THE CONTENT OF THE SHARI‘AH: ACTS OF WORSHIP AND TRANSACTIONS
Traditionally theShari‘ah
has been divided into two parts: the ‘ibadat, or acts of worship, and the mu‘amalat, or transactions. The heart of theShari‘ah
may be said to be the part dealing with the ‘ibadat. Even in modern times, when in many lands governments have replaced much of theShari‘ah
with European laws, the part dealing with worship continues to be practiced and could not but continue to be the foundation of the religion, or what Muslims themselves call arkan al-din, the “pillars of the religion.”
These “pillars” include (besides bearing witness to the two shahadahs) the daily prayers (s.alah), fasting (s.awm), almsgiving(zakah)
, and pilgrimage(hajj)
. As for jihad, meaning “exertion in the path of God,” to which we shall turn extensively later in this book, it is a necessity for carrying out any act pleasing to God including all the “pillars.”
Acts of Worship
Daily Prayers: Of all the Islamic rites, the most important and central are the daily prayers (s.alah), whose form was revealed by God to the Prophet and was then taught by him to Muslims. This rite is obligatory upon all men and women (except during their menstrual period) from the age of puberty until death. Five times a day, determined by cosmic events and not any mechanical or electronic means, Muslims must make a ritual ablution, which is a purification like the Catholic confession, and then perform the prayers.
The ordinary ablution involves the ritual washing with clean water of the hands, face, arms, feet, and the top of the head. This is in addition to the washing of the anus and the male or female organ after relieving oneself. A total ablution, which involves the washing of the whole body, must be performed after certain states and actions such as sexual intercourse. That is why every Muslim town and city from the seventh century onward has always had public baths, some of which that have survived being outstanding works of art. Before modern times, for many centuries the only towns in Europe that had bathhouses were those that were or had been ruled by Muslims. The ritual ablution, a very important aspect of the Islamic pattern of life, is also closely associated with the importance of cleanliness. Certain verses of the Quran and sayings of the Prophet constitute the Islamic counterpart of the Western adage that cleanliness is related to godliness.
After making the ablution, wearing ritually clean clothing and standing on clean ground, Muslims turn in the direction of Mecca and perform the prayers. These involve the recitation of verses of the Quran and the making of certain bodily movements that integrate the psycho-physical dimension of the human being into its spiritual archetype.
In the prayers each person acts as his or her own priest standing directly before God. But when two or more people are present, it is recommended that the prayers be said in assembly with one person, called the imam, leading it. On Fridays the major weekly congregational prayers include a sermon, which often contains an important social and political message as well as an ethical and spiritual one.
The heart of s.alah is the first chapter of the Quran, called the Surat al-Fatihah (or Opening Chapter), which is repeated in every unit of the canonical prayer. It is the heart of the Quran and contains the message pertaining to the dimensions of the ultimate relation between human beings and God. The surah is as follows:
Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds, the Infinitely Good, the All-Merciful, Master of the Day of Judgment.
Thee we worship, and in Thee we seek help.
Guide us upon the straight path, the path of those on whom Thy Grace is, not those on whom Thine Anger is, nor those who are astray. (1:2-7)1
The life of the practicing Muslim is punctuated ever anew by the daily prayers, which break the hold of profane time upon the soul and bring men and women back to a sacred time marked by the meeting with God and to a sacred space pointing to the supreme center of the Islamic universe, Mecca, where the celestial axis penetrates the plane of earthly existence. The prayers are a rejuvenation for the soul, protection against evil acts, and a shelter for believers amid the storm of the life of this world. They have many levels of meaning, from the most outward to the most esoteric known to and experienced only by the sages and saints who are the friends of God. The canonical prayers were constituted in such a way that all kinds of people with various degrees of understanding and perspicacity can participate in them and be nourished by them according to their own capacity. They are a Divine norm transcending the individual order, and yet they act as the gate for the individual’s access to the universal. There are in Islam two other modes of prayer, the prayer of the heart, meant only for those following a spiritual path, or Tariqah, and individual prayers (du‘a) that Muslims, like Christians, Jews, and others, perform from time to time. The s.alah, however, is incumbent upon all Muslims, for it is the guarantee of our living in accordance with our theomorphic nature as beings reflecting God’s Names and Qualities and the means whereby we stand directly before God to address Him as His vicegerents on earth.
