Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture
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agreeability. This, then, is what this chapter aims to do – extract political
values and reassemble them to put forth a coherent political philosophy that
represents the high classicalism by which every successive era may be judged.
To begin with, the Qur’an comprises 114 ‘suras’ (chapters), 30 ‘ajza’ (parts),
and 6,349 ‘ayat’ (verses).2 The chapters are of varying size and contain verses classified either as ‘Makkan’ or ‘Madani’, depending on the location of divine
inspiration.3 Makkan verses, those the Prophet Muhammad received in Mecca, provide the basis of our analysis of political values. Critically, why
should we insist on the Makkan verses? Does not that which was revealed in
Mecca and Medina collectively form a single linkage? Certainly, this special
feature of composition is, in itself, a unique feature of Qur’anic studies, called
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‘i’jaz’ or inimitability. 4 However, according to Hamid, the Makkan verses provide the origins of political thought prior to its concretization into political
institutions. He states that the Qur’an is a ‘unified, linguistic, and stylistic
composition whose directives are given in the first phases of revelation’. 5
Thus, principles that identify the major objectives toward which both human
society and political action are guided occur prior to the rise of institutions.
Second, in extracting political values from the Prophetic sayings, the Sahih
Al-Bukhari collection is used. This is so since it is considered the ‘most
authentic of all the other works in Hadeeth literature’.6 It consists of 9 volumes
Political values
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and 97 books on a variety of issues ranging from admirable personality
characteristics to personal hygiene, marriage, wills and funeral rites. 7 More specifically, in the ninth volume and ninety-third book, the section entitled
‘The Book of ‘Al-Ahkam’, or ‘judgements’, deals with political values.
Though, for purposes of further elucidating political values, other compilations
of Prophetic sayings are used.
Third, the period immediately following the death of Prophet Muhammad
(pbuh) until the end of the ‘Rashidun Era’, an important era totalling 30 years,
was pivotal for the establishment of the emerging Muslim community. During
that era, the first four Caliphs – namely, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali – who
were among the earliest and closest of companions of the Prophet, attempted to
syncretize enduring values with their specific conditions. 8 Henceforth, our analysis aims to understand the modus in which they operationalized the ‘foundational’
political values in their circumstances. By doing so, we are able to assess the
trilateral interaction of the foundational, the contextual and the individual,
thereby deducing a pattern. In other words, we ask the question, ‘How did each
of the rightly guided Caliphs interact with the “foundational” in their changing
contexts?’ Here, too, our analysis, for purposes of brevity, will be prioritized
by a focus on the principles of shura – ‘consultation’ – and baya – ‘the pledge
of allegiance’ – into their respective service-orientated leadership styles. 9
Together, these constituents elucidate the enduring political values in Muslim
society, embedded in the minds of people by enculturation. They are not,
merely, appropriation of the past in terms of ‘a romanticised notion of a largely
mythical age’.10 Nor are values and maxims implied in these components representative of a ‘primitivist utopia, both in the sense that presented earliest
of times as the best and in the sense that it deemed a simple society to be the
most virtuous’. 11 Rather, those political values elucidate a high classicism towards which society is meant to work. That includes the Prophetic maxim
that the ‘leader of a people is their servant’ and the model of Medina when,
during Umar’s time, a Bedouin refused to obey him and he did not seek to
intimidate such a recalcitrant person. Rather, ‘he tried to justify himself on a
piece of cloth he had to take from his son’s share and add it to his own tunic
because he was a tall man’.12 It is, precisely, to this high classicism that Muslim polities compare their current political structures so as to measure
discrepancies with regard to it. And in this discrepancy resides the inherent
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tension that endures in Muslim polities. Examining this provides the normative
framework and theoretical basis within which the parameters for under-
standing political culture in Muslim polities are made clear. Granted, this is
only the first step in understanding the entire complexity of political culture in
Muslim polities, since the manner in which an ‘individual’ interacts with it
in their context completes the formula.
Certainly, political culture throughout Muslim polities is not monolithic.
It may, and often does, differ. Yet no matter how varied its manifestation, they
all may be characterized as ‘Islamic’ so long as the ‘foundational’ resonates
throughout their socialization. Therein lay the elements of permanence, which
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Islam and Pakistan’s Political Culture
are those underlying and enduring political values. To grasp these is to better
appreciate the rationale behind the ‘idealistic insurrectionary tendency’ in
Muslim polities that struggles to actualize those ideals in reality.13 This chapter, then, completes the first sphere of inquiry by laying the groundwork
for understanding what amounts to the ‘foundational’ in Muslim polities and
how it interacts with the ‘individual’ and contextual’ when comprehending
the totality of Islamic political culture.
