The Principles of STATE and GOVERNMENT in ISLAM

The Principles of STATE and GOVERNMENT in ISLAM
By Muhammad Asad

CHAPTER III

GOVERNMENT BY CONSENT AND COUNCIL

The Goals of the Islamic State

The innermost purpose of the Islamic state is to provide a political framework for Muslim unity and cooperation:

Hold fast, all together, to the covenant of God, and do not separate. And remember God's favor unto you — how, when you were enemies, He united your hearts, so that by His favor you became brethren ; and how, when you were on the brink of an abyss of fire, He drew you back from it. Thus God makes His messages clear to you, so that you may find guidance, and that out of you may grow a community of people who issue a call to equity, enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong: and it is these alone that shall attain to everlasting happiness.(1)

Thus, an Islamic state is not a goal or an end in itself but only a means : the goal being the growth of a community of people who stand up for equity and justice, for right and against wrong — or, to put it more precisely, a community of people who work for the creation and maintenance of such social conditions as would enable the greatest possible number of human beings to live, morally as well as physically, in accordance with the natural Law of God, Islam. An indispensable prerequisite for such an achievement is the development of a strong sense of brotherhood among the com munity. The Quranic words,

(1) Quran 3:103-104.

"The Faithful are but brethren," (2) have been enlarged upon by the Prophet on innumerable occasions :

The Faithful are to one another like [parts of] a building — each part strengthening the others.(3) Every Muslim is brother to a Muslim, neither wronging him nor allowing him to be wronged. And if anyone helps his brother in need, God will help him in his own need; and if anyone removes a calamity from [another] Muslim, God will remove from him some of the calamities of the Day of Resurrection; and if anyone shields [another] Muslim from disgrace, God will shield him from disgrace on the Day of Resurrection. (4)

Now what should be the emotional basis of this brotherhood? Certainly not the tribal or national loyalty which in non-Islamic communities supplies the sole raison d'etre of all political groupment, and which the Prophet scornfully condemned as unworthy of a true believer;

There are indeed people who boast of their dead ancestors ; but in the sight of God they are more contemptible than the black beetle that rolls a piece of dung with its nose.(5) Behold, God has removed from you the arrogance of the Time of Ignorance [jahiliyyah] with its boast of ancestral glories. Man is but a God-fearing believer or an unfortunate sinner. All people are the children of Adam, and Adam was created out of dust.(6)

(2) Quran 49: 10.
(3) Al-Bukhari and Muslim, on the authority of Abu Musa.
(4) Ibid., on the authority of 'Abd Allah ibn 'Umar.
(5) This black beetle (ju'al), the size of a small hen's egg, is a common sight in the deserts of Arabia. It collects dry dung and rolls it to its dwelling-hole in the ground.

Nationalism in all its forms and disguises runs counter to the fundamental Islamic principle of the equality of all men and must, therefore, be emphatically ruled out as a possible basis of Muslim unity. According to Quran and Sunnah, that unity must be of an ideological nature, transcending all considerations of race and origin: a brotherhood of people bound together by nothing but their consciousness of a common faith and a common moral outlook. In the teachings of Islam, it is such a community of ideals alone that can provide a justifiable basis for all human groupment; whereas, on the other hand, the placing of the real or imaginary interests of one's nation or country above moral considerations has been condemned by the Prophet in the sharpest terms :

"He is not of us who proclaims the cause of tribal partisanship; and he is not of us who fights in the cause of tribal partisanship ; and he is not of us who dies in the cause of tribal partisanship." (7) When he was asked by one of his Companions to explain the meaning of "tribal partisanship" ('asabiyyah), which so obviously places a person outside the pale of Islam, the Prophet replied,

"[It means] your helping your own people in an unjust cause." (8) On another occasion he made it clear that love of one's own people as such cannot be described as "tribal partisanship" unless it leads to doing wrong to other groups. (9) On the other hand, "The Apostle of God said: 'Help your brother, be he a wrongdoer or wronged.' Thereupon a man exclaimed: 'O Apostle of God! I may help him if he is wronged ; but how could I [be expected to] help a wrongdoer?' The Prophet answered: 'You must prevent him from doing wrong: that will be your help to him.'" (10)

6 At-Tirmidhl and Abu Da'ud, on the authority of Abu Hurayrah.
7 Abu Da'ud, on the authority of Jubayr ibn Mut'im.
8 Ibid., on the authority of Wathilah ibn al-Asqa'.
9 Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Ibn Majah, on the authority of 'Ubadah ibn Kathir.

Thus, the prevention of injustice and the establishment of justice on earth are the ultimate objectives of the social message of Islam :

"You are the best community that has been sent forth to mankind [in that] you enjoin right and forbid wrong and have faith in God." (11)

It is on this "enjoining of right and forbidding of wrong" that the ethical value of the Muslim community and of Muslim brotherhood depends; it is with this ideal of justice— justice toward Muslims and non-Muslims alike — that the concept of an Islamic state (which is but the political instrument of that ideal) stands and falls.

