The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam From the Extremists (25 page)

Practically everything mentioned above is heretical for pu- ritans. As far as the puritans are concerned, democracy is a

Western invention, and this is reason enough to reject it. In addition, puritans insist on the re-creation of the caliphate as a cornerstone of the Islamic system of governance. By this, they have in mind the model set by the first four Rightly Guided Caliphs, who ruled in succession after the death of the Prophet. Puritans attempt to create what they imagine to be a replica of the system of government created by these caliphs.

The problem that the puritans fail to acknowledge is that the caliphs did not adopt a single form of government; rather, each caliph implemented different policies and adopted vari- ous institutions. In reality, the caliphate did not represent any particular theory of governance, but was a historical institu- tion that managed to unite most Muslims at different times in the past. In essence, the caliphate became a symbol of Muslim unity without necessarily embodying a particular form of gov- ernment. Therefore, most moderates, in principle, do not op- pose the reemergence of the caliphate but only in the sense of a government that unites all Muslim countries in a federalism or confederacy of states. Most moderates endorse the caliphate as a symbol that could unite Muslim nations under a single flag without compromising the democratic principles of governance. Puritans, however, do not adopt the caliphate as a symbol of unity—what they have in mind is the return of a purported ideal system of government that existed in the golden age of Islam.

According to puritans, the system of government that ex- isted in the purported golden age of the caliphate called is the “
shura
system,” which the puritans insist is superior to the Western democratic system. As mentioned earlier,
shura
is a Qur’anic concept that means governance by consultation. Cu- riously, however, puritans speak as if there is a full-fledged and complete theory of governance called the
shura
. When one

carefully examines the writings of puritans, one discovers that what is meant by a
shura
system is a just, benevolent, and pious despot who applies Islamic law and who governs by reg- ularly referring to a standing consultative body. In the puritan view, a just ruler is a ruler who applies the law of God. The ruler must meet strict requirements related to his character, piety, and religious knowledge, and thus, the ruler will be able to know God’s law. The ruler must implement the Qur’anic command of taking consultation, and after consulting with people of knowledge and piety, the ruler will choose the cor- rect course of action.

Interestingly, in their writings puritans say very little about what procedural guarantees they would put into place to en- sure that the chosen leader remains just, benevolent, or even pious. Similarly, little is said about the measures that could be taken to ensure that the ruler will actually abide by the laws of Islamic jurisprudence and not flagrantly abuse his mandate. Puritans, however, assume that as long as the consultative body appoints a ruler who is exceedingly pious, his piety will constitute a sufficient restraint.

Puritans would give the state powers that, in reality, are un- precedented in Islamic history. The state in the modern age is capable of mobilizing enormous powers and intruding upon people’s lives in ways that were unimaginable in the premod- ern period. Puritans use these exceptional powers to enforce what they believe to be the Divine Will. For instance, puritans believe that the state should force men to go to the mosque for prayers, and also force women to wear the veil. By enforcing the Divine law, justice will be achieved because, puritans be- lieve, by definition God’s law is just. In this imagined order, there is no need for individual rights. In fact, puritans believe that the very concept of human rights is yet another compo- nent of the Western intellectual invasion. By applying the Di-

vine law, puritans believe, the rights of God and the rights of people will be fully fulfilled and served.

Interestingly, puritans believe that at the present time, there is no genuine Islamic state. All the current Muslim govern- ments are illegitimate because, among other things, they im- plement laws that are French or British in origin. Therefore, puritans believe that the current governments should be over- thrown, once the means for doing so are available. This is one of the few clear differences and distinctions between pu- ritans and conservatives. Although conservatives do believe that an Islamic state must apply God’s law, they do not be- lieve that rebellion against governments that fail to apply the Divine law are justified. Conservatives, in general, reject the use of violence in order to achieve their aims, whereas puri- tans embrace the ideology of violence.