Fasting: Like the daily canonical prayers, fasting (s.awm) is an obligatory rite to be performed during the lunar month of Ramad.an by all Muslim men and women from the age of puberty until old age. It is a fast from all food, drink, smoke, and sexual activity (also evil thoughts and deeds) from dawn to sunset (and for Shi‘ites until dusk).
This rite is, however, obligatory only for those who have the physical capability to carry it out. Exceptions are made for the sick and those on a journey (who must make it up later), women in their menstrual period or pregnant or nursing a child, and those who are too weak because of old age. The month of Ramad.an was the month of the descent of the Quran. In this holiest of Islamic months, Muslims combine physical and psychological purification with an intensification of prayer, recitation of the Quran, and acts of charity. During this month, in almost all Islamic cities, vast amounts of food are provided free for the poor, and the cost of the one meal that one and one’s family does not eat each day is given to the needy.
During the fast one puts on, in a sense, the dress of death and distances oneself from the passions that attach one to the world. It is a time for great
self-discipline and the practice of the virtues of patience and persistence in hardship for the sake of God. It is also a time to develop greater compassion toward the needy and to realize what it means to suffer from hunger. The Prophet loved fasting, and in a way fasting from food in Islam corresponds to abstaining from sexuality in Christianity, which exists as a religious ideal although only practiced fully by those who observe celibacy. The Founder of Islam fasted on many other days during the year, and there are many who emulate his model to this day. But the only obligatory fast is that of Ramad.an, which is practiced by the vast majority of Muslims throughout the world to this day.
It is necessary here to say something about the Islamic lunar calendar, which determines the period of fasting as well as other religious rites and ceremonies. In Islam all religious events are based on the lunar calendar, although the solar calendar is used for agricultural and other matters.
In fact, the most accurate solar calendar ever devised, more accurate than the Julian or Gregorian calendars, is the Jalali calendar, devised by the famous mathematician-poet ‘Umar Khayyam and others in the twelfth century and still in use in Iran and Afghanistan. This solar calendar divides the year into twelve months, the first six of which have thirty-one days, the next five, thirty days, and the twelfth month, twenty-nine days, except on leap year when it has thirty days. It therefore makes it easier to keep count of how many days are in each month as compared with the Western calendar and is also astronomically more precise. But Islam explicitly bans intercalation, which means adding a number of days to the lunar year to make it the equivalent of the solar year. Consequently, the Islamic lunar calendar moves through the solar calendar completing one cycle every thirty-three years. As a result, Ramad.an is sometimes in the winter and sometimes in the summer, sometimes during long and hot days and sometimes during short and cool ones. Since Islam is a global community, this injunction banning intercalation, as foreseen in the Quran, guarantees fairness and justice as far as conditions go for fasting, the hajj, and early morning prayers for people living in different geographical latitudes and in the two different hemispheres of the globe.
Almsgiving: The word for almsgiving, zakah, comes from the root zky, meaning “to purify.” It is a tithe or alms whose payment is obligatory according to theShari‘ah
and is the means of “purifying” what bounties God has given by sharing some of it with the poor and the needy. In traditional Islamic society, this sum was paid to the public treasury.
Many projects for public use, such as the creation and maintenance of schools, hospitals, orphanages, and the like, were implemented by use of the sums collected through this religious tax.
Those familiar with Jewish and Christian practices can see obvious similarities in the use of tithing in the three Abrahamic traditions. The word “tithe” comes from the Old English word meaning “tenth,” but the practice goes back to Judaism, where Mosaic laws prescribed the paying of tithes for the support of the Levites and temple service.
The book of Numbers (18:21) in the Old Testament states, “I have given the children of Levi all the tithes in Israel for an inheritance in return for the work which they perform.”
