Processes of error, deviation, correction and convergence in Muslim political thought
By Dr. Kalim
Siddiqui
Bahira was a Christian monk
living in Basra. Abu Talib, the Prophet's uncle, had taken
Muhammad, then 12 years old, to Al-Sham with a trading caravan.
There Bahira recognized the signs of future prophethood in
Muhammad, as told in Christian sources. Bahira advised the
Prophet's uncle not to take Muhammad too far into Al-Sham, for
fear that the Jews might recognize the signs and try to harm the
boy. Many years later in Makkah, another Christian, Waraqa ibn
Nawfal, a cousin of the Prophet's wife Khadija, also recognized
the signs of impending prophethood in Muhammad's early
experiences in the cave of Hira, and delivered a similar
warning.
Neither Bahira nor Waraqa knew
that Muhammad was the promised prophet, but both shared a sense
of history derived from their religion, Christianity. They knew
that a prophet would come; they did not know when or where or
who he might be. Each recognized that the condition of
jahiliyyah that prevailed in their time required the coming of a
prophet. Bahira and Waraqa were relying on Christian sources
that were, even in their time, unreliable. Today, 14 centuries
after the completion of the Qur'an, the final message of Allah,
about which there is no doubt, and after the coming of the last
Prophet, it should be easier to recognize signs foreshadowing
current and future events.
How accurately we can do so
depends on our understanding of the Islamic framework of
history. For example, we do not know when Allah subhanahu wa
ta‘ala created the first man, Adam, who was also a prophet. But
what we do know is that between Adam, the first Prophet, and
Muhammad, the last Prophet, there were perhaps as many as
124,000 other prophets, may Allah's peace and blessings be upon
them all. The point is that Allah subhanahu wa ta‘ala clearly
took great care and a very long time preparing the world for the
coming of the last Prophet and for the completion of His message
to mankind. All this cannot have been for a matter of about
1,400 years or thereabouts before the end of the world.
The view of history that we
Muslims must take is that of course the end of the world will
come, but its timing is known to Allah subhanahu wa ta‘ala
alone. He has not shared this knowledge with anyone, not even
the prophets. It is, therefore, idle to speculate about it. In
the meantime we must remember that, 1,400 years after the
completion of prophethood and revelation, Islam has yet to
create a world in the image of itself, according to the
Creator's own prescription for the world and everything in it.
Perhaps a more realistic view is that though Islam as a message
and a model was completed 1,400 years ago, the main business of
history, that is, bringing all mankind to Islam, is incomplete.
This raises another question: if
the very long time before the completion of Islam was merely a
‘preparatory period', how do we explain the last 1,400 years?
The jahiliyyah before Islam was perhaps an insufficient
experience for man to realize the consequences of deviating from
Islam. It may be useful to view these 1,400 years as a practical
demonstration of what happens to mankind, especially Muslims,
when they deviate from the sirat al-mustaqeem. This could only
be demonstrated after Islam had been completed, not before.
Perhaps the neo-jahiliyyah that prevails in the world today is
just such a demonstration.
The deviation from Islam is of
two sorts. There are those who never entered Islam, chose to
fight it, and built for themselves a civilization and culture of
kufr and jahiliyyah. Today this civilization of kufr and
jahiliyyah is represented by the western civilization. This
civilization is global and includes many non-western
sub-cultures, such as the Chinese, Japanese and Indian
sub-cultures. It also includes some residual religious
traditions, for example, post-Renaissance Christianity, zionist-Judaism
and militant Hinduism, all of which insist upon repudiating and
rejecting Islam. Lastly, the western civilization also includes
those Muslims who have, under the influence of colonial
domination, accepted the validity of secularism as a way of
life. These Muslims represent all the ruling classes in Muslim
societies today, except in post-Revolutionary Iran. The second
type of deviation is within Islam. Such deviation is spearheaded
by those ulama, of all schools of thought, who, for whatever
reason, have accepted and legitimized political, social,
cultural and other systems that do not conform with the Qur'an
and the Sunnah of the Prophet, upon whom be peace. Examples of
such deviation, including deviant theology, can be found
everywhere.
However, deviation within Islam
is mostly error that has accumulated with the passage of time.
Such error is relatively easy to correct because the overall
framework of Islam that binds the Ummah has not been breached
[1]. The corrective power of Islam is represented by the
inherent taqwa of even those who have erred. There have always
existed ulama, of all schools of thought, who were willing and
able to eliminate error and to bind the Ummah together.
The number of the so-called
ulama committed to fitnah and permanent divisions in the Ummah
has always been small, though vocal because they have also
enjoyed the political patronage of rulers bent upon transforming
error into long-term, even permanent, deviation. This process of
deviation began with Banu Umaiyyah and continues today under the
Saudi regime. The nation-States established in the Muslim world
by the colonial powers and their ‘Muslim' agents are also
designed to make our political deviation permanent.
Some 15 years ago we in the
Muslim Institute set out to discover those in the Ummah, both
ulama and ordinary Muslims, who would be prepared to participate
in the task of research to determine the area within Islam where
those suffering from internal error and deviation would be
prepared to converge. Our instinct told us that the one single
Ummah[2] could only be superficially and temporarily divided.
Another instinctive hypothesis that guided us was that the error
and subsequent divisions in the Ummah were primarily political
and, therefore, temporary. This meant that the process of
correction and convergence would have to be led either by the
rewriting of Muslim political thought or by the ‘big bang'
effect of a major political event. We were na ve enough to
postulate that we could rewrite Muslim political thought and to
hope that, some day, our formulations might generate a major
political event [3].
History, as we now know, had
other ideas. Islam, despite error and deviations within it, is
such a powerful system of beliefs and ideas that it was bound to
produce its own answer to the ills of the Ummah. We should have
known all along that Islam, if it was the Whole Truth from
Allah, would also include within it the capacity to generate
corrective processes at crucial moments in history. Before the
coming of the last Prophet, upon whom be peace, this was done by
successive prophets who appeared at intervals. Now the role of
correction and convergence is performed by non-prophetic agents,
such as individuals, movements and revolutions. Once motivated
and activated by the historical situation, the corrective agents
must have the power to move the entire body of Muslims, the
Ummah, towards convergence at a central point within Islam. In
recent times a number of individuals, and the movements they
inspired, have tried unsuccessfully to emerge in the role of the
central corrective agents, but failed. Among these were Hasan
al-Banna (founder of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimoon) and Maulana Abul
Ala Maudoodi (founder of the Jama‘at-e Islami). It would seem
that the role of the central corrective agent can only be
performed by the Islamic State. Those who failed, failed
precisely because they could not establish the Islamic State.