In terms of contemporary realities, for puritans the states that best approached their political ideal were Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan under the Taliban. Puritans believe that the United States purposely destroyed the Taliban because they came close to establishing a genuine caliphate, and the United States is dead set on not allowing Islam to return to its golden era. As to Saudi Arabia, as I noted earlier, in recent times puri- tans have increasingly turned against the Saudi government because of the invasions of Iraq and the close ties between the Saudi and American governments. Most puritans believe that the collaboration of the Saudi government with the United States during the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq exposed the true loyalties of the Saudi ruling family and also revealed that the Saudi state is not truly committed to Islam and there- fore deserves to be overthrown.

I must say that in my opinion the truly sad reality is that the puritan ideology of the state will only lead to considerable bloodshed without the puritans ever finding their utopia with

its just despot. As some of the classical jurists used to say, jus- tice and despotism are two opposites, and the two will never meet without one killing the other. After much suffering, the puritans are bound to wake up and realize that while they dreamed in clouds of their utopia, on this earth they only managed to create a nightmare.

We turn, in the next chapter, to the treatment of non- Muslims in an Islamic state. For a democracy to work, all its citizens must be treated equally; they must be able to enjoy equal rights and be offered equal opportunities before the law. The question of whether an Islamic democracy is possible is invariably necessarily linked to the status of non-Muslims in such a state. The challenge, however, is not limited to the for- mal legal or constitutional rights afforded to non-Muslims in an Islamic state. In part, the challenge is the prevalence of a well-established ethic of tolerance that is thoroughly dissemi- nated in the very fabric of civil society. Beyond the protections of the law, this ethic of tolerance would permit the various re- ligious and ideological orientations within a society to coexist without one seeking to dominate or exterminate the other. This is exactly why the issue of interacting with non-Muslims or the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims is of critical importance for contemporary Islam.

One of the significant issues that could affect the interreli- gious dynamics within a pluralist and democratic state is what might be called the perception of the ultimate moral worth of individuals. Most religions tend to assert that its own follow- ers are going to be saved in the Hereafter, while all others are doomed to suffer God’s wrath. Certainly, it is hardly surpris- ing for a religion to claim that it exclusively possesses the true way for salvation. The question, however, is whether religious exclusivity is inconsistent with the ethic of tolerance, which is necessary for promoting the kind of civil society that could

support a democracy. More explicitly, if a religious faith points the proverbial finger at others declaring that they are doomed to Hellfire, does this undermine the moral worth of those who reject that religion as a false faith?

A considerable number of theorists have argued that in essence tolerance means nothing more than putting up with someone; tolerating the other demands no more than accept- ing their mere existence, perhaps as a necessary evil. These theorists argued that for the purposes of finding a civil society that would support a pluralist democracy an ethic of tolerance is simply not enough. What is needed is an ethic of active em- bracement, empathy, and cooperation in which diverse groups, including religious groups, come together in a joint venture to promote human rights and equal moral worth of all human beings. According to these theorists, the notion that some people because of their beliefs are entitled to salvation and others deserve to be damned is inconsistent with the civic ethics of human rights and equal human worth. The conclu- sion adopted by such theorists is not that all religious convic- tions regarding salvation and damnation ought to be abandoned. Rather, they contend that because of the exclu- sivist, alienating, and inaccessible nature of religious convic- tions, religions should be kept strictly private and should not play any role in the public sphere.

The question of the exclusivist and inaccessible nature of religious convictions, and whether religious convictions, lan- guage, and symbols must be kept out of the public realm, has been the subject of controversy for a long time. Although this is not the place to engage in an exhaustive discussion on this topic, I think that all strongly held ideological convictions pose the same kind of challenge to cooperative civic ethics in a democracy. But this does not mean that only systems of beliefs that are accessible to all should be admitted to the public

realm. I do believe that religion can legitimately play a role in the public sphere as long as it is not dismissive or oppressive toward others. In the case of Islam, whether religion is indeed dismissive or oppressive toward others depends on how one reads the Qur’anic discourse regarding non-Muslims, their moral worth, and even the possibility of their attaining salva- tion.

