Islamic Governance

This is a topic that any sane person must approach with a fair degree of trepidation. Not the least of the reasons for this is that for many Muslims, governance is a matter of faith. Of course, it is a matter of faith precisely because there is little in the Quran about how governments should operate. And this makes it dangerous territory even for scholars who have grown up with the Quran. For someone like myself to step into the debate shows a real lack of discretion.

Yet I was asked and I've never been one to turn down a challenging
assignment.

In trying to determine what Islamic governance should be, there are five
sources we can examine. These are:
1)The Quran
2)The Sunnah
3)The Hadiths
4)Shariah
5)history

Now there is no question that the Quran should be the primary source of
guidance for Muslims. Unfortunately, it says very little. One often cited verse, 2:30, begins “Behold, thy Lord said to the angels: "I will create a vicegerent on earth." While some claim this supports a certain form of government, in fact it was a specific reference to Adam in the Garden of Eden.

The Sunnah, or the example of the Prophet (pbuh), helps us to understand
the Quran but since the Quran is silent on government, of what use is
the Sunnah? This is an discussion that I will go into in more detail later.

I refer to the Hadiths separately from the Sunnah because they are.
During his life, Mohammad prohibited his followers from writing down
what he said. So while there were written copies of the Quran in the
time of the Prophet, there first collection of Hadiths wasn't done until
120 years after his death. Eventually, very few of the sayings
attributed to Mohammad were judged to be authenticate. Yet such is the
power of the written word that the Hadiths today are frequently
considered to be the heart of the Sunnah. However, with various
collections of Hadiths disagreeing on their reliability, and with
neither the Quran nor the Prophet endorsing them, one must be very wary
of relying on them for creating an Islamic model of government.

Shariah is even more problematic. The various schools disagree on some
very basic points and at times are in conflict with the Quran. Moreover,
the major schools all rely on the Hadiths but they were established
before the Hadiths were classified. Furthermore, the various schools of
Shariah are based on the previous three sources, the Quran, the Sunnah
and the Hadiths. They are at best derivative and are unnecessary in our
discussion.

Then, we have history. Some people believe that Arabia in the time of
the Prophet was an ideal society that we should emulate. This view is
very obviously wrong. Firstly, it is not substantiated by the Quran.
Secondly, the Prophet never said that his society was perfect. Nor did
he say that societies should not develop. Thirdly, we do not have the
Prophet with us today. We only have his example and the Quran. Finally,
the Prophet worked through his life to improve the society he lived in.
Some things he could change while others he had to accept.

For example, slavery was allowed in his time but few today would argue
that we should return to the practice. Other practices were allowed
because Arabia was simply not safe.
After the Prohpet's death, we have the Caliphate. The Caliphate is well
documented and its workings understood. However, just because an empire once claimed Islam as its religion is scant justification for believing
that Muslims today should use it as a model.

Of course, the nation the Prophet built needed a government after he
died, so one was created. It was based on Arabic traditions, with a new
leader being chosen by the community. These successors to Muhammad did not fair well. Abu Bakr died after being Caliph for little more than two
years. Umar was assassinated after ruling for 10 years. Uthman was
killed by by his own soldiers after 12 years. Next Ali was assassinated
a year later. After that the position of Caliph became hereditary.

This legacy of assassination can hardly be what Allah wanted for people.

In the end, if we are to believe that there is a unique form of Islamic
government, it appears that we must rely on the Sunnah to find it.

The argument is often made that the form of government implement by
Mohammad must be used by Muslims. I find this unconvincing. For one
thing, the Prophet was a unique individual. For another, the Quran often
states that Mohammad's sole duty was to deliver the Quran. While this
can be interpreted as meaning ensuring that it stays intact, which would
require building a society stable enough to ensure it didn't get lost in
the sands of time or the sands of the desert, it is clear that he was
not sent to teach us how to govern each other. Finally, there is nothing
in the Quran or the Sunnah to suggest that there is only one way for
governments to operate.

Then there is the example of the Prophet himself. He was a judge, but
left no written legacy of jurisprudence. And he was the leader of a
nation, but he left no written constitution. And when he knew he was
dying, he did not tell his people how to replace him. In short, he very
specifically ensured that nothing was committed to writing on the
subject of governance.

