The Myth Of Ideal Society And It's Just Ruler
THE MYTH OF IDEAL SOCIETY AND ITS JUST RULER
What seems to keep the fundamentalist fanatics (with some autistic and perhaps also psychopathic traits) ticking and never lying down their arms is their pious delusion that there can be such a thing as an ideal society and a just ruler governing it. No doubt the Prophet sws was a just ruler and to a lesser extent so were especially Abu Bakr and Umar. Uthman was innocently not up to the job and Ali was too good to be realistic (May Allah pleased with them all). Otherwise no society, including the society of the sahaba (disciple-companions of the Prophet sws and R. Anhum) has been perfect. Firstly, the Prophet’s Medinese society was diluted by many hypocrites as well as perhaps sincere but otherwise rough souls. We see this from both the Qur’an and the reports (hadiths) reaching us. Not only we find the horde of Medinese hypocrites resentfully mentioned and criticized and but even threatened with banishment and summary execution on sight:
“Do not compel your girls who want to stay chaste to prostitution for the sake of this world’s temporary gain. Whoever compels them thus then because of the compulsion involved Allah kindly forgives them” (24: 33). (Note that fundamentalists can only execute prostitutes. They are not prepared to listen to Allah and pardon those who are compelled to it which most of the time is the case. Most prostitutes are not only entirely pardonable but should be rehabilitated as decent and adequately provided citizens). He Almighty adds:
“If the hypocrites and those in whose hearts is a disease (immorality including sexual) and the evil gossipers do not refrain themselves We may make thee to harass them so much that they become unable to stay in there (Medina) as thy neighbors. Cursed in their entirety they then become liable to be hunted down and killed wherever found” (33: 60- 61).
All sorts of crimes and indecencies were capable of being committed in Prophet’s Medina (sws) which crimes he variously pardoned or punished as wisdom dictated. In other words there was no formal uniform application of punishment to those who committed some wrong and indulgence and compassionate pardon often closed the matter. For example reports indicate that although a few stonings to death of adultery and amputations of limbs for theft were carried out under the Prophet sws not only in each case he had allowed the punishments with great reluctance and was greatly upset and shaken because of them but he also tried his hardest to cover up or explain away as unintended mistakes such crimes and let the culprits off the hook. Very obviously the Prophet sws hated all such barbaric punishments but was left with no option but suffer their application in view of the ingrained barbarity of the times which Islam could not yet entirely shift from the hearts of even some best muslims.
It is on record that he emphatically encouraged one man in one case and one woman in another both of whom had come forward to confess to him their adulterous affairs. He pretended not to have heard, he turned away but as the confessors insisted to be taken notice of he turned around and asked them whether anybody witnessed their acts. When they said no he suggested that they go away and repent in private and hope that Allah just forgives them for the indiscretion. How enlightened of the True Messenger of Allah and how ‘endarkened’ we ordinary folks are in matters of things we are all fallible in. That is not because Allah and His Prophet sws did not hate all crime including sexual but they also saw that man is fallible and threats of punishment were more part of their law than their actual implementation. We shall come back to these subjects and more later. What I wanted to impress on my dear readers so far has been that Islam is squarely based on loving kindness towards all in principle and hurting anybody at all is its most reluctant very last resort in rare cases if possible. It goes out of its ways to keep private crime secret and therefore go unpunished while at the same time working its hardest to make both police and court and punishment internal to each man and woman, which internalisation we call the development of a conscience. The fundamentalist understanding of Islam as a grim inquisitor of person’s private conduct of their lives and a robotic torturer, mutilator and killer of all who offend flies in the face of the ethos and frequent relenting tone of the Book of Allah and the cover-up efforts of His Messenger in cases of exposure. Allah not only emphatically bans gossip, curiosity, espionage and informing against private offenders but also puts too many obstacles before the sentencing and punishing of private offenders like adulterers. Again more of them later.