The act of establishing the Islamic State would appear to be
necessary for a successful transition to the role of the central
corrective agent to end error and deviation within the Ummah.
Support for this view is found
in the Seerah of Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace. As an
individual in Makkah the role of the Prophet was limited to
bringing a handful of individuals to Islam. Yet even while in
Makkah the Prophet sought and found State protection for his
small band of followers. This is the significance of the
migration of many early Muslims from Makkah to Abyssinia. Once,
after the hijrah to Madinah, Islam had undergone transition to
Statehood, the spread of Islam to the peninsula was rapid and
total. Islam is incomplete without the Islamic State; there is
no room for dispute on this point. It has far-reaching
implications for the da‘wah work undertaken by well-meaning
Muslims, as well as for the da‘wah work into which the energies
of Muslims are being diverted today by those committed to the
status quo. The Saudi regime in particular spends vast amounts
of money on da‘wah in order to absorb the energies of many
Muslims throughout the world and to divert them into dead-end
activity. But the chief instrument of da‘wah is the Islamic
State; da‘wah without the Islamic State is like an invitation
without an address.
The political nature of Islam
and the Prophethood of Muhammad, upon whom be peace, was clearly
understood by the Quraish of Makkah from the beginning. When the
Quraish approached him with a ‘deal' they also offered him
kingship. The delegation of the Quraish was led by Utbah ibn
Rabiah. The incident is documented in all books of Seerah. The
goal of Muhammad's Prophethood was not his personal power or
kingship, but the transformation of the area into an Islamic
State. Many years later Makkah fell to Islam as the result of a
military expedition mounted by the Prophet from the Islamic
State that had been consolidated around Madinah. It is the
Islamic State that bears the main responsibility for da‘wah.
The point that is obscured in
modern, apologetic literature of Islam, and neatly side-stepped
by the orientalists, is that Islam is not only a message, Islam
is also a method. The message of Islam carried by the methods of
pacifist Christian missionaries is unlikely to yield the desired
results. Such an approach may help to turn Islam into a
ritualized religion, but it cannot achieve the goals of Islam.
The complete message of Islam includes the method of Islam. This
is why there is so much emphasis in Islam on the Sunnah and the
Seerah of the Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace. And this is
why the procedures and the historical processes required to
establish the Islamic State are inseparable parts of Islam.
Islam, therefore, is incomplete without the Islamic State.
The ‘Islamic parties' that
emerged during the colonial period often did not grasp this
essential point. They understood and presented Islam within the
framework of European-style social democracy. For them the
Islamic State was only a slightly updated and ‘Islamized'
version of the post-colonial nation-State. It only required them
to win an election and ‘come to power'. These ‘Islamic'
political parties did not realize that there was a colonial
legacy to be undone and dismantled. In their simplistic thinking
the ‘Islamic State' of their conception would be built on the
secular and nationalist foundations of the colonial independent
State. What is undoubtedly true is that some of these political
parties had — perhaps unwittingly — borrowed many of their ideas
from sources outside Islam [4].
The ‘act' of establishing the
Islamic State itself comes at the end of a prolonged process of
corrective action amongst those ‘lost' within Islam. In the
Sunni tradition, one must admit, this corrective process has
still hardly begun. Political thought in the Sunni tradition is
still lost in the diversions caused by the ‘Islamic parties',
Arab nationalism, the Khilafat movement in India, and the easy
availability of political patronage for most of the last 1,400
years.
In the Shi‘i tradition, on the
other hand, the first significant step in the right direction
was taken early in their history, as rejection of compromise
with existing political systems. Its roots go back to the
rejection of Yazid's authority by Imam Husain and his subsequent
shahadah at Karbala. The next major corrective step came many
centuries later, after Iran had been converted to the Shi‘i
school of thought in the early part of the sixteenth century. It
appeared as a debate among the Shi‘i ulama on what seemed to be
a technical matter. This debate, in the second half of the
eighteenth century, was between two groups of ulama known as
usuli and akhbari. The akhbari (or communicators) held the view
that, during the gha'ibah (occultation) of the Twelfth Imam, it
is not permissible for religious scholars to engage in the use
of reason to enact a certain judgement, to apply the principles
of the law to a specific problem or situation. All that could be
done was merely to have recourse to hadith (hence the name
akhbari), and by sifting hadith reach a conclusion about any
particular issue. This school tended towards a total abolition
of the discipline of jurisprudence. The usuli ulama, on the
other hand, held that, during the absence of the Twelfth Imam,
it was permissible to engage in independent reasoning. One
qualified to do so was the mujtahid: he who uses his reason
guided by principles of the shari‘ah to make decisions acting
upon which the general body of Muslims could solve their
problems. All Muslims who are not mujtahids must follow the
guidance of one who is. This is known as taqleed. The senior
mujtahids, who came to be followed by large numbers of Shi‘i
Muslims, were called maraje (singular marja or marja‘-i taqleed).
The argument was won by usuli ulama and the akhbari position was
abandoned. Hamid Algar points out that ‘the Revolution in Iran,
at least the particular shape that it has taken, the form of
leadership that it has enjoyed and continues to enjoy, would
also be unthinkable without the triumph of the usuli position...
in the eighteenth century.' [5]
The emergence of the usuli ulama
can be described as the development of a self-correcting
mechanism within the Shi‘i tradition. How important this was for
the world of Islam as a whole is only just beginning to become
apparent. In the first phase of this self-correcting process,
two things have happened: first the doors of ijtihad were thrown
open; and second, there emerged ulama, the maraje‘-i taqleed,
who often exercised greater influence, even power, than many
rulers. For all practical purposes the maraje came to represent
an ‘Islamic State' within the larger territorial State. The
traditional Shi‘i position, that all political power in the
absence of the Twelfth Imam was illegitimate and should not be
sought, was deep-rooted and the maraje functioned within the
umbrella of the Qajar dynasty that had replaced the Safavids in
1795. Throughout this period, from 1795 to the Islamic
Revolution in 1979, the primary concern of the ulama of Iran was
to limit the inevitable illegitimacy of the existing government.