The practice was followed later by the Roman Catholic Church and revenues were used for the support of clergy, churches, and the poor. It became enjoined by ecclesiastical law from the sixth century onward and enforced by secular law starting in the eighth century. It provided the main source of funds for the building of the beautiful medieval cathedrals. Martin Luther approved of tithing, while the French Revolution repealed it. In contrast to Catholicism and Protestantism, however, the Orthodox Church did not accept the practice of tithing. As far as the United States is concerned, the practice of tithing was never enforced except by Mormons. Looking at Western Christianity in general, one can therefore see that tithing and zakah are similar, although the amount of the alms or religious tax has not been the same in the three Abrahamic faiths.
In Shi‘ite Islam in addition to zakah, there is also another obligatory religious tax called khums, meaning one fifth. Moreover, there are many other kinds of almsgiving common to all Muslims, such as s.adaqah, a sum given to the poor in gratefulness to God for the warding off of some danger or the receiving of a special blessing, or fit.riyyah, money given to the poor at the end of the month of Ramad.an. These forms of almsgiving must not, however, be confused with the zakah, which is obligatory and one of the “pillars” of Islam.
In general, theShari‘ah
encourages giving(ithar)
in the path of God, and Muslims agree completely with the dictum of the Gospels, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Much of the social and economic life of Islamic society, in fact, continues to be financed through various forms of religious charity. The institution of waqf, or religious endowment, whose conditions are set forth in Islamic Law, has played the greatest role in Islamic history in the creation of public facilities, especially schools and hospitals.
Today in most Islamic countries the waqf is taken over by governments, but traditionally the waqf was like the endowments created and sustained by the private sector in America today, except that it was always of a religious character.
Pilgrimage: Thanks to radio and television broadcasts available globally, most of the world has now heard of the Muslim pilgrimage, the hajj, and most likely seen images of what is perhaps the largest annual religious gathering in the world. The hajj, which is obligatory at least once in a Muslim’s lifetime if he or she has the financial means and is physically able to perform it, involves pilgrimage to Mecca during a particular period in the lunar month of Dhu’lhijjah. The rite retraces the acts of Abraham after he rebuilt the Ka‘bah (the cubic structure at the center of Mecca considered by Muslims to be the most ancient sanctuary, built originally by Adam) and follows the model established by the Prophet. It is in a sense an Abrahamic rite within the final expression of monotheism, that is, Islam, which revived and reestablished pure Abrahamic monotheism.
The pilgrim, whether male or female, must wear a special white cloth, called ih. ram, before entering the sacred precinct around Mecca, within which only Muslims are allowed, a cloth that is often used later as one’s shroud. In becoming muh. rim, that is, clothed with this special cloth, men and women must leave the world behind. During the hajj they must abstain from sexual activity and devote themselves wholly to God, whose House, the Ka‘bah, they are visiting. Here all external distinctions are erased; king and peasant are dressed in the same manner. The complicated rites involve among other acts circumambulation around the Ka‘bah in a counterclockwise direction with the awareness that one is moving against the march of time and washing away from one’s soul all the dross that has accrued within as the result of the flow of time. Through these rites, which include the sacrifice of an animal symbolizing the sacrifice of one’s passionate soul before God, the pilgrim returns to the state of primordiality, or the Edenic state in which he or she was created, and God forgives that person’s sins if the hajj is performed with full sincerity and devotion. That is why many older people make the pilgrimage with the hope of dying in the process and therefore leaving this world cleansed of their sins. At the corner of the Ka‘bah is to be found the black stone that symbolizes the covenant between human beings and God. All pilgrims seek to kiss and touch it to remind themselves concretely of the primordial covenant they have made with God to accept the state of being human, which means to accept the Lordship of God and surrender to Him.