What is painfully clear from both the Qur’an and the Hadith is then that is this: Although the Prophet sws was a perfect ruler as far as human perfection goes the community which formed around him was not perfect as a whole but contained a lot of holy persons who, although less perfect than him, were of quite high spiritual quality. Nobody whether believer or not can study Hadith and remain unimpressed by the likes of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali, Ammar, Selman or Abu Ubaida (RA). Their piety, honesty, motivation, charity, humility and sacrifice are only too clear to see. Neither pain nor fear of death scared them away from serving Allah and His Prophet sws nor subsequent worldly successes ever went to their heads and corrupted their conduct. They remain the same pious and humble souls with the only glory of what their incorruptible spiritual qualities made them clothed in. They died with easy consciences and happy at long last to be at the threshold of meeting the Dear Lord they had believed in and served fervently for so long. This echelon of the sahaba committed no single offence of note after their embracing of Islam and rarely erred only innocently as only fallible human beings. A descending order of lower echelons did slightly less and less well having joined later and later and benefited from the Prophet’s sws example less and less. But all except the hypocrites were improved greatly thanks to Islam as taught and exemplified by the Prophet sws and certainly deserved the compliment by Allah Glorified be His Name “You have been the best community ever raised for the benefit mankind. You enjoin good and check evil and believe in Allah” (3: 110).
I don’t think a better definition of a pious community can be found in any tradition than this deceptively simple looking description given in the Book of Allah. It begins with the an objective measure of what it means to be civilized- it is for citizens to enforce what is good for all and stop what is bad. It then gives the cause of this success- believing in Allah which means recognizing Allah in its truest and fullest sense defeats the incorrigible devil which bedevil all men and enables men to live to their highest possible standards of good conscience. For, believe it or not, psychologically speaking God represents what is spiritually the very beat in man. If man can acknowledge the truth even when against his wishes and obey its dictates or renders charity to a needy fellow just because he has tenderness in his heart and cannot suffer that fellow to remain without the comfort he so badly needs…. And all these moral acts just because in him is the love and light of something so precious as to be beyond words and categories then this man is at his very best as a person and as a fellow citizen of this world.
Spiritually less talented among the believers did display some serious moral failings and the Prophet sws variously, criticised, reprimanded, punished or forgave them as wisdom and circumstances dictated. Some, despite being good believers and not hypocrites, were even executed, like a few adultery cases. Which means Islam or not, presence of a ‘perfect’ ruler or not no society can become a perfect society and no ruler a perfect ruler like the Prophet. What is more, the imperfection will never be slight and not even moderate. This sorry fact was more than amply shown by what happened to the Prophet’s first generation sahaba soon after he passed away. The native Medinese (Helpers) sahaba, utterly disregarding the Meccan (Immigrant) brothers gathered in a hurry before even the Prophet’s body had cooled down to impose one too ambitious of them, namely Sa’d b. Ubada RA as the political successor (caliph) to the Prophet sws and Umar had to rush to the scene with Abu Bakr and Abu Ubaida RA and get Abu Bakr RA elected instead, who was the worthiest candidate anyhow.
In fact Abu Bakr RA succeeded to the Prophet sws relatively so easily simply because his stature was too high and nearness to the Prophet sws too indisputable to challenge. Being the worthiest disciple of the Prophet sws (in terms of wisdom as well as spiritual brilliance) he nominated Umar just before he died in order to prevent another quarrel which could easily lead to swords being drawn and blood being shed. He did not nominate Ali RA for example because Ali was envied too much and had many enemies and was known to have had entertained hopes of succeeding his cousin and father in law the Prophet sws which made him additionally disliked. This of course does not mean that Ali wasn’t an excellent muslim and a great genius of spirituality. In fact as far as learning and piety went he was the undisputed star among the sahaba. But the presence of Abu Bakr and his second in rank Umar RA- the two closest friends, confidantes and advisers of the Messenger of Allah, precluded Ali’s advancement. What is more, Abu Bakr RA was’t being nepotic by appointing Umar RA. Given the bitter arguments and the potential of a fight at the time when he was pushed into the caliphate and the lingering resentments discernible here and there the community (ummah) needed not only a wise and prestigious leader but a very substantially firm character irresistible in imposing discipline. Only Umar RA fitted the bill and the sahaba were unanimous on his eligibility.
