Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism (56 page)

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ISLAMIC DEMOCRACY AND PLURALISM

Ahmad S. Moussalli

In this article, I deal with the basic doctrines of government and politics that were developed during the history of classical and medieval Islam. I aim to elaborate and develop those basic principles that are not contradictory to, and include the seeds of, modern liberal democracy and pluralism, though the two civilizations have followed different historical paths. These principles include two sets of notions: first, political contract and consensus, and second, tolerance of differences, pluralism, and opposition.

Here I aim to both highlight, when possible, and construct, when necessary, the important ideological and religious arguments on democracy and pluralism that have been under development in modern Islamic political discourses
.
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Such arguments can be used in the progressive interpretations of Islam
vis-a`-vis
reactionary and conservative interpretation. For from an historical perspective, progressive interpretations of Islam can be supported by finding the means and ways for the democratization and liberalization of Islamic thought.

The article selectively uses the historically developed religious and political formations, especially those of the period of the governments of the Prophet and the Rightly Guided Caliphate. This period is seen as formative and constitutive in the making of Islamic thought because of its distinctive religious and political impact on the minds of almost all Muslims. Most Muslim thinkers, philosophers, jurists, ideologists, and historians employ it to justify one ideology and understanding or another. Because of the importance of that period in validating any Islamic notion or system or, more importantly, in the making of a notion or system Islamic, this study also uses examples from different historical periods. Thus, these periods represent moments of historical practices and interpretations that moved closer to or away from the original

ideals developed from the first model of the Prophet and the Rightly Guided Caliphate.

It is the argument of this article that the notions of democracy and pluralism are not only in harmony with Islamic thought, but that the seeds of these notions are embodied in many notions of government and politics in Islamic political and religious thought. Building upon classical and medieval thought, it shows that classical and medieval philosophy, jurisprudence, and theology are very rich with comparable notions that postulate and protect individual and communal rights, that legitimize political, social, economic, intellectual, and religious differences, and that view the people as the source of ultimate political sovereignty on earth. By linking classical and medieval Islamic thought with current political and religious debates, this article further argues that modern Islamic thought in general, and today’s moderate Islamism in particular, has absorbed and ‘Islamized’ the notions of democracy and pluralism.
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At the religious and ideological level, Islamicly developed doctrines on democracy and pluralism constitute a theology of liberation and an epistemological break with the past. At the political level, they widen the individual, social, political, and philosophical space in the Arab world. At the international level, they provide the Muslim world with common ground with the West. At the cultural level, they serve as a general context and a political language of dialogue between different civilizations, religions, and political orders. Thus, the basic argument of this article is both simple and grand. While the history of the highest Islamic political institution, the caliphate, is mostly a history of authoritarian governments, the economic, social, political, and the intellectual history of Islam abounds with liberal doctrines and institutions. In classical and medieval Islamic political thought, there are older, comparable, and much more universal doctrines of equality, freedom, and justice than those developed by traditional Islamic thought. In modern times, modernist Islamic thinkers and, now, moderate Islamist thinkers are making these doctrines comparable to modern Western notions of democracy, pluralism, and human rights. Equality (
al-musawat
), freedom (
al-hurriyya
), and justice (
al-‘adl
), for example, have long been cardinal Islamic doctrines and have received throughout history different formulations and suffered various abuses. While most political studies derived from Islamic sources have focused their consideration on the rise and fall of Islamic dynasties and states and on the historical developments of “traditional” Islamic law (
Shari‘ah
) in order to draw possible Islamic views on democracy, pluralism, and human rights, they miss the fact that neither the study of dynasties nor the authentication of “traditional”
Shari‘ah
is more formative for Muslims than the ideological developments brought about by opposition movements or reformist attitudes. A “view from the edge,”
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and not only from the traditional centers of power, is necessary in order to comprehend the true nature of the Islamic system of government and the doctrines of democracy, pluralism, and human rights. While Professor Bulliet argues correctly that “[t]he story of Islam has always privileged the view

from the center,”
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I show that such a view is mostly a political construct and, consequently, can be politically deconstructed. I also show that other constructs that were more liberal have been disregarded either under pressures from governments, in favor of political expediency, or in preference for the official discourses of religious and political institutions.

This is why this article attempts to make sharp distinctions between Islam as a divine belief system and the Islamic state as a humanly developed political system. The ability to make such a distinction between the human and the Divine will open unlimited possibilities of interpretation and re-interpretation as well as deconstruction and construction. As a belief system, Islam should be compared with other religions, but not with modern Western states. The rise and fall of Islamic states should be historically compared with the rise and fall of Western states. Thus, specific Islamic laws, like that of apostasy, should first be treated in the context of an Islamic state and must, then, be compared with treason in Western states. This is not to deny that many Islamic states and societies have historically misused what Muslims even consider to be Qur’anic duties – the complete individuality of women, the rights of minorities, and similar issues.

On yet another level, moderate Islamist political thought postulates pluralism and democracy as religious rights and, consequently, views their normative character as categorical. However, modern Islamic understanding of democracy and pluralism depends on the possibility of modern interpretations of the sources of religion and major extensions of the meanings of some basic doctrines. These doctrines include consultation (
shura
), consensus (
ijma‘
), difference (
ikhtilaf
), minorities (
ahl al-dhimma
), enjoining the good and forbidding evil, and similar doctrines. However, one finds that some scholars and thinkers attempt to show that the historical
Shari‘ah
is not capable of coping with doctrines like human rights, pluralism, and democracy.

