Shari‘a and Politics (Islamic Law?)

Islam, as religion, consists of belief and belonging, and the two in practice interact. In this interaction the social and political life of Muslims is defined differentially among Muslims themselves. The interpretation of the concept of shari‘a is crucial. It means “the path or road leading to water, i.e. a way to the very source of life.” (Rahman, 1979, 100). The very source of life in this context is God Himself. Rahman (1979, 100-01) speaks more technically about shari‘a as “religious values, expressed functionally and in concrete terms, to direct man’s life.... The Way, ordained by God, wherein man is to conduct his life in order to realize the Divine Will. ... It includes all behavior – spiritual, mental, and physical. Thus it comprehends both faith and practice.”

This definition of shari‘a fits the approach to religion as the interaction between belief and belonging. There is, however, severe disagreement among Muslim scholars about the meaning and scope of shari‘a. Muslims commonly believe that the first source of the shari‘a is the Qur’an. A question immediately arises as to the extent to which the Qur’an covers all legal issues related to Muslim behavior in a changing society. Rahman (1979, 68) argues that “the strictly legislative portion of the Qur'an is relatively quite small,” and therefore not sufficient to direct Muslim behavior. Muhammad Sa‘id al-`Ashmawi, a Chief Judge of Egypt, more specifically states about shari‘a as follows:

“The term Shari‘a appears as such only once in the Qur’an ... (Sura 45, Verse 18), but one finds there three other terms from the same root (Sura 42, Verse 13; Sura 5, Verse 48; Sura 42, Verse 41). In all these places Shari‘a signifies not judicial norms but the route or the way.” (Al-`Ashmawi, 1998, 50).

This limitation of the Qur’an is resolved through the inclusion of the Sunna as preserved in the Hadith, which is the record of the Prophet’s life in his community. The Hadith is believed to be the second source of the shari‘a. It encompasses a broader range of social and political interaction in the Muslim community. The absolute importance of Sunna as the second source of the shari‘a, according to Rahman (1979, 69), has been legitimated since the Prophet passed away by a doctrine of infallibility or sinlessness of the Prophet.

After the Prophet passed away, and the Muslim community had grown much larger, beyond Arabia, the Sunna itself was felt insufficient to direct Muslim behavior. A controversy emerged, in which one group of scholars, called the ahl al-hadith, claimed that the true Islam or shar‘a manifested in a community should imitate “the Sunna community,” i.e. the community of Muslims under the authority of the Prophet in Medina. Any influence from the non-Sunna community is claimed to deviate from the model and is supposedly intolerable.

Another group of the ‘ulama’ argued that it is true that the Sunna was never wrong in its historical context, but when this context changed, as normally happens in any community, the Sunna in fact became insufficient to direct Muslim behavior. This change strengthened the personal role of the ‘ulama' on the basis of his understanding of the Qur'an and Hadith. This personal opinion (fiqh), is opened to falsification. The ahl al-hadith cannot accept this argument, and always imagines the Sunna community as the true model for the Muslim community regardless of historical change.

The two different beliefs about the nature of shari‘a shaped the way contemporary ‘ulama’ or activists imagine the Muslim community, including their perceptions about the relationship between religion and politics. To simplify, I will sketch the debates about the relationship between Islam and politics among some leading contemporary Muslim intellectuals or ‘ulama’, and place the Muslim masses’ attitude and behavior in the context of this debate. Their antagonistic views about shari‘a, and its relations with politics, may shape the attitude and behavior of the Muslim masses.

11.12 | 0 komentar | Read More

Islam and Democracy: Intellectual Origins and Macro-Context

Many leading scholars of democracy and Muslim society speculate that Islam is inimical to democracy. This claim is mostly based on the observation of Islamic history, from the early period of about 1500 years ago to the present. In the long history of Islam, relative to other religions, democracy has been absent. Islam is a crucial cause of this problem, it is argued, as Islam has a unique political philosophy inimical to democracy. Political secularization, the separation between religious and political domains, or between religion and state, which is an essential part of modern democracy, is not characteristic of Muslim societies. Islam is therefore not likely to contribute to political secularization and democracy.

