many havebeen tempted to conclude that the Sunni theory does notmakeany distinction between authority and power, betweenconstitutional and unconstitutional force. In cruder polem-ics, Sunnism, regarded as the 'King's party', is even accusedof depleting Islamiccommitment of every categorical impera-tive: itspursuitof the 'existentialimperative' ultimately leadsit to the moral the cul-de-sac of 'might is right'. A similar,equally shallow, reading of Shi'ism makes it totally impervi-ousto thelogic of this world; an unforgiving, unreasoning andfanatical faith thatattaches no value to human existence and

which is inherently and inexorably opposed to any concep-tion of 'common humanity' and'humanrights'. Shi'ite piety,accordingly, is nothing but a destructive rage that lacks thepower of redemption.

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It is my contention that such a tendentious reading of theself-authenticatingmeta-narratives of the two communities,as a crude this-worldlySunni Caliphate andan equally crudeother-worldly Shi'i Imamate, is patently false. Both thesedoctrines, Khilafa and Imama are utopian 'anti-theories'which propose no standards of politics or governance butwhich actually de-legitimize allpoliticaland secular claimstoauthority! In fact, when viewed hermeneutically, the Sunni

theory of the Righteous Caliphateis as idealistic, utopianand'anti-establishment' as anything presented by Shi'ism. De-spite itsreputationas being a 'historical'theory, it is a theory about norms, a self-legitimating narrative that allows asacred community to make its pact with history withoutrenouncing its ideals. Indeed, the same is true of Shi'ismwhich, despite the obvious 'failure' of its historical project,the securing of caliphal power for the house of Àli, not only managed to keep its faith in the Divine scheme of thingsintact, but which also adopted the ways of this world withremarkable ease. Quite like Sunnism, Shi'ism both foundedempires and persecuted 'heretics'.

The locus of authority in Sunnism is the Umma: neitherthe Caliph, nor the Imam; nor indeed any historicalpersonage(s) who may have filled this role or assumed thisoffice. The Caliph, evena righteous one, derives his authority and legitimacy from the Community, and not the reverse, asis the case with Shiìsm. The quality of Ìsma (protectionagainst sin), which is one of essential (takwini) attributes of the Sh iteImam, is also ascribed to the Umma. Even seman-tically and exegetically, the two concepts, umma and imam,arecognate andthe juridicaldiscourse, Sunni as well asShiì,preserves this unity: Imam is quite simply the leader of thecommunity (umma).

There is also an unmistakable affinity between theinerrancy of the consensus (Ijma`) in Sunnism and theinfallibility of the Imam (Ìsma) in Shiìsm. While there is

agreement between the two that the link between God andman is the Law (Shari a), the sunni caliph may not, incontradistinction to theShiì imam, claim any exclusive rightto interpret the Law.The privilege of elaboratingthe doctrine,magisterium in Christian terminology, is reserved for thedoctors of the law (ùlama', fuqaha'). In the final analysis,then, theSunnitheory of khilafa isa theoryof thesacredlaw.By investing the highest authority in a living, historicalumma, Sunnism transforms 'revelation' from a historicalevent into an ongoing historical process: salvation is notmerely receiving the sacrament of the revelation, it is alsoparticipation in the sacred mission of the ParadigmaticCommunity (Ahl al-Sunna wa'l Jamaà). The Sunni conceptof umma denotes, in short,more than a historical theopolity.Having absorbed the vocabulary of both metaphysics and

theology, it hasbeen transformedinto thesacraland mysticalbody-Islamic.