It was in this framework that Mirza Hasan Shirazi gave his
famous fatwa in 1892 on the consumption of tobacco in Iran being
haram if its production and marketing were undertaken by a
British monopoly. The ulama's participation in the
Constitutional Revolution in Iran (1905-1909) was also made
possible by the wider concerns of the usuli school.
The otherwise powerful usuli
establishment suffered from two weaknesses. The first was the
senior ulama's self-imposed abstinence from seeking ultimate
political authority; and the second was the multiplicity of the
maraje. At any one time a number of Grand Ayatullahs claimed
large followings, and often competed among themselves for
followers (muqallideen). The two handicaps are closely linked.
So long as the ulama did not contemplate the exercise of supreme
political power there was no need for a single leader, and so
long as there was no single leader, a kind of marja of the
maraje, the exercise of ultimate political authority could not
be contemplated. These self-inflicted disabilities appeared so
entrenched in Shi‘i theology that the ruling classes, the
dynasties (the Pahlavi since 1926) and their British and
American backers, did not feel threatened from Qum. But the
usuli revolution had also opened the doors of ijtihad. It was
only a matter of time before the process of ijtihad, begun by
usuli ulama, led to the ultimate step, in terms of Shi‘i
theology, of setting up the Islamic State in the absence of the
Twelfth Imam. This is what we have come to call the Islamic
Revolution in Iran.
The Sunni ulama, equally ‘lost'
within Islam, have still not begun the long and painful task of
clearing away the debris of their failures, recovering from
their self-inflicted disabilities, and breaking the habit of
supine obedience to patronizing rulers. At the moment the
worldwide network of ‘court ulama' who serve the Saudi regime
(and other secular governments) are the most error-ridden and
deviant body of people lost within Islam. If the Sunni ulama
would only lift the veil of their prejudice, they should see
that Imam Khomeini has brought the Shi‘i caravan back to the
point where we all started in the first place. In a fatwa issued
on January 6, 1988, Imam Khomeini said that Islamic government
represents ‘absolute sovereign power as delegated by Allah
subhanahu wa ta‘ala to the Prophet, upon whom be peace' [6].
This, said Imam Khomeini, ‘is the most important of Divine
precepts (ahkam) and takes precedence over all the other
secondary Divine precepts'. Imam Khomeini added: ‘If the powers
of Islamic government are to be confined within the framework of
secondary Divine precepts, then the form of Divine rule and
absolute sovereignty as delegated to the Prophet, upon whom be
peace, would be a senseless and hollow phenomenon. ‘If this was
so, he added, the legislative and administrative powers of
Islamic government would be severely restricted. Imam Khomeini
went on to give several examples of legislative, administrative,
military and economic policies that would be impossible to
implement if the Islamic government was bound by secondary
Divine precepts. These included the acquisition of private
property for major public works, such as new roads, compulsory
military service, foreign trade, prohibition of hoarding,
customs and excise, taxation and fair pricing of goods and
services. Imam Khomeini then argued that ‘Islamic government,
which is part of the absolute sovereign power of Allah, Prophet,
upon whom be peace, is one of the primary precepts of Islam and
takes precedence over all the secondary precepts'. The concept
that the political power exercised by the Prophet must be
inherited in full by rulers who follow him has always been clear
in Sunni thought. This is exactly how the khulafa al-rashidoon
understood the source of their authority. The Islamic State is
only an extension of the authority of the leader, who is a
khalifah (na'ib or vicegerent) of the Prophet.
This fatwa from Imam Khomeini
has completed the long process of corrective action within the
Shi‘i school that had been at the very heart of the akhbari/usuli
controversy. It should be noted that some residual influence of
the akhbari position still persists not only in Iran but to a
much greater degree among the Shi‘i ulama of Iraq, India,
Pakistan and Bahrain and among their followers. The leading edge
of Shi‘i political thought, that of Imam Khomeini and his close
associates, has emerged only since the death of Ayatullah
Burujirdi in March 1962. It was only then that Ayatullah
Khomeini began to give lectures on political issues critical of
the Shah and exploring the possibility of government by
mujtahids. He was repeatedly arrested during 1963 and exiled to
Turkey the following year. In 1965 he moved to Najaf, the great
centre of Shi‘i learning in Iraq. It was during a course of
lectures on Islamic government delivered there in 1970 that he
developed the concept of vilayat-i faqih. With his fatwa of
January 6, 1988, it is probably no exaggeration to say that Imam
Khomeini corrected the political deviation of the entire Ummah
that began with the advent of the Umaiyyad rule. In terms of the
legitimacy of the leadership of the Islamic State, Imam Khomeini
restored the situation as it existed during the rule of Ali ibn
Abi Talib, the fourth of the khulafa al-rashidoon. This means
that, for all practical purposes, in terms of State and politics
in Islam, the Ummah has been returned to a point very close to
the time of the Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace.
During this very short period,
from 1962 to 1990, history has moved at an extraordinary pace.
Students of history are familiar with the leapfrogging
relationship that exists between political ideas and political
events. At times ideas run far ahead of events, and at other
times events shape ideas. For example, the great usuli school
that challenged and eventually defeated the akhbari orthodoxy in
Shi‘i thought can be traced back to Allama Hilli (Jamaluddin Abu
Mansur Hasan ibn Yusuf) in the fourteenth century. From the time
of his death in 1325 to the triumph of the usuli ideas in Iran
in the eighteenth century the pace of change was slow. In the
nineteenth century in Iran the usuli ulama, especially the
maraje, began to influence political events [7]. From 1978-79
until now virtually all political thought, Shi‘i and Sunni, has
been shaped by the events in Iran. The ideas and followers of
Imam Khomeini are pushing the frontiers of usuli thought towards
a total convergence of all political thought in Islam. It is
possible that Imam Khomeini, like Allama Hilli before him, was
himself not aware of all the wider implications of his ideas and
ijtihad. It is almost certainly the case that the interpretation
of the Imam's fatwa on January 6, 1988, will be long debated by
Shi‘i and Sunni ulama, both inside and outside Iran.