This chapter addresses this question through a brief consideration of contemporary Islamic political thought and action among Muslim intellectuals. It focuses on contemporary Indonesian Muslim elites, parties, and movements. It lays a foundation of intellectual origins and a macro context of individual attitudes and behavior. If observation of Muslim societies is restricted to contemporary Muslim political thoughts, parties, and movements, it can be shown that the negative evaluations of Islam and democracy are accurate only regarding one variant of Islam. However, as mentioned above, critical analysis is mainly based on their observation of the past, not the present. It is true that the past shapes contemporary Muslim societies and polities, but it is not the whole story.

As discussed in the introduction, the way the past shapes today’s Muslims' views about politics may be influenced by the way cultural agents or interpreters interpret the past, the tradition. Their view of the past may be different from that of their predecessors without becoming less Islamic. They may even feel that their "new Islam" is more Islamic than "old Islam" placed in a new society. This does not mean that "old Islam in a new society" has disappeared. It still exists, and is probably dominant in Muslim societies as Samuel Huntington and other pessimists believe. But it is not alone. It is competing with "new Islam in a new society." Today’s Muslims are struggling to define the meaning of Islam in a new world.

11.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Ghazali in Political Prescription and Epistemological Polemic

Like most medieval Islamic political theorists, al-Ghazālī identified the leading purpose of government as the maintenance of  peace and security. In a secure environment, Muslims would be free of the worrisome exigencies of survival and able to practice salvific Islam. Without security the sharī'a would crumble, tempting people to sidestep right practice in order to protect their interests in a violent, uncontrolled situation, jeopardizing their salvation in the process.

In al-Ghazālī’s conception of political order as expressed in the Kitāb al Mustazhirī and echoed elsewhere, the caliphate was the cornerstone of law and of government. In this chapter I will show that al-Ghazālī envisioned the caliph as a crucial mediating link between (1) the Islamic community guided by the ulamā, (2) Seljuq coercive force, and (3) God’s authority.

Both ʿulamāʾ and rulers acknowledged the authority of the caliph; this mutual acknowledgement tied the Seljuq rulers to the Islamic community via the sharī'a, valued by both parties. The legitimacy of Islamic government depended on the maintenance of the caliphate, even if the caliph commanded only nominal obedience from the secular rulers and the 'ulamā'. 

The primary threat to the fragile political order in al-Ghazālī’s day was the infiltration of Isma'ili missionaries. Al-Ghazālī inveighed at length against the Ismaʿilis before outlining his thoughts on the caliphate and offering advice to his young patron, the caliph al-Mustaẓhir. I will conclude this chapter by outlining al-Ghazālī’s objections to Isma'īlism, especially regarding the faulty roots of Ismaʿīlī religious knowledge and the implications of knowledge for the constitution of an Islamic polity.111 Al-Ghazālī’s polemic brings his own views on knowledge and politics into sharp relief.

The Kitāb alMustaẓhirī was among the last works that al-Ghazālī wrote before his 488/1095 crisis and flight from Baghdad. The circumstances surrounding its composition were marked by political tumult of a kind unseen in Baghdad since the Seljuq invasion. On 14 October 1092, an Ismaʿīlī “Assassin” “in the guise of a suppliant or a petitioner” fatally stabbed Nizām al-Mulk. Sultan Malikshāh probably abetted the murder, for he had been on bad terms with his vizier in preceding weeks. A month later, Malikshāh succumbed to an illness contracted while hunting. A period of civil unrest and upheaval followed his demise. Bedouins, “emboldened by the death of the sultan and the absence of the army, waylaid and fell upon” pilgrims making the Hajj. Rival Seljuq princes Barkyārūq and Tutūsh struggled for supremacy, neglecting the maintenance of peace and order in the interest of gaining personal ascendancy. Barkyārūq triumphed by 487/1094. The caliph al-Muqtadī signed the new sultan’s diploma. 

Moments later, he began hallucinating and promptly died. In the space of a year and a half, the leading lights of al-Ghazālī’s society had been snuffed In this bleak hour, al-Ghazālī attended a small, private session of condolence held for the new caliph al-Mustaẓhir, the son of al-Muqtadi. The Baghdad notables present swore their allegiance to the new caliph, a callow youth of sixteen. Among his first acts in office was to commission from al-Ghazālī, then the preeminent religious scholar in Baghdad, a work refuting the doctrine of the Isma'īlīs, whose politically and doctrinally subversive activities
had flourished amid the recent upheaval.

