ISLAM, A POLITICAL SYSTEM - Michael Paff

Islam, founded by Mohammed in the year 610, is thought of by most people to be a monotheistic religion. Muslims, followers of Islam, believe the purpose of life is to worship their god, Allah- a singular being who is unique and incomparable. They worship at temples called Mosques, and recite prayers from the Qur'an, which they consider to be the true word of Allah. However, there is far more to Islam than these few widely known facts. At its heart, Islam is a political system with a strict set of laws that encompass social, economic, and governmental aspects of life.

It is of extreme importance today for people to understand Islam, which has played a dominant role in many nations for centuries. Tensions between Westerners and Muslims has been rising for decades, due to conflicts such as the Gulf War, the September eleventh attacks, and the Iraq and Afghan wars, which are still being fought to this day. There are also intense disputes between Muslims and Indians, North Africans, Israelis, and more populations around the globe, leaving most people at least somewhat affected by the presence of Islam. According to Duhaime.org, a trusted website that contains information on all things legal, states "Islamic law now prevails in countries all over the Middle East and elsewhere covering 20 per cent of the world's population." People who would define Islam simply as a religion would not have a true picture of the Muslim mindset, thus leaving them too uninformed to solve any of the modern day crises involving Islam. As stated in the essay "A philosophical introduction on the relationship between religion and politics," by Alireza Sabziyan Mousa Abadi, "Islam is concerned about all human needs in both material world and hereafter" (Abadi, 2). The word "all" should not be taken for granted in this quote- Islam is very much concerned with the way a government should be and the laws it should enforce. These two concerns are common to all political systems.

Many facets of politics in Islam derive straight from the source of all Islamic knowledge, and according to Muslims, the final word of god, the Qur’an. From Duhaime.org: "the Koran...sets out a moral code - Islamic Law - for adherents of the Islamic faith, of which it forms the pinnacle...the law as it has formed in Islamic countries has followed the edicts of the Koran, often literally." The book gives many laws, the set of which in Islam is called Sharia, on all aspects of life, including "Give the kinsman his right, and the needy, and the traveler; and never squander," (Qur'an, 17:26), "Approach not fornication,"(Ibid. 17:32) and "Do not approach the property of the orphan save in the fairest manner, until he is of age," (Ibid. 17:34). As you can see, this small sampling taken from literally hundreds of laws ranges from morality to one's sexual conduct to issues of finances and economics. There are also laws for personal hygiene, child rearing, and diet. This is a strong example of why Islam is a political system, for "involvement of government in the affairs like marriage, divorce, and the like are among the issues upon which the identicality of religion and politics has been reasoned" (Abadi, 2). This is because political systems, by definition, are the forces that affect relationships between the individuals in a population in cultural, economic and legal ways, as, for example, the United States government affects its people through laws, taxes, and cultural norms.

One may argue that since some of these rules are open for interpretation, they differ from the laws we find in true political systems- but the Qur'an sets out the basics, and is then open to debate, just as the U.S. Constitution is still argued over today. There are even rules in the Qur'an for how to judge a situation that may be debatable as far as its complying with the rules of the Qur'an. Duhaime.org quotes Joseph Schacht, a former professor of Islam at Columbia University on the issue of fair judgment: "(W)e find in the Koran injunctions to arbitrate with justice, not to offer bribes, to give true evidence, and to give full weights and measures. Contracts are safeguarded by commands to put them in writing, to call witnesses, to give securities when there is no scribe available." Indeed, the Qur'an rivals the court systems in place in other political systems that try to make sure that a judgment can be made in any legal situation.

Of course, no political system can survive without enforcing its laws via punishment, and Islamic nations, of course, do so. Duhaime.org quotes a 2006 article published in the international law review of Loyola Law School at Los Angeles with a few examples of punishments carried out for breaking Sharia in Islamic countries: "In 2002, a Nigerian Sharia court sentenced Amina Lawal to be stoned to death for having a child out of wedlock...Because she had sex outside of marriage, a Sharia court sentenced [a woman] to one hundred lashes...Countries such as Nigeria impose flogging, stoning, or severing off a hand [for breaking Sharia]." Also from Duhaime.org: "Because Muslim states are theocratic, any criticism of the government is taken as blasphemy, for which Sharia prescribes prison or death." To back this up further, look at this verse from the Qur'an itself: "This is the recompense of those who fight against God and His Messenger, and hasten about the earth, to do corruption there: they shall be slaughtered, or crucified, or their hands and feet shall alternately be struck off; or they shall be banished from the land" (Qur'an, 5:33). A punishment befitting a certain crime is something all political systems set out to do to enforce their laws. But the question of who is in charge of putting these laws and punishments into place is an important one to ask.

