Secularism --- Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi
 Secularism may be accepted in a Christian society but it can never enjoy a general acceptance in an Islamic society. Christianity is devoid of a shari`ah or a comprehensive system of life to which its adherents should be committed. The New Testament itself divides life into two parts: one for God, or religion, the other for Caesar, or the state: "Render unto Caesar things which belong to Caesar, and render unto God things which belong to God" (Matthew 22:21). As such, a Christian could accept secularism without any qualms of conscience. Furthermore, Westerners, especially Christians, have good reasons to prefer a secular regime to a religious one. Their experience with "religious regimes" - as they knew them - meant the rule of the clergy, the despotic authority of the Church, and the resulting decrees of excommunication and the deeds of forgiveness, i.e. letters of indulgence.

For Muslim societies, the acceptance of secularism means something totally different; i.e. as Islam is a comprehensive system of worship (`ibadah) and legislation (Shari`ah), the acceptance of secularism means abandonment of Shari`ah, a denial of the divine guidance and a rejection of Allah?s injunctions; It is indeed a false claim that Shariah is not proper to the requirements of the present age. The acceptance of a legislation formulated by humans means a preference of the humans? limited knowledge and experiences to the divine guidance: "Say! Do you know better than Allah?" (2:140).

Islam vs. Secularism

Secularism is defined in the Webster dictionary as: "A system of doctrines and practices that rejects any form of religious faith and worship" or "The belief that religion and ecclesiastical affairs should not enter into the function of the state especially into public education."

There is no doubt that secularism contradicts Islam in every aspect. They are two different paths that never meet; choosing one means rejecting the other. Hence, whoever chooses Islam has to reject secularism. In the following, we go in the details of explaining why.

1- First, secularism makes lawful what Allah has made unlawful.

The Rule of Allah (Shari`ah) is compulsory and has basic laws and regulations that cannot be changed. Some of these laws are concerned with the acts of worship, the relations between men and women, etc.

What is the position with regard to these laws?

Secularism makes adultery lawful if the male and the female are consenting adults.

As for Riba (interest on money), it is the basis of all financial transactions in secular economies. On the contrary, Allah says (s.2 A. 278): "O you who believe, fear Allah and leave what comes from Riba if you are believers. If you do not do so, then wait for a war from Allah and His Messenger."

As for alcohol, all secular systems allow the consumption of alcohol and make selling it a lawful business.

2- Second, secularism is clear unbelief (Kufr).

Secularism is based on separating religion from all the affairs of this life and hence, it rules by law and regulations other than Allah's laws. Hence, secularism rejects Allah's rules with no exception and prefers regulations other than Allah's and His Messenger's. In fact, many secularists claim that Allah's laws might have been suitable for the time they were revealed but are now outdated.

As a result, most of the laws governing the daily affairs of life in the countries ruled by secular systems contradict Islam. Allah says (S.5 A.50): "Do they seek a judgment of Ignorance? But, who, for a people whose faith is assured, can give better judgment than Allah?"

Ibn Katheer said in the Tafseer of this verse that Allah is denouncing those who reject His ruling and accept other rulings that are not based on the Shari`ah of Allah. Whoever does

so is indeed a non-believer. Indeed, belief in Allah can never go with the acceptance of other than His rulings in one's heart. Allah says (S.5 A.44): "If any do fail to judge by

what Allah has revealed, they are non-believers."

From the above, the status of secularism and its relation to Islam are clear. But the ignorance about the Islamic truth is still dominating the Muslim's mind. Most secular systems repeat slogans like "no religion in politics and no politics in religion" or "religion is for Allah, and the state is for the people." Such sayings portray their view of Islam as a religion to be practiced in the mosque only, and that it should not be allowed to rule life outside the mosque. Furthermore, they try to deceive people with democratic slogans like "personal freedom" and "people governing people." That means that people come first and no place is made for the ruling of Allah.

ISLAM AND THE SECULAR STATE

Explicating the Universal in Formative

                                   Islamic Political Norms

                                                      Louay M. Safi 

The secular state emerged in modern times in response to religious infighting that plagued Europe for over a century, and put social life on a self-destructing path. The Hundred Year War posed a serious threat to the then emerging modern Europe, underscoring the need to keep the state and church at a comfortable distance.

While the secular state was designed to prevent organized religion from controlling public institutions, it did not necessarily aim at undermining religiosity per se, or alienating religious communities. Rather, it was perceived as multi-religious society’s best defense against the imposition of the religious values and worldview of one community on another.