If some had doubts and reservations about Umar’s prospects as ruler they were soon dissipated when he brought back the discipline and the unity of the Prophet’s times, organized the state on rational and effective lines and put his signature to great and very fruitful conquests. So long as Umar lived all the known and suspected politically ambitious and potentially unscrupulous in the community, like Amr b. As and Muawia b. Abu Sufyan could do nothing about their ambitions and had to settle with whatever Umar (RAnhum) dished out to them. On his turn Umar found that he had the misfortune of not finding a single companion who could succeed him and not fall in serious trouble. As already said Ali was envied and disliked by many for no fault of his while Uthman, the other early muslim and Prophet’s twice son-in-law, was too mild and yielding character and was especially known for his softness towards his clan members the Umayyads (Abu Sufyan’s clan as well). Other less prestigious candidates were even more unconvincing and as a result Umar deplored the fact that Abu Ubaida’s had recently died, that extremely saintly yet somehow also extremely serendipitous (good-starred) old companion whom the Prophet had praised as “the trustee of this ummah”. “Had he been around” Umar is reported to have said “I would nominate him starigthaway to succeed me” (R Anhum).
Unable to find a better way he appointed six of the available worthiest sahaba and instructed them to elect one of their number after he is gone. The mantle fell on Utman to the disappointment of Ali for the third time who could succeed only after Uthman’s assassination 12 years later. All the predictions of Umar about his reservations about these two came to pass. Uthman did yield to his clan’s requests and pressures for nepotic appointments to high office while Ali for his part failed to impose order and discipline or show enough political realism in coping with both Muawiya’s and his own companions’ challenges. For example, as soon as he took office he asked his brilliant cousin Ibn. Abbas to report to Damascus and take over from Muawia the governorate of Syria. Ibn Abbas was baffled by this political naivety on the part of otherwise very great Ali. “Muawia is so well-entrenched and surrounded by so much armed power and obedient underlings that what he will do is tearing up your instructions letter to him and put me under arrest. Also remember that he is accusing you of complicity in Uthman’s assassination and well able to exploit it”. When Ali didn’t see the light and insisted Ibn Abbas excused himself and went away.
From then on nothing went right for Ali and after less then six years of a disputed caliphate he fell with an assassins sword a man totally disappointed by this dirty world while Muawia and his line of Umayyad successors went from worldly glory to worldly glory in parallel with increasing scandal after scandal. During the Umayyad times except about two or three years under caliph Umar b. Abdul Aziz all imams and preachers across the length and breadth of the Muslim Empire (thousands of miles each way) was instructed to curse from the pulpit of their mosques not only Ali but all the surviving and upcoming family members of the Messenger of Allah sws. These happened within less than thirty years of the Prophet’s death and within a century dozens of his illustrious and extremely worthy grandsons came to brutal ends under both Umayyads and their successors the Abbasids.
Given all these sobering bitter facts (and no disrespect is meant to the peerless sahaba who could but be only human, flesh and blood and subject to all human frailties and temptations and yet, thanks to their great service overall, were forgiven and praised by Allah- RadiAllahu anhum ajmaeen) how naïve or untruthful must be those who see in a theoretical Islam (Islamic ideology) a sure guarantee to ‘angelize’ a real (not imaginary) community and to hope to really attain this imaginary goal to work mischief (fitna) on earth by repeatedly plotting and rebelling against wolfish governments almost impossible to dislodge, which wolfish governments with which muslims seem to have been stuck with since Umayyad times. Not that more pious governments never passed from among us. Even the otherwise obnoxious Umayyads could produce a saintly ruler like the said Umar b. Abdul aziz and their Successors the Abbasids also provided a few. Better government had to wait for new blood into Islam in the form of Turks who produced the illustrious Ayyubids (Basically Salahuddin only) and Seljukite and later Ottoman dynasties both of which produced plenty if not always rather better rulers for the ummah.
