Is A United Global Islamic State Required in Islam?

By Dr. Mohammad Ghitreef, New Age Islam

13 March 2022

Why some Muslims are so violent?

Why several Muslim countries are in disorder and turmoil?

Why some Muslims are in perpetual conflict with establishments everywhere?

These vital questions demand our attention, for their resonance is heard globally.

Though there are so many causes of this troubling situation, to me, political Islam, inter alia, is one of the main causes of all that is happening in several Muslim lands in the name of Islam. Now what is political Islam all about?

 

FILE - An Islamic State flag is seen in this undated photo illustration.

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The main features of political Islam, to me, if simply put, are as follows:

1- Maulana Maududi, the first and foremost vocal ideologue of this rather newly invented dispensation in Islamic intellectual legacy, and all his followers argued that Islam is a complete code of life. It has injunctions for both individual and collective lives of a man. And man is responsible of the enactment of all kinds of Shariah orders without a delay or slight difference between them. And because there are so many Sharia orders that require political power such as Jihad, implementing the Shariah based criminal laws (Hudud), ordering good and forbidding bad, etc. hence the establishment of an Islamic state and making efforts for this effect is a Sharia obligation like prayer and fasting, etc. No less. Maududi urged that to endeavour for forming a political power or God's Government, (حكومت الهية) to borrow his words is no less a Wajib (essential) than a Wuzu (ablution) for prayer on every Muslim.

2.  No co-existence is possible between Islam and Kufr except that Kufr should be suppressed, subjugated, and be dominated by Islam. In his view, Islam is not revealed to be ruled over, rather it must be a ruling religion, a prevalent civilization, and a supreme culture in his words.

3. A Muslim is a de facto vicegerent of God Almighty in the world, so he ought to be a de jure vicegerent of God by establishing the sovereignty of God. Adding to that the stalwarts of political Islam of all hue and colour, firmly believe and propagate that because Muslims are a universal Ummah (Nation) so it is a must to have a global Islamic state; the desired Caliphate. Also, modern-day separate Muslim nation-states and their rulers are agents of the West (the kufr and ignorance) for Syed Qutub, the great Muslim Brotherhood writer and ideologue. So, to him, it is necessary to topple them and snatch power from them.

This is a brief summary of the political views of Islamists. There may be minor differences between them in details which we just want to keep aside for the time being.

Having summarised Maududi’s main points, I must say that all his arguments are still in want of textual grounds that substantiate them in basic Islamic scriptures; Quran, Hadees. Yet because Maududi was a good writer, and his ideas became very popular. This happened partly also because in his time, Muslims were being humiliated under British imperialism which was soon replaced by two superpowers; USSR and the US. The Ottomans were defeated in the first world war and Arab lands were hit by unrest. In his ideas, new Muslim generations saw a hope to regain their lost glory so this new thought, now has its deep roots in the modern Muslim mind. As traditional Ulema were either inept or unwilling to forcefully refute Maududi in time, his ideas got momentum. Now an analytical study of Maududi’s clams is in order. Let us try to do that by highlighting points with a critical perusal.

1-To begin with, when you pick any book of Hadees or Fiqh you find there so many chapters. Based on these large lists you cannot say that these are all desired equally to be executed and complied with. No, there is a clear-cut categorization among orders of Sharia. So, while as an individual I am incumbent to perform prayer in every circumstance, say illness, journey or so, yet I am not bound to do Jihad, execute hudud, equally in every circumstance. In a free Muslim majority country, say, Pakistan, you may demand to implement Sharia laws, while doing this is simply not desired or demanded in India. Treating both these situations as equalizing has no basis in Islamic jurisprudence at all.

In addition to this, it is to be noted here that in Islam the individual is addressed and the collective rules are also given to those who are rulers and administrators in their individual capacity. Yes, there are some rules of religion that cannot be followed without government and authority and hence there is a need for Islam to have its own state, but not everywhere except in a free Muslim majority country and that too on the condition that the masses themselves want to do so.

Islam has not given any formal system of politics as claimed by Maududi and his ilk, because politics is essentially based on human experience and rational grounds. It is not the subject of religion. Yet Islam has given some basic principles on the basis of which a system of government can be adopted.

2. As for the second core idea is concerned, suffice to say that it is purely hypothetical, not supported by the history of Islam, as after the migration the holy prophet himself had built in his city-state a common, free, and fair society, and if allowed I may say a secular polity, based on a constitution called in history as Madina Charter comprising nearly 33 sections giving all the Madinans, an equal status irrespective of their religious belongings. (1) For, there were in Madina at that point of time three communities.