For many Muslims, however, the secular state is viewed as an instrument used to undermine religious heritage and deny the relevance of moral teachings to public life. While this perception has an element of truth, it does not necessarily depict the general nature of western secularism. Evidently, Muslim perceptions of secularism are not formed through an understanding of the original purpose and historical circumstances of western secularism, but is influenced by the Muslim experience of secular dogmatism and the intolerance of the secular state in contemporary Muslim societies, most notably that of Turkey and many Arab and Central Asian states.

Reacting to secular dogmatism, populist Islamic groups have advanced a conception of the state that, while different in substance, is similar in purpose and form to the very secular state they oppose. Like Muslim secularists, Islamic populists see the state as an instrument in the hands of ruling powers for imposing a particular conception of the world on the rest of society. They insist, therefore, that the Islamic state should be charged with the duty of imposing Islamic law on the larger society.

This paper argues that the position of contemporary Muslim populist movements stands in direct contradiction not only to Islamic values and beliefs, but is also contrary to political practices developed in historical Muslim societies. It further explores the extent to which religious beliefs and values were related to the political structure and public policy of the historical Muslim society. The paper contends that the political order that emerged under Islam was never perceived as an exclusively Muslim, but was constructed on the basis of universal principles that transcend sectarian divisions.

The paper, therefore, concludes by underscoring the need to have a fresh Islamically-based conceptualization of political action and organization in ways that would help reclaim the moral core of social life, eroded with the advance of western secularism, without sacrificing the important principles of freedom and equality.

THE ORIGIN OF SECULARISM

Secularism refers to complex and multifaceted attitudes and practices that cannot be easily captured in a brief description or rendered into a simple definition. While one may find certain similarities between modern secularist attitudes and practices and those that existed in pre-modern societies, it is fair to say that secularism as we know it today is an essentially modern phenomenon that grew in the modern West, and later took roots in different societies.

In its essential sense, secularism denotes a set of notions and values whose aim is to ensure that the state is neither engaged in promoting specific religious beliefs and values, nor uses its powers and offices to persecute religion. To prevent state officials from using their political authority to impose a narrow set of religious attitudes and values on the larger society, and to foreclose the possibility of using religious symbols to agitate one religious community against another, western intellectuals embarked on a project that aimed at separating political authority from religious affiliation. To do that, the Enlightenment scholars embraced a set of concepts and principles, and used them as the basis for reconstructing modern European consciousness. The new political ideology advanced by Enlightenment activists and thinkers emphasized concepts such as equality, freedom of conscience and conviction, and the supremacy of law, all of which were advocated by the Religious Reformation that put an end to the ancient regime of Europe.

The underlying socio-political morality advocated by the pioneers of the secular state in Europe was derived from the religious tradition delineated by the religious reformists of fifteenth century Europe, but argued in rational terms and common-good logic. Early advocates of the separation of state and church, such as Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, had no intention to undermine religion, or faith in the divine, but rather predicated their reformist ideas on the notion of God and civil religion. Descartes, for instance, argued "that the certainty and truth of all knowledge depends uniquely on my awareness of the true God, to such an extent that I was incapable of perfect knowledge about anything else until I became aware of him."[i][1] Similarly, Rousseau, while critical of the way religion was traditionally taught and practiced, recognized the need, even the necessity, of religious commitment and faith for the modern state to function properly. He, therefore, identified a number of "dogmas", and argued for their inclusion in the "civil religion" he advocated: "The existence of an omnipotent, intelligent, benevolent divinity that foresees and provides; the life to come; the happiness of the just; the punishment of sinners; the sanctity of the social contract and the law – these are the positive dogmas. As for the negative dogmas I would limit them to a single one: no intolerance."[ii][2]

Even Kant, who limited the notion of truth to empirical experience and labored to set morality on rational foundation insisted that "without a God and without a world invisible to us now but hoped for, the glorious ideals of morality are indeed objects of approval and admiration, but not springs of purpose and action."[iii][3] However, by denying the possibility of transcendental truth, and as a result of the relentless attack on the authority of revelation as a source of ethical and ontological knowledge, secularist scholars have been able to successfully marginalize religion and undermine morality. The efforts to ground morality in utility and cost-benefit calculation, rather than truth, proved to be counter intuitive and futile, and gave rise to egoism and moral relativism.

There were, of course, intellectuals who have less sympathy to religion particularly among French intellectuals, but these did not represent the larger sentiments of the great majority in Europe. The French revolution displayed a clear anti-religious sentiment, but these were not, as Nietzsche was to discover later, directed against religion per se, but against organized religion represented primarily by the Catholic church. “Modern philosophy, being an epistemological skepticism, is,” Nietzsche argued, “covertly and overtly, anti-Christian—although, to say this for the benefit of more refined ears, by no means anti-religious.”[iv][4]

The essential secularist sentiment is, therefore, rooted in the religious reformation; more specifically, it is rooted in the Protestant revolt against religious hierarchy and centralized religion. Secularism was not originally intended as a way to separate religion from society or religious consciousness from political action, but only to isolate the state from the church structure and to separate religious and political authorities.

