Civil, political rights in Islam

Civil, political rights in Islam

This is the second of two articles based on a paper prepared
by Dr. Nurcholish Madjid, rector of The University of Paramadina
Mulya in Jakarta, for the Seminar on Enriching the Universalities
of Human Rights: Islamic Perspectives on the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, held in Geneva, on Nov. 9-10.

GENEVA: The universality of religion and the oneness of
humanity lay the foundation for the necessity of believing in all
religions symbolized in the Islamic article of faith of believing
in all prophets and all holy books.

Here are some extensive quotations from the Koran relevant to
the principles:

"The same religion has He established for you as that which He
enjoined on Noah -- the which We have sent by inspiration to thee
-- and that which We enjoined on Abraham, Moses and Jesus: namely
that ye should remain steadfast in religion and make no divisions
therein; to those who worship other things than God hard is the
(way) to which thou callest them. God chooses to Himself those
whom He pleases and guides to Himself those who turn (to Him)."
(Koran 42:13)

"Mankind was one single community and God sent messengers with
glad tidings and warnings; and with them He sent the Book in
truth to judge between people in matters wherein they differed."
(Koran 2:113)

"Mankind was but one nation but differed (later). Had it not
been for a word that went forth before from thy Lord their
differences would have been settled between them." (Koran 10:19)

"Now then for that (reason) call (them to the Faith) and stand
steadfast as thou art commanded nor follow thou their vain
desires; but say: 'I believe in the Book which God has sent down;
and I am commanded to judge justly between you. God is our Lord
and your Lord. For us (is the responsibility for) our deeds and
for you for your deeds. There is no contention between us and
you. God will bring us together and to Him is (our) final goal."
(Koran 42:15)

At the face of the universality of religions and of their
fundamental unity, all of the apparent differences among
religions are but the external forms and the symbolical
expressions of the same and one perennial truth which is
basically ineffable.

God gives all communities their own way and method of
attaining salvation, and there are many, not one, ways of God and
ways of salvation, although man should be cautious against some
of them which are devious. Every community has its own point of
orientation, and members of a community are not supposed to
question the validity of the point of orientation of other
communities, but all communities should be encouraged to "strive
together (as in a race) toward all that is good".

Thus the principle of the freedom of conscience is firmly
established in the Koran. The principle is an absolute necessity
because at the ultimate stage it is individuals rather than
collectivities who will be held responsible for all of their
respective worldly activities. The Koran is replete with
assertions that on the Day of Judgment people will be summoned by
God absolutely individually to account for their deeds:

Just as man is the vicegerent of God, he is the highest among
all creatures in ranking, in such a way as none is above him
except God. Therefore, man should not look up to anything other
than God. God honors the children of Adam, and subjects the whole
universe as His bounty for them, as long as they use reason. And
human beings are worthy of the divine honor as individuals, that
the Koran says that every individual of man is worth the whole
humanity, "that if anyone slew a person unless it be for murder
or for spreading mischief in the land it would be as if he slew
the whole people: and if anyone saved a life it would be as if he
saved the life of the whole people." (Koran 5:32)

By virtue of the individual dignity of man as the vicegerent
of God, each person has the right to exercise the freedom to
choose what he conceives as good for him to perform in activities
that he would be personally and individually held accountable for
in front of his Lord, just as it is exactly all of the purpose of
this life. "He (God) who created death and life that He may try
which of you is best indeed: And He is the Exalted in Might, Oft-
Forgiving." (Koran 67:2)

Individual accountability presupposes individual freedom
because someone cannot be held accountable for his deeds if he
does not have any choice other than what he has done. This
postulate is very strongly indicated in the Koran: "Anyone who
after accepting faith in God utters unbelief except under
compulsion while his heart remains firm in faith, but such as
open their breast to unbelief, on them is wrath from God and
theirs will be a dreadful penalty." (Koran 16:106)

Therefore, one of the basic rights of every individual is to
participate in all processes of decision-making that affects
their lives through open and mutual deliberation and consultation
(shura). The prophet himself was ordained by God to perform the
shura, and the first four enlightened caliphs firmly held the
prescript. It is very unfortunate that the open and enlightened
political arrangement of Islam of the Prophet from Mecca to
Yathrib (renamed Medina) until the assassination of Ali, the
fourth caliph.