The hajj is both the means of purification of the individual and the integration of society. Muslims from all parts of the world are to be seen at the hajj. Today the over 2 million people who perform it each year come from all quarters of the world and include Arabs, Persians, and Turks as well as Black Africans and Malays, Chinese and Indo-Pakistanis as well as Germans and Americans, black-skinned as well as fair-skinned people, pilgrims with dark eyes as well as blue ones. Nowhere else in the world is the ethnic and racial diversity of the Islamic community unified in the surrender to the One God more evident than in Mecca during the hajj. Here, exchange of ideas and goods also takes place between Muslims from various parts of the world, and the Divine and Human Laws 137 hajj has been called by some Western scholars the world’s first international scientific congress as well as international economic fair. But more than anything else, through the hajj, pilgrims are purified and in returning home bring something of the grace, or barakah, of the Center to the farthest outreaches of the Islamic world.
With the global population explosion, the problem of accommodating all the pilgrims who wish to make the hajj has become acute. Although the number of pilgrims has now risen to over 2 million, this is still a small percentage of the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, not all of whom, however, fulfill the conditions necessary to make the hajj.
The number of those who do qualify annually according to the Divine Law to make the hajj, however, is much larger than those given permission to perform it. There is therefore a great deal of pressure on most Muslim governments as well as on Saudi Arabia to permit more pilgrims every year,
while at the same time the very logistics of such a large gathering and the space limitations make it impossible to continue to increase the number of pilgrims. In view of the limitations, some Muslims make the pilgrimage to Mecca outside of the specified season to benefit from the grace of the visit to the House of God even if it is not during the days specified by Islamic Law.
The hajj, however, is not the only form of Islamic pilgrimage, but the only one that is obligatory according to theShari‘ah
if certain conditions are fulfilled. Today in America, pilgrimage does not play such a central role in the religious life of Protestants, although there are still those who make pilgrimage to Jerusalem. As for Catholics, both in America and Europe there are still those who make pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Lourdes, or Rome, and in Central and South America to local shrines such as that of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City. In the Middle Ages, however, pilgrimage was much more common in the West, not only to Jerusalem, which served as the excuse for the Crusades, but also to many local sites such as Canterbury in England and Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The importance of pilgrimage in Islam today must be compared more to practices in the earlier eras of Christian history than those today, especially in America.
In the Islamic world, those who make the hajj also visit the tomb of the Prophet in Medina and before the 1967
Israeli takeover of Jerusalem, they also made pilgrimage in large numbers to this third holy city of Islam. Many local sites of pilgrimage are loci of grace associated with the tombs of descendants of the Prophet and the great saints.
All of these sites are so many extensions of Medina and expand the barakah of the city of the Prophet and his sacred remains to the various areas of the Islamic world.
Some of these sites are the tomb of Ah.mad Bamba in Touba, West Africa; the two Moulay Idrises in the proximity of Maknes and in Fez; the Mosque of the “Head of Husayn” in Cairo; the tomb of Sayyid Ah.mad Badawi, the patron saint of Egypt, in Tanta; and the “sacred stations” of Zaynab in Cairo and Damascus. The many holy sites in Iraq include the tomb of ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani and the mausoleums of the Shi‘ite Imams, especially those of ‘Ali in Najaf and H. usayn in Karbala’. The mausoleum of Jalal al-Din Rumi in Konya, Turkey; the holy cities of Mashhad and Qom in Iran; the mausoleum of Khwajah ‘AbdAllah
Ans.ari in Herat and that of Baha’ al-Din Naqshband near Bukhara; and the tombs of many of the great Sufi saints of the subcontinet of India such as that of Dadaji Ganjbakhsh in Lahore, Niz.am al-Din Awliya’ in Delhi, and Mu‘in al-Din Chishti in Ajmer, which are among the greatest sites of religious life in Islam. During annual commemorations of the death of these saints, often hundreds of thousands of people gather at these locations for religious rites and to receive blessings.