The tone started to change, however, a century later among progressive European intellectuals who saw in religion a negative force whose elimination, they believed, was essential for further emancipation and progress. Karl Marx, while agreeing that

the secular state has successfully neutralized religion and purged it from the public sphere, still saw a great danger in religious life. This is because, he argued, secularism reduced religion into a private matter only insofar as the state is concerned. However, the privatization of religion gave it in effect more influence in the organization of civil society. Even in the United States where religion has been domesticated and individualized to the greatest extent, it continues to divide society into distinct religious communities, thereby allowing for the formation of internal solidarity with a clear bearing on economic life. Religion, Marx further thought, is an instrument is the hands of privileged classes to justify social misery and economic inequality  In The Jewish Question, Marx has the following to say about the need to emancipate humanity from religion:

The decomposition of man into Jew and citizen, Protestant and citizen, religious man and citizen, is neither a deception directed against citizenhood, nor is it a circumvention of political emancipation, it is political emancipation itself, the political method of emancipating oneself from religion. Of course, in periods when the political state as such is born violently out of civil society, when political liberation is the form in which men strive to achieve their liberation, the state can and must go as far as the abolition of religion, the destruction of religion. But, it can do so only in the same way that it proceeds to the abolition of private property, to the maximum, to confiscation, to progressive taxation, just as it goes as far as the abolition of life, the guillotine.

Nietzsche, like Marx, condemned religion as a negative social force responsible for preserving the meek and the weak, and hence weakening the human race. By praising poverty and glorifying the taming of the natural instinct, Nietzsche insisted, religion contributed to delaying the refinement of the human species. By giving “comfort to the sufferers, courage to the oppressed and despairing, a staff and support to the dependent” Christianity, he contended, “preserved too much of what ought to perish.”[v][5] Unlike Marx, who saw religion as an obstacle in the way to achieving universal equality, Nietzsche’s rejection of Religion in general, and reformed Christianity in particular, was anti-democratic, directed against the egalitarian spirit it promoted, and hence against its failure to promote the order of rank, a hierarchical social order which he believed to be both intrinsic to humanity and desirable to social life.[vi][6]

RELIGION AND THE STATE IN MUSLIM SOCIETY

Many Muslim intellectuals insist today that Islam is an integral part of the state. The state in a society committed to Islam, they stress, is by definition an Islamic state since political authorities are bound to Islamic law, which has a direct bearing on constitutional law. This has created confusion about the nature of the Islamic state, and has given rise to apprehension on the part of modernist scholars who feared that remarrying Islam and the state is bound to give birth to theocracy.

The confusion is, of course, not limited to outside observers and commentators who tend to extrapolate in their analysis from the historical experience of western society, but also affect those who advocate the formation of political state on the basis of Islamic values. The difficulty arises from the efforts to combine the principle of popular government with that of a state bound by the rules of Islamic law. This confusion is, in my opinion, the result of equating the political structure of the Ummah with the political structure of the state, and consequently, mixing up the Shariah functions with that of the state. This confusion is not restricted to obscure works. Rather it is found in the works of influential contemporary Islamic thinkers. Under the title “The Objectives of the Islamic State” Abul Ala Mawdudi, for one, points out two kinds of objectives to be assigned to the Islamic state: negative objectives “like deterring the aggression and preserving the freedom of people and defending the state,¹³ and positive objectives such as banning all forbidden things which have been condemned by the Qur’an.”¹⁴ Mawdudi concludes by affirming the totality of the state’s objectives on the basis of the comprehensiveness of the Shariah objectives. He writes:

Obviously, it is impossible for such a state to limit its framework, because it is a totalitarian state encompassing the whole human life, and painting every aspect of human life with its moral color and particular reformist programs. So nobody has the right to stand up against the state and exempt himself from the liability by saying that this is a personal matter, so that the state does not intrude. In brief, the state encompasses the human life and every area of civilization according to its particular moral theory and particular reformist program. So, to some extent, it is similar to the communist and fascist state. But despite this totality the Islamic state is free from the color that dominates the totalitarian and authoritarian states of our age. Thus the Islamic state does not curtail the individual freedom nor has it much room for dictatorship or absolute authority.¹⁵

The above statement reflects the state of confusion we just pointed out. In a single paragraph the author characterizes the Islamic state as totalitarian, likens it with the communist and fascist states, and stresses that no one has the right to stand up against the state and resist its intrusion into personal life. He then backs up, two sentences later, denying that the Islamic state may curtails individual freedom.