Political values from the Qur’an and Prophetic sayings
The first political value extracted from the Qur’an is that sovereignty belongs to
God. The Qur’an states: ‘Say: Oh Allah! Owner of Sovereignty! Thou givest
sovereignty unto whom Thou wilt, and Thou withdrawest sovereignty from
whom Thou wilt. Thou exaltest whom Thou wilt, and Thou abasest whom
Thou wilt. In Thy hand is the good. Lo! Thou art able to do all things’. 14 This verse, unequivocally, mandates ownership of sovereignty to God. Yet it also
suggests the possibility of God giving or withdrawing sovereignty to or from
whomever He pleases. In other words, then, sovereignty – and the responsi-
bilities associated with it – may shift to people.15 Hence, even though God owns sovereignty, human beings may be empowered by virtue of a residual
sovereignty and trusted to act freely in recognition of the fact that they fulfil
their ultimate responsibility. This is corroborated in the Sahih of Bukhari,
where it is written: ‘I respond to Your call O Allah, I respond to Your call, and
I am obedient to Your orders, You have no partner, I respond to Your call. All
the praises and blessings are for You, all the sovereignty is for You, and You
have no partners’.16 Here, then, we come across one of the most elementary pillars of Islamic political thought – namely, sovereignty – and by implication,
total independence is not possible in anything other than God. Henceforth, it
should not be sought after as a realizable individual goal. Certainly, people
<
br /> are residually sovereign in that God has created them, of good nature and
equal, and given them choice. Yet a Muslim is to precisely perceive ‘God alone
as normative, His will alone as commandment, His pattern as constituting the
ethical desiderata of creation’.17 People, then, become sovereign by recognition of God’s sovereignty and, as a consequence, are endowed with responsibilities
toward God and humanity. Of course, in order to accomplish those objec-
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tives, it becomes imperative to establish a political order that facilitates the
actualization of these ideals.
Critically, this rendition of sovereignty relates to ‘Tawhid ’, which expresses the
most sacred and complete ideational and teleological value system in Islam.
Simple, brief and concise to the utmost limits of brevity, it carries within it the
greatest and richest meanings in the whole of Islam. More succinctly, Al-Faruqi
explains this value with five interrelated principles:
Duality – in which reality is of two kinds, God and non-God or Creator
and created; Ideationality – the relationship between the two orders of
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57
reality is ideational in nature and its point of reference is the manner in
which humans possess the faculty of understanding the Will of God;
Teleology – the cosmos is teleological and serving a purpose of its Creator
and doing so out of design; Capacity of man and malleability of nature –
since everything was created for purpose – the totality of being no less
so – the realization of that purpose must be possible in space and time. 18
Taken together, these interrelated principles, associated with the sovereignty
and Divine transcendence that Islamic theology associates with God, have
serious political implications. Particularly since humans have the potential to
reconstruct their social order based on this self-transcendence. Clearly, life is
not in vain and has a purpose; then to serve that purpose requires a constant
interaction between the two orders of reality: the ‘contextual’ and ‘foundational’.
It is to the latter that he looks for the values by which to govern the flow of
the former.
Second, the Qur’an goes to great lengths to impress upon the reader the
idea of equality of all human beings, only warranting distinction based on
God-consciousness. Even from the first origins of human beings, it declares:
‘When your Lord drew forth from the children of Adam, from their loins,
their descendants, and made them testify concerning themselves [saying]:
“Am I not your Lord?” they said: “Yes! We do testify!” [This was] lest you
should say on the Day of Resurrection: “Of this we were unaware. ”’19 In this verse, the intrinsic equality of all human beings is established on the basis of an
indistinguishable spiritual experience. This inherent equality occurs irrespective
of gender or race and is a consequence of the God’s creation of humanity.
Hamid confirms that the equality of human beings is singled out here, since
humans are created from a single soul and that soul is the soul of Adam, who
was the first human being. 20 Implicit, also, is that no-one among the children of Adam and Eve may claim supremacy over another on the basis of their
genetic origin, race, ethnicity, or on the basis of a privileged relationship to
God. Indeed, with such enormity does the Qur’an deal with the issue of
equality that it attributes the fall of the Devil, who refused to bow to Adam,
to his belief in his own racial superiority. Thus, once human beings realize
their common origins, the supreme sovereignty of the One Who creates and
commands, and submits their souls to Him; they have embraced the ‘Din’ – faith
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or bond.21 This bond acts as the foundation of the entire social structure, including the political.
