The quest for an Islamic state

The political ferment in Pakistan over the last few months has unexpectedly prompted excessive scrutiny and comment on my article, 'The illusion of parliamentary democracy' (published in the Financial Express on October 31, 2014). There has been unmerited praise and also stern criticism. Those sympathetic to the religious right have rejected the assertion that there is no sanction in the Quran or the hadith for an Islamic state and neither has it existed in history.
They refuse to accept that this is what clearly emerges from a textual examination of the sacred scripture which, in turn, is the only basis for determining the authenticity of any of the reported traditions of the Holy Prophet who famously said: "My words do not abrogate the word of God, but the word of God can abrogate my sayings."
I was sent some of the writings of the Jamaat-e-Islami founder, Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi (1903-1979), and asked to study them as an antidote to my "preconceived and uneducated assumptions about an Islamic state." I did as advised but the remedy has not worked. The medication was spurious.
For instance, in his book, The Islamic Law and Constitution, Maudoodi has relied on two arguments in support of an Islamic state. The first is the Quranic pronouncement that true Muslims are "those who, (even) if We firmly establish them on earth, remain constant in prayer, and give in charity, and enjoin the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of what is wrong " (22: 41).
In a somewhat contrived interpretation of this solitary passage, Maudoodi infers: "The verse states clearly (sic) the aims objects and duties of an Islamic state" (pp. 282-3). No other commentator of standing, whether classical or modern, has reached this farfetched conclusion on a verse which does not even vaguely allude to an Islamic state.
The second strand in his reasoning is the statement that "the Quran not only lays down principles of morality and ethics, but also gives guidance in the political, social and economic fields. It prescribes punishments for certain crimes and enunciates principles of monetary and fiscal policy. These cannot be translated into practice unless there is a state to enforce them. And herein lies the necessity of an Islamic state" (p. 175). This is the raison d'etre for such a state which he calls a "theo-democracy."
The term is an innovation and has no parallel in political science which has ancient roots and originated 2,500 years ago with the works of Plato and Aristotle who described it as "the study of the state." Maudoodi certainly cannot be faulted for lack of originality!
But nevertheless, he was one of the most influential Islamic clerics of the 20th century. Even the internationally renowned scholar Dr Fazlur Rahman (1919-1988), who was hounded out of the country after being declared an apostate, conceded in his book, Islam and Modernity that Maudoodi definitely represented an advance over the ulema of his times inasmuch as he was proficient in English and had read some of the works of western writers.
He then added: "But Maududi displays nowhere the larger and more profound vision of Islam's role in the world. Being a journalist rather than a serious scholar, he wrote at great speed and with resultant superficiality...He founded no educational institution and never suggested any syllabus for a reformed Islamic education."
Though rejected by his own country, Dr Fazlur Rahman had a towering presence in academic circles abroad. As a professor at the universities of Durham, McGill and Chicago as well as through his writings he came to be regarded as an authority on Islam. So profound was his impact that after his death, the Chicago University's Centre for Middle East Studies named its common area after him.
His comment about Maudoodi's failure to bring about any change in the syllabus for educational reform, which was made more than 30 years back, is particularly relevant to contemporary Pakistan. Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, under pressure from its coalition partner, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) has agreed to radically alter school textbooks.
Under the changes, as reported in the media, all pictures of girls - even minors - will show them clad in the traditional apparel, images depicting Christmas cakes and the cross will be taken out, and around 18 Islamic verses have been inserted, oddly enough, in chemistry books. The JI's demand that references to Raja Dahir and Ranjit Singh be removed from the history syllabus has been conceded.
Seldom has there been such wilful distortion of history accompanied with the massacre of rational thought on which the religion of Islam is founded. Yet Imran Khan, supported by a bevy of political lightweights, keeps babbling on about an ill-defined wave of the future that will sweep away corruption and establish a 'new Pakistan' as an 'Islamic welfare state.'
This is a 20th century innovation which emerged after the Grand National Assembly of Turkey abolished the caliphate in 1924 with the support of not only the Kemalists but also scholars of Cairo's Al-Azhar university. It was at this point in time that Rashid Rida (1865-1935), a controversial though important Islamist thinker, proceeded to develop the hitherto novel concept of an Islamic state.
The idea was initially hazy but acquired some clarity with the birth of Pakistan, and, in particular after the adoption of the Objectives Resolution by the constituent assembly in 1949. This triggered the anti-Ahmadi riots in Lahore in 1953, and, the subsequent report of the Court of Inquiry headed by Chief Justice Muhammad Munir administered a crippling blow to the concept: "The phantom of an Islamic state has haunted the Musalman throughout the ages and is the result of the memory of the glorious past when Islam rising from the least expected quarter of the world - the wilds of Arabia - instantly enveloped the world..."
Earlier, in a series of articles for Dawn in 1952 the celebrated jurist AK Brohi (1915-1987), who served briefly as Pakistan's high commissioner to India from February 1960 to March 1961, observed: "Having regard to the accepted notion of what constitutional law is, it is not possible to derive from the text of the Quran a clear statement as to the actual content of the constitution of any state."
This is further corroborated by Professor Olivier Roy in his 2007 work, Secularism Confronts Islam: "The entire history of the Muslim world shows that power was, in fact, secular and never sanctified...What then remains in power is no longer a religion but a political-clerical apparatus that uses the moral order to conserve its position of power." The exploitation of Islam is what lies at the heart of the turmoil in Pakistan after the death of Jinnah.
In his authoritative study, Al-Mawardi's Theory of State, Professor Qamaruddin Khan of the Karachi University has also affirmed that the Quran has not defined any clear principle of state. This, he feels, is a blessing as it enables the Muslim community "to march with the progress of time and adjust itself to new conditions and new environments."
But unfortunately through the course of history, with perhaps the short-lived exception of the Islamic Republic from 632-661 AD, hereditary succession of rulers in Muslim societies has been the norm. In his masterpiece, The Muqaddimah, the outstanding Arab historiographer and philosopher Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), rejected the concept of hereditary rule: "Islam does not consider preservation of the ruler's inheritance for his children...Succession to the rule is something that comes from God who distinguishes by it whomsoever He wishes."
This is in accord with the Quranic pronouncement: "And (remember this): when his Sustainer tried Abraham by (His) commandments and the latter fulfilled them, He said: 'Behold, I shall make thee a leader of men.' Abraham asked: 'And (wilt Thou make leaders) of my offspring as well?' (God) answered: 'My covenant does not embrace the evildoers'" (2: 124).
What emerges is that the Quran is silent about an Islamic state, but it rejects dynastic rule. This is what the rulers of the oil-rich states of the Gulf region conveniently ignore. There is a need for Muslim leaders to stop misleading people. Their religion does not prescribe an Islamic state and neither does it countenance hereditary monarchies.

The writer is the publisher of Islamabad-based Criterion Quarterly.  iftimurshed@gmail.com