Certainly the claim regarding the totalitarian character of the state is the result of mixing state functions relating to the Shariah's legal dimension with the functions of the Ummah concerning moral and educational dimensions. The differentiation between these two kinds of objectives is, thus, of vital importance to prevent the state from imposing on the larger society a normative order based on a narrow interpretation of the law. The Islamic state, it should be emphasized, is not an institution devoted to advancing the interests of the Muslim community, but a political system based on universal principles, and one committed to maintaining peace, security and welfare for all citizens, irrespective of their doctrines, religions, nationality, race, or gender.

As will be shown bellow, the Islamic system in the past did not lead, nor should it lead in the future, to imposing a narrow and limited concept or a particular opinion on society. This is because the principle of religious and doctrinal plurality has been considered since the very inception of the Ummah, as a cardinal political principle. Here the Quranic verses both the, Makkan and Madinan, clearly stress on the centrality of the principle of religious freedom in the Islamic concept.

Lately the concern over how religious commitments relate to the exercise of power reached into the ranks of Islamists. Mainstream Islamic groups have been moving gradually away from the early concept of centralized Islamic political order envisaged by early leaders, such as Hassan al-Banna and Taqiyuddin al-Nabhani. Leaders of major Islamic movements in Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey, and Tunisia, to name a few, have come openly in favor of a democratic, pluralistic political system in which freedom of speech and association is guaranteed for citizens, regardless of their political orientation or religious affiliation.[vii][7]  

THE FORMATIVE PRINCIPLES OF THE MADINAN STATE

The notion of the Islamic state advanced today by populist writers is, as I tried to show above, a mixture of the nationalist structure of the modern state with the communal structure of historical Shari’ah. The concept of the state that emerges as a result is in a complete contradiction with the nature and purpose of the polity found by the Prophet, or developed historically by successive Muslim generations. A quick review of the guiding principles of the first Islamic polity reveals the disparity between the two. The principles and structure of the early Islamic polity are epitomized in the Compact of Madinah (Sahifat al-Madina) that formed the constitutional foundation of the political community established by the Prophet.[viii][8]

The Compact of Madinah established a number of important political principles that, put together, formed the political constitution of the first Islamic state, and defined the political rights and duties of the members of the newly established political community, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and drew up the political structure of the nascent society. The most important principles included in this Compact are as follows:

First, the Compact declared that the Ummah is a political society, open to all individuals committed to its principles and values, and ready to shoulder its burdens and responsibilities. It is not a recluse one, whose membership rights and securities are restricted to a select few. The right to membership in the Ummah is specified in: (1) accepting the principles of the Islamic system, manifested in the commitment to adhere to the moral and legal order; (2) declaring allegiance to the system, through practical contributions and struggle to actualize the objectives and goals of Islam. Thus, allegiance and concern for public good are the principles determining the membership of the Ummah as defined by the first article of the document: “This is a Compact offered by Muhammad the Prophet, (governing the relations) among the believers and the Muslims of Quraish and Yathrib (Madinah), and those who followed, joined, and labored with them.”[ix][9]

Second, the Compact delineates a general framework that defines individual norms and the scope of political action within the new society, but preserved the basic social and political structures prevalent then in tribal Arabia. The Compact of Madinah preserved tribal structure, while negating tribal spirit and subordinating tribal allegiance to a morally based legal order. As the Compact declared that the nascent political community is “an Ummah to the exclusion of all people,” it approved a tribal division that had already been purged of tribal spirit epitomized by the slogan “my brethren right of wrong,” subjecting it to the higher principles of truth and justice. The Compact therefore declared that the emigrants of the Quraish, Banu al- Harith, Banu al Aus, and other tribes residing in Madinah, according “to their present customs, shall pay the blood wit they paid previously and that every group shall redeem its prisoners.”[x][10]

Islam’s avoidance of the elimination of tribal divisions can be explained by a number of factors that can be summarized in the following three points. (1) The tribal division was not mere political divisions but also social divisions providing its people with a symbiotic system. Therefore, the abolition of the political and social assistance provided by the tribe before developing an alternative should have been a great loss for the people in society. (2) Apart from its being a social division, the tribe represented an economic division in harmony with the pastoral economy prevalent in the Arabian Peninsula before and after Islam. The tribal division is the ideal division of the pastoral production as it provides freedom of movement and migration in search of pasture. Any change in this pattern requires taking an initiative first to change the means and methods of production. (3) Perhaps, the most important factor that justified the tribal division within the framework of the Ummah after the final message had purged the tribal existence of its aggressive and arrogant content, is the maintenance of the society and its protection from the danger of central dictatorship, that might come into existence in absence of a secondary social and political structure and concentration of political power in the hand of a central authority.