One of the cornerstones of a political system is a way of determining who leaders will be and who will uphold the system. In Islam, the supreme ruler is Allah, and his word set forth in the Qur'an is final. But Muslims still need rulers to enforce law, and interpret some law if need be. The Qu'ran states in itself the requirements a ruler should fulfill and thus encompasses the leadership aspect of a political system. On leaders: "[Those] who, if We establish them in the land, perform the prayer, and pay the alms, and bid to honour, and forbid dishonour; and unto God belongs the issue of all affairs" (Qur'an, 22:41). This shows that Islam sets forth a democratic system of appointing rulers, as is the case in majority Muslim countries such as Iran. It shows also that a Muslim leader's sole duty is to enforce the "right" and "wrong" that is already set forth in the Qur'an. Also on leaders: "We have divided between them their livelihood in the present life, and raised some of them above others in rank, that some of them may take others in servitude; and the mercy of thy Lord is better than that they amass" (Qur'an, 43:32). This shows that there is a need for leadership in a society, but that no leader will ever trump Allah's word given in the Qur'an, and thus is simply responisble for upholding this word. Thus, laid out in the Qur'an are the rules for both how leaders should be appointed and what their function is, which is a defining characteristic of a political system.

Many would argue that since not all majority Muslim nations enforce Sharia, Islam is certainly not a political system. But the looser regulations on Sharia by some countries are only due to necessity from trying to keep up with the West, whose pop culture and technology has infiltrated the mindset of the entire world in recent years. The notions of civil society formed in the West were considered very attractive by many people in other parts of the world. The essay "The State and civil society in Africa: A North African perspective," by Hamdy Abdel Rahman Hassan explains about the modern Western world that "Politics were removed from the realm of religion and traditions, to that of the social, and this lies at the root of Political Modernity" (Hassan, 1). This is the exact opposite of Islam, where politics are strongly rooted in the realm of religion. He goes on to explain on civil society that "some North African States reverted to it in order to exclude the formations of political Islam" (Hassan, 1). But this was only a popular movement to try and uproot the true Islamic political system that came into being.

Even with the modernization of some Muslim nations, Duhaime.org tells us that "Each of the approximately 50 Islamic states and countries that have, to varying degrees, Sharia law." It goes on to give some examples: "Some countries, such as Tunisia, have hybrid systems, rejecting Sharia law in most instances yet relying it in others, such as in the area of divorce and family law, inheritance, contracts and banking...To some Sharia jurists, the Sharia applies only to Muslims and does not technically apply to non-Muslims such as Christians (eg. Malaysia and Indonesia as of 2008)." So even though these countries may not be totally ruled by Sharia, they do have in place a watered down version of the true Islamic political system. As Duhaime.org states, there are still countries where the political system is found in its pure form: "Iran and Saudi Arabia apply [Sharia] to all areas of life." This means that these two countries have the Islamic political system in place, as Sharia defines all the necessary aspects of a political system.

Islam truly is a political system, due to its enforcement of laws regarding all aspects of life over communities and roles and appointment of leadership, and even if some majority Muslim countries have moved away from enforcing Sharia in all cases, there is a strong movement to bring it back. Perhaps this quote from Duhaime.org best sums up Islam: "[An] important feature of Muslim law is the fact that there is no clear separation of church and state. Under Islamic law, the religion of Islam and the government are one. Islamic law is controlled, ruled and regulated by the Islamic religion; a theocracy." A theocracy is most certainly a political system. A pure religion is only concerned with the vertical relationship between people and god. However, Islam has laws that not only affect a relationship with the spiritual, but with people's life in a cultural and economic setting, as well as laws that define leadership and the government. The fact that Islam concerns itself so greatly with the horizontal relationship between people, makes it a political system.

WORKS CITED

Lloyd Duhaime. Duhaime.org. n.p. n.d. Web. 10/5/2011.

Arberry, A.J. The Koran: Interpreted. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964.

Hamdy Abdel Rahman Hassan. "The State and civil society in Africa: A North African perspective."

African Journal of Political Science and International Relations 5.8 (2011): 388-395.

Alireza Sabziyan Mousa Abadi. "A philosophical introduction on the relationship between religion and politics." African Journal of Political Science and International Relations 3.2 (2009): 066-076.

Image 1: http://joshuapundit.blogspot.com/2010/09/islamisms-great-leap-forward-in-turkey.html

Image 2: http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=303655&page=3

Image 3: http://www.pakistankakhudahafiz.com/2011/08/07/caliphate-as-the-rule-of-law/muslims-carrying-banners-declaring-islam-will-dominate-the-world-protest-at-the-visit-of-mr-wilders-to-the-uk/

Image 4: http://pumapac.org/2011/07/28/sharia-law-sucks/

Image 5: https://pumabydesign001.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/islamization-of-the-uk-sharias-guardian-angels/

Image 6: http://www.islamproject.org/education/Africa_Mideast_etc.html