Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World (6 page)

Many Kharijite sects advocated anarchy as a solution; getting rid of the leader came to be an acceptable tactic.
⁵
This was preached by the Najadat, the followers of Najda Ibn
^c
Amir who were one of the most extreme sects: “The Najadat were in agreement that in fact the people did not really need an imam. They had only to organize themselves to ensure justice.
⁶
Najda Ibn
^c
Amir was assassinated in year 69 of the Hejira, fifty-nine years after the death of the Prophet. Condemnation of a leader is pronounced in the name of
^c
adala
(justice) and to bring a stop to
munkar
(injustice).
^c
Adala
and
munkar
are key words in the slogans of contemporary Islamic dissi- dence, which is repudiated by Qadi
^c
Ashmawi, the Egyptian religious authority and author of the caustic
Al-Islam al-siyasi
(Political Islam), as stemming from the Kharijite tradition.
^c
Ashmawi rejects both words as an ossification (
tajmid)
of conflict which reduces it to a matter of the leader, and then ends up in excluding the masses from decision making.
⁷
According to
^c
Ashmawi, seeking justice through violent subversion removes the essential element from the scene: the masses and their will. The Prophet’s ideal, according to his
risala
(the message of the revealed Koran),
^c
Ashmawi says, is to struggle against the despot (
taghiya
), but without violence. This necessarily puts responsibility on the masses. We will have occasion to come back to this point in
Chapter 7
, on individualism.

The murder of imams began very early, even before the caliphate of
^c
Ali. What began with
^c
Ali was political terrorism—killing as a plan and a program.

The first caliph to be assassinated was, paradoxically, the figure with the greatest reputation for justice,
^c
Umar Ibn al-Khattab, the second orthodox caliph, who reflected deeply on his mission. He was one of the supporters of
rc
y,
individual judgment, as the source of decision making. That word was to become a fundamental concept in the rationalist tradition.
^c
Umar is only the first on a very long list of assassinated imams. That compiled by Ibn Hazm in his chapter “Those Among the Caliphs Who Died by Assassination and the Manner in Which They Were Killed” is one of the most fascinating.
⁸
The beginning of the list sets the tone:

1. Caliph
   ^c
   Umar Ibn al-Khattab: stabbed in 23/644. He was the second caliph to govern after the death of the Prophet.
   
2. Caliph
   ^c
   Uthman: hacked to death by swords.
   ^c
   Uthman was the third orthodox caliph, who took power after
   ^c
   Umar and was assassinated in 35/656.
   ⁹
   
3. Caliph Marwan Ibn al-Hakam: smothered by his wife, Umm Khalid. Fourth caliph of the Umayyad dynasty, he died in 64/683.
   
4. ^c
   Umar Ibn
   ^c
   Abd al-
   ^c
   Aziz: “poisoned, they say.”
   ¹⁰
   Umar was the eighth Umayyad caliph; he died in 101/720.
   
5. Al-Walid Ibn Yazid: hacked to death.
   

A number of the assassinated caliphs, according to Ibn Hazm’s list, were slashed by many swords—that is, they were the victims of the anger of a group in a killing that had the air of ritual. There were some odd cases, like the death of al-Hadi, the brother of Harun al-Rashid, who during an outing had the idea of swinging one of his courtiers over a precipice. The courtier hung on to al- Hadi, and the two fell to their deaths together.
¹¹
In most cases, however, the imam was a sort of sacrificial victim. A psychoanalytic study of regicide (or rather “imamicide"), which has yet to be done, would be filled with information about the morbid fascination that the leader inspires. In general, murder of the leader is the business of men, although women like Umm Khalid, the wife of Marwan Ibn al-Hakam, have committed assassinations from time to time. Rather than the sword, they use cushions or poison, or sometimes they choose the
hammam
(bath) as the site of the murder.
¹²

Taking the place of the leader because the rebel believes he can do better is the fantasy and the motive that for fifteen centuries have inspired scores if not hundreds of sects. The modern militant opposition forces who claim power in the name of the sacred are only replaying that scenario. The traditional palace revolt is a matter between a ruler and a rebel chief and leaves the masses of believers on the sideline. An anecdote about a caliph and a Sufi recounted by al-Mas
^c
udi illustrates the structural weakness of Muslim thrones.

AL-MA
MUN AND THE SUFI:
WHO GAVE YOU THIS THRONE?

Al-Ma
mun, the seventh Abbasid caliph (198-218/813-33), was one of the most powerful sovereigns of his time, and the magnificence of his reign and his marriage to Buran inspired countless tales. Nevertheless, in the eyes of one of his faithful followers, this man whose armies made the world tremble was just a man like any other, in no way empowered by the community to govern. This audacious thought, which lies in the hearts of all Muslims, came to the mind of a certain Sufi who had dedicated his life to meditation and the spiritual quest. He longed to ask the caliph what he thought about his throne:

One day when the caliph was holding an audience his chamberlain,
^c
Ali Ibn Salih, appeared and said to him: “Commander of the Faithful, a man dressed in white garments of coarse material which he wears tucked up is at the palace gate. He asks to be admitted to take part in the discussions.” I understood, continued Yahaya [the narrator, one of the witnesses of the scene, who remembered it and told it to others], that it was a Sufi, and I wanted to signal the caliph not to admit him. But he gave the order to let him enter.

In came a man whose robe was tucked up in his belt and who held his sandals in his hand. He stopped at the edge of the carpet and said: “Greetings! May the mercy and blessings of God be upon you!” Al-Ma’mun returned the greeting. The stranger asked permission to approach the caliph, who granted it and invited him to be seated.

Once seated, he said to the caliph: “Do you permit me to address you?”

“Speak of what you know,” al-Ma
mun told him, “for that is pleasing to God.”

The man then asked: “Do you owe this throne upon which you sit to the full consent of the Muslims, or rather to the violence that you have exercised on them, using your force and your power?”
¹³

Intelligent and conscientious, al-Ma
mun responded with a pre- ciseness that showed the respect he gave to this man who had the courage to be sincere with a caliph, who held so much more power than he. He said that he owed his throne neither to the consent of the Muslims
(
^c
ijtima
^c
)
nor to violence (
mughalaba
), but simply to the fact that he had received it from a “sultan” (a holder of earthly power) who had the throne before him and had passed it to him by agreement.
¹⁴
The problem for al-Ma
mun lay in the fact that nowhere does the Koran mention hereditary power. Islam categorically condemns it, as we shall see when we explore the idea of the
taghiya,
the pre-Islamic tyrant.

The description of this meeting between the caliph and his questioner is moving because it lays open for all to see the great beauty of Islam and the tragic weakness of its political system. No throne is stable. Any person at all, however lowly, can call to account the most powerful man of the city.

Two ways lay open to the Muslims: the way of rebellion taken by the Kharijites, which leads to violence and murder; and the way of
^c
aql,
glorifying reason, which began with the Mu
^c
tazila, the philosophers who intellectualized the political scene. Instead of preaching violence against an unjust imam like the Kharijites, the Mu
^c
tazila held that the thinking individual could serve as a barrier against arbitrary rule. Muslims would use both these approaches at different times, both were extremely important, recurring throughout the centuries. In the modern Islamic world only the violent, rebellious way is being taken by those who loudly proclaim their wish to rule. The rationalist tradition is apparently not part of their Muslim heritage. That is why outlining it and thinking about it is so critical.