Throughout Islamic history, the state has always been influenced by Islam in one way or another in itspractices, and its laws were legislated in light of the Islamic values asunderstood at that particular time and place. Despite this, states remainedIslamic not in the sense that their laws and procedures were divinely revealed, but that they were human endeavours open to challenge and criticism.
States have also practised a degree of neutrality, and when they tried to interfere and impose one understanding on Muslims, as happened in the Abbasid state, it sparked revolution. It is mentioned that al-Mansourhad become concerned with the multitude of religious views and interpretations emanating from the same religion and feared their divisive effect on the state. So he sent for Imam Malik and asked him to amalgamate all these in one to unify people’s outlooks. Imam Malik produced his famous book Al-Muwatta’, with which al-Mansour was greatly pleased and wanted it to become a law that binds all Muslims. This horrified Imam Malik and asked for it not to be made so, because the Prophet’s companions have travelled to different lands and took with them much knowledge, so allow people to choose what they see fit. This is why we see that one school ofthought is dominant in the Maghreb, while another is so in the Levant, and yet another in Egypt…etc.
It is due to the absence of a church in Islam that the freedom of thought and interpretationremains intact. This will naturally lead to a diversity in interpretation, and there is no harm in that except when we need to legislate, at which time we are in need of a mechanism, and the best mechanism that mankind has come up with is the electoral and democratic one which produces representatives of the nation and makes these interpretations a collective effortas opposed to an individual one. Again, in the absence of a church representing the sacred on earth and a spokesperson of the Qur’ān, the nation is the only manifestation of divine will throughits interactions and not any particular scholar, party, or state.
When al-Ma’moun (Abbasid Caliph) wanted to impose one interpretation of the Qur’ān and one particular understanding of Islamic creed (that of the Mu’tazili school), Imam Ahmed IbnHanbal revolted and refused the state’s attempt to dominate religion. This led him to being persecuted and tortured, but in the end he managed to turn public opinion against thestate and force al-Ma’moun to cede.
While the problematic in the west revolved around ways of liberating the state from religion and led to destructive wars, in our context the problem is one of liberating religion from the state and preventingit from dominating religion, and keeping the latter in the societal realmopen to all Muslims to read the Qur’ān and understand it in the manner that they deem appropriate, and that there is no harm in the plurality that is combined with tolerance. But should Muslims be in need of laws, the democratic mechanism is the best embodiment of the Shura (consultation) value in Islam.
It is of the utmost importance that our heritage is devoid of a church. Maybe only our Shi’a brothers hold the belief in a religious institution but in the Sunni world there is no such thing save a council of scholars which are usually in disagreement and hold different views. For this reason, we are in need of scholars and intellectuals to debate and studyour issues in a climate of freedom and accept that the legislative institution is the ultimate authority by virtue of being elected. There is a debate that is currently ongoing in our country between secular currents which may be described as extremist and Islamist ones which may be described in a likewise manner. One would like to impose their understanding of Islam from above using state tools and apparatuses and the other aspires to strip the state, educational curricula, and national culture of all Islamic influences.
At a time when the whole world, including the Islamic world, is witnessing a religious awakening, and having seen the role played by the Catholic Church in the development of Eastern Europe, starting with the efforts of Pope John Paul II, and also the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the success of Putin’s presidential campaign. At such a junction in time, it is unreasonable to object to religious influence on the state’s cultural and educational policies. In fact, we do not need do impose Islam because it is the people’s religion and not the elite’s, and Islam has not endured for so long because of states’ influencebut rather due to the large acceptance it enjoys among its adherents, in fact the state has often been a burden on religion.
As I said, many of those who belong to the Islamist current and others fear the religion’s emancipation from the state to be left as a societal matter. Why does the state train Imams? Why does it control mosques?
The issue of the state’s neutrality involves a great deal of risk and adventure. If what is meant by the separation between religion and state is that the state is a human product and religion a divine revelation as the distinction was made clear in the context of the early Muslims between therealm of revelation (wahy) and what was the realm of the political, then it is ok. But if what is meant is the separation in the French sense or in accordance with the Marxist experience then we may engage in a dangerous adventure that may harm both religion and state.
The total stripping of the state from religion would turn the state into a mafia, and the world economic system into an exercise in plundering, and politics into deception and hypocrisy. And this is exactly what happened in the Western experience despite there being some positive aspects. International politics became the preserve of a few financial brokers owning the biggest share of capital andby extension the media, through which they ultimately control politicians. In this context, people are deeply in need of religion and its spiritual and moral guidance which would enable them to distinguish between permissible and impermissible (halal and haram). And in the absence of a church thatmonopolises the definition of what is halal and haram, this task is left to be debated by the elite of thinkers, the people and the media.
