Islam and the Foundations of Political Power

"When you look at the perception of Islam today, there is a very strong emphasis on the cliché that there is no separation between religion and the state in Islam, and Islam is essentially different from Christianity in this respect. This perception has been embraced not only by certain conservative Muslims, but also by many Western policymakers and even academics. The concept of the Caliphate, a religio-political leadership that is supposed to unify all Muslim-majority countries, is a core belief for radical terrorist groups like ISIS—who set themselves up to restore it—but there is also a broader acceptance that the Caliphate is crucial in Islam. When ISIS emerged, certain well-known, mainstream Muslim scholars wrote a letter to warn the ISIS leader, Al-Baghdadi, that the Caliphate is obligatory for Muslims, but the way ISIS chose and declared it was wrong. Apparently, there was nothing wrong with ISIS’s basic idea. As a Muslim myself, studying secularism, I really think the secular state is important for democracy so I’m critical of the notion of the Caliphate. I tried to find a major book or analysis of its origins. Interestingly, there are very few writings critical of the idea of the Caliphate. But there are two, one published in 1924, the other in 1925. The 1924 booklet was written by the Minister of Justice of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Turkey, Seyyid Bey. He was himself from the ulema class, so a scholar of Islamic law, tradition and theology. This piece was actually a long speech he gave in the Turkish parliament to convince parliamentarians of the need to abolish the Caliphate. A year later, an Al-Azhar graduate and judge in an Islamic court, Ali Abdel Razek, wrote a book with similar arguments in Arabic. It’s much more academic than Seyyid Bey’s book. I chose Abdul Razek’s treatise as the first book because it’s probably the most interesting engagement with and critical analysis of the idea of the caliphate. Abdel Razek starts by saying that Islam is a religion, not a political ideology. The Prophet Muhammad left a religious message and legacy, not a political one. If he had had political intentions, he would have left a political successor, but he did not. He knew he was dying—he spent over a week on his deathbed during his final illness—but he didn’t nominate one. That’s why Sunnis and Shias kept debating his legacy for centuries. For Abdul Razek, that’s another proof that the Prophet Muhammad didn’t have a political project. Then Abdel Razek looks at the Quran and hadiths and shows that there is nothing politically determined there, no political system. Last but not least, he examines the Ummayad and Abbasid Caliphates. He denies that these showed any religious leadership. He argues that they were political and that their politics was very pragmatic and very violent. For them, raison d’état was paramount. They didn’t primarily care about religious principles as political leaders. Therefore, he argues, the idea of the caliphate is really a secular, man-made thing, a human construction. He says that if you look at the analysis of Ibn Khaldun and others, you’ll see how Muslims, in fact, tended to understand politics as a mundane thing rather than a sacred religious duty. Abdel Razek paid the price for arguing this. The Al-Azhar committee of ulema cancelled his degree and sacked him, leaving him unemployed. On the one hand, there was a very strong secular trend in the Muslim world, starting with the 1923 foundation of the secular Turkish Republic. That more secular form of government was largely embraced by Iran’s Reza Shah around the same time. Then you saw many examples, including General Abdel Nasser’s Egypt, Bourguiba in Tunisia, the Ba’ath regimes in Syria and Iraq, all the way to Sukarno in Indonesia. In all these countries, to different degrees, secular political systems emerged. Yet later, since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, over the past 40 years, we have observed an Islamization process in many Muslim countries, legal and political. Still, if you look at the 50 Muslim-majority countries, only 20 have sharia -based constitutional systems, about 10 have mixed systems, and 20 others have secular constitutions. So, at a practical level, there are constitutions, legal systems, political parties, and activists that build secular systems in the Muslim world. “Islam is a religion, not a political ideology” On the other hand, we don’t have a theory that tries to bring Islam and the secular experience together. For example, John Locke and many other British Enlightenment thinkers tried to breach Christian perspectives with liberal notions. We don’t have that breach in the Muslim world. You either are an Islamic and conservative person, who tries to explain the world through the Quran, the hadiths and in other religious terms. Or you’re a secular person, and secular activists almost totally ignore religion and say that Islam is outdated and there’s no need to waste time on it. So, Abdel Razek, being critical of the Islamic caliphate from a religious point of view, is exceptional. There are few people like him."