It is important to note that these sites of blessing are not limited to the sacred station(maqam)
, or mausoleum, of males, but include those of females as well. In Cairo, after the Mosque of the “Head of H. usayn,” the most important sanctuary and center for pilgrims is the maqam of the
granddaughter of the Prophet, Zaynab, whose other maqam in Damascus is in many ways the religious center of the city. Also in Cairo, the mausoleum of Sayyidah Nafisah, a great scholar, saint, and descendant of the Prophet, is a major religious site. In Iran, after Mashhad, the city of Qom, which is the center of Twelve-Imam Shi‘ism, is the most important shrine in Iran because of the tomb of Had.rat-i Ma‘s.umah, the sister of Imam Rid.a, who is buried in Mashhad. And before the Wahhabis destroyed the mausoleums of the wife and daughter of the Prophet, Khadijah and Fat.imah, in the Hijaz, those sites were also major centers for pilgrimage. Naturally, these mausoleums of female saints are visited especially by women, but not exclusively.
Both men and women participate in large numbers in pilgrimage to all of these sites, whether they are associated with a male or female saintly figure.
Visits and pilgrimage to the tombs of saints is strongly opposed by Wahhabis and other puritanical reformers and also discouraged by modernists. The Wahhabi opposition is based on the idea that to visit the tomb of a saint is like idol worship and takes one’s attention away from the transcendence of God; modernists have discouraged such pilgrimages in order to secularize social life, but their opposition has never been as severe as that of the Wahhabis. Still, the practice of pilgrimage to various holy sites remains to this day at the heart of the religious life of the Islamic world.
One cannot understand the religious practice of Islam without paying attention to the significance of pilgrimage, which ranges hierarchically from the hajj and the pilgrimage to Medina to visitation of local sacred sites that exist in most Muslim lands. These “lesser” forms of pilgrimage do not, however, in any way detract from the centrality of the hajj, but are like so many foretastes and reflections of it.
The visit to the “House of God” remains supreme in the mind of Muslims when it comes to pilgrimage, and many visit it even outside the designated season in what is called ‘umrah. That is why today, when populations have increased and travel is easier, every day of the year there are numerous pilgrims in Mecca, and in the middle of any night during any season one finds thousands of pilgrims circumambulating around the Ka‘bah and praying before the house rebuilt by Abraham in celebration of the One God who in the Old Testament uttered, “I am That I am.”
Besides all these rites promulgated by theShari‘ah
, there are also many other religious practices in Islam based on theSunnah
of the Prophet and later traditional elaborations thereof. They include ritualized ways of feeding the poor, sessions of special prayers, ritualized sermons, sacrifice of animals whose meat is then distributed among the needy, and many other activities. In the traditional Islamic world, in fact, nearly every necessity of life is sanctified, and theShari‘ah
considers even the earning of one’s daily bread a religious act. It is the totality of the obligatory rites as well as the recommended ones together with the sacralized forms of many different actions that constitute the Islamic way of life, in which, in principle, there is no distinction between the sacred and the profane and what we now call ordinary or everyday life is integrated into the matrix of the sacred.
Transactions It is precisely the all-embracing nature of theShari‘ah
that has necessitated its dealing with what are called transactions (mu‘amalat)-social, environmental, economic, and political matters such as personal laws, the family, the neighbor, and so forth. Social teachings are dealt with in the next chapter, but here it is necessary to say a few words about the environmental, economic, and political teachings of theShari‘ah
, some of which are parts of jurisprudence, or fiqh, and others principles to be applied by various generations of Muslims to specific situations in the absence of explicit legal rulings.
Environmental Teachings: The environmental crisis is primarily the consequence of an inner malaise and a whole worldview that gives human beings unlimited power over nature seen as a desacralized reality. This manner of looking at things has resulted in the reduction of nature to only a resource for economic production. As far as dealing with it on the social and legal planes is concerned, however, for Islam environmental matters may be said to be a legal issue already treated in principle in the sources and applications of Islamic Law, whereas in the West law seems to be trying to “catch up” with the problems caused by this crisis. The traditional Islamic worldview is totally opposed to the prevalent modern paradigm of the relation between human beings and nature, which has caused unprecedented harm to the natural environment, has led to the loss of many species, and now threatens the very future of human life on earth. Islam sees men and women as God’s vicegerents on earth. Therefore, in the same way that God has power over His creation but is also its sustainer and protector, human beings must also combine power over nature with responsibility for its protection and sustenance. The Quran is replete with references to nature, and the phenomena of nature are referred to as God’s signs and are therefore sacred. In traditional Islamic society human beings lived in remarkable harmony with their natural environment, as can be seen in the urban design of traditional Islamic cities and also in the life in the villages, which, as in other premodern parts of the world, is still based on remarkable harmony with the rhythms of nature and makes full use of what is now called recycling.
