WITH the political moral vision of the Quran, Islam defeated the corrupt socioeconomic structures of the world and linked human egalitarianism and monotheism. This was the fulfilment of the primordial covenant, which at the time of creation man struck with God. Islam ethically oriented the world and brought forth a unique civilisation. However, later the trichotomy of dictatorship, mysticism and orthodoxy placed obstacles in the path while speculative thought, mystic deliriums and political cynicism of the mediaeval era further prevented progress. During the mediaeval era, the world of Islam was standing at a critical juncture when the imperial West took it by surprise.
Islam’s encounter with the imperial West set in motion the ‘dark age’ of Muslim history, ie the age of surrender and collaboration; since then, Islam is being viewed as per the standards of Western modernity, with secularism and nationalism being the linchpin of all interpretive endeavours. The saner voices of genuine Muslim modernists, who deem nationalism a cannibalistic ideology and secularism to be the bane of modernity, a threat to modern civilisation, have been lost in the cacophony of secular Muslim modernists who happen to be at the helm.
The Orientalists divide Islam into two separate phases: the Makkah and Madinah ‘periods’. They viewed Islam through the lens of the Christian tradition’s ‘render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s’. This initially led to the dichotomy of the sacred and the profane, while the violent Protestant movement culminated in the Peace of Westphalia (1648) which alienated religion from the state’s affairs. Hence, the West and its Muslim cliques leave no stone unturned to establish that the Holy Prophet (PBUH), when he acted as a lawgiver or political leader, acted ‘secularly’.
In fact, Abrahamic monotheism, outgrowing racial and territorial elements, was at the cusp of launching its ‘world career’ when Islam appeared in Arabia. Hence, monotheism encapsulated in socioeconomic justice was a panacea to the twin malaises, ie socioeconomic disequilibrium and polytheism of the Prophet’s immediate society and the world around. So he himself and his opponents from the very outset knew well that the scale of social reforms this monotheism needed would require his assumption of political power. Thus, what transpired at Madinah was very much linked to the revelations in the cave of Hira.
Monotheism was a panacea to twin malaises.
The Prophet was asked to approach his tribe, then all Arabs in ethnic terms, and mankind at large in human terms. There is nothing ‘national’ about this. Ibn Khaldun and Shah Waliullah concur that Arab conditioning was absolutely necessary if Islam was to develop as an effective religion in the world.
At Madinah, Muslims were constituted as a median community against the rigid formalism of Judaism and the liquidity of Christianity: the ‘best ever’ produced for mankind, balancing out their extremes to fulfil the task of an egalitarian moral order with the instrument of jihad. Internally, the community was relentlessly egalitarian and open with its conduct based on active goodwill and cooperation, with no toleration for distinction between one believer and another, male and female in their equal participation in tasks and functions. In perfect harmony to this vision, the Quran laid out the principle of shura, ie mutual advice through mutual discussion on an absolutely equal footing, to conduct the affairs of the community.
After the Prophet, the principle of shura was observed to elect his first successor. Then it was run on an ‘ad-hoc’ basis, with only great companions consulted on military problems. Following this developed the doctrine of the ‘people of the loosening and the binding’, with influential men selected for shura, which, with the onset of dictatorships in the Islamic world later in history, turned into cliques supporting the regime and shura failed to develop into an institution. Thus the religous doctrine of ‘joint rule’ gave way to political cynicism, which alienated the masses from the political process.
So, amidst colonialism when Jamal al-Din Afghani and Namik Kamal suggested democratic set-ups as a bulwark against Western imperialism, it was not conformism to Western modernity but rather judging their own tradition by the normativity of the Quran.
Iqbal was a democrat in impulse and thought; he attacked Western democracy for its secular orientation rather than its form and process. Pakistan was achieved to fulfil Iqbal’s vision of spiritual democracy, but it adopted Western secular democracy.
If we do not orient ourselves to the political moral vision of the Quran which Iqbal suggested and Jinnah pursued, we are bound to serve others at our own peril, unable to materialise our own destiny.
The writer is an academic.
Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2025
