The Basics of Political Involvement

There have been numerous and lively debates among the ulama and among Muslims more generally on the question of whether it is possible for them to participate in the political life of their countries in Europe or the United States. On the basis of both general principles declared by the Islamic sources and the works of the classical scholars, some have replied in the negative and others in the positive. Most of the thinking of the ulama throughout history has been about situations in which Muslims were in the majority, with a legal system inspired more or less by their own sources. The minority position is not new (e.g., in India and Africa), and many scholars have given attention to the question, but what is new is the nature of the societies that are receiving Muslims today (democratic, secularized societies based on law) and that give them a status as citizens, which entails extensive prerogatives and requires a serious reflection on the implications of that status in the light of the Islamic sources.

Some ulama and thinkers from the traditionalist and literalist schools of thought12 refuse any kind of contextualized approach on the basis that the Islamic principles are not open to interpretation and can be summarized in five main points: (1) There are no “elections” in Islam (it is not a Qur’anic term, and the relation between the individual and the political leader is a contract of allegiance [baya]); (2) One may not desire [political] office, on the basis of the Prophetic tradition (among others) “We do not give (political) authority to those who ask for it or ardently desire it”; (3) A Muslim can give allegiance only to a Muslim and must otherwise abstain from all political involvement; (4) A Muslim must respect the political authority exercised by a Muslim, even if it is not ideal, on the basis of the Qur’anic verse that commands Muslims to obey God, his Prophet, and “those who exercise (political) authority”; (5) The democratic system (not a Qur’anic concept) does not respect Islamic criteria (the criteria of shura13), and a Muslim in the United States or Europe, outside his natural home (dar al-islam), must distance himself from any support for a system opposed to Islamic values.

We can see how completely restrictive and out of context this approach is. Trends of thought present in the West and strongly supported by the petromonarchies (particularly Saudi Arabia) sustain these theses and pressure young people to cut themselves off from all relations with their social and political environment in order to observe a ritualistic and very literalist practice. Other scholars have considered the question from the point of view of exceptional situation (hala istithnaiyya), necessity (darura), or need (haja): in their view, the basic rules are known but need to be reconsidered in light of the actual situation (al-waqi). This means engaging in ijtihad to make it possible to draw a broad outline for Muslim involvement in Western societies, and, if necessary, issuing circumstantial fatwas. All the responses put forward by reformist scholars are aimed at encouraging Muslims to participate in the political life of their countries, but with a greater or lesser degree of reservation with regard to the way the Islamic frame of reference should be defined. As far as almost all the ulama are concerned, reading between the lines of their constant reference to “necessity” or “need,” one feels that they have not completely come to terms with and assimilated the idea that Muslims are at home and must live with this reality and find responses that are not responses to exceptional circumstances.

It must be noted here that there is today in the practice of fiqh (law and jurisprudence) and among the most reformist scholars a tendency to make constant, and in my view abusive, use of the concepts of exception, need, and necessity. If, in the first instance, this approach allows for the declaration of new fatawa (plural of fatwa) that offer Muslims the possibility of living better tuned in to their time, it is appropriate to study the logic that underpins this development and the consequences that may ensue. In practice, scholars observe the situation in societies in light of an ideal Islamic order (and principles related to it) and pronounce legal opinions that allow the closest possible adherence to these principles in given situations, or the choice of the least evil option. To perpetuate and encourage without reservation this kind of approach, which is necessary at first, nevertheless produces two unfortunate and serious consequences: far from the ideal, law and jurisprudence are thought of in terms of temporal or partial adaptations to a global system to which one feels in permanent subjection; by approaching Western societies through concepts of exception or constraint, individuals are given the means to survive in the global system and thereby affirm it but not to participate in its reform. By avoiding the contradictions of daily life in this way, this development fuels another difficulty that is clearly more fundamental, which lies in the feeling that this work of adaptation (this ijtihad) ends up by giving in to a world political and economic order that our conscience is actually calling us to transform. In this way, the sense that we are constantly in a sort of legal patchwork because we are in situations of necessity (darura) or need (haja) has the perverse effect of teaching us to learn to protect ourselves without giving us the means to work out a global strategy for resistance and alternative solutions. Here Muslims seem to be stalled: their concern to veer as little as possible from the “path to the spring” seems to deprive them of the means of building a global vision of that “way to justice” that rejects injustice and is not content simply to compromise with reality. So, even though this work of adaptation is necessary, it is appropriate to think of the forms it should take. To think and to assess the reality on the scale of a supposed “ideal of society” may provide points of reference in the elaboration of legal opinions, but, as we have said, this is in fact paralyzing. It would be better, in my view, in the political and economic fields,14 to go back to the universal and global principles of the message of Islam (rather than to the ideal models that have developed from them) in order to be able to consider both the normality of one’s “life here” and the ways in which one might make a global commitment for the sake of justice and goodness. The liberating dimension of Islam insistently demands, on the basis of the universal principles, that reality be challenged in order that it be reformed, not that its deficiencies be added up in the hope that we may at best adapt to them or at worst successfully protect ourselves from them. It is a question of going much further than simply changing our way of approaching ijtihad or juridical adaptation. It is about getting out of the logic of exception and necessity and thinking of our presence in terms of faithfulness to principles in the strict sense. In practice, it is a question of acquiring means of adaptation that will enliven people’s minds and give them the tools with which to resist and reform rather than those that make it possible to survive, protect oneself, and ultimately act politically only in the name of the interests of “the Muslim minority community.” If badly handled, reformist religious thought may produce a dangerously reactionary and conservative intellectual and political attitude: the evidence already gives reason to fear the worst among Western Muslims.

This reflection, which has taken us a little away from the question without completely straying from the subject, finds its place here because it influences the way we tackle the political issue, and also, in the next chapter, the economic issue. The paradigm on the basis of which links are made between Islamic principles and reality (particularly the Western reality) has, as we shall see, important consequences for Muslim involvement. As we have said, we are here very clearly facing a contextual situation vastly different from that which inspired classical Islamic thought up to the twentieth century that it requires a rereading of the Texts and the relativization of the works of the scholars. Let us try, using the general principles discussed in part I and the tools supplied by the work of the jurists, to fix a framework of reference for political involvement and the criteria for its application.