Islam and Political Legitimacy

Shahram Akbarzadeh, Abdullah Saeed, Shahram Akbarzadeh, Abdullah Saeed

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN: 9780415314282
• eBook ISBN: 9781134380558
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

Akbarzadeh and Saeed explore one of the most challenging issues facing the Muslim world: the Islamisation of political power. They present a comparative analysis of Muslim societies in West, South, Central and South East Asia and highlight the immediacy of the challenge for the political leadership in those societies. Islam and Political Legitimacy contends that the growing reliance on Islamic symbolism across the Muslim world, even in states that have had a strained relationship with Islam, has contributed to the evolution of Islam as a social and cultural factor to an entrenched political force. The geographic breadth of this book offers readers a nuanced appraisal of political Islam that transcends parochial eccentricities. Contributors to this volume examine the evolving relationship between Islam and political power in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan.Researchers and students of political Islam and radicalism in the Muslim world will find Islam and Political Legitimacy of special interest. This is a welcome addition to the rich literature on the politics of the contemporary Muslim world.

1 Islam and politics

Shahram Akbarzadeh and Abdullah Saeed

The September 11 attacks by al-Qaeda struck at the heart of the United States and brought Islamic radicalism to the international spotlight. The subsequent moblisation of public opinion and security forces in the United States and its allies in the ‘war on terror’ have ensured Islamic radicalism prominence on the security and foreign policy agenda. The apparent shift in the strategic thinking of the United States suggests that meeting the threat posed by Islamic militancy is no longer a secondary consideration but a top priority. However, for many Muslim states this is not a qualitatively new challenge. They have faced an ever-growing Islamic opposition in the past decades. Islamic militancy has led to regime change in Iran (1979), the assassination of the Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat (1981), a wave of political violence and assassinations in Algeria, Taliban successes in Afghanistan (1996), the ongoing Kashmiri Islamic mobilisation and guerilla war that has impacted on the domestic politics of Pakistan and challenged India, on-going separatist pressures in Aceh and inter-communal violence in Indonesia (2000–1).

Muslim states, therefore, are not surprised by the political potency of the militant Islamic threat, although the sheer magnitude of the September 11 attacks was shockingly unprecedented. They have borne the brunt of this growing tide of radicalism and agitation and have been the primary targets of the Islamic revolutionary zeal. This challenge and the altered political conditions have forced state leaders to re-evaluate their image and symbols of power. In recognition of its emotive and familiar message, Islam has been systematically incorporated in the (explicit or implicit) frame of reference of the state to offset the increasingly plausible challenge to the legitimacy of the political leadership. This dynamic of challenge and response has made politics in many Muslim societies a volatile, sometimes violent, affair, the boundaries of which are not predetermined or confined to institutions. Symbols and informal aspects of politics serve an important role in advancing or detracting from the legitimacy of the political elite, a feature that has not escaped the attention of the latter. Except in the case of Iran and Saudi Arabia, where institutional Islamisation is the norm, the leadership in other Muslim states have moved in earnest to claim Islamic symbolism, while endeavouring to contain the over-flow effects into institutional politics. It is this dynamism that engages the authors in this volume.

The challenge of political Islam (i.e. presenting Islam as the guiding principle, even the blueprint, for government, which may also be called Islamism) to secular modes of government and the legitimacy of ‘irreligious’ rule is essentially a new and modern phenomenon, although it is presented by its exponents as a continuation of a long tradition in Islamic political thought. This challenge, which is somewhat pejoratively called fundamentalism, traces its ideological roots to early Hadith against ‘quietism’. The challenge rests on the assumption that Islam and politics are inseparable, pointing to the early history of Islam when Prophet Muhammad acted as ruler and spiritual leader in Medina and the subsequent four Caliphs (khulafa rashidun) whose religious and political roles were entwined. This assumption is then incorporated in the political philosophy of just and Islamic government which provides an ideological framework for political activism. Accordingly political power is only just and legitimate if it operates on Divine Law (shari‘a) and serves the cause of Islam. This is because temporal rule is not seen as possessing its own source of authority, independent of the Divine Law. Any attempt to rule independent of the shari‘a is, therefore, considered illegitimate.

Ann K.S. Lambton identifies two prophetic sayings as the ideological justifications for Islamic activism: ‘there is no (duty of) obedience in sin’ and ‘do not obey a creature against his creator’.¹ These sayings helped provide the theological justification for the Shi‘a and Khawarij rebellions in the first Islamic century. But this activist interpretation of Islam soon gave way to a more complacent and pragmatic version, whereby Muslim jurists offered their allegiance to temporal rulers and decreed obedience as a Qur’anic obligation: ‘obey God, obey the prophet and those in authority among you’.² This injunction and a realistic apprehension about the prospects of social discord provided the justification for a large body of jurisprudence literature recommending obedience to those in authority, even if they appear sinful. Al-Mawardi, writing about appropriate relations between Muslims and Seljuq rulers (whose adherence to Islam was seen as questionable) in the mid-eleventh century, proclaimed:

Listen to them and obey them in everything that is comfortable to the truth. If they are good, it will be to your benefit and theirs, and if they do evil it will be to your benefit but harmful to them.³

