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Chapter 3: Self-Proclaimed Islamic States
- University of Michigan Press
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chapter 3 Self-Proclaimed Islamic States This inquiry into the relationship between Islam and politics in discrete Muslim countries begins with the analysis of two states, Saudi Arabia and Iran, whose rulers have self-consciously and vociferously proclaimed themselves and their polities to be “Islamic.” Their respective claims to be genuinely Islamic are based on two contentions: that their societies and polities are repositories of true Islamic normative values and that their regimes govern their respective societies on the basis of the sharia, the supposedly immutable legal code derived from the Quran and supplemented by the traditions of the prophet Muhammad and the practices of the early generations of Muslims, the salaf al-salih (righteous ancestors). However, even a super‹cial examination of the constitutive principles of the two polities and the policies enforced by their governments in the name of Islam demonstrates such astonishing dissimilarities between them that it is enough to disabuse the observer of the notion that there can be a single, monolithic expression of Islam in the political arena. These two cases highlight, among other things, the dramatic absence of consensus on the forms and rules of governance that are supposedly derived from the same Islamic teachings and legal precedents. They underline the fact that the fundamental religious texts of Islam do not prescribe any particular model of temporal rule and that the moral principles underlying just governance advocated in the Islamic scriptures can be put into practice through different types of institutions in different times and places. These cases also warn us against accepting at face value claims made by regimes in predominantly Muslim countries that they embody Islamic values or that they are authentic models of Islamic governance. Frequently, such claims are made for self-serving purposes by regimes desperately in need of legitimacy. This chapter will compare the two self-proclaimed Islamic states in three 42 crucial arenas: the processes of state making and regime legitimation, the internal organization of the two states as re›ected in their systems of governance, and the expression of political dissent in the two states as re›ected in the rhetoric and activities of movements opposed to existing systems and/or regimes. This comparison is intended to bring out the very different roles played by Islam in these arenas and the extremely divergent interpretations of what is supposed to be “Islamic” where concrete political issues are concerned. State Making and Regime Legitimation The Centralization of State Power in Saudi Arabia One of the best accounts detailing the history of Saudi Arabia begins with the following sentence: “The dominant narrative in the history of Saudi Arabia in the twentieth century is that of state formation, a process that started in the interior of Arabia under the leadership of the Al Sa’ud.” The author goes on to state: “The twentieth century witnessed the emergence of a state imposed on people without a historical memory of unity or national heritage which would justify their inclusion in a single entity.”1 One can make the argument, quite convincingly, that it was the absence of a national myth and the near impossibility of creating one amid the diversity in the Arabian Peninsula that in large part necessitated the use of Islam, albeit of the puritanical Wahhabi variety, by the House of Saud as the principal ideological justi‹cation for their conquest of the disparate regions that today constitute Saudi Arabia. The compact between Muhammad ibn Saud, the founder of the Saudi dynasty, and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of the puritanical reformist Wahhabi school that aimed at purging the tribes of Najd of unIslamic accretions, goes back to 1744 when the latter visited the ibn Saud’s capital in Dirriyah and was given protection by the Saudi chieftain. As a quid pro quo, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab declared: “You are the settlement’s chief and wise man. I want you to grant me an oath that you will perform jihad (holy war) against the unbelievers. In return you will be imam, leader of the Muslim community , and I will be leader in religious matters.”2 Some authors, such as Natana Delong-Bas, have suggested that Ibn Abd alWahhab ’s de‹nition of jihad was defensive and that he did not de‹ne nonWahhabi populations of Arabia as in‹dels.3 Others, such as Hamid Algar, have argued that Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and those who adhered to his teachings considered all Muslims who “did not share their understanding of...