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2. Is There Unity of Islam and the State?
- University of Hawai'i Press
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16 2 IsThere Unity of Islam and the State? Neither of the primary sources of shari‘a, the Qur’an and the hadith (Prophet’s saying), have explicit or specific instructions regarding the establishment of a state. Although there are several Qur’anic verses that contain terms relevant to political concepts, such khalifa (leadership), shura (consultation), umma (community), ulu al-amr (commander), sultan (ruler), mulk (kingdom), and hukm (law), the interpretation of those terms has never reached the consensus that the Qur’an clearly commands the foundation of a state. It is agreed, however, that the Qur’an provides ad hoc concepts that relate to the principles of social life, such as mushawara (consultation), justice, equity, mutual assistance, and religious tolerance, which can be interpreted as guidance for government.1 In addition, despite the hadith saying, “If three people are on a journey, they should choose one of them as a leader,”2 it is only through inferences drawn from this hadith that we can arrive at the understanding that the foundation of a state is required in Islam. However, it is clear that hadith like this are more concerned with leadership rather than state administration. It is, therefore, difficult to draw a precise picture of so-called Islamic political theory, since Islamic political thought mostly concentrates on non-state unit analysis such as the community (umma or jama‘a), justice (‘adl or shari‘a), and leadership (khilafa, imama, and sultan), rather than on “the state as a generic category or [on] the body politic as a social reality and a legal abstraction.”3 In the political thought of the medieval Muslim thinkers, ideas about the state, such as the origin of the state, mostly stemmed from the influence of the Greek philosophers, albeit with varying degrees of strength. The adoption of Greek philosophy by Muslim thinkers did not necessarily mean the abandonment of Islamic teachings. In fact, Greek philosophy on the origin of the state was Islamized by emphasizing that man is a social (or political) being created by God. The concept of a state that might link all those Islamic terms became important political tools only in the twentieth Is There Unity of Islam and the State? 17 century, though such a discourse did appear for the first time in Jamaluddin alAfghani ’s writing in the nineteenth century.4 One basic important idea about Islamic political doctrine is the unity of religion and politics. The principle of tawhid (God’s oneness) underpins this idea. In the context of Muslim political theory, tawhid implies that the community (umma) itself must reflect this unity. Interpreted in this way, no social divisions should be allowed to threaten the unity of the umma. Political Islam, accordingly, should make no distinction between religious and political orders. This led to the understanding that political Islam basically seeks to establish an Islamic political system (the Islamic state) with a single religious function, that is, to enable Muslims to live as good Muslims by implementing shari‘a.5 Conceptualizing Unity Through the course of Islamic history, three interrelated concepts, umma, khalifa , and shari‘a, have represented and preserved the religious and political unity of Islam (al-Islam din wa dawla). Currently, these three concepts have become a vehicle for any individual or group with a political agenda of Islamizing the state to advance their political goals.6 The notion of religious and political unity reveals that Islam does not recognize any separation of religion and politics, that Islam does not differentiate between public and private domains, that the state and the religious community (umma) are one and the same, and that political authority (khalifa) and religious authority (shari‘a) are delegated to the same person. As a result, the Islamic community must be seen as unique and distinguished from nonMuslim society. This point of view is still dominant among many Western and Muslim scholars.7 The following paragraphs will undertake an investigation of the historical application of the terms umma, khalifa, and shari‘a. Umma The umma may have been the first religiopolitical concept to emerge in Islam, though it was originally a sociohistorical one. The term umma appears sixty-four times in the Qur’an8 and twice in the Constitution of Medina,9 with multiple and diverse meanings including followers of a prophet, followers of a divine plan of salvation, a religious group, a small group within a larger community of believers, a misguided people, and an order of beings.10...