Hence Islam adopted a political system, based on the concept of the one Ummah as an alternative for the divisional tribal system and upheld the tribal division having cleared it from its aggressive elements. It left the question of changing the political structure to gradual development of economic and production structures. Although Islamic revelation avoided any arbitrary directives, aimed at immediate abolition of the tribal division, it criticized openly tribal and nomadic life.[xi][11]

Third, the Islamic political system adopted the principle of religious tolerance based on freedom of belief for all the members of the society. It conceded to the Jews the right to act according to the principles and rulings in which they believed: “The Jews of Banu Auf are one community with the believers. The Jews have their religion and the Muslims theirs.” The Compact emphasized the fundamentality of cooperation between Muslims and non-Muslims in establishing justice and defending of Madinah against foreign aggression. “The Jews must bear their expenses and the Muslims their expenses. Each must help the other against anyone who attacks the people of this Compact. They must seek mutual advice and consultation.” It prohibited the Muslims form doing injustice to the Jews or retaliating for their Muslim brothers against the followers of the Jewish religion without adhering to the principles of truth and goodness. “To the Jew who follow us belongs help and equality. He shall not be wronged nor shall his enemies be aided.”[xii][12]

Fourth, the Compact stipulated that the social and political activities in the new system must be subject to a set of universal values and standards that treat all people equally. Sovereignty in the society would not rest with the rulers, or any particular group, but with the law founded on the basis of justice and goodness, maintaining the dignity of all. The Compact emphasized repeatedly and frequently the fundamentality of justice, goodness, and righteousness, and condemned in different expressions injustice and tyranny. “They would redeem their prisoners with kindness and justice common among the believers,” the Compact stated. “The God-conscious believers shall be against the rebellious, and against those who seek to spread injustice, sin, enmity, or corruption among the believers, the hand of every person shall be against him even if he be a son of one of them,” it proclaimed.[xiii][13]

Fifth, The Compact introduced a number of political rights to be enjoyed by the individuals of the Madinan State, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, such as (1) the obligation to help the oppressed, (2) outlawing guilt by association which was commonly practiced by pre-Islamic Arab tribes: “A person is not liable for his ally’s misdeeds;” (3) freedom of belief: “The Jews have their religion and the Muslims have theirs;” and (4) freedom of movement from and to Madinah: “Whoever will go out is safe, and whoever will stay in Madinah is safe except those who wronged (others), or committed sin.”[xiv][14]

RELIGION AND THE STATE IN HISTORICAL MUSLIM SOCIETY

Adhering to the guidance of revelation, the Ummah has respected the principle of religious plurality and cultural diversity during the significant part of its long history. The successive governments since the Rashidun period have preserved the freedom of faith and allowed non-Muslim minorities not only to practice their religious rituals and proclaim their beliefs, but also to implement their religious laws according to an autonomous administrative system.¹⁶ Likewise, the Ummah as a whole has respected the doctrinal plurality with both its conceptual and legal dimensions. It has resisted every attempt to drag the political power to take side with partisan groups, or to prefer one ideological group to another. It has also insisted on downsizing the role of the state and restricting its functions to a limited sphere.

Any one who undertakes to study the political history of Islam would soon realize that all political practices, which violated the principle of religious freedom and plurality, were an exception to the rule. For instance, the efforts of the Caliph al-Mamoon to impose doctrinal uniformity in accordance with the Mu’tazili interpretations, and to use his political authority to support one of the parties involved in doctrinal disputes, were condemned by the ulama and the majority of the Ummah. His efforts to achieve doctrinal homogeneity through suppression and force eventually clashed with the will of the Ummah, which refused to solve doctrinal and theoretical problems by the sword. This compelled Al-Wathiq Billah, the third caliph after al-Mamoon to give up the role assumed by his predecessors and abandon their oppressive measures.

Obviously, Muslims have historically recognized that the main objective of establishing a political system is to create the general conditions that allow the people to realize their duties as moral agents of the divine will (Khulafa), not to impose the teachings of Islam by force. We, therefore, ascribe the emergence of organizations working to compel the Ummah to follow a narrow interpretation, and calling for the use of the political power to make people obedient to the Islamic norms, to the habit of confusing the role and objectives of the Ummah with the role and objectives of the state. While the Ummah aims to build the Islamic identity, to provide an atmosphere conducive to spiritual and mental development of the individual, and to grant him or her the opportunity to realize his or her role and aims of life within the general framework of the law, the state makes efforts to coordinate the Ummah’s activities with the aim to employ the natural and human potentials and possibilities to overcome the political and economic problems and obstacles that hinder the Ummah’s development.

