By Abd al-Haqq al-Turkmani
Director of the Center for Studies in the Interpretation of Islam in Britain
I read Wafa al-Rashid’s first article, “Religion Is Not Politics,” and her second, “Rather, Religion Is Different from Politics, and the Imamate Is Not a Foundation of Creed.” I found her discussion lacking scholarly investigation. Amid her errors and confusion of concepts, she mentioned Shaykh Abu al-Hasan al-Nadwi and his book The Political Interpretation of Islam. Because I specialise in studying the political interpretation of Islam, I wished to write these brief words clarifying the issue she raised in her two articles. I say: There are two entirely distinct questions here.
The first is that Islam comprises creed and Islamic law. Its law is not merely individual but both individual and collective, encompassing the person, family, society, and state. It is a comprehensive system for life in its various spheres, one of the most important being government administration of people’s affairs according to the rulings of Islamic law, detailed in the Noble Qur’an and authentic Prophetic Sunnah.
The second is exaggeration concerning rule, politics, and the imamate, making these the overall purpose of religion, worship, and Islamic law.
Once we correctly understand these two questions and distinguish them, we can judge each appropriately, without confusion or obfuscation.
The first question is clear and evident, with absolutely no disagreement among the community’s scholars. In its general conception, it belongs to the foundations of religion and creed and is necessarily known as part of Islam. Indeed, when the Egyptian judge Ali Abd al-Raziq advocated separating religion from politics in his book Islam and the Foundations of Governance (1925), al-Azhar’s Council of Senior Scholars issued a decision, signed by 24 scholars representing different schools and orientations, confiscating the book and expelling its author from the ranks of scholars. Several major scholars immediately refuted him. They were ‘traditional’ scholars with no connection to movement ideology or so-called political Islam, including the jurist Muhammad Bakhit al-Mutii and the Tunisian Qur’an commentator Muhammad al-Tahir ibn Ashur. What contradicts this belief, held by Muslims from the Prophetic era until today, is liberalism and secularism, which call for ‘separating religion from society and the state’, or in the writer’s words, ‘Religion is not politics.’
The second question, exaggeration concerning rule and politics, is what we call the political interpretation of Islam. This exaggerated interpretation represents Islamic movements’ central idea. Through it extremism and terrorism have emerged in our time, and it is the principal motive for supporting coups and revolutions, as illustrated by Islamic movements’ stance towards the revolutions of Arab devastation. This is what the scholar Abu al-Hasan al-Nadwi refuted in The Political Interpretation of Islam, and the scholar Wahid al-Din Khan in The Political Interpretation of Religion. To establish its foundations, I wrote my Introduction to the Interpretation of Islam.
It must be clear that rejecting and refuting this exaggeration never permits a Muslim to invalidate or reject what has been established in the first question, or even diminish its importance and standing in belief and practice. We therefore find both al-Nadwi and Wahid al-Din very clear in distinguishing the two. Wahid al-Din Khan, recipient of the Abu Dhabi Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies’ 2015 award, said (p. 135): “My objection to al-Mawdudi’s religious writings is that he emphasised religion’s political dimension so excessively that he turned it into an interpretation of religion. My disagreement is not that he introduced politics into religion; everyone knows politics is part of religion.” Al-Nadwi established and emphasised this principle in a lengthy discussion in his aforementioned book, too long to quote here (pp. 333-339). In the introduction to Islam under Trial he said: “Islam is an indivisible unity and a complete, comprehensive way of life. It is creed, ethics, politics, knowledge, reason, emotion, civilisation, and culture.” He established this principle throughout his books, so much so that most readers imagine him to be among the Brotherhood or movement activists, despite his repeated refutations of them and dismantling of their intellectual foundations.
In her first article, “Religion Is Not Politics,” the writer sought to demolish that general principle agreed upon by all Muslim scholars. She enlisted the secular thinker Abdullah Laroui, quoting him as regarding “the normal condition as the establishment of a political system guaranteeing civil peace and people’s interests, while religion has nothing to do with politics.” She also enlisted another secularist, Talal Asad, quoting: “Islam went further than Christianity in separating religion and the state because it considered politicising religion a manipulation of its sanctity and violation of its inviolability.” These quotations and the writer’s endorsement make clear that the desired exclusion from governing society and the state concerns religion itself, with its law and rulings, not its scholars, jurists, or preachers. These people have no part in political affairs, contrary to the claims of movement Islamists who espouse the political interpretation of Islam.
When Professor Dr Ahmad al-Rudayman replied and demonstrated her error, she tried in her second article to present her disagreement as being with ‘political Islam groups’, in her words. She cited scholars who said the imamate belongs to religion’s branches, not its foundations. This is an ineffective attempt to suggest to the reader that al-Rudayman meant ‘the question of the imamate’ in the subsidiary, detailed sense discussed by scholars. In reality, his title, “Rather, the Imamate Is a Foundation of Creed,” answered her first title, “Religion Is Not Politics.” His meaning is clear: the imamate in its general sense, governing people by the rulings of the Qur’an and Sunnah. This general conception unquestionably belongs to the foundations of creed and what is necessarily known in religion. He therefore cited Saudi Arabia’s Basic Law of Governance in support. Although she tried in her second article to extricate herself and soften her tone, she could not conceal the actual intent of her first article. She said: “As for state affairs, their foundation is justice and security, without detailed exposition.” This renews her denial that Islamic law’s detailed exposition and rulings concern state affairs. God guides to the straight path.
* Published in the Saudi newspaper al-Watan on Thursday, 29 Shawwal 1442, corresponding to 10 June 2021.
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