However, at present and for the
limited purpose of the argument developed in this paper, the
realization that politically one part of the Ummah at least has
achieved a position that puts it within two or three decades of
the Prophet is an exhilarating experience. We are liberated from
the responsibility for at least some parts of our history. We
can shed the guilt that haunts us for belonging to a tradition
of continuous error and deviation. We can stop having to defend
or justify what goes by the name of ‘Islamic history' and
dynastic malukiyyah. We can also ‘black box' a great deal of the
divisive theology written and promoted during this period [8].
This would allow a new kind of usuli revolution to spread to all
schools of thought in Islam and to open up the doors of ijtihad
in all traditions of thought. We can once again begin to feel
historically closer to the Prophet, upon whom be peace. This
newly achieved proximity, though largely a matter of perception,
establishes new spiritual and intellectual links with the Seerah
and the Sunnah of Muhammad, upon whom be peace.
Once we place ourselves within
this time-frame close to the Prophet, virtually all subsequent
sources of error and deviation in the Ummah disappear. The
disabilities imposed by our long fruitless commitment to
essentially indefensible positions also fade away; or at least
the option of liberating ourselves from such historical
handicaps is now available. Imam Khomeini had to endure
resistance from conservative Shi‘i ulama on his original ijtihad
of the vali-i faqih's rulership in the absence of the Twelfth
Imam. His decree that the vali-i faqih is the khalifah (na'ib)
of the Prophet, and that the Islamic State, too, enjoys the same
powers as conferred upon the Prophet by Allah subhanahu wa
ta‘ala, wipes the slate clean for all Muslims, especially the
ulama. Once this position is taken up, it does not matter
whether one is Sunni or Shi‘a. All positions within Islam are
valid and true, but none more so than the position that takes us
closest to the Prophet's time, especially a position that
enables us to establish a Leadership (and a State) that derives
its authority as the khalifah (vicegerent) of the Prophet, upon
whom be peace. Such is the capacity to generate self-corrective
processes that exists within Islam.
But the process that leads to
corrective action needs better understanding. Error and
deviation within Islam soon begin to accumulate unacceptable
results. It was this accumulation of unacceptable results that
must have sparked off the akhbari/usuli controversy among the
Shi‘i ulama more than two centuries ago. The triumph of the
usuli position clearly corrected most errors of earlier ijtihad,
but not all. However, the opening of the doors to further and
more fundamental ijtihad led to the emergence of maraje who
filled the vacuum of leadership caused by the occultation of the
Twelfth Imam. Once the role of leadership had been taken up by a
small number of maraje, they were set on a course that would
eventually produce a single leader. But a single leader in Islam
is only possible within the framework of the political power of
Islam established in the Islamic State. If the corrective
process begun by the usuli ulama was to continue, then the
eventual emergence of a single marja as the marja of the maraje
was inevitable. And this could happen only within the framework
of what we now call the Islamic Revolution in Iran, or the act
of establishing the Islamic State. The process of ijtihad that
preceded the Islamic Revolution, and the emergence of an Islamic
State led by a vali-i faqih, produced, within ten years, a fatwa
from Imam Khomeini to the effect that he, as vali-i faqih, and
the Islamic State exercise authority as khalifah or na'ib of the
Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace.
The Imam's latest fatwa could
only come after the new Islamic State had experienced the
difficulty, indeed the impossibility, of performing its proper
executive, legislative and judicial functions without the
ultimate source of authority and power in Islam as khalifah of
the Prophet. The absence of such authority from the vali-i faqih
and the Islamic State was clearly an error, and the results of
such error soon accumulated and were found to be unacceptable.
In a sense the authority as khalifah already existed but had not
been claimed or clearly understood. The Imam then made the
authority explicit and unambiguous. Imam Khomeini did not, for
reasons that can be guessed, put it in so many words, but the
fact is that he then became khalifah al-Rasool, or vicegerent of
the Prophet, upon whom be peace. We can now safely assume that
the demise of what Dr Ali Shari‘ati called Safavid Shi‘ism is
now all but complete, though some irritant traces of it in Shi‘i
rituals and culture will persist for some time. We have also
seen that the act of establishing the Islamic State is the most
powerful corrective agent in Islam. This is because, in the
political process, even small errors soon lead to large and
visible results that are clearly unacceptable. What this means
is that error in matter of theology affects rituals and ibadah
and can persist for a long time, or even for ever, without
causing harm to Islam or the Ummah. Perhaps it is also true that
within Islam a wide range of variations is possible in
peripheral areas of fiqh. These variations do not amount to
error or deviation. In actual error are those who allow such
peripheral areas of fiqh to cause heated debate and controversy
among Muslims. In itself this diversity in Islamic practices
does not usually lead to cumulative results that reach
unacceptable levels. But this may happen in conditions where
error and deviation on larger issues of leadership, State and
politics in Islam reach dangerous levels, leading in turn to the
disintegration of the Ummah. In conditions of extreme
disintegration, such as those prevailing in parts of the Ummah
today, these peripheral issues may also cause bloodshed. This is
why the existence of any kind of Muslim rule, including
malukiyyah for the greater part of our history, did not allow
peripheral issues to cause bloodshed on a large scale. In India,
for instance, open and bloody conflict between Shi‘i and Sunni
Muslims was unknown during the Mughal rule. In recent years the
disintegration of the polity in Pakistan has reached a similar
stage, causing bloody conflicts among Muslims. It is widely
suspected that the post-colonial secular rulers in Muslim
nation-States deliberately create such conflicts to divert
attention from the convergence of Islamic thought in matters of
leadership, State and politics. This also explains the
relentless propaganda against the Shi‘i school of thought that
has been unleashed by the West generally and by the secular
Muslim rulers in particular. They know that their only chance of
survival lies in their ability to obstruct and abort Islam's
processes of corrective action, preventing them from reaching
the Sunni areas of the Ummah.