On the basis of the Quran andHadith
, theShari‘ah
has extensive teachings, both legal and moral, concerning the natural environment: the way that animals should be treated kindly, trees preserved and not cut unless absolutely necessary, vegetation guarded even in war, running water protected, and many other relevant issues. The Prophet himself was always very kind to animals. As for trees, he emphasized the significance of creating what is today called green space; He said, “It is a blessed act to plant a tree even if it be a day before the end of the world.” TheShari‘ah
promulgates certain general principles concerning the environment, such as that of balance(mizan)
between all parts of God’s creation, the prohibition of waste, and respect for all life forms, and specific injunctions, such as the creation of protected areas for wildlife.
But in many areas where crises have been created during the past century as a result of the advent of modern technology, overpopulation, economic plunder, and so on, specific Shari‘ite laws are missing. For some time the
Islamic world, like the rest of the non-Western world, neglected the environmental crisis and thought that it was a problem only for highly industrialized countries. As the dimensions of the crisis grew, however, the situation changed during the last two decades of the twentieth century. A whole new branch of theShari‘ah
is now being developed on the basis of the traditional sources of the Divine Law to address the crucial problems posed by the environmental crisis in the Islamic world as elsewhere. From Nigeria to Malaysia, legal scholars are applying themselves to these issues, and this branch of theShari‘ah
is one of the most challenging and dynamic aspects of it in the present day.
Economic Teachings: Before modern times there was no such thing as economics among the Islamic sciences, just as it was not part of European divisions of learning before the Renaissance. Both civilizations knew the Latin word oeconomicus (itself of Greek origin), from which the modern word is derived, but understood it in its original sense of managing the affairs of one’s household. The modern Arabic word for economics, al-iqtis.ad, in fact, had the completely different meaning of “moderation” or the “just mean” in classical Arabic and is part of the title of one of the most famous works of Islamic theology by al-Ghazzali.
One could not say, of course, that there was no economics in Islam, but the area or activity known as economics as we understand it today was never isolated by itself in Islamic society. It was always combined with ethics and was seen as an organic part of the life of human beings, all of which should be dominated by ethical principles. That is why the very acceptance of economics as an independent domain, not to speak of as the dominating factor in life according to the prevailing paradigms in the modern world, is devastating to the Islamic view of human life.
If we were to accept the modern definition of economics, then we could say that the Quran has many verses that refer to economic life, including questions of inheritance, religious tax, opposition to excessive amassing of wealth, and so forth. It also contains, as does theHadith
, numerous ethical teachings that bear directly upon economic life and are incorporated into theShari‘ah
. These include opposition to greed, the importance of honesty in all economic transactions, the inviolability of private property, and so on. As far as property is concerned, in principle “all property belongs to God,” but God has given human beings the right to possess their own property, although a limit is set on the right to private property when it comes to what is meant for everyone and should remain public such as mountains, forests, and rivers.
TheShari‘ah
promulgates a work ethic of central importance to economic life. The Quran states, “O ye who have faith! Be faithful to your covenants (‘uqud)” (5:1). This verse connects work ethics explicitly to human religious life. Covenants can be between human beings and God, between the human being and his or her own soul, or between an individual or group and another person or group. The third covenantal relationship is at the foundation of Islamic work ethics, but at the same time is inseparable from the other two. On the basis of this and other verses, theShari‘ah
teaches that in all economic transactions the two sides must strictly observe
the conditions on the basis of which a transaction is to take place. Both the employer and employee or the buyer and seller have a responsibility to keep their covenant, and the manner in which they carry out a transaction affects their soul as well as their relation to God.