Al-Mawardi’s views came to be highly influential in Islamic political thought. Al-Ghazali, writing a half-century later, expounded on al-Mawardi’s theme, declaring that ‘necessity makes lawful what is forbidden’. The search for the ‘unattainable’ perfect Islamic model, al-Ghazali implied, took Muslims beyond the realm of possibilities and promised conflict and social mayhem. Al-Ghazali understood the limits of politics as the ‘art of the possible’ and was clearly apprehensive of the grave dangers in striving for unrealistic goals. In an observation that is remarkably relevant to Islamic militants striving to depose what they consider to be un-Islamic governments in modern times, he continued:

... which is to be preferred, anarchy and the stoppage of social life for lack of properly constituted authority, or acknowledgement of the existing power, whatever it be? Of these two alternatives, the jurist cannot but choose the latter.⁴

Faced with the advancing Mongol armies Ibn Taymiyya gave voice to this tradition:

It is obvious that the [affairs of the] people cannot be in a sound state except with rulers, and even if somebody from among unjust kings becomes ruler, this would be better than there being none. As it is said: ‘Sixty years with an unjust ruler are better than one night without a ruler’. And it is related of [the fourth Caliph] Ali, May God Be Satisfied with Him, to have said that: ‘The people have no option but to have a rulership [imara], whether pious or sinful’. People asked him: ‘We understand the pious, but why bother for the sinful?’ He said: ‘[Because,] thanks to it, highways are kept secure, canonical penalties are applied, holy war is fought against the enemy, and spoils are collected’.⁵

This judgment formed the core of Islamic political thought well into the twentieth century, when the more radical interpretations of Islam became salient. Dubbed ‘quietism’ by its critics, this perspective carried an important caveat: obedience is justified, indeed required of Muslims, if the ruler does not actively work against Islam. In other words, so long as the ruler protected life and limb of the Muslims and allowed their practice of Islam, there was no cause to question the legitimacy of his rule, even if the ruler was not personally regarded as a devout Muslim or versed in the shari‘a. This caveat was effectively met by all rulers until the dawn of secularism in the Muslim world in the twentieth century.

The de facto separation of temporal and religious leadership which began to emerge in the early Abbasid period (750 AD onwards) and formalised under subsequent caliphs, was a reflection of the duality of din and dawla (religion and government). But this effective separation was by no means absolute. On the contrary the temporal ruler and the ulema were in a mutually dependent relationship, whereby each relied on the other, one for its physical protection and the other for its authority to rule. Temporal rulers needed the air of legitimacy that Islamic scholars could offer by virtue of their position as interpreters of Divine Law and the latter needed the physical protection and social order in which Islam could flourish that the former was capable of securing. Din and dawla were not the same, but two sides of the same coin.

The advent of secularism in the Muslim world and the push to divorce Islam from politics put enormous strain on the dialectical relationship that had sustained Muslim polities. The European experience of secular rule was regarded as a model by state-builders in the twentieth century, who tried to emulate Europe by relegating Islam to the private domain. Atatürk in Turkey and Reza Shah in Iran were the most systematic and vehement supporters of the Islam/state separation. The new states no longer sought formal legitimacy in Islam but looked for other sources of authority. Socialism, nationalism and paternalism were seen as alternatives to Islam, although none seemed comprehensive and broad enough to replace Islam’s all-encompassing and pervasive nature. For that reason the political elite, even the most ardent exponents of secularism, have found it often difficult to purge Islam and its symbols of authority from the state.

Moves to decouple din and dawla have caused a significant crisis of authority in the Muslim world in the twentieth century. The revolutionary interpretation of Islam in modern times, espoused by political Islam, is a response to a model of development that excludes indigenous traditions and large segments of the population, now called citizens in the parlance of modern statehood. But such radicalism is not content with the restoration of din and dawla inter-dependent duality. It seeks their unity, idealised in the model of the Muhammadan Medina.

Three developments have contributed to the potency and popularity of Islamic militancy: military defeat in the hands of Israel, inroads by western cultural values, and the failure of the welfare state model. The creation of the state of Israel despite fierce Arab opposition and the consequent Arab–Israeli wars which delivered defeat after defeat to Arab armies were stark reminders of the chronic weakness of Arab states. The plight of the Palestinians, taken-up in a number of international fora, and the inability of Arab leaders to turn international sympathy into a concrete plan of action to force an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian lands helped radicalise sections of those societies. The cause of Palestinian statehood and control over Jerusalem galvanised Muslim masses, a factor that has gained additional weight since the 1987 Palestinian intifada. The sense of indignation and disillusionment with the political elite is not confined to Arab societies. All Muslim societies are hurting, even as far as Indonesia and Malaysia where the Muslim student movements have aligned themselves with the Palestinian cause.

