On Religious Parties There is more than one logical and sound reason that would encourage the Egyptian nation to hope that the long-awaited constitutional amendments will successfully prohibit the establishment of political parties based solely on religious platforms. Firstly, there is a strong belief among many that the glorification and sanctification of the Islamic fiqh [jurisprudence] is a baseless act. These critics often note that the Islamic fiqh is merely a man made interpretation of holy texts. It might be useful to refer here to the most fixed and wide-spread definition of the Islamic fiqh that says that, "Fiqh is the science concerned with the deduction of practical rules out of their juristic references." It is easy to see that any process of deduction is a human, not a divine, action since it inevitability requires the use of language and logic. As further proof of the temporal nature of fiqh, it is known that the legacy of the great sunnī jurists, Abū Hanīfah, Mālik, al-Shāficī, and Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, was created in less than 200 years. In addition to that fact, the second and third juristswere contemporaneous and, importantly, still differed in their opinions regarding fiqh. How could Mālik publish a jurisprudential madhhab [school or legal system] different from that of Abū Hanīfah unless the latter's work was nothing but a human production? One more significant evidence that we are discussing a merely human work from beginning to end is the fact that the third sunnī jurist produced two different legal systems, one for Iraq and another for Egypt. Consequently, the principles considered, by some, to be the Islamic tenets for comprehensive systems of government are nothing but ijtihād. Such interpretations have come to be called the Sultanic commandments. Experts know that temporal rulers, whether during the Umayyad or the Abbasid eras, heavily influenced most of what was written about the Sultanic commandments. These rulers acted this way in order to guarantee that whatever was written about the laws would concur with their desires and understanding concerning the governance of their respective communities. I would like to emphasize that similar processes took place in other places. The relationship between the opinions and writings of the British political thinker Hobbes and the British throne is a case in point. It has been argued that Hobbes specifically wrote opinions that echoed the desires of the British crown. Therefore, the existence of political parties formed on religious basis alone is illogical because the principles of the so called Islamic doctrine in governorship affairs reflects nothing but the interpretations of humans who could be right or wrong, so the matter is entirely a human production. Islam does not articulate a comprehensive framework for organizing government systems that could replace the contemporary details found within the constitution. Outlining such detailed schemes was neither the task nor the aim of Islam. However, blaming Islam for not presenting a distinct political system is tantamount to blaming it for not having a comprehensive theory in psychology, sociology or management sciences. In fact, Islam came with groups of general rules, which would be more useful if used as guidance when formulating the more detailed regulations. Taking al-Māwardī's book ' al-Ahkām al-Sultānīyyah' [The Sultanic Commandments], as well as many similar books about the same topic, as examples for such detailed regulations is preferable to demanding too much from vague Islamic statements. Those works are manmade ijtihād, which reflect the authors' academic and rational abilities, as well as their cultural and motivational backgrounds while bearing in mind the unavoidable impacts of historical and geographical factors. My focal point for this article is that there is a clear and powerful logic that can eradicate the viewpoint that is calling for the establishment of political parties based on religious platforms. We can agree that the overall rules that some call 'systems of governorship in Islam' were merely the deductions of men who lived more than one thousand years ago and pondered over the rules that they thought, in their time and place and inasmuch as their understanding, knowledge and conditions were, would lead to the establishment of a governing system representing the essential values of Islam. Once we have agreed about this then we must agree that the so-called 'ruling system in Islam' is a vague and imprecise description of what Muslim jurists wrote more than one thousand years ago in a serious and respected attempt to form bodies that would govern their communities in harmony with the principles and values of Islam. We should accept the notion that the writings of ancient Muslims with regards to laws and government are valuable attempts that have been inspired by the essence of Islam. This is the most reasonable conclusion any rational mind can reach. Once we have done this then we will have to believe that there has been a lack of ambition within the Muslim community for a period of time exceeding one thousand years to update and expand our political traditions. We must renovate the writings of the ancient jurists as regards the Sultanic commandments so that we can reform our contemporary political and constitutional regulations. Thus, any discussion that quotes heavily from writings, that were published a thousand years ago, and ignores contemporary Islamic jurisprudential issues will be just like using a book compiled in the tenth century A.D. on medicine and pharmacology as a founding base to establish modern medical systems and institutions. Decidedly, of course, this practice will lead to the death of all the patients. Islam spoke about donkeys and cattle as important means of transportation. It also spoke about the principle of shūrá [consulting], but not directly about democracy, citizenship and human rights.. Nevertheless, it is shameful for a modern man to insist on using donkeys as his only means of transportation. This kind of decision lead to the conflict between Wahābīs, led by Faysal al-Darwīsh, and King cAbd al-cAzīz, when the Wahābīs rejected all the aspects of modern civilization like cars, telephones and radios. In my belief, the individual who insists on solely using the concept