The fact is that the process of
correction of error and deviation within the Shi‘i tradition is
now almost complete, at least so far as Iran is concerned. Some
parts of Shi‘i opinion outside Iran are suspicious of the
changes that Imam Khomeini's ijtihad has achieved. It is also
known that within Iran there are ulama who have deep
reservations. However, these are unlikely to halt the powerful
forces of internally-generated corrective action. We must now
outline in brief the degree of error and deviation within Islam
that is found in the Sunni tradition. The Sunni political
experience is, of course, very different. For the Sunni Muslims
there was no vacuum of leadership, only a gradual decline in its
quality. The Sunni school recognizes the pre-eminence of the
first four khulafa, the khulafa al-rashidoon. The qualitative
change that occurred when Mu‘awiyyah ibn Abi Sufyan became, in
his own words, the first malik (king) of the Muslims, is also
known and recognized. There is no difference between the Shi‘i
and Sunni understanding of the events and issues that led to
Imam Husain's shahadah at Karbala. The root of political error
and subsequent deviation in the Sunni school lies in the easy
acceptance and almost automatic bai‘ah that was given to rulers
of known political deficiency and moral corruption. This
happened because opposition to the established ruler came to be
regarded a greater fitnah than the ruler's known deviation from
the classical standards of private and moral excellence laid
down in Islam. This gave many Sunni activists easy access to the
courts of the rulers and to political patronage. Under these
circumstances, and so long as Muslim rulers wielded considerable
power and presided over vast empires, there was little pressure
to re-examine established positions. The vastness of the Islamic
empire and civilization, the emergence of large cities and seats
of learning, and the political dominance of the world of Islam
over all else, lulled Sunni Muslims into a false sense of
security and self-righteousness. The initial error and deviation
from Islam that malukiyyah represented was hidden by the rapid
expansion and success of the political power of the Muslim
States. The initial thrust that was given to the political
history of the Muslims by the Prophet, upon whom be peace, and
the khulafa al-rashidoon was used by subsequent rulers to hide
their own error and deviation. It was inevitable, therefore,
that eventually the error and deviation heralded by malukiyyah
would multiply and lead Muslim society inexorably towards moral
decay and political and military decline. This decline was not
obvious so long as Muslim armies kept the enemies of Islam at
bay or recovered any ground that was lost, such as the recapture
of Jerusalem from the Christians by Salah al-Din Ayyubi.
The full extent of the
cumulative damage that had been caused to dar al-Islam during
hundreds of years of progressive decline and decay under
malukiyyah became obvious when the European powers began to
emerge in their imperialist role. In a hundred years or so
before the defeat of the Uthmaniyyah State in the 1914-18 war,
virtually the whole of the world of Islam had passed into
European hands. After 1919 the European powers consolidated
their hold on the Arab heartland of Islam by dividing it up into
client States. Mustafa Kamal completed the demolition of the
last political remnant of dar al-Islam by formally abolishing
the khilafah in 1924. The cumulative effect of initial error and
deviation had reached its logical conclusion and Islam had lost
all semblance of political and military presence in the affairs
of mankind. No result could be more unacceptable. But the habit
of supine obedience that the Sunni ulama had cultivated during
several centuries was not to be abandoned at once. Even the
realization that a catastrophe had overtaken them has been slow
to emerge. Apart from the popular emotions stirred by the
Khilafat Movement in India during 1919-22, there was little
reaction among the Sunni ulama. Their immediate response appears
to have been in line with their traditional role. They busied
themselves with trying to seek political patronage from the new
political order—from the new Saudi ‘kingdom' in the tradition of
malukiyyah, and from the new nation-States, and even from the
colonial States of the infidels. These rulers were only too
anxious to provide these ulama with a sense of security and
political patronage in return for political subservience. The
two men who made valiant but futile attempts to revive the
political fortunes of Islam were Hasan al-Banna and Abul Ala
Maudoodi. We should note, however, that neither was a
traditional alim.
They and their parties, al-Ikhwan
al-Muslimoon and the Jama‘at-e Islami, also ended up on the side
of the status quo, enjoying extensive and lucrative patronage
from Saudi Arabia. Even the ‘Islamic State' of their conception
differed little from the welfare-oriented, liberal and
democratic States of Europe. With little or no support from the
Sunni ulama, such attempts did not amount to much. We have to
admit that the kind of corrective action that began with the
success of the usuli school among the Shi‘i ulama has yet to
begin in the Sunni tradition. It can be argued that the nature
and degree of error and deviation in the Shi‘i school was
different from those in the Sunni school. There is weight in
this argument. But there are three common features that should
be noted without attempting to find their sources in theological
formulations. These are:
1. The akhbari ulama during the
Safavid dynasty in Iran (1502-1747) were as open to political
manipulation by the rulers as Sunni ulama at any time in
history, including the modern period.
2. The error and deviance in the
Shi‘i school had left Shi‘i ulama politically as ineffective as
the Sunni ulama of today.
3. The Shi‘i ulama, before the
usuli revolution, had closed the doors on ijtihad as firmly as
the Sunni ulama have done up to the present time.
The revolution in Iran would not
be possible without the prior clearing up, through ijtihad, of a
number of issues peculiar to Shi‘i theology. It is beyond the
scope of this paper to list the issues awaiting ijtihad by Sunni
ulama. Nor is it possible to speculate about what it would take
for an intellectual movement to emerge in the Sunni school
comparable in scope and extent to the usuli movement in the
Shi‘i school. Many in the Sunni school would argue that their
deviation was only an error of judgement that led to compromise
with malukiyyah. Be that as it may, the fact is that the effect
of that compromise on Sunni political thought and behaviour has
been devastating. The result is that most Sunni ulama today
suffer from all the failures of understanding of political
issues that were common among akhbari Shi‘i ulama before the
usuli revolution.