The K. alMustaẓhirī was not intended for the caliph’s personal consumption but instead as an apologetic tool, a rallying point for Sunni ulamā combating the Ismaʿīlī challenge while reckoning simultaneously with the alien Seljuq Turks. The book attempted to navigate the fragile vessel of the caliphate between these twin challenges to its future. Its intended audience certainly included the caliph and the ulamā, who alone were sufficiently educated to trace the efflorescent style of al-Ghazālī’s arguments. But al-Ghazālī also claimed to address a broader audience, “to follow the via media” between abstruseness and oversimplification, “for the need of this book is general, with respect to both the elite and the common folk, and embraces all the strata of the adherents of Islam.” 

He sought to write a book that would be “pleasing to men’s ears,” even those of modest intelligence who had not “delved deeply into the sciences.” Thus al-Ghazālī intended portions of his work, read aloud, to reach a broad segment of the population as inoculation against the Ismaʿīlī appeal, though the full text and the sequential thread of his argument might be accessible only to the educated, especially the 'ulamā.

05.30 | 0 komentar | Read More

Al-Ghazālī and the Sufi Tradition

Al-Ghazālī’s close affiliation with the Seljuq state in Baghdad came to an abrupt end in the year 488/1095. An epistemic crisis shook the foundations of his certainty, even his confidence in the reliability of sense perceptions and rational data. While he kept his post as official bastion of state orthodoxy, he descended into a state of secret skepticism. He feared for his salvation, and berated himself, saying

“Away! Up and away! Only a little is left of your life, and a long journey lies before you! All the theory and practice in which you are engrossed is eyeservice and fakery! If you do not prepare now for the afterlife, when will you do so? And if you do not sever these attachments now, then when will you sever them?”

Yet he could not tear himself free from his endowed chair at Baghdad. His internal torment lasted fully half a year, until, he relates, “the matter passed from choice to compulsion. For God put a lock on my tongue and I was impeded from public teaching…my tongue would not utter a single word: I was completely unable to say anything.” Al-Ghazālī was quite literally paralyzed with a doubt that none of his great learning or powerful associates could remove. His deliverance, he claimed, came in the form of a divine “light” that reestablished his certainty.

Under the pretext of making the hajj, al-Ghazālī left Baghdad. He turned his face toward Damascus, not as a touring scholar but as a solitary traveler. In Syria his “only occupation was seclusion and solitude and spiritual exercise and combat.” In Baghdad he had been a Seljuq courtier. Now asceticism and complete devotion to God filled his days, passed alone in a minaret. Desire consumed him to concentrate on remembrance of God (dhikr) and purifying his soul from worldly passions. These practices were hallmarks of Sufism.

The Sufism that was widespread in Sunni lands by al-Ghazālī’s day had its roots in ascetic self-denial (zuhd), a trend that had begun centuries earlier. While Western scholarship has tended to emphasize extra-Islamic stimuli in the rise of this movement, writers within the Sufi tradition averred that Islamic asceticism and its later development, Sufism, were organic outgrowths of the Qurʾān and the sunna of Muhammad. The early forerunners of Sufism prefigured staples of Sufi practice in striving

"to achieve a psychological and experiential proximity with God through self-imposed deprivations…, self-effacing humility, supererogatory religious practices, long vigils, pious meditation on the meaning of the Qurʾanic text and a single-minded concentration on the divine object."

These individuals stripped the external life of its material refinements in order to magnify the vibrancy of the soul within. The ascetic impulse took a reactionary form after the Arab conquests, when luxurious plunders circulated among the victors. By contrast, the early ascetics developed the habit of wearing rough woolen garments to distinguish themselves from ordinary believers and to mortify the bodily desire for comfortable dress in a dusty, sweltering climate.