In all cases the democratic-looking days of the early Medinese government did not return and could not. The ummah simply proved unable to keep united and kept under enough discipline and order except when ruled by absolute monarchs. The early Medinese regime not only reflected Islam as the new way but also the original primitive tribal democratic traditions of Arabs. Both Mecca and Medina were primitive democracies with a tribal confederative base quite similar to the ancient Greek and Roman models in which the city-state comprised free-born citizens and a client and a slave class among which the only free-born citizens, especially those with some means had a vote. The famous Meccan ‘Nadwa’ was a small parliament of sorts and free debates raged there and votes cast as in any modern parliament. Once Islam spread and absorbed both the lands, races and a lot of the ethos and spirit of sophisticated as well as rather corrupt Byzantine and Sassanid (Persian) Empires itself became an monarchic empire and lost its tribal-confederative democratic grounds. One of the victims of imperialization were the status in and place of women in society. Early muslim jurists from Abu Hanifa onwards had to come to terms with the change of regime from primitive democracy to imperial monarchy and also with the great shift in the social position of women and legalize the Byzantine and Sassanid alternatives to a certain extent as Islam’s own. This was unavoidable in view of the fact that the majority of muslims were no longer tribal Arabs but the rather Hellenized Arabs of Syria, the previously Byzantine subjects of North Africa (Hellenized Copts and Berbers some Hellenized some still tribal barbarians), already Hellenic Anatolia and the previous Sassanid subjects, namely the Persians themselves and Persianized populations from Mezopotamia to Central Asia.
It was quite natural for these superiorly accultured and sophisticated races to impress their Arab rulers. Although the first Arab Dynasty the Umayyads largely escaped these none Arab influences their successors the Abbasids were quickly Persianized in style and outlook if they remained Arabic speakers. Both the Byzantines and the Sassanides were accustomed to corrupt and bureaucratic Imperial regimes and in fact the two had learned from each other so much that in many respects the Byzantine and Sassanid societies bore a substantial resemblance. As makers up of the majority of new muslims these races just went on as before and as much as they had to adapt to Arab (original) Islam codified Islam had to adapt to them. Suddenly emperors (called caliphs by muslims) became shahs and caesars, ruling by monarchic prerogative and application arbitrary terror. They could just order the execution of anybody and suurounded themselves both with effective but often corrupt bureaucrats drawn mainly from Persian bureaucratic dynasties (like the Barmecide dynasty of brilliant viziers) as well as poets, various exotoic wits and also the unavoidable sycophants and other hangers-on and lived in extreme luxury and spent lavishly on luxuries and often also drank and debauched without qualms or losing respect of their subjects (who were ex-Sassanids and Byzantines anyhow).
As much as this was natural and in all likelihood unavoidable it is also the fact that muslim jurists accommodated themselves only to well to this translated Islam and quickly came to regard it the eternal canonical/ orthodox version. Absolutist monarchy became the accepted and hallowed institution of government, laws and customs adopted and adapted from Byzantine and Persian models became fully naturalized to Islam and more than a thousand years of mainly prosperous but politically fitful and sometimes scandalous existence came to distinguish muslims. Of course they were far superior in both civilizational and humanitarian terms to non-muslim societies but some among the latter, in the form of western Europeans began to learn as from the Crusaders age (11.-13. C) and to close the gap as from the Renaissance (13 C. onwards).
They had the good luck of having beside them the Spanish Islam which provided them with a first hand model of sophisticated excellence at close quarters. All great classical muslim savants from Ibn Sina of Persianized Turkistan to Ibn Rushd of Seville were adopted as teachers and both their names and works were Latinized, the first becoming ‘Avicenna’ and the second ‘Averrores’. From architecture to cousine and science to basic human rights European life was Islamized without openly acknowledging Islam’s superiority. Later in the process Europe also de-Christianized in most practical matters (secularisation). An almost reverse process is nowadays happening in Islamdom. Muslim nations have recently been (for about two centuries now) in the process of adopting and adapting European ways without crediting Christianity for it which is anyhow similarly discredited by the more educated Europeans themselves.
So far we drew and painted a background for muslim social history and on this background we now wish to formulate a new understanding of Islam as our ancestors did when they had met the Greek, Roman and Persian civilizations. What was legitimate for them should be legitimate for us. So Allah help us to strike the right balance.
