REVIEW
A RELIGION, NOT A STATE:
Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq’s Islamic Justification of Political Secularism
Souad T. Ali
[I initially wrote this review for the Sudan Studies Association Bulletin, and it was published in their VOL. 28, NO. 1, Spring, 2010. However due to the recent developments associated with the rise of ISIS (ISIL) I believe that it is a work that should be revisited.]
The world has become a much more
complex place since 9/11. The reciprocal
dynamics of Muslim fears of encroachment by Western imperialism, and Western
fears of a worldwide caliphate, have generated an escalating and desperate
struggle of global magnitude. And one of
the complexities embedded in this conflict is the debate within the Umma – or
global community of Islam – regarding the relation between Islam and the
state. Souad T. Ali’s “A Religion, Not a State” is a timely
and important work that affords the reader an opportunity to better understand this
debate that is extremely relevant to the growing world crisis.
The debate that is the focus of
Souad T. Ali’s book arose within the Islamic community immediately after the
death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 CE.
The debate centers on the proper and desirable relation between the
state and religion within a Muslim
context and therefore the nature of its competing concepts and the underlying
epistemologies and beliefs may not be easily understood by those of us who live
our lives outside of the Umma. This is
mainly because we are not attuned to the linguistic and philosophical nuances
of that culture. Souad T. Ali, in his
new book, attempts to bring some understanding of that debate to a broader
audience in the West. This is because
while it is usually difficult for non-Muslims to competently wade into this
debate, it is a debate that needs to be recognized and understood by non-Muslims,
as well as Muslims.
Western attitudes about Muslims
and the Umma often have stood upon the three legs of hubris, ignorance and
bigotry. There is no better example of this
than the legal opinion rendered by Lord Asquith of Bishopstone in the 1951 case:
Petroleum Development Ltd. v. Sheikh of Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi .” In this same vein, many Westerners today believe
that no complex and sophisticated processes of governance and authoritative
control have developed among the nations of the Umma. This fuels the belief that any state that
adheres to Shari ‘a law and Koranic mores is
locked into a medieval posture.
While the debate over the relationship
between Islam and the state has persisted for more than 14 centuries, it has taken
on a modern form within the last 100 years.
This transformation is greatly due to the teachings of Muhammad ‘Abduh,
a religious scholar and liberal reformer of the late 19th century. Muhammad ‘Abduh wanted to make Islam
compatible with 19th -century rationalism and is said to have been
labeled as an infidel by his opponents and as a sage by his followers.
Souad T. Ali’s book is not about Muhammad
‘Abduh or his teachings. Instead, it focuses
on the work of Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq, a follower of Muhammad ‘Abduh and a man who
is said to have been a secularist Muslim intellectual. But Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq’s most significant
work, “Al-Islam wa Usūl al-Hukm: Bahth fi al-Khilafa wa-al-Hukumah
fi al-Islam” (Islam and the Fundamentals of Rule: Research on the Caliphate and
Government in Islam), has not been published in English. By authoring A Religion, Not a State, Souad T. Ali seeks to bring Ali ‘Abd
al-Raziq’s “chain of reasoning” to readers of the English language. By doing this, he hopes to increase the
awareness of the existence of the debate as well as its essence. The full title of Souad T. Ali’s book: “A Religion, Not a State – Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq’s
Islamic Justification of Political Secularism,” gives the reader an indication of its contents, but it would take
a much longer title to fully explain all that the author presents in this work.
Souad T. Ali’s book is laboriously
repetitive when presenting facts relating to history, religious philosophy and
politics within a Muslim context. And
many of its ideas are stated in Arabic, because English cannot accurately express
their true meaning. Both of these
aspects make for a slow read. But repetition
is necessary because many of the facts presented are unfamiliar to the Western
reader and need repeating in order to take hold. The lack of familiarity with the facts
presented and the language barrier that Souad T. Ali tackles illustrate the need
for this book. These are some of the
ideas and facts that are seldom presented to Western audiences, thus accounting
for some of the ignorance in the West about Islam and the Umma.
Souad T. Ali states in his
Introduction that he seeks to: 1.) Elucidate on the arguments in Ali ‘Abd
al-Raziq’s book; 2.) Evaluate Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq’s conviction that the concept
of a universal Islamic polity could be invalidated on Islamic grounds and 3.)
Situate Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq’s arguments within the context of previous thinking
about the caliphate.
It is clear from the principal
title of the book: “A Religion, Not a
State” that Souad T. Ali sides
with Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq and holds that there should be a separation between
Islam as a religion – and the state as a governmental entity. But the Western reader should not assume that
Souad T. Ali and Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq are merely re-stating the concept of
“separation of church and state” as it is claimed to exist in the United States
and other Western nations. Perceptions
of metaphysical phenomena often are not portable from one culture to another. And just as the words “Caliphate” and
“Imamate” are Anglicized (and thereby distorted) versions of Arabic words – created
in order to bend the reality within the Muslim world to comport to the world
view of Western thinking – so too have the perceived phenomena of the rule of
law and jurisdiction within a Muslim context been distorted through a
Eurocentric lens in order to adjust these concepts to perceived Western
realities. This writer believes that in
both instances, something is lost in translation. Souad T. Ali presented the concept succinctly
when he wrote: Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq declared “the caliphate, considered as an
Islamic institution based upon polity supposedly founded by the prophet
himself, to be a human innovation, not a religious imperative.”