Perhapsbecause of itslegitimist origins,the Shiìconcep-tion of authority is much more transparent and unambigu-ous.Imama is essentially a matter of genealogy,the ontologi-calextension of the Prophetic charisma, as it were. The Shi iImam represents divinely sanctioned sovereignty, he is thelegateeof the Prophet (Wasi),protected against sin (ma`sum),the sole possessor of gnosis and the ultimate exegete of theDivine Scripture (Sahib al-Kitab). He is the supreme leaderand the spiritual guide of the Muslim community, notbecause of any worldly power, any function of governancethat he may or may notexercise,but because of his personalexcellence. His legitimacy, in otherwords, is not derivedfrom

the consensus of the community, but, on the contrary, it isthe community which is obliged to obey him - or go toperdition. The function of the Shi ite imamate, there can beno mistaking, is the prolongation of the Prophecy: Imam isthe true heir to the office of the Prophet. Unlike the SunniCaliph, who is merely a ‘temporal’ ruler, the authority of the

Imam is both spiritual and temporal. Imama, in sum, is atheocratic doctrine.

Besides these two orthodox doctrines, there have been inearly Islam other, sectarian, conceptions of authority whichtoday are significant only for theirhistorical interest. Amongthese,the onethatcommandsthe most attentionstems fromthe Kharijites. Though the sect itself has almost become

extinct in actualhistory, many of their teaching andmaximshave been absorbed by other communities, especially Sunnism. Without prejudice, the Kharijite position may bedescribed as that of extreme egalitarianism, fanatical piety and an anarchical disposition towards charismatic order. If the Shi ite conception of authority unfolds into a theocraticpolity under a charismatic leader, the Kharijite stance leadsto the dissemination of charismawithin a leaderless commu-nity. The Sunni position is, of course, in between: The stateor the theopolity is neither under the absolute rule of acharismatic leader, noris it at the mercy of an unruly, albeitcharismatic, community.

Againstthe backdrop of these three paradigmatic schemes,viz. 'charismatic theocracy' (Shiìsm), 'egalitarian anarchy’ (Kharijism) and 'routinized nomocracy’ (Sunnism), we may now adduce what each theory claims, and what it does notclaim. It would, for instance, be totally inappropriate toconstrue them as 'political theories’.

The religio-political unity of the Islamic vision militatesagainst the emergence of any autonomous theory of politicsin the proper sense of the term. The state - political commu-nity - in Islamic thought is alwaysa faith community, a theo-polity under a divine imperative rather than a secular polity that isa norm unto itself. Or,thebestway to describe itwouldbe as a 'body-Islamic' rather than a 'body-politic’. Nor may these theories, as mentioned earlier,be regarded as impartialhistories. If anything, these arereligiousdoctrines describing

the constitutionof the ideal faith community, thecommunity which seek 'salvation' in the light of the Qur'anic revelation(al-Firqaal-Najiya).

Byclaiming thereign of thefirst four caliphs asthe goldenage of Islam, Sunnism announces itself to be the Rightly-Guided Community. Similarly, the Shi ite insistence on theìsma of the imams is tantamount to vindicating itself as the'sinless community', the community which, by refusingallegiance to the Sunni caliphs, has escaped the grave sin of apostasy. In term of their immediate effects, however, these'salvational histories' annunciate norms that are legally binding. In its method and scope, for instance, the so-calledhistorical report (khabar) differs little from legal testimony (shahada) and may be employed to establish a juridical

precedent.

Ultimately, then, Khilafa and Imama are legal theorieswhich establish the authority of the Sunni or the Shiì

jurisconsult (faqih). Apart from the indisputableauthority of the Qur'an and the Prophetic Sunnah, and the more con-tested one of the paradigmatic history (khilafa and imama),it is thejuristicmethod which hassucceeded in establishingitself in historyas the embodiment of Islamic reason.It is anauthority which overarchesthe sectarian Shiì-Sunnidivideand confers upon the Islamic civilization its unmistakablelegalistcharacter.

Whatever its early vicissitudes, Shiìsm has evolved inhistory as the Messianic doctrine par excellence of Islam..

