Lanka’s ILA study circle talks Fundamentalism

" The notion of incompatibility arose from the belief which was current from the early period of Islam that “Power belongs only to God.” This belief was later given a theological formulation under orthodox Asharite theology, which held that human power is a direct creation of divine power. The argument is that if power belongs only to God, it cannot belong to the people, and the democratic notion of the sovereignty of the people has to be regarded as unIslamic."

by Izeth Hussain

(April 03, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) A recent local occurrence brought alive for me a fact of vast importance that has gone practically unnoticed both here and abroad. I was one of the three speakers at a meeting held by the ILA International Study Circle on the pro-democracy upheaval going on in the Arab world. The other speakers were Latheef Farook and Ameen Izzadeen, both of whom are well-known journalists who can speak authoritatively on the politics of the Islamic world. In the Chair was Shibly Aziz, President of the Bar Association, and the meeting was organized by Shafeeq Hassan and his associates. I mention these names as all of them are known in Muslim circles as orthodox Muslims of the liberal persuasion, and not fundamentalists though they can sympathize with some aspects of fundamentalism. The important point is that they would have been expected to take a broadly positive view of the Arab struggle for democracy.

A couple of days before the meeting Latheef Farook received a telephone call from someone who gave his name and was clearly a fundamentalist of the Taliban type. He declared that democracy was contrary to Islam, and threatened that if LF spoke at the meeting very dire consequences would follow for him. I myself received a copy of an email that had been circulated to several persons asking whether the Quran and the Sunnah would figure at the meeting. Consequently, in my presentation I argued that not only was democracy compatible with Islam but that every other form of government would be unIslamic, basing myself on the practices of the Prophet himself, the early Caliphs, etc., - the details were given in my earlier Notebooks. In addition I quoted Koranic texts clearly establishing that democracy should be the ideal form of Islamic government, texts cited by Abdelwahab Bouhdiba, etc.

Fundamentalist types

What followed was unexpected. The meeting was very well attended, and most of those present were Muslim. After the presentations were made, there was a lengthy question-and-answer session. But not even one question was raised, not even obliquely, about the compatibility of democracy with Islam as enunciated in the Quran and the Sunnah. The silence on that point had the effect of a thunderclap for more than one reason. One is that the fundamentalist types, here as elsewhere, tend to be militant, aggressive, and even violent. Another reason is that the notion of the incompatibility between democracy and Islam does have behind it an old and well-established tradition. I must add that most of my fellow-Muslims with whom I have discussed the matter over the years have strongly held that the two are incompatible.

It was after the meeting that it occurred to me that in all the vast outpouring on the pro-democracy upheaval - both in the print and electronic media - the point about incompatibility has not figured at all, at least not as far as I know. If it did indeed figure somewhere, it will have no more than a marginal relevance. This seems to me indicative of a profound change that has been taking place in the Islamic world. What is the explanation for this change?

First of all, we must recognize that it is not difficult at all to dispose of the notion of the incompatibility between democracy and Islam. It is very relevant to take into account the matrix out of which Islam arose. No one knows the beginnings of Hinduism, but we know that Buddhism and Christianity arose out of societies which had the State in place, with all that that implies of property and hierarchical divisions. Islam arose in Makkah among the merchant-aristocracy of which the Prophet was an impoverished member, but the important point was that Makkah was not included in a centralized state. Furthermore, it was in close proximity to the stateless society of the Bedouins, which like all such societies was innately democratic. It becomes understandable that Islam had a democratic ethos right from the beginning. We can thereafter point to Koranic texts which clearly imply that ideal governance has to be democratic, and to the actual democratic practices of the Prophet himself and the early Caliphs.

The notion of incompatibility arose from the belief which was current from the early period of Islam that “Power belongs only to God.” This belief was later given a theological formulation under orthodox Asharite theology, which held that human power is a direct creation of divine power. The argument is that if power belongs only to God, it cannot belong to the people, and the democratic notion of the sovereignty of the people has to be regarded as unIslamic. But it is not really difficult to think of valid counter-arguments. The Koran nowhere tells us how divine power should be mediated in human practice. If power cannot belong to the people because it belongs only to God, it cannot belong either to an aristocracy or an elite or a single ruler.

But the Islamic world, just like the rest of the world, has felt the need to cope with the pressures of modernity, and that means that just like the rest of the world it feels the need to turn to democracy. We suddenly find therefore - to practically everyone’s vast surprise - the Arab masses not just coming out in favour of democracy but showing a preparedness to face bullets, and even mass butchery as in Libya. The notion of the incompatibility between democracy and Islam has receded into a limbo. Even the Saudi monarch allowed publication of a statement by 119 Saudi intellectuals and professionals that political power comes from the people and therefore stable political power has to be based on the will of the people. They even called for a constitutional monarchy, under which the political power of the monarch could become a nullity. All this has obvious implications for political Islam, for Islamic fundamentalism in its political manifestation, which I have held is doomed because it cannot cope with the pressures of modernity. The implications have to be addressed in depth, which is not possible here.

I have argued in earlier notes that the Arab struggle for democracy should be seen as a revolution in process. It has to be expected that wherever there is a revolution in process, the forces of counter-revolution will also be in process. I have earlier noted that while the rest of the Islamic world was taking to democracy, the Arabs alone were impervious to it, the explanation for which is that the geographical location of the Arab world as the soft underbelly of Europe makes it important for the West to keep it as long as possible in a condition of medieval backwardness. The main instrument for that purpose has been Islamic fundamentalism which has been promoted by the US together with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries. What the West is now trying to do is to co-opt the Arab democratic revolution so that the Arabs will continue to serve the imperial purposes of the West. That counter-revolutionary thrust will fail because the Arab masses will come to heed a far more imperious call: “Arise ye wretched of the earth!”