Differentiating between the general and particular in the Shariah and distinguishing between the responsibilities of the Ummah and the state, is a necessity if we want to avoid the transformation of political power into a device for advancing particular interests, and ensure that state agencies and institutions do not arrest intellectual and social progress, or obstruct the spiritual, conceptual, and organizational developments of society.

DIFFERENTIATING CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE STATE

Historically, legislative functions in Muslim society were not restricted to state institutions. Rather there was a wide range of legislations related to juristic efforts at both the moral and legal levels. Since the major part of legislation relating to transactional and contractual relations among individuals is attached to the juristic legislative bodies, the judicial tasks may be connected directly with the Ummah, not with the state. The differentiation between civil society and the state can only be maintained by dividing the process of legislation into distinct areas that reflect both the geographical and normative differentiation of the political society

The importance of the differential structure of the law is not limited to its ability to counteract the tendency of centralization of power, which characterizes the western model of the state. Rather, it is also related to guarantees extended to religious minorities. The Islamic model should maintain the legislative and administrative independence of the followers of different religions, as the sphere of communal legislation does not fall under the governmental authority of the state. On the other hand, the majoritarian model of the democratic state deprives religious minorities of their legal independence, and insists on subjugating all citizens to a single legal system, which often reflects the doctrinal and behavioral values of the ruling majority.

The early Muslim community was cognizant of the need to differentiate law to ensure moral autonomy, while working diligently to ensure equal protection of the law as far as fundamental human rights were concerned. Thus early jurists recognized that non-Muslims who have entered into a peace covenant with Muslims are entitled to full religious freedom, and equal protection of the law as far as their rights to personal safety and property are concerned.   Muhammad bin al-Hasan al-Shaybani states in unequivocal terms that when non-Muslims enter into a peace covenant with Muslims, “Muslims should not appropriate any of their [the non-Muslims] houses and land, nor should they intrude into any of their dwellings.  Because they have become party to a covenant of peace, and because on the day of the [peace of] Khaybar, the prophet’s spokesman announced that none of the property of the covenanter is permitted to them [the Muslim].  Also because they [the non-Muslims] have accepted the peace covenant so as they may enjoy their properties and rights on par with Muslims.”[xv][15]  Similarly, early Muslim jurists recognized the right of non-Muslims to self-determination, and awarded them full moral and legal autonomy in the villages and towns under their control.  Therefore, al-Shaybani, the author of the most authoritative work on non-Muslim rights, insists that the Christians who have entered into a peace covenant (dhimma) – hence became dhimmis – have all the freedom to trade in wine and pork in there towns freely, even though such practice is considered immoral and illegal among Muslims.[xvi][16]  However, dhimmis were prohibited to do the same in towns and villages controlled by Muslims.

Likewise, early Muslim jurists recognized the right of dhimmis to hold public office, including the office of a judge and minister.  However, because judges had to refer to laws sanctioned by the religious traditions of the various religious communities, non-Muslim judges could not administer law in Muslim communities, nor were Muslim judges permitted to enforce shari`ah laws on the dhimmis.  There was-spacerun: yes">  Similarly, early Muslim jurists recognized the right of non-Muslims to self-determination, and awarded them full moral and legal autonomy in the villages and towns under their control.  Therefore, al-Shaybani, the author of the most authoritative work on non-Muslim rights, style="mso-endnote-id:edn17" href="#_edn17" name="_ednref17" title>[1][17] Al-Mawardi, hence distinguished between two types of ministerial positions: plenipotentiary minister (wazir tafwid) and executive minister (wazir tanfiz).   The two positions differ in that the former acts independently from the caliph, while the latter has to act on the instructions of the caliph, and within the limitations set by him.[xvii][18]  Therefore, early jurists permitted dhimmis to hold the office of the executive, but not the plenipotentiary minister.[xviii][19]

But while early shari`ah law recognized the civil and political rights and liberties of non-Muslim dhimmis, shari`ah rules underwent drastic revision, beginning with the eighth century of Islam.  This was a time of great political turmoil throughout the Muslim world.  It was during that time that the Mongols invaded Central and West Asia inflicting tremendous losses on various dynasties and kingdoms, and destroying the seat of the caliphate in Baghdad.  This coincided with the crusaders’ control of Palestine and the coast of Syria.  In the West, the Muslim power in Spain was being gradually eroded.   It was under such conditions of mistrust and suspicion that a set of provisions attributed to an agreement between the Caliph Omar and the Syrian Christians were publicized in a treatise written by Ibn al-Qayyim.[xix][20] The origin of these provisions is dubious, but their intent is clear: to humiliate Christian dhimmis and to set them apart in dress code and appearance. Their impact, however, was limited, as the Ottomans, who replaced the Abbasid as the hegemonic power in the Muslim world, continued the early practice of granting legal and administrative autonomy to non-Muslim subjects.