While in some ways the ascetics’ manner of life was novel and extreme, they did not abandon the historical foundations of Islam. Proto-Sufi writers were quick to affirm that their tradition was consistent with the Qurʾān and sunna, and Qurʾānic recitation and memorization remained central to their practice. However, ascetic masters derived a certain authority from their putative connection with the divine. This authority tended more and more to displace the transmitted authority of hadīth. Hadīth lost some of their perceived immediacy as the life of the Prophet faded into the past, and ascetics—figures of demonstrable spiritual prowess—filled the resultant authority void. This authority adjustment was marginal; none of the early spiritual masters was known for claiming authority from God directly opposed to authority transmitted via the Prophet. Nevertheless, this perceived tension occasioned one of the major enterprises of early Sufi writings: the presentation of asceticism as continuous with the Muslim mainstream.

05.16 | 0 komentar | Read More

Islamic Monetary and Financial Economics have Insisted that Universal Banking

Islamic banks are unique institutions that draw their characteristics from Islamic Shariah, several centuries of traditions, and contemporary economic thinking and banking practices. By every measure, it is an innovation when compared to conventional banking. Yet, it is not far removed from the finance and banking industry, as it shares several common characteristics with contemporary practices.

Some specialists in Islamic monetary and financial economics have insisted that universal banking is one of the main components of Islamic banking. Islamic banks provide finance to enterprises through either sharing directly in the net results of their activities or financing their purchases of assets, goods and services on credit. We can therefore expect Islamic banks to hold equity in corporations and sit on their boards of directors. They use the information obtained from their vantage point to reduce risk from information asymmetry and to fine-tune their finance directed to the same corporations. In addition, they can trade in goods and services, provide Islamic insurance, and operate in financial markets. In other words, they operate like universal rather than commercial banks (Al-Jarhi, 2003).

The practice of universal banking is generally accepted as part of Islamic banking, but not commonly followed by Islamic banks. Islamic finance was an old practice that was generally forgotten for sometimes and gradually replaced by conventional banking. Perception of Islamic banking started as an old painting covered with dust and superimposed images. But, it is gradually and slowly coming clearer over time. A lot of literature has come out during the last quarter of a century to put some clarity into the old picture. 

In addition, Islamic banking as a concept has come back in the twentieth century while the banking and finance environment is highly sophisticated and current practices are well entrenched. We do not therefore expect novel ideas to be accepted on purely religious basis, reasoning must be made as rigorously as possible. Every part of Islamic banking must be rationalized in a way that would make sense both to bankers and economists.

Universal banking has been practiced in only few countries, mainly Germany, Belgium, Italy, Japan and few others. Such practice continued while the dominant Anglo-Saxon world has set commercial banking as a standard practice within a heavily regulated environment. Therefore, universal banking must be justified, using the economics yardstick. The literature has grown immensely on universal banking during the last decade. Many writers have come up with justifications for universal banking and many others have expressed opinions that varied from mere doubt to outright hostility. It required a lot of sifting to find the main justifications behind universal banking.

This paper tries to put forward the case of universal banking as a part of Islamic banking. A large amount of literature is surveyed that comes from banking theory, macroeconomic and monetary theory as well as empirical studies about banking practices. The conclusion is that universal banking on its own is a sound practice that can offer developing countries special advantages. Such a conclusion is rather important because many of the Islamic countries where believers in Islamic banking reside are developing. It would therefore be helpful to see that Islamic banking as it contains universal banking would give a helping hand in the process of development that would not be easily obtained from conventional banking.

The paper is divided into seven parts. The first part summarizes the perspective of universal banking from the vantage point of the banking theory. The second part surveys the Gerschenkron- Schumpeter’s thesis of the role of universal banking in economic development. The third part presents a survey of the European experience regarding universal banking from two vantage points: that of Fohlin and of Da Rin and Hellmann. The fourth part summarizes an interesting debate between Fohlin and Temin on the role of universal banking in the industrialization of Europe.

The fifth part presents the Da Rin and Hellmann model of big-push model and catch-up economy that can be considered to be the main contribution of macroeconomic theory to the topic on hand. The sixth part considers universal banking as a practice that would come out of deregulation under the practice of integrated financial services provision (IFSP) or integrated banking. We can therefore visualize universal banking taking many shapes each of which has its own pros and cons. The seventh and last part summarizes the findings related to universal banking and how it reflects on Islamic banking as a whole.

16.19 | 0 komentar | Read More