From a legitimist party, it has transformed itself into a 'piety of protest' which acts as the conscience of the Prophet'scommunity. Indeed, it also legitimizes its opposition to theSunni order in terms of a future Utopia, the millennial ruleof the Awaited Imam. While the Sunni vision of a normativepast assures a routinizedorder anda stablecommunity,Shiì

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millennianism is radically revolutionary and destabilizing.Implicitin itsdoctrine of Intizar,and thecause of much Shi i-Sunni tension, is the claim that not only can the establishedorder be overturned at any time, but also that the Law itself may be abolishedby the Mahdi.The socialcontract which inSunnism is coterminous with the Prophetic Sunna, in otherwords, can be dissolved by a new order. The utopian visionof Sunnism, in contrast, remains hidden under, what ap-

pears to a casualobserver, as an apology of certain historicalregimes, that of theProphet andof hisrighteouslieutenants.

However, what is less commonly realized is that thefunction of this apology is the de-legitimation of powerpolitics rather than an apotheosis of governance. For thecaliphatepresentsneither a theory of legitimacy nor a modelof the state but a religious Utopia, an ideal realm in whichevery aspect of life is regulated by the sacred Law, in whicha human community totallysubmitsto the imperativesof thedivinewill.Utopia,as observed acutely by Gadamer, 'isa formof suggestiveness from afar. It is not primarily a project of action but a critique of the present.' Sunnism, as an attach-ment to the unrealizable ideal of the Prophet’s and hislieutenant’s regime in Medina, incarnates such a Utopia.

Perhaps the most insightful testimony to the utopiannature of the caliphate comes from the solitary geniusof IbnKhaldun. The caliphate represents an exceptional moment,a theocracy free from the constraints of the laws of history.Indeed, as Gibb expounds it, 'since mankind will not followthe shari`a it is condemned to an empty and unending cycleof rise and fall, conditioned by the "natural" and inevitableconsequences of the predominance of its animal instincts."

The natural state of man is not khilafa but mulk, notrechtstaat but machtstaat. Little wonder that despite itsundeniable 'success' in the realm of history, the Mu`awiya’smulk, his'secular' power-polity, is notconsidered part of therighteous caliphate of Sunnism.

Returning to our own debate, can a de-construction,indeed'de-legitimation', of theseutopianand meta-historicaldoctrine accomplish the radicalization of Islamic thoughtthat we so desperately needin our times,or isit bound to bea Quixotic charge devoid of meaning and purpose? Or,should we not eschew controversy over secondary texts(khilafaand imama) and concentrateinsteadon the supremeintellectualeffortofelaboratingtheethicalandmoralworldviewof the Qur'an? Not only has much of the vast corpus of fiqhbecome irrelevant in our times, the traditional enterprise of reading of the Qur'anic text legalistically itself needs anearnest re-examination. Canthe received notionof theunity of din and dawla be upheld in the face a globalized humancommunity?

Does the traditional understanding of the Umma as theincarnation of the transcendent truth of Islam pose a chal-lenge to the delineation of a genuinely Islamic vision of acommon humanity? Alternatively, how may we Muslimsshare power with those with whom we cannot pray, withwhom we do not share a sacrament? Abandoning the sterilesectarian debate, can we impart a fresh vision to Adam'skhilafa, to the mandate of Divine deputyship that belongs tothe whole humanity? Can such a moral vision of mankind'scollective rights and responsibilities be the focal point of ourreflection on the human situation and on the malaise of humanity in our times?

Let us not forget however that in order to debate these

questions, we need a vision of history and politics that risesabove our sectarian loyalties and transcends our separateutopias. Whatever the promise andpitfallsof our legacy, thesearch for ‘the best community’ must go on.

BookReview:

The Rise and Decline of the State. By Martin van

Creveld. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Pp.

439. ISBN 0-521-65629-X.

Islamists of our times have given us umpteenth schemes

for the revival of Islam that all somehow converge on the

single vision of the Islamic state. Islam’s response to the

challenge of modernityand its world-order, theyhave argued

to a man, ought to be the regimentation of the Muslim

community under the banner of an ideological state.