As far as the relation between employer and employee is concerned, theShari‘ah
emphasizes the significance of personal relationship and recommends fairness and kindness on the part of the employer, who is in a position of power over the employee. According to ahadith
, a worker should be paid wages due before the sweat on his or her brow has dried. This personal relationship in economic transactions is so emphasized in Islamic civilization that to this day, even amid modern impersonal economic practices, most Muslims still rely on and trust personal contact above all else.
This personal relationship was of course also very much emphasized in the production of goods, as we see in the guilds, to which we turn in the next chapter.
TheShari‘ah
, moreover, opposes certain economic practices, some of which are forbidden and others discouraged.
The practice of usury (riba’) is forbidden in the Quran and according to Islamic Law, as it was forbidden in the Roman Empire, in Europe in the Middle Ages, and even in England before Henry VIII. The excessive amassing of wealth, to which the Quran refers in terms of gold and silver is also forbidden, as is dealing with substances that are themselves haram, such as making or selling alcoholic beverages. Such acts are considered both illegal and sinful. Altogether theShari‘ah
envisages a society in which economic life is organic, based on the flow of goods and capital through various parts of society like the blood circulating through the human body.
In contrast to the Christian West, where mercantile activity was looked down upon up until the Renaissance, in the Islamic world from the beginning trade and economic transactions were seen in a positive light from the religious point of view. The Prophet himself had originally been a merchant, as had his wife Khadijah, and throughout Islamic history the merchant class associated with the bazaar has been among the most pious in Islamic urban areas, as have been farmers living in the countryside and villages. Traditional Islamic society succeeded in creating a notable integration of economic life and religion. It is also important to remember that in the economic domain, participation was not limited to men and integration concerned the whole of society. Women were active in the production of many goods from agricultural products to carpets and also as merchants and property owners. TheShari‘ah
has given economic rights to women that did not exist in any large society, including the West, until very recently.
There has been a great deal of effort during the past few decades to study the economic principles and injunctions (in the Western sense) contained in theShari‘ah
, which many now call Islamic economics, and to put them into practice. Interest-free banks, called Islamic banks, have been created in several Islamic countries and in the West and interest-free loans made available. But the deeper issues have rarely been tackled in the face of
problems created by the fact that the Islamic world is forced to be involved in a global economic system based on very different tenets and presumptions. But the field remains, nevertheless, among the most lively on the contemporary Islamic intellectual and religious scene.
Political Teachings: The Quran does not outline a particular political structure, but presents certain basic principles for rule, the most important of which is consultation, or shawra, as stated in the verse, “and consult with them concerning conduct in affairs” (3:159). The rule of the Prophet in Medina and the document called the Constitution of Medina are also central to all later Islamic political thought and action, but, again, this constitution does not outline a particular form of government in the absence of the Prophet, who was both prophet and ruler of the community. What the Quran andHadith
emphasize, however, is that the domain of politics cannot be separated from that of religion, which, however, must not be interpreted as “church” in the Western sense of the term. In America one always speaks of the separation of church and state, although religion itself has never been totally separated from political life from the time of the writing of the American Constitution onward. In Europe, during the premodern period there were always two powers, the papacy and the empire or monarchy, and the latter received its religious legitimacy and investiture from the former. Later, states became secularized, especially after the French Revolution, but in many countries state religions have been maintained to this day, and in Great Britain the monarch is still the head of the Church of England.
