Religion and Theology

Modernity, which some date from the French Revolution and from the revolutionary war in North America, put reason not religion at the center. Both revolutions resulted in political systems that separated religion from the state. Both saw government as belonging to the people, to citizens who have the right to rule themselves. Freedom of belief, speech and thought were asserted as rights. Democracy, especially secular, liberal democracy, is often regarded as a by-product of modernity.

Much has been written about Islams response to modernity, often assuming that modernity presents challenges to how Muslims organize society and understand the relationship between religion and the state. The role of reason and the scientific method, central to Western modernity, are said to challenge Islamic ideals. In Western democracies, exercise of individual rights sees people opting for life-styles and choices that traditional Muslim societies regard as immoral. Authority and knowledge in liberal democracies are not fixed in ancient religious texts but subject to progress. Some argue that Islam is inherently anti-democratic. Since religion and the state cannot be separated, religious authority takes precedence over what any individual or even what the majority of people think. Some Muslims argue, however, that Islam does not have to be allied to the state, that Muslim life can flourish under secular democratic systems. Islam, they say, is a religion (din) not a political system (dunya). The religious and political views of Islam compete for influence across the Muslim world, impacting how states are governed. What follows utilizes mainly Muslim voices on these rival options. Political Islam (Islamism) is depicted as a modern construct, one that does not represent Islam of the seventh century, while religious Islam is closer to what was originally intended.

Historical Background
Analysts suggest that two options face the contemporary Muslim world. Supporters of the first, religious Islam, regard Islam as an ethic (adab) and a religious faith, not as a comprehensive legal and political system. Supporters of the second option, political Islam, see Islam as a total way of life embracing politics and law as well as spirituality and devotional acts.  This, they claim, was the Islam of Muhammads time, of the early caliphs and is still the ideal for Muslims today. Compromises made by Muslim rulers, who sidelined Islam for their own purposes but mainly, in much of the Muslim world, colonial intervention, dismantled Muslim institutions, replacing them with Western style laws and systems. Colonialism is widely held responsible for what Wilfred Cantwell Smith, in a pioneer book about Islams encounter with modernity, described as the fundamental malaise of modern Islam. Faced by this malaise Muslims asked how could they rehabilitate their history, set it going in full vigor, so that Muslim society may once again flourish as a divinely guided society should and must Even the Muslim worlds division into separate, independent nation states was seen as a Western imposition. Hassan al-Turabi, the Sudanese politician, argues, The phrase Islamic state is a misnomer  Islam does not stop at any border.

Political Islam v Religious Islam Muslim Voices
Turkey, a secular state founded in 1922, may be identified as an example of a context where religious Islam dominates. Political Islam, also referred to as Islamism and as fundamentalist Islam, dates from at least 1928, when the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt. It can also be identified with the founders of the Saudi state, for whom religion and politics were intimately related. Tibi, a German citizen originally from Syria, represents a strong voice for religious Islam. His The Challenge of Fundamentalism political Islam and the New World Disorder (1988) was partly a response to Samuel P Huntingtons The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996). The book critiques the phenomena, claims, goals and practices of Islamists throughout the Muslim world. Huntington suggested that, in the new world order after the Cold War, rivalry between civilizations rather than ideologies might create conflict. A clash between the Western and Muslim worlds was highly likely. Muslims, said Huntington, are prone to violence. Cultural differences between the Western and Muslim spheres and the latters perception that the former plan to subjugate them will lead to conflict.

Tibi agrees that a clash between the non-Muslim and Muslim worlds is possible. In his view political Islam creates disorder but he argues that Islam as a religion is definitely not a threat.  Behind the possibility of a clash lies the fact that the West and Islamists both want hegemony and that Islam may be the only challenge to Western dominance.  Tibi sets out to undermine the legitimacy of the Islamists claim to represent real, traditional, authentic Islam. He regards political Islam as a construct, an a-historical abstraction invented in the modern period (the twentieth century) to serve the interests of those who demand what they call the unity of din (religion) with dunya (state), hence the expression din wa dawla, unity of religion and state. While this is a cardinal principle of fundamentalist or political Islam it is, he says, is a fiction. He points out that such phrases as din wa dawla and nizam Islami (or Nizam siyasipolitical system) do not exist in the Quran or Sunnah (saying of the Prophet). Zakarias The Struggle within Islam The conflict between religion and politics  (1988) offers a similar argument. He served in Indias parliament and was a vice-chair of the Indian National Congress. When Islam has been (as it often was) effectively divorced from politics it did not suffer as a religion but flourished. Fatima Mernissi, a Muslim feminist and activist in her native Morocco, also rejects the fundamentalists claim that an Islam separate from the state would decline. Under a secular system, Islam would not only survive but thrive.  Mernissi agrees with Tibi that political Islam is a construct. Claiming to revive original or pure Islam of the seventh century, Islamists deny the reality of Islamic history. Support also comes from Iranian scholar Abdulkarim Soroush, who points out that no majority Muslim secular country would ever become irreligious, so Muslims should not fear a secular system. Rather, If a society is religious, its government too will take a religious hue.

Advocates of political Islam have no interest in history because, if the earliest Muslim community under Muhammad was perfect, history has no lessons to teach. Thus, Islams essential timelessness leaves no room for historical investigation.  Tibi points out similarity between Islam as depicted by Western Orientalists as unchanging and singular and the ideals of political Islam, giving us homo islamicus, the same everywhere and at all times. In this view, Islam is incapable of change or reform because it is already perfect, the same everywhere and always.