Little wonder that they perceive no priority higher than

that of Islamizing thestate, no challenge greater than that of

bringing the territorialstate under the hegemonyof Islam. (In

the case of Iran, some of them ardently believe, the state,

submits as it does to the governance of the faqih, actually

constitutes the regime of Islam.)

That traditional Muslims have great difficulty with this

ideologicalvision, which bequeaths, in their view, intractable

moral and intellectual problems to Islamic conscience, is no

secret. Nor may we deny that this proposition, simple and

straight from the point of view of the fiqh, runs into over-

whelming difficulties when it comes to implementation, just

as it leads to irreconcilable tensions anddivisions withinthe

Muslim community itself.

The sobering of the Islamist discourse that we witness

today is however not only due to the chastening historical

experience, not merely an outcome of the extreme hostility

and ire of the powers that be. No, it has a lot to do with therealisation that the intellectual vision informing the funda-

mentalist ‘doctrine’ of the Islamic state has serious intellec-

tual flaws.

The traditionalists’ strictures against modernist concoc-

tions and hybrids like the Islamic state, it has become

apparentby now, were notwithout theforce of argument and

political sagacity. Even other not-partisan observes of this

ideological debate havecome to the conclusionthat modern-

ists, be they the ‘fundamentalists’ of yesterday or the ‘Islam-

ists’ of today, have paid scant attention to the ideological

difficulties that stem from a fundamental conflict between

thetheory underlying the nation-stateand thatof the Islamiclegal tradition.

One hopes therefore that this lamentable fallacy of the

Islamist doctrine is not dueto these ideologues’ ignorance of

Islam but because of their inability to penetrate the modern

myth.Only a gross misreading of the institution and ideology

of the state could be responsible for this intellectual confu-

sion. Be that as it may, the striking fact is that the Islamist

theory has come about in almost total default of any sus-

tainedreflectionon this, themost characteristicand singular

of the modern institutions.

Today every student of modernity recognizes that all themodern discourses, not onlythe political butalso the ethical,

the legal, the sociological, are informed by the spirit of the

state: it prefigures and pervades every discussion, every

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vision, every theory. The modern perception of reality, not

only of thepolitical world butalso of themoral,aesthetic and

intellectual dimensions of our existence, is largely through

the prism of the state.The embarrassingrealisation that the

ideologues of modern Islam have had very little insight into

the ‘ontology’ and ‘mythology’ of the state, that they have

been blissfully ignorantabout its history,may now be probedagainst thebackdropof a recentstudythat presents a highly

suggestive reading of modernity as an edifying tale of the

birth, growth and the now impending doom of this quintes-

sentially modern phenomenon.

Articulating an insight that has been with us for some

time but which has never before been subjected to such a

penetrating and unrelenting analytical scrutiny, Martin van

Creveld, a Professor of History at the Hebrew University,

Jerusalem, contends that the state is a recently discovered

species, a totally new kind of animal in the political zoo that

must not be confused with government, rule or political

order, which are all universal phenomena.

For the state is nothing butan abstract entity ‘whichcan

be neither seen, nor heard, nor touched’. It is not identical

with either the rulers or the ruled; it includes both of them

andclaims to stand above them both. It is like a corporation,

having a legal persona, possessing rights and duties, and it

does engagein various activities asif itwere a real individual.

It differs from other corporations in that it authorizes

them all but is itself authorized (recognized) by others of its

kind; secondly, in that certain functions, the attributes of

sovereignty, are reserved for it alone; and thirdly, in exercis-

ing these functions over a defined territory inside which its jurisdiction is both inclusive and all embracing.

This is however not a theoretical treatise but a historical

account, a profusely documented and coherently presented

array of myriadof facts that are far more cogent and compel-

ling than any theoretical vision that they may engender.