None of these models apply, however, to the Islamic world, where there is no church or pope and where the classical caliphate was neither like the papacy nor like the emperorship of the Holy Roman Empire. Some have said that the Islamic model is a theocracy, but this is not exactly true as this term has been understood in the context of Western history or even that of ancient Egypt or classical Japan. A theocracy means the rule of the priesthood or the priestly class, of whom the ruler is the head or leader. In Islam, however, there is no priesthood comparable to that found in Christianity, Hinduism, or Buddhism; the closest class in Islamic society to priests is the ‘ulama’, or religious scholars, who are knowledgeable in the Divine Law and serve as its guardians and interpreters. Moreover, except for Iran since the Revolution of 1979, the ‘ulama’ have never ruled directly over Islamic society, and even in Iran, the rule of the jurisprudent (wilayat-i faqih) is modified by the presence of an elected parliament. In any case, facile comparisons between the views of Christian fundamentalists concerning “theocracy” and Islamic views of government are simply false. Technically speaking, the Islamic ideal is that of a nomocracy, that is, the rule of Divine Law. It is true that all power, including political power, belongs ultimately to God, as the Quran states, “The command rests with none but God” (6:57; 12:40). But in the case of Islam, the rule of God was never associated with the rule of the priestly class; rather, it was associated with that of theShari‘ah
. The Islamic Republic of Iran is the first case in Islamic history in which the religious ‘ulama’, the closest one can come in Islam to a priestly class, has ruled directly over a major Islamic country.
During Islamic history, first the institution of the caliphate and then that of the sultanate were developed in Sunni Islam. Shi‘ism rejected the caliphate as a political institution, but accepted the sultanate, or monarchy, as the least imperfect form of government in the absence of the Mahdi. This was even the view of Ayatollah Khomeini in his earlier writings, before he turned against the institution of the monarchy in favor of the new concept of the “rule of the jurisprudent” (wilayat-i faqih). In any case, in all the different forms of government, the ruler sought legitimacy by protecting theShari‘ah
, or at least claiming to do so, and seeking the backing of those who were the custodians of theShari‘ah
, namely, the ‘ulama’. Even the legitimacy of the monarchy relied not so much on blood, as in Europe, but on the ability to preserve order and to protect theShari‘ah
. Of course, many rulers did not follow the teachings of theShari‘ah
, which in principle applied to them as to everyone else. But the ideal of protecting and preserving theShari‘ah
was always there, and, in fact, in practice theShari‘ah
often served as a shield for the protection of the people against the whims of powerful authoritarian rulers, although there were, again, exceptions.
In Islamic political theory, the role of the government is always limited, and in practice such major areas as justice, health, and education were left to the private sector before the rise of modern states in the Islamic world. Rule was also usually personal, and before modern times caliphs and kings would hold regular sessions with their ordinary subjects during which the petitions of the latter were received and answered. Today there is much talk of Islam and democracy. If democracy is understood as the rule of the will of the people, then there were mechanisms in traditional Islamic society where the will of the people was reflected to the ruling class, including the caliph or sultan, and it definitely played a role in those governments that were successful and that endured. If it means the particular institutions developed during the past few centuries in the West, then there is no parallel for them in premodern Islamic history, no more than there is for them in premodern Japan, China, or India. Although many Islamic countries have tried to introduce Western models of democracy during the past century, usually with little success, and although there is much turmoil in this domain today, the one principle that remains clear to all Muslims is that sovereignty belongs ultimately to God as expressed in the Divine Law and an Islamic society is one in which this sovereignty is accepted; but that still leaves a vast domain in which the people can exercise their views and act freely as long as they do not oppose the Divine Law.
With the fall of the Ottoman caliphate and the many twentieth-century revolutions based on the European model that followed, the whole question of political rule in its relation to Islamic teachings, the wishes of the people, and the form that an Islamic government should take has become central. There is today great confusion and turmoil in the Islamic world on this matter. Some have adopted Western republican models, others have continued the older form of sultanate or monarchy, and yet others want to revive the caliphate. It will take some time before Islamic civilization can again develop its own authentic political forms, a task that is being made
much more difficult today by the fact that it is under constant external pressure and is not able to create institutions based on the inner dynamic of Islamic society. Paradoxically, many Western-oriented Islamic countries that are praised in the West for having “secularist” governments do not allow Western-style democratic practices; if they did in the sense of allowing people to really express their preferences, the result would be a much more Islamic government as far as the rule of theShari‘ah
is concerned. This is because the vast majority of all Muslims, even in the most Westernized and modernized countries, would like to live according to theShari‘ah
and to have their own freedom and democracy on the basis of their own understanding of these concepts and ideals rather than on how they are understood in the modern and postmodern West.
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Author: Seyyed Hossein Nasr