Souad T. Ali sets in eight
chapters out to familiarize the reader with Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq’s book, and the
subject debate. The first chapter
provides background and an overview to the subject matter. Next, the author provides a historical
perspective on the classical juristic theories of the caliphate in Chapter
2. Because the modern debate was
initiated in the 19th century, the third chapter examines the
caliphate during the colonial era. In
Chapter 4, the author describes Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq’s intellectual formation and
his place among the disciples of Muhammad ‘Abduh. The core issues of the debate are presented
in the fifth chapter, entitled: “The Central Argument.” Chapter Six reviews the history of the ruling
system in place at the time of the Prophet because arguments in favor of, and
against, the caliphate have cited that system as evidence of the legitimacy of
their respective positions. And while
the author agrees with the arguments of Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq, in Chapter 7 he
presents the arguments of those who oppose him.
In the final chapter, Souad T. Ali examines the current implications of
both Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq’s book as well as the debate over “Islam and Politics.”
Souad T. Ali makes it clear that
the Prophet neither named a successor nor clearly delineated a specific form of
government and the subsequent Khilāfa (al-khulafa al-rashidun – or “The
Righteous Caliphs” as the succession is called in English) lasted for only 30 years. After that, the Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid,
and finally the Ottoman Dynasties held power for approximately the next 13
centuries.
Decades before the end of the
Ottoman Caliphate in 1924, Muslim discussions concerning the state were
characterized by a conflict between two forces – commonly described as
“tradition” and “modernity.” Muslim
scholars who were influenced by Muhammad ‘Abduh’s teachings generally came to
be associated with one of two approaches to Islam’s encounter with modernity. One approach has been termed an “Islamic
tendency” and the other (with which Ali “Abd al-Raziq is associated) a “secular
nationalist tendency.” However, both
these tendencies were responses to what was perceived as the Islamic world’s
weakness in the face of encroaching European colonialism.
Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq believed also that
the reality of the Khilāfa had veered from the ideal through a series of
accommodations to political realities existing at various points in history. Testamentary succession, which allowed a
sitting Khilāfa to name his own successor, was described as the first
accommodation that moved away from the Khilāfa being elected by ahl alhal wal-aqd (“people of authority”). A later accommodation was the allowance of
the seizure of the office of the Khilāfa by force of arms. Finally, it was deemed by some Islamic
scholars that a ruler (not necessarily a Khilāfa) “no matter how tyrannical”
was legitimate so long as that ruler provided “an environment in which the law
of Islam was respected and enforced.”
An understanding of the nature of
the debate that is at the core of Souad T. Ali’s book requires an understanding
of the significance of the chief center of Arabic literature and Sunni Islamic
learning in the world – Egypt 's
al-Azhar University al-Azhar University
While Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq believed
that prevalent misinterpretations of Islam had persisted for centuries, the
course of political events in the early-20th century prompted him to
write Al-Islam wa Usūl al-Hukm. In response, al-Azhar University Egypt . The Minister of Awqaf is considered by many
to be one of the three highest positions in religious learning and
administration in Egypt
(after the Rector of al-Azhar University and the Grand Mufti).
Souad T. Ali carefully constructs
his book, using as his bricks explanations of the significance of the various
Islamic scholars, al-Azhar
University
The significance of this recent
examination of Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq’s famous work is due to current global events. And if one is unable to read Al-Islam wa Usūl al-Hukm in the original
Arabic (or its French or Spanish translations), Souad T. Ali’s analysis is a
welcome alternative. Several political
movements existing today represent a resurgence in Islamic fundamentalism. Souad T. Ali states that the concept: al-Hākimiyyah li Allah (“sovereignty
belongs to God”) “shapes the Islamist’s ideological view of the state and
governance.” This is said to be a tenant
held by the Egyptian Tandhim al-Jihād, whose leader, Ayman al-Zawahri is the
al-Qa’ida deputy to Usama bin Laden.
Likewise, the Muslim Brotherhood holds to the concept of al-Hākimiyyah li Allah. Initially founded in Egypt as a
response to the rise of secularism – as represented by Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq’s book,
the Muslim Brotherhood has been replicated throughout the Arab world and other
Muslim countries in its “methods and its constant call for an Islamic
state.” In fact, the call of the Muslim
Brotherhood was based on two key pillars: 1.) The introduction of the Islamic
Shari`a as the basis controlling the affairs of state and society; as well as 2.) Work to achieve unification among
the Islamic countries and states, mainly among the Arab states, and liberating
them from foreign imperialism.
Souad T. Ali’s A Religion, Not a State illustrates that
it is of little value to dismiss the struggle between elements in both the West
and the Umma as having been prompted by psychopathic behavior, or even as a
fundamental clash of cultures. The
issues are much more complex than that.
While the attention of Western
observers focuses mostly on those individuals and groups within the Umma who
hold to the belief that Islam is both a religion and a state, Souad T. Ali – through
Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq – points out that there is significant support within the
Umma for the belief that Islam is a religion and not a state.
A Religion, Not a State
describes Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq’s Al-Islam wa
Usūl al-Hukm as standing at “the
center of a deep divide about the intended role of Islam.” This divide is within the Muslim community,
but it is of great significance to the entire world. However, Souad T. Ali’s work is intended to
be a primer for the Western reader on the debate and it should not be assumed
that this book alone provides adequate preparation in order to enter the
debate. It would be a mistake to assume
competence to participate in such a culturally specific discourse without the
necessary language skills in Arabic and a thorough awareness and understanding
of the multitude of cultural references utilized by the debaters.
http://www.sudanstudies.org/ssabulletin-vol-28-no%201-spring2010.pdf