ISLAM, CIVIL SOCIETY, AND THE STATE

The modern state emerged to foster individual freedom from arbitrary rule, and to ensure that the members of the political society assume full control over public institutions. To do so, the modern state found it necessary to free public institutions from the control of all exclusive groups, including organized religions. However, despite the clear desire of the pioneers of the secular state to replace religious morality with civic virtue as the moral foundation of the state, secularism gradually developed anti-religious tendencies, leading to the gradual erosion of the moral consensus. The continuous erosion of morality, and the rampant corruption in modern politics threatens to turn the state into an instrument in the hands of corrupt officials and their egoistic cronies.

This has prompted calls for the return of religion and religiously organized groups into the political arena. Nowhere are these calls louder and clearer than in Muslim societies where Islamic values have historically exerted great influence on the body politics. Unfortunately, the reunion envisaged by the advocates of the Islamic state is often presented in crude and simplistic terms, as it fails to appreciate the great care that was taken by early Muslims to ensure that the state incorporates, both in its objectives and structure, the freedom and interest of all intra- and inter-religious divisions.

This calls upon Muslim scholars to engage in new thinking that aims at redefining political principles and authority. In doing so, Muslim scholars should be fully aware of the need to transcend the historical models of political organizations in Muslim society. Political structures and procedures adopted by early Muslim societies are directly linked to their social structures, economic and technological developments, and political experiences. While historical Islamic models provide a

mine of knowledge for contemporary Muslims to utilize, any workable formulation of the modern Islamic model of the state that is true to Islamic values and ethos must emerge out of fresh thinking that takes into account the structure of modern society.

Islamic political thought, I believe, can make a profound contribution towards reclaiming the moral core of social life, and preserving religious traditions, without sacrificing the principle of freedom and equality promoted by the modern state.

The hallmark of Islamic political experience is the limitations historical Muslim society was able to place on the actions of rulers, and the presence of vigorous and robust civil society. Many of the functions the secular state assumes today were entrusted to civic institutions, including education, health, and legislation. The state was mainly entrusted with questions of security and defense, and was the last resort in question relating dispensation of justice. This understanding of state power would potentially free religious communities from intervention of the state and state officials, who tend to enforce their religiously based values and notions on the members of society, including those who do not share with them some of those values and beliefs.

Muslim Activists Reject Secular Fundamentalism

              By Ayesha Ahmad, IOL Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON, April 22 (IslamOnline) - Secular fundamentalism is just as

much a threat to liberty as religious fundamentalism, according to

speakers at the Minaret of Freedom Institute's annual dinner Sunday 

night.

Personal stories of tribulations suffered by the speakers in the name 

of

secular democracy shed light on the need for a better understanding of 

the

relationship between Islam and freedom.

The two speakers, Merve Kavacki - an elected Turkish parliamentarian 

who

was removed from office because of the hijab (Islamic headcovering) she

wears, and Sami Al-Arian, a tenured University of South Florida 

professor

who is under threat of dismissal because of his activism, were 

described

by the evening's moderator as victims of intolerance.

"These are both people who have suffered from secular extremism," said

Imad ad-Dean Ahmad, a professor at the University of Maryland who heads

the Minaret of Freedom Institute, a Washington-based Islamic think tank

that devotes itself to studying the relationship between Islam and

freedom, appealing to both Muslims and non-Muslims for better

understanding. Its fifth annual dinner took place in Bethesda, 

Maryland,

near Washington.

Both speakers have addressed audiences time and again about the causes

they represent - freedom of statement, freedom of religion, decrying 

the

use of secret evidence, and supporting the Palestinian cause - but on

Sunday night, they shared with the audience personal sagas that have

fueled their activism.

"The basic human right of a Muslim woman, denied by a Muslim country, 

was

respected by a secular, predominantly non-Muslim country," said 

Kavacki,

explaining the difference between democracy in Turkey and in the United

States, and expressing her gratefulness for that, despite her concerns

about civil liberties for American Muslims presently.

Kavacki explained how she had been nominated, had campaigned, and had 

been

elected to parliament by a landslide with her hijab - yet when the day

came to take her oath in the Turkish Parliament, "Hell broke loose," 

and

Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit told his deputies to "put this 

woman

in her place."