The modern malukiyyah,
represented by the Saudi ‘royal family', and all the other
secular, nationalist regimes that rule over colonial-style
nation-States in Sunni areas, would dearly like the Sunni ulama
to wait for an usuli revolution of their own. This would give
the rulers a comfortable breathing-space of at least two hundred
years; long enough, in their view, for the secular culture and
civilization of their choice to take root and to destroy the
influence of Islam on succeeding generations. The Sunni ulama
must avoid this trap at all costs. There are several good
reasons for not waiting for an usuli revolution in the Sunni
school. There is no reason to believe that every part of the
Ummah has to undergo a similar experience before error and
deviation can be corrected. The Shi‘i ulama of two hundred years
ago did not have the advantage of having seen and experienced an
Islamic Revolution in another part of the Ummah. They had to
generate corrective action from within the Shi‘i school; hence
the usuli commitment to ijtihad. In addition, two hundred years
ago, while the Shi‘i ulama had experienced the total absence of
political power, the Sunni ulama had not yet experienced the
total collapse of what they regarded as the Islamic State. Today
the Sunni school has not only experienced the total absence of
the centralized power of Islam, it has also experienced
prolonged political subservience of all parts of the Ummah to
kufr. The business of terminating the dominance of kufr over
Islam and the Ummah is too urgent to require an intellectual
revolution to precede it. Finally, perhaps one usuli revolution
in any one part of the Ummah is enough for all parts of the
Ummah. This is because the corrective process within Islam, once
started, must lead those engaged in it to common ground in Islam
acceptable to all Muslims. It would not be a corrective process
in Islam if it were to stop at the boundaries of a particular
school of thought.
In the case of Iran we have seen
that, for a long time, ijtihad by usuli ulama only affected
issues most commonly identified with the Shi‘i school. Later the
same process became Islamic rather than Shi‘i. When the Islamic
movement in Iran mounted its assault to bring down malukiyyah,
the final act of establishing the Islamic State had begun. The
final stages of transition from the Islamic movement to the
Islamic State have been called the Islamic Revolution. The
demands of the Islamic movement and the Islamic State are such
that these stages cannot be negotiated successfully by those
adhering to a single school of thought. The act of establishing
the Islamic State is such a liberating experience that all other
boundaries within Islam become irrelevant and insignificant. At
first this realization comes only to the senior leadership,
while the rank and file celebrate the victory of their own
school of thought. The Islamic State, therefore, cannot be a
‘Shi‘i' or a ‘Sunni' State. Either it is an Islamic State or it
is not. To be an Islamic State it must be acceptable as such to
all Muslims; and, to be acceptable to all Muslims, the leader of
the State must rule as the khalifah or na'ib (vicegerent) of the
Prophet, upon whom be peace. That was the point of the fatwa of
Imam Khomeini on January 6, 1988.
With this fatwa, Imam Khomeini
has sent a clear message to the Ummah at large that, whatever
the Shi‘i origins of the long process leading to the Islamic
Revolution, the State that has been established in Iran is
‘Islamic' within the meaning of the term as it is understood by
Muslims of all schools of thought in Islam. This fatwa of the
Imam represents another Revolution within the Shi‘i school. Imam
Khomeini's fatwa also confirmed the view of the Islamic
Revolution that we in the Muslim Institute have held from the
beginning. It was our view in 1980 that the first Islamic State,
established after such a long gap in history, would be a
‘primitive model' of the ideal [9]. And so it has proved. The
corrective process within Islam has continued during the early
years of the new Islamic State. In the next phase one would
expect the Islamic State of Iran to begin to take a broader view
of the historical situation from the point of view of the Ummah
and the global Islamic movement. In the first decade after the
Revolution, the bureaucracy of the Islamic State has remained
largely ‘Iranian' and ‘national' in outlook, and the ulama have
concentrated their attention on cultivating the traditional
Shi‘i connections outside Iran. But the senior leadership,
especially Imam Khomeini and Ayatullah Montazeri, have spoken of
the Ummah, the global Islamic movement and the need for world
Islamic Revolution in ringing terms. This was a constant theme
of Imam Khomeini's speeches and messages. His message, on the
occasion of Hajj 1407, deals with this subject in great detail
and runs to more than 20,000 words. The English text was
published in Kayhan International, August 1, 1987. In the decade
that lies ahead, State policy should increasingly begin to
reflect the vision of the senior leadership.
History has now reached a point
where it is possible to draw a simple diagram to represent it:
For slightly greater detail, the
same diagram may be drawn to show the separate progressions of
the Shi‘i and Sunni schools:
It would be futile, indeed quite
wrong, to attempt to identify actual points of error or degrees
of deviation in the two great schools of thought in Islam. What
is obvious, however, is that in the Shi‘i school the corrective
process began with the usuli revolution and the result is not
only the convergence of thought but also the emergence of the
Islamic State. In the Sunni school there have been numerous
attempts at correction. The most recent of these were by the two
best-known ‘Islamic parties', al-Ikhwan al-Muslimoon and the
Jama‘at-e Islami. Neither represented the kind of usuli
rethinking of fundamental issues achieved by the Shi‘i ulama.
The Ikhwan and the Jama‘at were purely political responses; they
failed to break out of the stranglehold of modern political
thought. The Shi‘i ulama, leading the Muslim Ummah in Iran, have
also established a living, dynamic, versatile, powerful and
muttaqi Islamic State through an Islamic Revolution. The area of
convergence, defined and developed into an Islamic State, is now
acting like a magnet on the political thought and action of all
Muslims. It is now impossible for anyone to think of politics
and political issues in Islam without reference to the Islamic
State of Iran. On the political compass of Islam the needle now
points firmly towards Iran. Every Muslim has to read his
position with respect to the Islamic Revolution. No part of the
Ummah is outside the influence of the Islamic Revolution and the
new Islamic State.
The situation affects Iran as
well as the entire Ummah. Neither Iran nor the Ummah can escape
from this relationship. Its implications are profound and should
be discussed at length. But first we must return to Bahira, the
Christian monk of Basra, and Waraqa, the Makkan Christian.