Aiming to encompass ‘the evolution of the idea and practice

of the modern, impersonal, abstract state’, van Creveld’s

study recounts the political experienceof thepre-stateperiod

of world history before 1300 C.E. into four major categories:

1) tribes without rulers, 2) tribes with rulers (chiefdoms), 3)

city-states, and 4) Empires.

All of these political organisations lacked, according to

him, the distinguishing features of modern statehood.

Anyhow, the story really starts in the 14th century Europe

andunfoldsin the gradualvictoryof monarchyover its rivals,

first the Church, then the Empire, the nobility and then the

towns. During this time, however, thesystem of government

was purely personal and the state ‘as an abstract organisa-

tion with its own persona separate from the ruler and the

ruled’ did not yet exist.

Neither may the emergence of the absolutist regimes per

se be regarded as the real story of the state. For, its genesis

essentially relates to the way in which, between 1648 and1789, ‘the person of the ruler and his “state” were separated

fromeach other until thefirst becamealmostentireunimpor-

tant in comparison with the second.’

The story thus represents an almost purely European

phenomenon, even if the state today is a universal institution

and acts as the linchpin of our international order. This

singular development is noticeable, according to the author,

firstof all inthe riseof thebureaucraticstructureand theway

in which it emancipated itselffrom bothroyalcontroland civil

society; secondly,in the way that structure strengtheneditshold by definingits border, collecting allsorts of information

about it, and taxing it; thirdly, in the manner in which the

bureaucracyand taxes madeit possiblefor the state to create

armed forces for the external and internal use and thus

establish a monopoly over the use of violence; and finally, it

is also traceable in the evolution of a political theory which

both accompanied these developments and justified them.

The period thus led to the separation of the state from civil

society and the creation of many of its most characteristic

institutions; including its bureaucracy, its armed forces, its

police apparatus, and its prisons. All this is amply docu-

mented, skilfully arranged and lucidly presented by the

author.

During its heyday, from the French Revolution to the

Second World War, the state was transformed from an

instrument intoan end, an ultimately, intoa ‘livinggod.’ Little

wonder that in the political discourse, it came to be repre-

sentedby theimagery of the‘Mortal God’ (Hobbes)and ‘Gods

march on earth’ (Hegel). Incarnating the highest ideal of

political existence,the state turnedto disciplining thepeople,

playing the role of ‘an educational institution writ large’,

conquering money, but eventually leading them on to ‘the

road to total war’.

However, as we all know it, the apotheosis of the stateproduced nothing more edifying than the pitiless logic of the

final solutions. Today, when the forces of globalism are

strongly challenging its monopoly over power, money and

education, and when the borderless universe of cyberspace

renders meaningless any pretenceto territorial integrity,the

state is in decline. For van Creveld, however, it is not a sad

moment: ‘The devil’s bargain that was struck in the seven-

teenth century, and in which the state offered its citizens

much improved day-to-day security in return for their will-

ingness to sacrifice themselves on its behalf if called upon,

may be coming to an end. Nor, considering the number of

those who died during the World War II stood at approxi-

mately 30,000 peopleper day, is its demise necessarily to belamented,’

If the thesis about the impeding demise of the state is to

be trusted, the world is moving away from a state-centred to

a civilisation-centred order of politics. Martin van Creveld’s

Euro-centric reading of the modern period may therefore

redeem, albeit unintentionally, the claim of Western he-

gemony in theworldand perhapseven revivetheIslamophobic

images evoked by Samuel Huntingnton’s notorious ‘The

Clash of Civilisations’. For Muslims, who have been singu-

larly unsuccessful in harnessing the power of the modern

state, it is imperative however that the story of its rise and

decline, as recapturedby Martin vanCreveld’sepic narrative,becomes the object of earnest reflection and debate. Any

Muslim thinker aspiring to reconstruct Islamic political

theory may neglect it at his/her own peril.

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