To make the Law of Islam the law of the land in order that equity may prevail; to arrange social and economic relations in such a way that every individual shall live in freedom and dignity, and shall find as few obstacles as possible and as much encouragement as possible in the development of his personality; to enable all Muslim men and women to realize the ethical goals of Islam not only in their beliefs but also in the practical sphere of their lives; to ensure to all non-Muslim citizens complete physical security as well as complete freedom of religion, of culture, and of social development; to defend the country against attack from without and disruption from within; and to propagate the teachings of Islam to the world at large: it is in these principles, and in these alone, that the concept of an Islamic state finds its meaning and justification. If it realizes them, the state can rightly be described as "God's vice-gerent on earth" — at least in that part of the earth which falls under its factual jurisdiction.

(10) Al-Bukhari and Muslim, on the authority of Anas.
(11) Quran 3: 110.

Guiding Principles

From the shar'i point of view, the legitimacy of an Islamic state — that is to say, its religious claim to a Muslim's loyalty and allegiance — rests on the fundamental injunction of the Quran,

"O you Faithful! Obey God and obey the Apostle and those in authority from among you." (12) In this concise manner the Quran establishes several important principles relating to the nature of an Islamic state.

First : The foremost duty of such a state consists in enforcing the ordinances of the shariah in the territories under its jurisdiction. This obligation has been further stressed in the verse,

"Those who do not judge by what God has revealed — those indeed are the evildoers." (13) Hence, no state can be deemed genuinely Islamic unless its constitution contains an enactment to the effect that the laws of the shariah bearing on matters of public concern shall form the inviolable basis of all state legislation. I should like to point out that this limitation of state jurisdiction to "matters of public concern" does not, of course, imply that the shariah itself could ever be similarly restricted in its scope — for it undoubtedly relates to the whole of man's life, both public and private. We should not, however, lose sight of the fact that the state, being a social organization, is concerned exclusively with the social aspect of human life and, consequently, requires of the shariah no more than a code of laws bearing on this aspect.(14)

(12) Quran 4: 59.
(13) Ibid., 5: 47.
For a suggestion regarding the codification of such shar'i laws, see chapter vi.

Second: Although such a code must forever remain basic in the structure and the working of an Islamic state, it cannot, by its very nature, supply all the laws that may be needed for the purposes of administration. Thus, as we have seen, we will have to supplement the shar'i stipulations relating to matters of public concern by temporal, amendable laws of our own making — on the understanding, of course, that we may not legislate in a manner that would run counter to the letter or the spirit of any sharft law : for,

"Whenever God and His Apostle have decided a matter, it is not for a faithful man or woman to follow another course of his or her own choice." (15) Consequently, the constitution must explicitly lay down that no temporal legislation or administrative ruling, be it mandatory or permissive, shall be valid if it is found to contravene any stipulation of the shariah.

Third: The Quranic command, "Obey God and obey the Apostle," is immediately followed by the words, "and those in authority from among you" — that is, from among the Muslim community : which amounts to a statement that an imposition of power from outside the Muslim community cannot be morally binding on a Muslim while, on the other hand, obedience to a properly constituted Islamic government is a Muslim's religious duty. Obedience to the government is, of course, a principle of citizenship recognized as fundamental in all civilized communities ; but it is important to note that within the context of an Islamic polity this duty remains a duty only so long as the government does not legalize actions forbidden by the shariah, or forbid actions which are ordained by it. In such a contingency, obedience to the government ceases to be binding on the community, as clearly stated by the Prophet :

"Hearing and obeying is binding on a Muslim, whether he likes or dislikes the order—so long as he is not ordered to commit a sin; but if he is ordered to commit a sin, there is no hearing and no obeying." (16) In other words, the community's allegiance to "those in authority from among you" is conditional upon those in authority acting in obedience to God and His Apostle. From this principle it follows that the community is duty-bound to supervise the activities of the government, to give its consent to right actions, and to withdraw it whenever the government deviates from the path of good conduct. Thus, government subject to the people's consent is a most essential prerequisite of an Islamic state.

Fourth: The principle of "popular consent" presupposes that the government as such comes into existence on the basis of the people's free choice and is fully representative of this choice. This is yet another aspect of the Quranic expression "from among you." It refers to the Muslim community as a whole or, to be more precise, to a particular body representing it. Thus it follows that, in order to satisfy the requirements of Islamic Law, the leadership of the state must be of an elective nature; consequently, an assumption of governmental power through nonelective means of any description whatsoever becomes automatically, even though the person or persons concerned be Muslims, as illegal as an imposition of power, by conquest, from outside the Muslim community. (17)

(15) Quran 33: 36.
(16) Al-Bukhari and Muslim, on the authority of Ibn 'Umar.
(17) I should like to point out that my use of the term "governmental power" essentially coincides with the term sultan in the sense in which it occurs in several authentic Traditions dealing with political problems. In this pristine sense, the term sultan has not the (unjustifiably) restricted meaning of "king" given to it by many medieval and modern writers, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, but extends to the whole sphere of state administration. In classical Arabic—the language of the Quran and the Traditions—sultan denotes primarily "a proof" or "a convincing argument"; in its secondary sense, "authority" or "power" in both its abstract and concrete meanings. Whenever the Prophet spoke of "sultan" in the context of the community's political life, he invariably applied this term to what we today describe as "government"; and this was the practice of his Companions as well. The application of the term to a person entrusted with government—that is, a ruler or a king—is definitely a post-classical corruption of the original meaning. (See, for instance, Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon, Part 4, pp. 1405-1406.)

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