Third, from human equality arises the conviction of the independence of
the judiciary. 22 This is so since if all people are equal then the law should protect that equality. In other words, no-one is above the law and a righteous
leader should testify against himself, if need be.23 Of course, in order to institutionalize that equality and protect it from infringement, judicial specialists
interpret the law and ensure that all are bound by their conclusions. These
judicial specialists are not free from error; if they decide a matter that is
rejected by the majority of the people, the opinion of the people takes
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precedence.24 The judiciary is responsible for overseeing the application and execution of the law and has the power to indict even the highest authority.
Fourth, and starkly contrasting with Western political theory, the Qur’an
states that humans have an ‘inherent sound and good nature’. Elaborating, it
reads:
It is He, who created you (Humanity) from a single soul, and his mate of
like nature, so that he might dwell with her. When they were united, she
bore a light burden and carried it about [unnoticed]. When she grew
heavy [with child], they prayed to God, their Lord, [saying]: ‘If You give
us a goodly child we shall be [ever] grateful’. But when He gave them a
goodly child, they ascribed to others a share in the gift they received. But
God is exalted high above the partners they associate with Him.25
Importantly, these passages reaffirm that human beings have been created from
a single soul, thereby signifying equality, yet, more relevantly, they describe
human nature or ‘fitrah’ as ‘good’. To explain, this Qur’anic passage is being
spoken in the third-person narrative. Thus, ‘you’ in the passage is used in the
plural form and addresses ‘humanity’ collectively. In addition, the words
‘single soul’ are meant to signify Adam. From this, an obvious endorsement
of the interconnectedness of all humanity is evident, since it stresses that God
created all of ‘us’ from a singular source, created its mate, and if He grants
them a child, it will be ‘good’. This assertion is supported by the Prophetic
saying which states that ‘the mother of every person gives him birth according
to his true nature … ’26 Or, in Arabic the true ‘fitrah’, which is described as
‘saliha’ or good and pure. From this it is clear that all humans are born with
the same good and pure nature. Indeed, had there not been an innate moral
readiness to accept and submit to what is right and good, religion would have
been unattainable, or a matter of enforcement and coercion.27 Yet, since religion is a voluntary choice, each human being has been endowed with the capacity
to freely make that choice.
Hence, human beings have a ‘good’ inborn nature that does not change:
‘the nature in which God has made humankind: no change is there in the
work wrought by God’.28 Granted, there may be forgetfulness, deviation or rebellion from the inborn natural inclination toward God. ‘Goodness’, then,
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may become overshadowed by vice, rebellion and spiritually injurious thoughts
and actions. Nevertheless, the Prophet Muhammad said,
‘wrongdoing is that
which wavers inside you’ even while this may become increasingly difficult to
recognize the more one commits to unethical practices. Yet, still, the point
here is that there must be something inside human nature that naturally calls us
towards faith. This intrinsic sentiment is a reflection of the inherent goodness in
all people.
Fifth, the Qur’an states ‘that God has established human beings on earth
and has provided them with the means of subsistence’.29 From this one can extrapolate that since all human beings had identical spiritual origins, were
Political values
59
born pure with a good nature, they are, consequently, all equal, with parallel
rights on earth. Those rights, therefore, include ‘subsistence’ such as water,
food, clothing and shelter. Human beings are also entitled to a certain control
over the land they collectively occupy in order to meet their basic necessities.
The key word utilized in this verse is ‘makkanah’, which means ‘to establish’
or ‘to bestow power or authority’.30 This apparently indicates that humans have a place of authority and sovereignty on earth – to its land, minerals and
natural resources – in order to be able to ensure their basic needs. Resultantly, an authentic rendering of Islamic political thought must consider that ownership of
land can be a great source of societal tension, since it is a major source of
wealth and power. Indeed, anyone who monopolizes land will have supremacy
over others, which may result in oppression. And, since God has granted all
people collective ownership of land, it is ultimately the objective of rulers to
institute mechanisms to actualize that value. Hamid concurs, suggesting that
‘since all human beings are equal before the One and the same Supreme
Source of power, it is only logical to presume that they would all have equal
rights on earth’.31 Land, therefore, must be exchangeable, and those who do not possess land must be able to benefit from it. This injunction applies to all
human beings, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, and this implies that the
earth belongs to everyone, not just Muslims. More specifically, the earth
belongs to God, alone, and God has commanded that members of His crea-
tion share it, perhaps as a test of character and justice.32 However, what is particularly important here is the clear endorsement of plurality of religious