Turkey, a staunchly secular but mostly Muslim country, forbids Muslim

women from wearing the required headcovering if they are serving in 

public

office or attending universities; Kavacki, ever since her 1999 fiasco, 

has

been fighting against this rule in a country claiming to be a 

democracy.

Kavacki worried that instead of Turkey taking its lessons in democracy

from the U.S., the U.S. was taking lessons from Turkey in cracking down 

on

Muslims - exemplified by the federal raids of Muslim institutions and

homes in northern Virginia on March 20 that profoundly shook the

surrounding Muslim community.

She said that Muslims seem always on the defensive about their religion 

-

even while being victims, they "are still sitting in the defendant's

chair," she said.

"Even today, when Muslims are being burned alive in India and even when

their houses are bulldozed by tanks in Israel, we find ourselves as

Muslims in an apologetic mode."

Addressing the key issue of the evening - secularization - she said 

that

it is always the "enemies of Islam" who are behind every effort to

secularize or modernize Muslim countries.

"Isn't the secularization of Islam an oxymoron? For the religion cannot 

be

separated from itself," she said.

While Kavacki's story touched on the definitions of secularism and

democracy as illustrated by her experiences in Turkey, Minaret board

member Aly Abuzaakouk introduced Al-Arians story as the saga of an

American family.

Al-Arian's American "saga" began in 1975 when he arrived in the country 

at

the age of 17. A Palestinian born in Kuwait, he said his family was 

always

involved in Islamic activism, and when the first Intifada broke out in

1987, he worked hard to promote the Palestinian cause. In the early 

1990s,

he was part of an effort to create an organization to challenge the 

idea

of "the clash of civilizations."

"We thought we didn't need a clash of civilizations, we need a dialogue 

of

civilizations," he said.

The World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), based in Florida, was

intended to bring Muslim and non-Muslim intellectuals together for

dialogue, to hold roundtable discussions and produce volumes of their

studies, he said. But "a lot of people didn't like what we were 

producing

and started attacking us."

When a former WISE leader left the country, only to turn up later as 

the

head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al-Arian said, "all hell broke

loose," - echoing Kavacki. Al-Arian, a tenured professor at the 

University

of South Florida, was put on paid leave for two years; his home was

raided, and WISE was investigated and finally collapsed; nothing was 

ever

found to incriminate him.

At that point, Al-Arian's brother-in-law, Mazen al-Najjar, who had a 

work

permit for the U.S. but could not find anything, was offered political

asylum in return for becoming an informant; when he refused, Al-Arian

said, "they introduced secret evidence."

It is Al-Arian's activism against the use of secret evidence - which he

describes as the defendant being asked to defend himself without being

told what he is being accused of - that he is best known for in the

American Muslim community. Of the 29 individuals held under secret

evidence after the 1996 anti-immigration legislation was passed, 28 

were

Muslims.

Al-Najjar, who has three U.S.-born children and was never convicted of

anything related to terrorism, spent more than three years in prison 

while

being dubbed a "national security threat" by his detractors. After a

federal judge ruled that there was no evidence against him, he was

released, only to be picked up again after September 11 on a visa

violation.

Now, with nothing more than that being held against him, he is held 

under

23-hour lockdown, is strip-searched naked every time he wants to leave 

the

cell, is allowed only 15 minutes a week to call his family, and is

escorted around chained hand and foot, Al-Arian said.

He has now been in these circumstances for five and a half months,

Al-Arian said, "not for anything he has done, but simply because of who 

he

is and what he represented."

Post-September 11, things turned ugly for Al-Arian again, after he

appeared on "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News channel on September 26 

in

which he said he was smeared by "a classic guilt by association type of

thing," and received a death threat that very night.

Two weeks of intense media coverage led to what he described as a

"Kafka-esque" university board of trustees meeting, in which the 

trustees

decided to recommend Al-Arian's termination, primarily because "I did 

not

make it clear that I was not speaking on behalf of the university I 

came

to campus once after they told me not to come, which they didn't tell 

me

and I disrupted the campus because of death threats."

Al-Arian has garnered support from the American Association of 

University

Professors, as well as Muslims and civil liberties activists all over 

the

country, but the university's president is still considering his

termination, and he remains "in limbo," he said.

He told the audience that the battle for civil rights had to be won 

before

Muslims became politically empowered in the United States, but "I have 

no

doubt that we're going to win. It's just a matter of time."

Both Al-Arian and Kavacki urged listeners to get involved in lobbying

representatives. "We have to take this opportunity to push the American

public to put everything in perspective," Kavacki told IslamOnline,

calling on Muslims to raise the consciousness of federal and local

government. "Lobbying really works."

Al-Arian added that in addition to political action, "We need your duaa

[prayers]; we need your very sincere duaa."

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