Coupled with this sense of powerlessness against Israel and its international backer (the United States) and indignation with the political elite for their inability or unwillingness to pursue the Palestinian cause, was deep resentment at the way Muslim societies were at the receiving end of a cultural onslaught. Indigenous cultures seemed to be ‘contaminated’ and undermined by Western-originated values of individualism, excessive consumerism and permissiveness. The adoption of Western dress for women, dancing and watching Hollywood movies came to epitomise the pervasive nature of Western culture in Muslim societies. That cinemas and nightclubs, as well as banks and official buildings, are often targeted in urban riots attest to their ‘alien’ image for many Muslims. As in the case of military defeats, the political elite is held responsible for its inability to hold back, or complacency in, this cultural encroachment.

This backlash against the political elite has occurred against the backdrop of state failure to deliver development and prosperity. The promise of social development and wealth were central to the underlying logic of modern territorial states in the Muslim world. The opening of universities and polytechnics were presented as an important step in promoting social mobility. But Muslim states have, by and large, failed to deliver the promised development package for a combination of reasons, among them lack of long-term planning, corruption in the form of patronage, disproportionate investment in security forces, and a population explosion. The development model of the welfare state caused a profound social revolution. It uprooted peasants who flooded urban centres in search of work, leading to the spread of shanty-towns in the periphery of urban areas. It produced an ever-growing body of aspiring university graduates who found the job market too rigid and inflexible to cope with their employment needs. In an ironic twist, advances in the health system contributed to a population explosion that exerted extra pressure on the limited resources of the state. Muslim states were unable to meet the expectations they had fostered. As in many other third world societies, such unfulfilled expectations are a source of grave social strife.

The combination of the above three factors helped alienate Muslim societies from their political elite. The response of political Islam to this pervading sense of alienation and powerlessness has been to blame state leaders for decades of corruption and imitation of the West (dubbed Westoxification). Muslim societies have lost their direction, argued Islamists, and the only way to restore the self-respect of the Muslims was to return to the essential principles of Islam as expounded in the shari‘a. This meant rejecting laws, made by temporal leaders, and the institutions they foster, as illegitimate – insisting on the supremacy of the revealed ‘word of God’. Political Islam presents an unambiguous challenge to the political elite and its temporal source of authority.

The message of political Islam had particular appeal to aspiring members of the middle class. University students, merchants and professionals were especially drawn to the ideals of purity and social justice.⁶ Some of the most vocal and authoritative exponents of political Islam have been trained in modern/secular institutions. Hasan al-Banna (1906–49) and Sayyid Qutb (1906–66) who acted as leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood were both trained as ‘teachers in modern subjects’.⁷ Mawlana Abul Ala Mawdudi (1903–79) who founded the Jamaat-i Islami and helped define the qualities of an Islamic state in South Asia was a journalist by profession. In that respect the resurgent Islamic radicalism is a modern phenomenon.

Political Islam is far removed from traditional Islam; it is not concerned with describing and sanctioning social realities, the way traditional Islam is resigned to the social and political status quo, but searches for ways to change the conditions which it deems unjust and illegitimate. This approach sets the radical vision of political Islam on a collision course with the established Islamic institutions which often act as a bastion of conservatism, justifying the status quo and rejecting political activism. The ulema’s attitude to power is generally defined by the dictum of ‘any order is better than no order’, even if the ruler does not abide by the principles of Islam. Even Ayatollah Khomeini (d. 1989), the late leader of the Islamic revolution in Iran and perhaps the most influential practitioner of political Islam, adhered to this doctrine before the experience of exile radicalised his views. This overriding concern with social order, as opposed to social justice, has informed relations between the ulema and political power and has led them to dismiss Islamic militants as misguided and at best ‘deficient in their knowledge of Islam’.⁸ In a classic response to the challenge posed by Islamic activism, Mufti Abdurashid qori Bahromov of Uzbekistan rejected the politicisation of Islam as un-Islamic and linked the spread of Islamic radicalism to the absence of religious education, promising to ‘fight illiteracy with enlightenment’.⁹ This is of course a double-edged sword. On the one hand broader public education in Islam is designed to promote the ‘true’ and ‘authentic’ version of Islam which justifies the status quo and is resigned to the existing order. On the other, such religious training would inevitably make Muslims more familiar with classical Islamic teachings and text, and would consequently expose them to the scriptural and puritan interpretations of Islam that have mobilised many activists.

The political elite’s response to this dilemma in Muslim societies has followed the same pattern: allow some religious freedom and education for Islam but control its content as tightly as possible. In Egypt Anwar al-Sadat sensed the growth of a backlash to his rule and tried to appease his Islamic critics by wrapping key government policies in an Islamic cloak. He even oversaw the 1980 constitutional amendment which made Islam the ‘religion of the state’ and shari‘a the ‘main source of legislation’. In Pakistan, a state which emerged as a fulfi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Islam and politics
• 2 The official ulema and religious legitimacy of the modern nation state
• 3 Saudi Arabia: re-reading politics and religion in the wake of September 11
• 4 The politics of reform in the Islamic Republic of Iran
• 5 Pakistan and the struggle for 'real' Islam
• 6 The Islamic dilemma in Uzbekistan
• 7 Failure of the 'welfare state': Islamic resurgence and political legitimacy in Bangladesh
• 8 Islam and political legitimacy in Malaysia
• 9 Divided majority: limits of Indonesian political Islam
• 10 State legitimacy
• Bibliography
• Index