The system was then usurped by the Umayyads, terminating the
basic Islamic social and political arrangement and replacing it
with a pre-Islamic Arabian system.

Robert Bellah, one of the leading authorities in sociology of
religion, observes that the system laid down by the Prophet and
developed by the first four caliphs "did so closely enough to
provide a better model for modern national community building
than might be imagined."

But "it was too modern to succeed. The necessary social
infrastructure did not yet exist to sustain it."

Bellah said: "There is no question but that under Muhammad,
Arabian society made a remarkable leap forward in social
complexity and political capacity. When the structure that took
shape under the Prophet was extended by the early caliphs to
provide the organizing principle for a world empire, the result
is something that for its time and place is remarkably modern. It
is modern in the high degree of commitment, involvement and
participation expected from the rank-and-file members of the
community.

"It is modern in the openness of its leadership positions to
ability judged on universalistic grounds and symbolized in the
attempt to institutionalize a nonhereditary top leadership. Even
in the earliest times, certain restraints operated to keep the
community from wholly exemplifying these principles, but it did
so closely enough to provide a better model for modern national
community building than might be imagined. The effort of modern
Moslems to depict the early community as a very type of
equalitarian participant nationalism is by no means an
unhistorical ideological fabrication.

"In a way the failure of the early community, the relapse into
pre-Islamic principles of social organization, is added proof of
the modernity of the early experiment. It was too modern to
succeed. The necessary social infrastructure did not yet exist to
sustain it."

As for the relapse into pre-Islamic principles of social
organization, it was done by the Umayyads from Damascus,
beginning with Mu'awiyah's decision to appoint his own son,
Yazid, to succeed him as the caliph, discarding the system of
preceding caliphs.

Reactions against the Umayyads by the Medinese and Meccans
were harsh and radical. In Medina, Abdur Rahman bin Abi Bakr,
brother of A'ishah, the wife of the Prophet, categorically
rejected the plan, accusing the Umayyads of shedding the Sunnah
of the Prophet and the caliphs, adopting the traditions of the
Persian Khurso and the Roman Caesar.

Other leading figures like Abdullah bin Umar and Abdullah bin
Zubair reacted in the same way, charging the Umayyads of leaving
behind the Koranic principle of mutual consultation and the
tradition of the nascent Islamic community of open election of
caliphs.

As it is well-known, ever since the time of the Umayyads, the
Moslem world knew only hereditary, genealogical dynasties in
political systems until the reintroduction of the idea of a
republic and open elections by the West in modern times.

Even more than that, starting with the Umayyads, Moslems knew
only states or dynasties named after ruling clans, like the
Umayyads, the Abbasids and the Fatimids, or after ruling tribes,
like the Moguls in India. All of this is against the very basic
principle of the Koranic and prophetic perspectives.

Author Emile Dermenghem said: "Islam, which has contributed to
the spiritual life of humanity and has enriched its culture,
offers permanent value from which all have profited. Intermediate
nation, as the Koran says, has its role to play between east and
west. If it has, like all religions and moral codes, its closed
and static aspects in the Bergsonian sense, it also has what is
needed for an open religion."

As an open religion, Islam has developed a cultural system
which is highly receptive to other cultures. The outlook can be
conveyed to modern times that Islam must be able to positively
and consistently accept and validate modern values akin to its
own very fundamental principles like the ideas propounded in the
universal Declaration of Human Rights. Maybe there is a need for
some very particular adjustments of Islamic principles but it
should be seen as the imperative of the adjustment to particular
cultural environments or particular requirements of a certain
time and space.

Such an adjustment was given as an example by Caliph Umar in
the way he handled the problem of redistributing the agricultural
lands of the liberated regions.

When he was confronted with fierce opposition from some
leading Moslem figures in Medina using literal references from
the Holy Book, he managed to overcome this by his enlightened
success in elevating the Koranic principles from a literal
approach and understanding to highly generalized principles and
then bringing them down to prerequisites of the realities of the
situation.