The Quran promises that God is with those who do beautiful things. Keeping in my mind this promise, this book is an attempt to bring Ihsan—doing beautiful deeds—into politics. In an age when the role of Islam in politics is maligned by the egregiously violent and cruel actions of terrorist groups like Daesh (the Islamic State) and Al-Qaeda and the authoritarianism of many so-called Islamic states that seek to legitimize their politics by claiming that they are driven by Islamic Shariah (divine laws), a book that seeks to reclaim the beautiful in Islamic teachings and Islamic governance is absolutely necessary. While I cannot predict if this book will have any impact on politics in the Muslim world and the political ideologies of Islamic groups, I am confident that it will at least articulate an alternate vision and understanding of the role of Islam in politics that can be inspirational, enlightening and even desirable.
This book deconstructs centuries of Islamic political-philosophical narrative that has eventually led to the idea of the modern Islamic state or Islamic Caliphate as the only legitimate form of Islamic governance. It also challenges the predominantly Islamist notion that the implementation of Shariah —Islamic law—is both the source of legitimacy and the purpose of an Islamic state. This book shows that there are diverse approaches to not only Islamic politics, such as realism, legalism and mysticism, but also those that include the highest form of idealism as understood in the cosmology of Ihsan and the worldview of Al-Tasawwuf , the science of Islamic mysticism. In doing so, this book seeks to channel and guide the fervor for Islam and Islam-based politics that is so prevalent in Muslim societies today onto the high road for a politics of aesthetics that will nurture compassion, mercy and love in societies rather than those that seek to forcibly implement divine laws in pursuit of divine justice which often devolve into harshness, intolerance, compulsion and violence.
This book deconstructs both the moderate discourse of political Islam and the radical discourse of Jihadism by delving into the depths of Islamic mystical thought, the Quran and hadith traditions and even the works of mystics like Sheikh Saa’di. By articulating a vision of a beautiful (love-based society) and a state of Ihsan, this book seeks to move away from the now failed vision of Islamic states without demanding radical secularization at the structural level or abandonment of faith at the level of agency. No single book of human authorship can be a blueprint for any state or a society. What a book can aspire to do is to invite, instigate and perhaps even inspire a conversation on a new way of thinking and doing politics. In that spirit and recognizing the limits of any discursive enterprise, this book encourages Muslims to engage in a conversation about thinking, realizing and working toward an Ihsan (beauty and goodness) based politics.
The Philosophical and Theological Foundation
Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) teaches Muslims in a seminal tradition, that God has ordained Ihsan (doing beautiful deeds) in all spheres of life and so this book asks why not in politics? How would divinely inspired beautiful politics look? This book seeks to answer that question. This book dares to envision a politics based on a concern for the interests of others rather than just self-interest. For over 1400 hundreds since the beginning of Islam, Muslim scholars have written extensively about concepts of Islam including Ihsan but not much about the role of Ihsan in politics or in governance. Some scholars in recent years have thought of Sufi approaches to politics as an antidote to radicalism but not about Ihsan as a foundation for this philosophical and ethical departure.1 There are a few pamphlets published by some contemporary traditional scholars who merely rehash what has already been written about Ihsan by prominent scholars like Al-Ghazali, Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Arabi, but their scope and intent are very limited. A lot of ink has been spent on understanding Ihsan but only in the context of personal manners and interpersonal relations or with regard to dedication in ritual prayers and in mystical practices. None of the books about Ihsan have ventured into politics. This will be a first and hopefully a major contribution to Islamic thought and political philosophy based on Ihsan.
According to a famous tradition, when Angel Gabriel asked Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), “What is Ihsan?,” the Prophet responded, “To Worship Allah as if you see him, if you can’t see Him, Surely He sees you.” The concept of Ihsan though defined so simplistically is loaded with theological and mystical implications. It means perfection, goodness, to better, to do beautiful things and to do righteous deeds. Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) answer seems simple, but it has had a profound impact on how Islam as a civilization has evolved over time and how Muslims have understood the divine purpose of creation. Those who pursued Ihsan as seeking to see God, they over time developed the Islamic mystical tradition of Sufism. Tasawwuf as it is understood in Islamic theology means literally to purify or perfect. It is essentially the science of Islamic mysticism and this beautiful tradition unfolded literally as an exegesis of the above tradition understood in the light of Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) night journey to heaven (the Meraj ), when according to Sufi beliefs Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) saw God, and Prophet Moses’ beautiful prayer in the desert, “Oh my Lord, show thyself, so that I may gaze upon you” (Quran 7:143). This desire to see God has put Muhabba or love of God as the central concept of Sufi Islam.
On the other hand, Islamic orthodoxy developed by placing emphasis on the second part of the answer, “Surely He sees you” and rather than love, Taqwa or fear of a watching, judging God became the central focus of Muslim understanding of God and their faith. Since God is watching us, we must live up to his expectations and his expectations are articulated in the Shariah and therefore law rather than love became the purpose of life and society. The most conservative version of this approach to Islam is the contemporary Salafi understanding, characterized more by harshness unlike the Sufi movements, which seek to emphasize kindness.
This book, Islam and Good Governance, seeks to develop a political philosophy based on Ihsan that emphasizes love over law, process (Islamic governance) over structure (Islamic state) and self-annihilation (Fanaa) over identity or self-assertion. Many Muslims nearly everywhere are determined that Islam should play a role in the public sphere. I hope to advance a vision of Islam that will emphasize virtue over identity and ethics over politics and make Islam a force for the good in the global society.
The demand for Islamization is persistent and global. It definitely varies in intensity and nature in its manifestations, but it is safe to acknowledge that in every place where Muslims constitute a reasonably sized community, a section of the said community seeks a more prominent role for Islam. Some demand the incorporation of Islam in the sociopolitical structures of their societies, while others may desire Islam to play the role of a collective identity.2 Moreover Islam, as understood and articulated by contemporary orthodoxies, may be incompatible with some of the key ingredients of the contemporary global order, values and institutions—secularism, the nation-state system, legal equality across religious communities, gender equality, to name a few. Islam’s role in the global society will remain contentious and unsettled until either the global society becomes subservient to Islam as desired by some radical Muslim groups or the vision of Islam advanced by Muslims is so transformative that it renders Islam both compatible with the irreversible realities of history and becomes one of the many ethical traditions in the multi-paradigmatic ethos of global values.3
In Islam and Good Governance, I propose to revisit Islam’s most fundamental sources and scriptures to rearticulate a vision of Islam that is at once authentic and transformative. I hope to articulate an understanding of Islam which is based on the Quran and the hadith tradition that will emphasize Islamic idealism and privilege it over Muslim realism. In my research, I have discovered that Muslims by pressing Islam in the ser...