Because of their knowledge of the Christian scripture, and their
observation of the historical situation, they were expecting a
new prophet. Clearly a long-term commitment to history and
historical trends is a major source of knowledge. The totality
of knowledge available to mankind at any one point in time is a
historical phenomenon. For instance, it would not be possible to
write about error, deviation, correction and convergence without
the advantage of history we now enjoy. Similarly, it was not
possible for Imam Khomeini to give the fatwa of January 6, 1988,
without the accumulation of unacceptable results through nine
years of experience of Islamic government. It is only now
possible for us to postulate that the experience of convergence,
described above, has made it possible for the Ummah to place
itself within two or three decades of the era of the Prophet,
upon whom be peace. The akhbari school in the Shi‘i tradition
did not realize that they were ‘wrong' until the accumulation of
unacceptable results gave rise to the usuli ulama. Once the
usuli ulama had taken over the leadership of the Shi‘i school of
thought, it was also inevitable that they would eventually claim
the Prophet's khilafah and the right to set up an Islamic State
in the absence of the Twelfth Imam. It is now obvious that the
‘correct' or ‘right' position in Islam should always take the
Ummah close to the Prophet and the khulafa al-rashidoon. In
history time is not static; nor is human experience. A
combination of the two, the passage of time and human experience
over time, enriches our knowledge and understanding of Islam and
of history, past and future.
Once a cycle of error,
deviation, correction and convergence has been completed in any
one part of the Ummah, or in any one school of thought in Islam,
the knowledge thus generated should be acceptable to all schools
of thought in Islam and to the entire Ummah. The validity of the
newly expanded base of our knowledge will remain uncertain and
problematic unless it is demonstrated that the historical
sequence from which it is derived is repeatable. Historical
sequences are repeatable over long periods of time. Thus, if the
Islamic Revolution in Iran has not been followed by another
revolution within a decade or two in any other part of the
Ummah, it may not necessarily mean that the first Islamic
Revolution's validity is in doubt. However, if another fifty or
a hundred years pass without evidence of repeatability, then the
validity of the historical sequence achieved in Iran would begin
to lose its wider relevance. Similarly, if the accretion of new
knowledge from the process of correction and convergence remains
confined to the Shi‘i school and does not become relevant to all
schools of thought in Islam, then the process may also lose its
wider relevance. The failure to repeat itself outside Iran, or
failure to attract wider acceptance in the other schools of
thought in Islam, may also suggest that the process of
correction and convergence is in some respects incomplete.
Should this be the case, new evidence of unacceptable results
will accumulate. However, if predictable and desirable results
begin to emerge in other parts of the Ummah, then the validity
of the process of correction and convergence will have been
established.
It is clear that, just as error
and deviation accumulate unacceptable results, so the successful
completion of a process of correction and convergence must be
identifiable with reference to the original historical
experience of Islam. For instance, in the original historical
experience of Islam the Quraish of Makkah repeatedly invaded the
fledgling Islamic State in Madinah. It can even be argued that
the Quraish invaded Madinah to prevent it from becoming
established as an Islamic State, and that this high level of
persistent conflict with a hostile environment helped greatly in
the consolidation of the political and military power of Islam
in Madinah, and subsequently all over the Arab Peninsula. This
would indicate that a high level of persistent conflict with its
external enemies for a long time is an indispensable part of the
experience of the Islamic State. Should the traditional enemies
of Islam fail to react as the Quraish of Makkah did, it can
safely be assumed that no Islamic State is in fact being set up.
This would fit in with our view of the Muslim nation-States that
not only were they not invaded by kufr, but were actively helped
to become established. This failure of the ‘independent'
post-colonial States to provoke the enemies of Islam into
belligerence is clearly because these Muslim nation-States were
in fact created to serve the global purposes of kufr. All
subsequent events were equally predictable. The Arab States'
open complicity with the United States and the Soviet Union in
the invasion of Iran falls into this category of predictable and
desirable events that must follow the establishment of an
Islamic State. We can also predict that the vast military
superiority of kufr and its allies, the munafiqeen, will
eventually be defeated, just as the Quraish were defeated in the
original historical experience of Islam. If Iran had not been
invaded and subjected to a concerted attempt to destabilize it
by the superpowers of kufr and their allies, then we would have
to doubt whether the Revolution and the State there were in fact
‘Islamic'.
Thus history provides us with a
set of rules by which to judge the true nature of historical
events. It is clear that States set up by colonial powers, or
otherwise protected and ‘guaranteed' by the superpowers of kufr,
cannot be ‘Islamic' as well. This also applies to States whose
rulers are attempting to duplicate, imitate or simulate the
European nationalist, democratic, capitalist or communist models
of ‘progress' and ‘development'. Most of these States also
receive economic and military ‘aid' from kafir patrons. All
these States, which at present means all States in the Muslim
areas of the world except Iran, are not only un-Islamic but also
in fact actively opposed to Islam. What this tells us is that
the political map of the Ummah today represents extremes of
error and grossly compounded deviation from the political norms
of Islam. In other words, the political map of the Ummah today
represents the grand total of unacceptable results accumulated
over many hundreds of years of political error and deviation.
Perhaps we should not hesitate to admit further that this grand
total of unacceptable results of history represents the Sunni
school's initial error and its grossly compounded deviation over
nearly 1,400 years. The Sunni school's compromise with
malukiyyah and political corruption represents the greatest
single instance of error and deviation within Islam. Some Sunni
Muslims would argue that the Shi‘i error in effectively
suspending major precepts of Islam concerning State, politics
and leadership in the absence (gha'ibah) of the Twelfth Imam was
a greater error. Perhaps, but the impact of the Shi‘i error on
the Ummah was limited and has proved relatively easy to correct;
the Sunni school's compromise with malukiyyah, and more recently
with western political thought, has played havoc with the
political fortunes of the entire Ummah. This error and its
compounded deviation have led the Ummah to worldwide political
and military defeat. It is the failure of the Sunnis to respond
to history's devastating verdict on their political record that
has made the entire Ummah subservient to kufr. Almost none of
this blame can be put at the door of Shi‘i error and deviation.
Yet, despite this overwhelming evidence of unacceptable results
in all parts of the Ummah, large numbers of Sunni ulama remain
attached to the Saudi malukiyyah even today. Other Sunni groups,
especially those who tried to form political parties, remain
close to nationalist and secular democratic ‘ideals' of the
colonial period.