This null example, I believe, is the most powerful statement he could
have made on the subject. With scholars scanning the texts for any hint
of a divinely ordained form of government, Mohammad left them nothing,
other than his own personal example of living a modest life.

Of course, if the Quran had spelled out everything of importance for
people, then the Universe would have been a waste of space. Instead,
Allah left us room, an almost incomprehensible amount of room, to
discover and grow in. Not just to learn about governance, but about how
our bodies operate, about how ecosystems run, about the stories in a
grain of sand and about galactic clusters.

And there is a reason for this. As T.S. Eliot wrote “The end of all our
travels is to come back to the place we began and to know it for the
first time”. Someone who has read only the Quran and who has never left
his village can never truly understand the Quran. It is our ongoing
struggles to learn more and to do more that give us real insight into Islam.

The silence on the subject of governance is to allow us to explore
various models as time and society change. Just as the Quran does not
prescribe camel, horse or foot as the preferred mode of transportation
because each depends on the specific time and place, so to it does not
tell us how to govern our societies. This is for us to discover new and
better methods.

What the Quran does do however is put an onus on us, as Muslims, to be
good and to do good. We cannot do this if we follow evil leaders or
endorse unjust systems. We can be more effective Muslims however if we
live in a society that promotes these values. It is difficult, for example, for individuals to look after all the poor or the sick in our country.

However, we can elect governments that, through our tax dollars, ensure
that everyone has a place to stay, enough to eat, and medical attention
when they need it. The role of our governments must always be first and
foremost the welfare of the people. Their success or failure should not
be measured by accounting balance sheets but by the health and
prosperity of the citizens.

The Quran similarly calls upon us to protect the weak. Again, we can do
this through our taxes to provide police forces, education and social
services in our cities, and peace keepers and aid workers
internationally. Are our children safe and our seniors secure? And are
we doing enough to ensure that the privileges we enjoy here are
available to others throughout the world?

Probably the most Islamic document produced by our governments is the
United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It spells out what
is expected of nations and it puts into practical terms the ideals
expressed in the Quran.. Every nation has signed it but few even come
close to following it. We need governments committed to living up to it.

Beyond that however, we need to look at which governments not only look
after human rights but which ones go the step further and try to ensure
that every person can live up to their potential. Which ones eliminate
poverty and disability as barriers to human potential?

So how do we get the kinds of governments that will uphold our ideals?
The first thing we need to do is to look at which governments currently
do the best job of living up to Islamic ideals. Which nations do the
best of job of ensuring that all their people can live with dignity?

The answer is provided by a number of surveys conducted by the United
Nations. In an analysis of these surveys, Professor Dennis Raphael of
the Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto,
discovered that European-style Social Democratic governments do the best
job ensuring that government works for all the people and conservative
“lower taxes are the answer” governments do the worst job. This result
should not surprise anyone.

So-called Islamic nations, even those with tremendous wealth, fail to
address the social inequalities in their societies. In fact, many of
them make it a point to maintain those inequalities in the name of
Islam. By worshipping the past, they disqualify themselves as valid
models for Islamic governance.

Some of their worst excesses involve enforcing rules that violate the
Quran. For example, many so-called Islamic nations have laws violating
freedom of religion, despite the fact that the Quran frequently states
that there is no compulsion in matters of religion. Given that only one
out of every six people in the world is Muslim, laws giving special
status to Islam are not only un-Islamic, they are stupid. And of course
the examples of various Muslim sects murdering each other over
disagreements in interpretation does nothing to enhance the image of Islam.

Things never stand still. While we can appreciate the Social Democratic
model, it is an imperfect and temporal work of man. We need to keep
looking for ways to improve it and to adapt it to changing
circumstances. For example, there are many interesting municipal
experiments around the world aimed at improving civic engagement –
getting citizens involved in the decision making process – that we need
to look at.

What can we as Muslims do to ensure governance that is in keeping with
our Muslim beliefs? Some people try to tell me that good Muslims
shouldn't vote because our governments are not Islamic. I believe that
there is no such thing as an Islamic government and Muslims should not
only vote, but they should work to get the best candidates elected,
because to do otherwise is to let those who believe in un-Islamic
values, like narrow self-interest, ignorance or hatred take control. As
the English philosopher Edmund Burke observed “all that is necessary for
evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”