I do not, then, aim here to provide a defense of or apologia for Islamic political thought, for I recognize the negative aspects of classical, medieval, and modern Islamic political thought. However, I attempt to show that Islamic political thought has initiated and developed throughout the ages doctrines compatible with Western doctrines of human rights, pluralism, and democracy. Their uses or abuses are not only related to intellectual and philosophical understanding but are tightly webbed into various socioeconomic and political contexts. Their proper application today requires not only their intellectual development, which is now being moved at a great speed by, especially, moderate Islamism, but, above all, liberal socioeconomic contexts that are mostly lacking in the Islamic world.

MM OO DD EE RR NN II SS LL AA MM II CC TT HH OO UU GG HH TT

The later period of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century witnessed the birth of two intellectual and political responses to reform

in both the Ottoman Empire and the Qajar Empire. The first response was liberal and secular and called for an epistemological and political break with the Islamic past and a rejection of all forms of Sultanic rule as well as the wholesale adoption of Westernization. Thinkers like ‘Abbas Mahmud al-‘Aqqad, Taha Hussein, Muhammad Husayn Haykal, Lutfi al-Zayyat, and others represented that response. Islamic modernism represented the second response that called for the absorption of Western civilization into the Islamic heritage. Some reformers like Jamal al-Din al-Afghani called for revolutions, others like Rida called for the establishment of the constitutional state, yet others like ‘Abdu believed that the necessary prelude to political reform ought to be the reformation of educational systems and social institutions.
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World War II constituted a turning point in the history of the imperial powers that sought the domination of worldwide markets and cheap raw materials. Oppression emanating from the imperial powers led to nationalist and socialist tendencies that weakened the liberal Islamic response and strengthened the secular but authoritarian response. Egypt, which was under British mandate, might be a good example to use here because of its political and intellectual influence all over the Arab world. During that period, Egyptians were focusing on liberating their country from British colonialism, and advocated democracy, both secular and religious. However, the rise of Arab nationalism under Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasir brought about secular and socialist authoritarian nationalism. The secular response was adopted but democracy was rejected.
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And while ‘Abd al-Nasir accepted Islam as one of the three circles of Egyptian foreign policy, in reality Islam did not amount to more than rhetoric. In this fashion, both the secular democratic response and the modernist Islamic response were aborted.

In recent decades, numerous movements that call for the return to the fundamentals of religion have flourished throughout the Muslim world. They have pushed for and developed a new Islamic response. Leaders of such movements believe that a modern development of Islamic spirituality, morality, and politics will definitely condemn moral corruption, glorify idealism, and lead to true representative governments. Such a development will mobilize Muslims to establish a modern Islamic civilization that re-constructs Muslim identity and consolidates Islamic power.

In modern times, the Wahhabiyya was founded by Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, whose call (
da‘wa
) was said to be based on the comprehensive and eternal nature of Islam.
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The movement rhetorically called on believers to refer back to the fundamentals (
usul
): the Qur’an and the
Sunnah
of the Prophet. The Wahhabiyya has been a modern interpretation of Salafi Islam as interpreted by eminent scholars like Ibn Hanbal, Ibn Taymiyya, and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. Following the well-known medieval thinker Ibn Taymiyya, it has called for the purification of Islam by a return to the fundamentals of religion, i.e. the Qur’an and the
Sunnah
. It followed a strict line of thinking in its attempts to reconstruct

society and government on the basis of divine Oneness (
tawhid
) and the doctrine of good ancestors (
al-salaf al-salih
). However, one trait shared by the Wahhabis and their intellectual ancestors is their reluctance to engage in philosophical argumentation, in literalist adherence to select texts. The Wahhabis focused more on the legal and ethical aspects of Islam, leaving political matters to politicians and traditional elites. Other important movements in modern times are al-Sanusiyya and al-Mahdiyya, which started basically as Sufi orders, but were later transformed into political movements that struggled against Western intervention in Libya and the Sudan, respectively. The two movements were puritan, aiming at the restoration of genuine Islam through political activities. Again, similar fundamentals were entertained as the road to the Islamic community’s salvation.

At a higher and more substantive level, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani has had a massive intellectual and political influence in drawing the modern political agenda that is still more or less the backbone of intellectual and political reform. He was ready to think over and adopt into Islamic thought any new intellectual, political, or scientific knowledge that might trigger the progress of the Islamic nation. On the political level, he was ready to adopt those institutions and systems that could serve the Islamic world and save it from its crises. His follower and, later, colleague Muhammad ‘Abdu and Rashid Rida, the inspirer of Hasan al-Banna, adopted different aspects of al-Afghani’s intellectual and political thought. While ‘Abdu tended more towards the modernist European aspect of al-Afghani’s intellectual thought, Rida picked up the necessity of returning to the fundamentals of religion. Rida wanted to induce an intellectual revival and to develop new Islamic institutions for the establishment of an Islamic state, thus facilitating the renaissance of the
umma
and guaranteeing the ethical foundations of society.

Very much along Hasan al-Banna’s line of thinking, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, also greatly affected by Rida and al-Afghani, centered its thought and actions on the political aspect of Islam to promote a modern renaissance. Thus, the Muslim Brotherhood urgently advocated the importance of establishing an Islamic state as the first step for implementing the
Shari‘ah
. While focusing its intellectual re-interpretation on returning to Islamic fundamentals, the Brotherhood selectively filtered into modern Islamic thought a few major Western political doctrines like constitutional rule and democracy. These doctrines are seen as necessary tools for modernizing the Islamic concept of state. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood’s antagonistic dealings with the Egyptian government led some of its members to splinter under the leadership of Sayyid Qutb. Qutb continued to uphold the need for establishing an Islamic state and rejecting any dealing or intellectual openness with the West. For him, the Islamic state is not a tool but a fundamental principle of creed. It signals the community’s submission to God on the basis of the
Shari‘ah
and represents political and ideological obedience to God. Without