Be that as it may, it is not
desirable to compare the relative qualities of error and
deviation and their impact. All that is important is what we
have already noted: that the ‘correct' or ‘right' position in
Islam will always be close to the Prophet, upon whom be peace,
and close to the khulafa al-rashidoon. The completed cycle of
error, deviation, correction and convergence has already brought
the Shi‘i school to the ‘correct' or ‘right' position in Islam.
However, for the validity of their achievement the Shi‘i school
must now persuade the Sunni school to accept their results as
desirable and repeatable. For this to happen, a group of ulama,
drawn from both the principal schools of thought in Islam, must
come together. In the Shi‘i school this means that some of the
ulama closest to the Islamic State of Iran, especially those who
were closest to Imam Khomeini, must come forward to explain
their new position to the Sunni ulama. From the Sunni school we
need those ulama who have little or no contact with the current
deviant and corrupt systems. The first step must be the coming
together of a group of Sunni ulama who understand the need to
learn from the Shi‘i experience of correction and convergence.
These Sunni ulama must be those who accept that the Shi‘i
position after the Islamic Revolution in Iran is now
substantially no different from what the classical Sunni
position was before their own error and deviation into
malukiyyah. Such Sunni ulama will help to transfer the new
knowledge and experience developed in the Shi‘i school to all
parts of the Ummah. The great advantage the Shi‘i school now
enjoys is not theological. Indeed, the argument presented here
is entirely non-theological. Its root and source is history, the
movement and direction of history, the impact of history, the
Muslims' response to history, and above all the expectation of
future historical events. This is why we began with Bahira and
Waraqa.
History is a crucible. It is
relentless and impartial in dealing with error and deviation.
History is intolerant of all degrees of perversion of the truth,
however well-meaning and sincere the human motive behind it. All
kinds of religious traditions have fallen into the trap of
exaggerated self-righteousness and absurd claims of having
discovered the whole truth to the exclusion of all others. A
failure to check actual results against the promised and desired
goals leads to the degeneration of behaviour and the erosion of
morality. This in turn leads to a garrison mentality, with
fragmentary groups claiming that the whole truth lies on their
side of the barricade. History is contemptuous of those who
indulge in this type of puerility. With time, history develops a
profile of deviation and half-truths and contrasts it with the
whole truth. History converts mental, spiritual, moral,
political and theological half-truths into hard facts. These
historical facts in time lead to the accumulation of results
that are not only unacceptable, but also ugly and deeply
humiliating.
The crucible of history has
reduced every part of the Ummah to our present condition of
dismemberment and subservience to kufr. The ugly and humiliating
facts that stare us in the face are the nation-States created by
western colonial powers in Muslim areas of the world. Even more
ugly and humiliating is the political, economic and cultural
domination that the western civilization has acquired over the
lands and peoples of Islam. The ugliest of all spectacles is the
corruption of the present rulers and ruling classes in the world
of Islam. Perhaps the deepest cut of all is the inability of
Sunni ulama to challenge the status quo. The correction and
convergence that the Shi‘i ulama of Iran have achieved is still
a partial and incomplete historical movement. History will
respond and deliver the goods only if the sequence of correction
and convergence is repeated in all parts of the Ummah.
Notes
1. Except by such minor
groups as the Bahais of Iran and the Ahmadiyyahs of India and
Pakistan, regarded by all Muslims as kuffar. - (Back to text.)
2. Al-Qur'an 21:92. -
(Back to text.)
3. See The Draft
Prospectus of the Muslim Institute, Slough: The Muslim
Institute, 1974. [This document is also available on the ICIT
webpage on the Muslim Institute.—Ed.] - (Back to text.)
4. Maryam Jameelah has
reached a similar conclusion on Maulana Maudoodi. See her
article in the Islamic Quarterly, London: Journal of the Islamic
Cultural Centre, Vol 31, No 2, Second Quarter, 1987. - (Back to
text.)
5. Hamid Algar, Roots of
the Islamic Revolution, London: The Open Press, 1983. - (Back to
text.)
6. For the Farsi text of
the Imam's fatwa, see Kayhan, January 6, 1988. It was translated
for this author by Mr A. Rafiee. - (Back to text.)
7. Moojan Momen, An
Introduction to Shi‘i Islam, New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1985, pp. 130-145. - (Back to text.)
8. ‘Black boxing' is a
method in scientific inquiry. It means that phenomena that
cannot be explained in terms of a preferred theory or experiment
are set aside in a ‘black box' for later treatment. This allows
theory and experimentation to proceed to the next stage. The
‘black boxed' area is often resolved by subsequent progress in
the discipline. - (Back to text.)
9. Kalim Siddiqui, ‘The
Islamic Revolution: achievements, obstacles and goals' in Kalim
Siddiqui et al, The Islamic Revolution: Achievements, Obstacles
and Goals, London: The Open Press, 1980, p. 14, and Zafar
Bangash (ed): 'In Pursuit of the Power of Islam: major writings
of Kalim Siddiqui', London: The Open Press, p. 127. [This book
is available from the ICIT; see webpage on ICIT
publications.—Ed.] - (Back to text.)
About this paper
Dr Kalim Siddiqui (1931-1996)
was Director of the Muslim Institute, London, and one of the
leading thinkers of the global Islamic movement. His commitment
was to helping generate an ‘intellectual revolution' in Islamic
social and political thought, which could lay the foundations
for a future Islamic civilization and world order.
In this paper, Dr Siddiqui
outlines his understanding of the evolution of Muslim political
thought. He argues that the decline of Islamic civilization was
a historical process, and that Muslims would have to draw
lessons from the process in order to reverse it. 'Error' had set
in when khilafah was converted to malukiyyah, resulting in
'deviation' in Muslims' political understanding and thought, and
a decline in Muslim political fortunes. The correction of these
errors would result, he says, in ideological convergence on a
position close to that of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), and the
resultant re-establishment of Islamic political and social
order.
*****
This paper
was first published in 1989. It was reprinted as an appendix to
Dr Siddiqui's final book, Stages of Islamic Revolution (1996)
and in In Pursuit of the Power of Islam: major writings of Kalim
Siddiqui, edited by Zafar Bangash (1998).
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