ten

INTERACTING WITH NON-MUSLIMS AND SA LVATION

W

hen it comes to thinking about issues such as how to deal with non-Muslims, salvation, and damnation, sometimes it is difficult to imagine that puritans and moder- ates are reading and interpreting the same religious sources. This is because the conclusions these two groups reach are so diametrically inconsistent that their highly disparate positions raise fundamental questions about the extent to which meth- ods of interpretation make all the difference in deciphering the Divine Will. The meanings of religious texts are heavily af- fected by the moral and ethical predispositions and commit- ments of the readers of those texts, but they are also affected by the technical tools that people use to understand the text. But this is not the place to get into the heuristic devices of pu- ritans and moderates and the methods that they use to unpack the meanings and implications of texts. In this chapter, I will focus on the theological and jurisprudential conclusions reached by puritans and moderates without delving into their hyper-technical debates about how one ought to read the

Qur’an and other religious sources.

As far as puritans are concerned, the question of salvation is a straightforward one: only Muslims will have any chance of salvation in the Hereafter. Not only that, but Muslims who

do not adopt the correct beliefs and practices, as the puritans define them, will not attain salvation either. The basic differ- ence between heretical or sinful Muslims and non-Muslims, according to puritans, is the gradation of Hell to which they are destined. Non-Muslims will occupy lower rungs of Hell than heretical or sinful Muslims. Puritans disagree on whether non-Muslims will ever be released from Hell; heretical and sinful Muslims will last in Hell as long as is required to atone for their sins.

Perhaps this is not surprising. Most religions proclaim that those who refuse to believe in their message will be con- demned in one way or another. But the puritans’ rejectionist stance extends to life on this earth. Puritans accept without reservation or revision the traditional practice of what was known as the
dhimma
status for non-Muslims living in Mus- lim territories. According the
dhimma
status system, non- Muslims must pay a poll tax in return for Muslim protection and the privilege of living in Muslim territory. Per this system, non-Muslims are exempt from military service, but they are excluded from occupying high positions that involve dealing with high state interests, like being the president or prime min- ister of the country. In Islamic history, non-Muslims did oc- cupy high positions, especially in matters that related to fiscal policies or tax collection. It is not clear if puritans would deem this historical practice acceptable or if they would consider it yet another indication of how the earlier generations of Mus- lims had strayed from the straight path.

Within the basic framework of the
dhimma
system, the way puritans deal with non-Muslims is marked by a remarkable de- gree of literalism. For instance, the puritans readily accept the Qur’anic command that Muslims must deal with non-Muslims with justice, and they also accept the well-known Prophetic tra- dition asserting that whoever injures or abuses a non-Muslim

in
dhimmi
status, the Prophet will personally bear witness against him in the Final Day. Nevertheless, at the same time, puritans insist that in a Muslim state, non-Muslims must be de- graded sufficiently so that their lower status vis-à-vis Muslims is clear. For example, non-Muslims must wear distinctive in- signia so that they are easily identifiable. Furthermore, non- Muslims may not build a church or synagogue higher than a mosque, and they must be second to Muslims in practically all social engagements. For instance, puritans insist that Muslims should not initiate greetings of peace with non-Muslims, and if non-Muslims initiate the greeting, the puritans set out a list of expressions that Muslims may use in response.

Muslims may not use an expression other than those on the list. Most of these offensive and immoral laws emerged from various apocryphal traditions attributed to the Prophet in the ninth and tenth centuries. Most classical jurists rightly de- clared these traditions to be pure fabrications that are incon- sistent with the historical practices of the Prophet. Some classical jurists, such as Ibn Taymiyya, did advocate the de- meaning treatment of non-Muslims; however, his hostility to non-Muslims was largely due to the fact that he lived at a time when the Islamic civilization was in a real state of crisis be- cause Muslim territories and populations were under siege by several outside invaders. Nevertheless, jurists such as Ibn Taymiyya have had a great deal of influence upon the Wah- habis and other puritans. Consequently, these demeaning laws were implemented by the Taliban in Afghanistan and are par- tially in force in Saudi Arabia. Today, though the vast majority of Muslim countries do not recognize the legitimacy of these offensive laws and refuse to enforce them.