Tibi challenges the idea that Islam exists as a comprehensive social, legal and political system, regarding this claim as a mobilization of religion for political ends. The typical Islamist is a homo politicus not a homo religiosus. This turns what was intended as ethical guidance and spiritual nourishment into a political-legal system. Central to the Islamist agenda is the demand to impose Shariah law. In their view, any Muslim state that does not impose Shariah is illegitimate, while any state that does impose Shariah becomes, by definition, a bone fide Islamic state. Issues related to how such a state would be governed, says Tibi, are subverted by the insistence that all answers to every problem will be solved once Shariah is established. Yet, says Tibi, there really is no such ready-made body of law. Those who demand its imposition would find, should they seize power no coherent legal system at hand that they can apply to situations, conditions and events overnight  as events will demand.  As traditionally understood, Shariah rested not with the state  but rather with religious societal communities.

Throughout his book, Tibi insists that Islamists mistake human interpretation of the Quran for Gods eternal word. Only the second can claim infallibility. Similarly, Soroush says that even though scripture may be infallible, how we read and understand it is fallible, open to different interpretations. Tibi says that a states constitution can be based on Islamic principles as long as this is understood as a human construct.  He argues that the combination of religion and state under Muhammad was a response to circumstances, that unity of religion and politics is not a constitutive part of Islamic beliefs.  This argument is not new. Ali Abd al-Raxiq 1888-1966) an Egyptian religious judge, argued that Muhammads combination of political and religious leadership was circumstantial, not prescriptive Islam he argued does not specify any particular form of government, thus allowing Muslims to create democratic states  Tibi says that he and other advocates of a secular state are denounced as infidels. One reason for this is the widespread belief, across the Muslim world, that secular nationalism is anti-religious. He traces this idea to the fact that many early advocates of secularism in the Muslim world in the early twentieth century were perceived to be irreligious. Trying to impose secularism from the top they were accused of wanting to put Islam aside. Tibi responds by arguing that the secular does not have to be profane, that in any democratic society with a Muslim majority, Islamic ethics and principles would inevitably and properly inform legislation. Islamists denounce secular nationalism as a Western ploy to destroy Islam by promoting a political ideology that stresses a national rather than Islamic identity. The Arabic word coined to describe secular puts people off because unlike the word ummah (nation), which has a distinctly religious connotation, qawmiyya denotes tribalism so is easily presented as anti-Islamic. Islam is ideally trans-tribal. Others dismiss the nation state as a Western imposition after World War I or the end of colonial rule, arguing that a single, trans-national Islamic caliphate must be revived. This is certainly the aim of some extreme Islamist groups, including Al-Qaeda. Secularism has suffered from the fact that many post-colonial states were corrupt, with little genuine democracy.  Western support for these states tainted Western democracy as well as secularism. Until 1991, some looked to the Soviets for help. Others claimed Islamic solutions, not capitalist or communist, must be applied. Sayyid Qutb, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, denounced Western democracies as bankrupt. They were, he said, actually ruled by elites and special interests, not by those who vote. Democracy, he argued, was incompatible with Islam because God is the lawmaker, not people.  On the other hand, some Islamists do participate in elections, arguing that the ruler and his advisory council should be elected. The Qurans reference to shura (consultation) is cited to support some form of popular participation in government (Q3 159 42 38). However, only pious Muslims would be allowed to stand. This is sometimes called Islamic democracy. Critics express concern about the rights of minorities and of women under such systems, if established.

Religious v Political Islam across the Muslim world
In many Muslim countries, supporters of religious Islam vie with supporters of political Islam for influence and power. What evolved in Turkey suggests that a Muslim society that is secular does not become irreligious. Committed to secularism, religion was banned from the public square until 1950, when multi-party politics began. Parties were then also allowed to adopt an Islamic identity. Over time, more people voted for the main Islamic party, which is currently in government. It does not aim to introduce Islamic law or to change the secular nature of the state but Islamic values informs policy and legislation. Islamists would impose their version of Shariah as a supposedly fixed, complete code of divine law. Any elected bodys task would be to interpret and apply the Shariah, not to legislate. In this view, God makes law, not people. As in Iran, only those considered pious and skilled at fiqh (jurisprudence) would be allowed to occupy high office. Advocates of political Islam may advocate rule by those who know the Quran, based on verses that speak of some being raised in rank (see Q6 156 12 76 43 32) and on verses that appear to question the majority principle (see Q6 16 12 21 12 103).

Osama bin Laden probably wants a single caliph to rule. The issue is not how the ruler is chosen or even who the ruler is but that, once appointed, he (and women would be barred) applies the Shariah. Even though some consultation took place when the first caliphs were chosen, succession became dynastic, which solved the problem of how to choose the leader. The Saudi other monarchies in the Muslim world rests on the principle that a system that maintains order (prevents fitna, disunity) is valid as long as Shariah not made-up law is enforced. Classical discourse on the role of the caliph said little about how he should be chosen or removed, a great deal about his duties. Among these, protecting the Shariah and maintaining unity were paramount.

Conclusion
Political Islam does attracts support, largely because existing governments are often corrupt and rich while most people are poor. Islamism also attracts support from Muslims who do not really want an Islamist state but who suspect Western motives and solutions. However, political Islam might be a modern construct, one that does not represent the original Islam of the seventh century. Religious Islam might be the model closest to Islams original intent. This option, however, needs to be seen as more authentically Islamic, not as a Europeanized version of Islam.