Should religion be entirely emancipated from the state and politics, this would also carry some risks whereby things would get out of control and social harmony would be endangered. The way to do it, therefore, is to find a balance that would guarantee people’s freedom and rights, because religion is here to do exactly that. To achieve this balance, we need to go back to the issue of distinguishing between religion and politics and adjust the parameters of what is constant in religion and that which is variable. We need our legislators to be well acquainted, educated and versed in religious values, so that when they are legislating they do not require the tutelage of religious scholars and authorities, and the same goes for politicians. There is no value in any religious observance that is motivated through coercion. It is of no use to turn those who are disobedient to God into hypocrites through the state’s coercive tools. People are created free and while it is possible to have control over their external aspects, it isimpossible to do so over their inner selves and convictions.
This is exactly why we saw two models in dealing with the issue of headscarf/veil; the former is a veil that is dictated and imposed by the state and the latter is a veil forbidden by it. Once I was in a Muslim country’sairport where all women were covered but as soon as the plane took off the veils flew away with it. This is a clear failure of that country’s educational system, which was unable to guarantee people’s religiosity except through coercive tools. In Ben Ali’sTunisia, women were forbidden from wearing the veil and express themselves in whatever appearance they saw fit, also through the state’s coercive means. This was also a failure.
The primary orbit for religion is not the state’s apparatuses, but rather personal/individual convictions. The state’s duty, however, is to provide services for people before anything else, to create job opportunities, and to provide good health and education not to control people’s hearts and minds. For this reason, I have opposed the coercion of people in all its forms and manifestation and have dealt with such controversial topics such as al-Riddah (apostasy) and have defended the freedom of people to either adhere to or defect from a religious creed, based on the Qur’ānic verse that says: ‘there is no compulsion in religion’.
There is no meaning in forcing people to become Muslims, the Muslim nation is in no need for hypocrites who manifest belief and conceal disbelief. Freedom is the primary value through which a person adheres to Islam, so he who announces his shahadatayn (‘I declare that there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his final Messenger’) does so on the basis of free choice underpinned by awareness and conviction. In this manner, the state is Islamic insofar that it assures its actions are in accordance with Islam’s values without being subjected to the tutelage of any religious institution for there is no such a thing in Islam. Rather there is a people and a nation who are the decision makers through their institutions.
When the Makkan people objected to Muhammad’s religion, he asked them not to interfere with his preaching activities and to allow him the freedom to communicate his message to the people. Had the Makkans accorded the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) the freedom of expression, he would not have immigrated and left his homeland. But because his message was so powerful, they could not offer an alternative to counteract it. This is why Muslims consider Islam’s proof to be so powerful that there is no need to coerce people, and when the voice of Islam proclaims ‘Produce your
proof if ye are truthful’, this challenge is being proposed at the heart of the political and intellectual conflict.
Thus, the greater part of the debate taking place nowadays in our country is a misunderstanding of such concept as secularism and Islam. We demonstrated that secularism is not an atheist philosophy but merely a set of procedural arrangements designed to safeguard the freedom of belief and thought as Abd al-Wahhab al-Masiri distinguished, in his writings, between partial and total secularisms. An example of the latter would be the Jacobin model in French history. In their war on priesthood, the Jacobins raised the following slogan: “strangle the last king with the entrails of the last priest”. This is a French specificity and not the absolute definition of secularism. There is also an ambiguity regarding Islam, for there are those who believe that Islam can only be victorious by confiscating people’s freedom and imposing prayers, fasting, and the veil through force. This would be far from being a success, for Allah Almighty had considered hypocrisy to be the greatest crime, and the hellfire to be the eternal abode of Hypocrites.
The fact that our revolution has succeeded in toppling a dictator, we ought to accept the principle of citizenship, and that this country does not belong to one party or another but rather to all of its citizens regardless of their religion, sex, or any other consideration. Islam has bestowed them the right to be citizens enjoying equal rights, and to believe in whatever they desire within the framework of mutual respect, and observance of the law which is legislated for by their representatives in parliament.
This is my understanding of things, and my view with regards to Islam’s relation to secularism. I hope that I have touched on the main issues.
(Concluded)
[Extracted from the speech on “Secularism and Relation between Religion and the State from the Perspective of the Nahdha Party” delivered by RACHED GHANOUCHI, President of the Nahdha Party in Tunisia at Centre for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID)-Tunisia on 2 March.]