HOW OUR ANCESTORS FORMULATED THEIR ISLAM
The tribal Arab society from among which the Prophet sws was raised was both an illiterate and barbaric society steeped in idolatrous superstition and savagery. Allah testifies to this:
“It is He Who raised a prophet from among the illiterates, reciting to them His verses, purifying them and teaching them the scripture and WISDOM (Hikmah). Before then they were in conspicuous error” (62:2). They had no government except the tribal solidarity and traditions, certainly no sort of central authority, no law other than retaliation and no way of life except subsistence. The only art of note was the oral arts of poetry and oratory. Their religion was but crass superstition and idolatry. Their real spirituality was based on personal and tribal honor which could produce behaviors as noble as going hungry if necessary to feed the guest or the lost and as bad as burying alive a daughter because it was rather shameful for a man to beget a despicable daughter which was a multiple liability instead of an all-glorious son which was a multiple asset. Raiding a disliked neighbor’s camps and carrying away their livestock was a honoured pastime and tribal warfare often provoked by ancestral account-settling as regards the blood mutually shed on both sides bled all tribes continuously and made life a gamble.
Yet this isolated land of superstition, barbarism and often misguided honor was surrounded on all sides by great civilizations. To the North was the Roman Empire in its Byzantine form and to the East was the equally glorious (and corrupt) Sassanids of Persia. To the West across the Red Sea was the Byzantine Egypt and the Christian Ethipoia, both ages ahead of the Arabs in culture and organization. To the south was the lesser kingdoms of Yemen and Hadramaut and then Oman and Bahrain, small but well-organized and built up, settled, prosperous civilizations which were, incidentally all Arab and adherents of more advanced faiths like Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Sabeanism etc. all monotheistic and scriptural. The fact that the bulk of the Arab race which roamed the Western and central parts of the vast Arab peninsula were left alone and not conquered and colonized by these advanced nations speaks volumes about the contempt these Arabs were held in by these neighbors. Both Alexander and Caesar visited the area, conquered lands all over it but did not bother to walk into Arabia. If half of the reason was their mastery of the desert and their unbeatable mobility thanks to their camel corps (with which no Alexander could possibly cope) the other half was the worthlessness of the prize- made of sand and poverty.
It was from this most inhospitable and uncultured place the Creator chose to raise His Last and Final Messenger (sws) and impart him the greatest share of His Divine Wisdom among men. Why? I believe this itself was against great wisdom. Let me explain.
The more advanced nations had their sophisticated traditions, including their hallowed scriptures, sanctified prophets and proud kings and ‘noble’ elites and also equally proud and entrenched priesthood who could not tolerate even for a minute somebody claiming to be a new prophet with a new message. What happened to Jesus Christ was a telling lesson to what awaited anybody however brilliant spiritually if he dared to challenge the powers that be. Had Muhammad sws been raised not from isolated and despised Mecca but from Byzantine Damascus or Persian Hira for example he would be summarily arrested and executed after questioning. His greatest enemy would be the very religious hierarchy itself- as was the case with Jesus. Bloody-eyed they would clamor for his arrest and crucifixion at no time. So Allah raised him from Mecca and kept him all his life in Arabia during which he only had to deal with his fellow, utterly divided and easily impressionable fellow countymen whom he eventually managed to conquer, convert and subdue. Had the mighty Byzanties and Persians guessed what this new prophet was destined for they would not waste a moment but capture and finish him. They only lately became suspicious but by that time it was too late. When news reached Medina that the Greek emperor was moving his valorous phalanges into position north of Hejaz the Prophet sws was able to raise a mounted and partly armour-clad force of thirty thousand and fearlessly advance north to face the Byzantine enemy. As soon as news reached the Byzantine camp the Greeks lost heart and dissipated. Such was his reputation as a commander and his aura of possibly being a true prophet, in fact the prophet expected by all including the Byzantines according to some accounts. We see in the strategically brilliantly chosen site and environment chosen by Allah for His last and greatest messenger a great example of Allah’s unbeatable wisdom. He completed His act of wisdom by additionally making His last prophet the wisest ever man which subject is our business here.