of shūrá is like the person who believes that means of transport should be restricted to donkeys and cattle, on the ground that Islam spoke about donkeys and did not speak about cars, trains or planes. Current political realities beg the question "Why can't we as Muslims establish political parties based on religious platforms?" Especially in light of the fact that there are numerous political parties in Europe that are described as Christian, the most well-known of them is probably the Christian Democratic Party, to which the German Chancellor Mrs. Merkel belongs. I have, in front of me while writing these words, the constitutions of all the countries which have Christian parties in addition to the principles of those parties. There is not a single word, in neither the constitutions nor the principles of those parties, that assumes that those parties will rule according to religious fundamentals or according to any other principles but the values contained in their respective constitutions. These parties are Christian in name only. They are political parties representing conservative viewpoints. Their principles and values have been inspired by Christianity but they rule and are ruled by the terms of their constitutions and positive laws. I do not think that the supporters of a movement like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt will ever dare to announce that their goal in transferring the Brotherhood into a political party is to reach a similar frame of mind as that of the Christian Democratic Party. There remains one important argument. It is my absolute conviction that political parties who describe themselves as Islamic are acting purely as political bodies. They are simply political entities seeking power. In and of themselves these goals are legal objectives. Yet, some of these parties play an emotional chord when they describe themselves as Islamic. They are nothing but a salafī [fundamental] movement living off of the understandings and deductions of humans who lived more than ten centuries ago and handled the issues of their age through solutions that were consequences of their time and place. There is no better evidence than that of Muhammad Ibn Idrīs [Imām al-Shāfi cī] who published a new legal system when he arrived in Egypt since his previously published legal doctrine was suitable only for a distinct body politic in Iraq. The catastrophe is when a people characterized by intellectual indolence, since neither they nor their ancestors have worked to update their political doctrine for one thousand years, want to continue to live as parasites on the understanding of others who worked hard and made every effort ten centuries ago. In my belief, movements calling themselves political Islamic movements, amongst them the Muslim Brotherhood, unconsciously suffer from tremendous intellectual dilemmas which have very strong and negative impacts on their abilities to form new and modern doctrines of law. Islam touched on lofty values about justice, equality and the virtues of knowledge. We can call these 'general values' or 'macro values.' Nevertheless, in order to be suitable for times and places other than during the dawning of Islam it did not articulate detailed specific codes or micro values. As such, followers of political Islamic streams of thought are fighting tooth and nail to establish a comprehensive governing system that is not applicable in the modern era. Islam has not prescribed such a detailed system. Therefore, political Islamic movements end up clinging to topics that have little relevance in the modern era, such as the impermissibility of bank interests in Islam and the panel code among others. The best thing for them to do is to admit that Islam came as a sublime religion and not as book in economics, politics, sociology, psychology, chemistry or medicine. However, if they make this admission, how will they play the game of politics? If they make it, they will abandon the strongest tool of their political propaganda. In addition, they will be required to present a realistic political, economical and social program and not their usual tricks and slogans of 'applying God's commands', 'Islam is the solution' and ' al-Barakah [the blessing]'. Such abstract and common slogans, if examined in the practical battlefield of life, would prove to be nothing but big empty air bubbles that contain mere politics and no religion whatsoever. Regarding the issue of the 'blessings,' many of the kind, simple Muslims think that having people ruling in the name of Islam on top of the community is enough to bring welfare and blessing. To those who think this way I would argue that early Muslims, to be more precise the companions of the Prophet, the al-Muhājirūn [emigrants] and al-Ansār [supporters] and amongst them the Prophet himself, were defeated in the battle of Uhud. If victory, success, progress, or welfare are achievable through blessings alone, Muslims would have been victorious in Uhud as they clearly had the blessing of the Prophet. However, the defeat of Muslims in Uhud proves that just as God created the creatures of the world, he has also created certain rules and laws to run the universe, amongst them the laws of nature. One of these laws says that whoever fights without the material and practical qualifications of victory will be defeated. Through these laws Muslims, led by Tāriq Ibn Ziyyād, won in their conquest of Andalusia and due to the very same laws, Muslims were defeated several centuries later in the Battle of Tours in southern France. In conclusion, whoever thinks that blessings will come upon him just because he says that he is ruling in the name of Islam will receive results in all fields similar to the defeat in the Battle of Uhud. Victory, progress, and successful leadership come only through science and good administration, which are human tenets that belong to no religion, denomination or nationality. We have no single evidence that those who want to rule their communities in the name of religion acquire any of such tenets. On the contrary, we have shinning evidences acquired from their backgrounds, their ideological history and their relationship with the universality of science, knowledge and the values of progress that they do not and will never acquire these tenets.
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