1. Muslims

2. Jews

3. Mushrikun or unbelievers.

 It was an outstanding model set by the Prophet himself of a homogeneous society living in harmony, peace, and co-existence and working to achieve common goals. Citing the battels that the prophet (PBUH) and his companions were compelled to go in, first with fellow Arabs, then with Iranian and Roman empires, will not do here. As all that was a part of the history. History in principle is not a part of the Sharia, and thus one ought to differentiate between the two.

3. The issue of vicegerency of humans in general and of Muslims, in particular, emanates purely from the imagination of a fertile Muslim mind like Maududi's. This is not supported either by Quran or Hadees. (2) The majority of our Mufassirun (commentators on Quran) in fact explained Khalifa as a vicegerent of God (though it is also debatable)in an esoteric and spiritual sense. Maududi took this vague notion and he and his staunch supporters, through their vast literature, have politicized this rather deep, philosophical, and more precisely a complex metaphysical idea into a mundane one.

To put it more simply I would say that Khilafah or Caliphate is a term that expresses the political concepts of Muslims. It is not a religious term in the sense that fasting, prayers, zakat, and Hajj are. The Righteous Caliphate was a continuance of the prophetic era. And the caliphates which were established in different regions and times like the Umayyad Caliphate, Abbasid Caliphate, or Caliphate of Ottoman Turkey were originally kingships and monarchies. The term Caliphate is used for them only in metaphorical terms.

Now based on this notion how can it be right to say that there should be a universal Muslim caliphate? How can any one who isn’t involved in the task of revival is a sinner? Moreover, history tells us that after the fall of Umayyads there had not been any such universal caliphate throughout Muslim history. For instance, after the Umayyad’s defeat, the Abbasids established their rule in the east, while the Umayyads fleeing from Damascus successfully formed their parallel caliphate in Spain. Then not before long cohorts of Fatmids had established their separate caliphate in Africa. Even at the zenith of the Ottomans, there were three major separate Muslim sultanates namely the Ottomans in Istanbul, the Safavids in Iran, and the Mughals in Delhi.

Yes, in today’s world politics there exist many political blocs; the Russian Bloc, so to say, the American Bloc, Arab League, and so on. Therefore, one may desire, hope, wish and even actively aspire to realize a powerful strong political Muslim bloc too. Indeed some prominent traditional contemporary scholars of Islam as late Dr. Hameedullah (of Paris) even averred that there might be a federal caliphate system (3) wherein every Muslim country would be in turn president (read caliph) of that federation for a specific period of time, agreed upon unanimously. Some Arab scholar like Abdul Hameed went to the extent that we could assume OIC is a replica of the past political caliphate system. (4) In fact, in the Muslim psyche, it is a deep-rooted utopia among Sunnis and Shias alike, that for retaining the glorious political past once again, it is a must to have a revival of the bygone caliphate. And 57 Muslim countries alliance the OIC had come into existence fulfilling that old aspiration to an extent.

These opinions can be suggestive to a degree of likely evolution in Islamic political thought. Yet at the same time, there is a new discourse also growing fast in Muslim societies, in the new generation, particularly in the circles adherent to Islamism, and now different so-called Islamic movements are its protagonists.

Getting intellectual food from the writings of Maududi et al Muslim organizations like Hizbut Tahrir and Tanzeeme Islami in Pakistan (founder Dr. Asrar Ahmad) aspire to establish a unified global Islamic state or caliphate on the pretext that it is incumbent on every Muslim like five-day prayer to do his best endeavour to establish this so-called political system. The notorious ISIS and its franchised outfits are killing innocent people and shedding blood thanks to the above-mentioned grounds.

To me, extremism and violence prevalent among Muslims nowadays cannot be eradicated without criticizing the core ideological issues and confronting their argument.

Notes and References:

1-See: Ibn Hisham and other Sirah books.

2-See my Urdu monologue on the topic published in Ishraq Lahore September 2016

3-see: Mohammad Ghitreef, Dr. Hameedullah Mujaddid Ulume Sirah, Foundation for Islamic Studies, New Delhi 2003

4-Dr. Abdul Hameed: Towards An Islamic Theory of International Relations IIIT Washington DC

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A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Dr. Mohammad Ghitreef is a Research Associate with the Centre for Promotion of Educational and Cultural Advancement of Muslims of India, AMU Aligarh.

URL:   https://www.newageislam.com/radical-islamism-jihad/united-global-islamic-state-/d/126559

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