The Hijab
Religion, History or Political Statement ? (Part
2 of 4)
By Professor Nazeer
Ahmed
CA
When
the Prophet passed away, the Companions reaffirmed
the continuity of Islam as an historical process
by the establishment of the Caliphate. As defined
by Ibn Khaldun, (Muqaddamah), “the function
of Caliphate was to enable the ammah (common folks)
to live in accordance with the injunctions of
the Shariah.” In other words, it was to
establish divine patterns in the matrix of human
affairs.
The Caliphate was rule by law. It differed from
the despotism of kingship both in its structure
and its functionality. In a kingdom, the word
of the king was law; he could make or break it
as he saw fit. In a Caliphate, it was the divine
law that was the governing paradigm. The Caliph
was accountable before the law just as much as
the lowliest mendicant. Legitimacy of rule originated
from a consensus of the community.
The selection of the Caliph was through a process
of consultation. The political, judicial, economic,
religious and social space was shared between
the ruler and the ruled. Even the most humble
of citizens, man or woman, could question the
Caliph on his decisions, or demand justice in
accordance with the law Thus the Caliphate was
fundamentally different from kingship in its doctrinal
underpinnings, its institutions and its operations.
The Caliph occupied the central stage in a four
dimensional religious-judicial-military-economic
space, which was shared with all members of the
community, men and women alike. Through a process
of consultation, Abu Bakr as Siddiq (r) became
the first Caliph of Islam. In the tradition of
the Prophet, the Caliph had four principal responsibilities.
First, he was the religious head of the community.
As such he led the congregation in prayer. Second,
he was responsible for the implementation of divine
law. He was expected to know the Shariah and to
implement its injunctions in practice. Thus, he
was the supreme judge. Third, he was responsible
for the defense of the state. He led the army
in times of war. Fourth, he was responsible for
the economic well-being of the community. He ensured
fair taxation, administered public works and arranged
for correct and complete documentation of contracts
and civil transactions.
These functions of the Caliph were compromised
in time, one by one, some by historical necessity,
others for the convenience of the Caliphs. The
first to fall by the wayside was the religious
function. The civil wars that erupted after the
assassination of Caliph Uthman (r) (656) unleashed
the forces of extremism. The deadly attacks of
the Kharijites on Caliph Ali ibn Abu Talib (r),
Emir Mu’awiya bin Abu Sufyan and Amr bin
al As (661) demonstrated that the person of the
Caliph was vulnerable to would-be assassins.
The Kharijites were mortal enemies of anyone who
disagreed with them. Extremism begets extreme
reactions. Muawiya bin Abu Sufyan (d. 680), who
fought his way to power and became the Caliph
in the year 661, took the first step in this direction.
He surrounded himself with a guard as a precaution
against possible assassination. When he entered
the mosque, the guard ensured that the common
folk maintained a certain distance from the emir.
The Omayyad Caliphs of Damascus, with the sole
and notable exception of Omar bin Abdul Aziz (d
719), followed this practice of surrounding themselves
with a guard. This was the first step in the bifurcation
of political space between the ruler and the ruled.
In addition to security concerns, the administration
of a vast empire, extending over three continents,
required a person of exceptional caliber to organize,
manage and provide oversight to the executive
functions. This person was called the vizier.
The word vizier derives from mawazah, meaning
to facilitate. As such, the vizier was the principal
facilitator of the wishes of the sovereign, chief
among which were defense, administration, finance
and foreign affairs. During the Umayyad reign
in Damascus (661-750), with the expansion of the
empire in Asia, North Africa and Europe, the institution
of the vizierate acquired enormous importance.
The vizier became not only the functional arm
of the empire, but also its principal think-tank
and chief executive. He was privy to the Caliph’s
thinking as well as the inner workings of the
court circles. The office of the vizier continued
when the Abbasids seized power (750) and moved
the capital to Baghdad.
With time, the functions of the vizierate were
transformed. The Omayyad dynasty in Spain (760-1031),
to put a distance between itself and some of the
unpopular aspects of the defunct Omayyads of Damascus,
de-emphasized the importance of the office of
the vizierate. This they accomplished by splitting
the vizierate into several departments. In place
of a powerful single vizier formerly serving the
emperor, there were now several viziers. This
proliferation of the title had a secondary consequence.
Coordination between the different viziers and
communication between the sovereign and the vizarates
required a new official. This official was called
a hajib.
The word hajib derives from the root Arabic word
h-j-b, meaning, to hide or conceal. The principal
function of the hajib was to conceal the sovereign
from the prying eye of the common folks, to protect
the security of his person, to provide him with
privacy and to act as a conduit for his wishes
to the functioning viziers. Since the hajib had
the ear of the sovereign, his position was considered
higher than that of the viziers and he occupied
the most spacious quarters, next to the sovereign,
in the palace compounds. Sometimes, a grand vizier
combined in himself the functions of a hajib and
the supervision of the various viziers.
With the advent of the hajibs, the separation
of the ruler from the ruled became institutionalized.
Many of the Caliphs gave up the practice of leading
the congregational prayers. Harun al Rashid (d.
809) was the first Caliph to employ professional
khatibs to lead the prayers. Thereafter, with
rare exceptions, it was the khatib, not the Caliph,
who stood in front of the community of believers
to give the Friday sermon. With time, the position
of the khatib degraded to that of a professional
mullah who came to regard the pulpit as his personal
domain much as the ruler regarded the throne as
his personal property. The khatib, who owed his
job to the ruler, prayed for the health and well-being
of the ruler in the khutba. Whenever there was
a change in dynasties or when a new strongman
took power, his name was promptly substituted
for the old ruler. Similarly, the privilege of
administering justice and giving fatwas (legal
opinions) on matters of jurisprudence was also
delegated to hired kadis.
The degree of separation between the Caliph and
the common folks varied with the urbanization
of a dynasty. The greater the urbanization, the
greater was the separation. For instance, the
Omayyads in urban Spain employed hajibs, whereas
the Murabitun and the Al Muhaddith who followed
them, did not. The latter dynasties were held
together more through tribal and racial cohesion
than through attachment to dynastic rule and they
delegated the functions of security, administration
and management to their own kinsmen.
In the 10th century, when the Turks rose to power,
they supplanted the institution of the Caliphate
with the new institution of the Sultanate and
the separation of temporal rule from religious
authority was complete. The sultan became the
political and military ruler. The caliph remained
the nominal and titular head of the community,
bereft even of dispensing religious fatwas because
that responsibility was delegated to professional
kadis. The separation of political and military
authority from religious responsibility before
Divine Law led to the rise of despots. The farther
a ruler was from the ruled, the more disdainful
he was of the common man. Whereas the caliphs
were only representatives selected to enforce
Divine Law, the emerging despots were self-appointed
political military authorities who forced their
own law upon their subjects.
The Seljuk Turks continued the practice of employing
viziers and hajibs. In the Ottoman courts, the
hajibs were called mabayeen. In the medieval world,
the concentration of such enormous power in the
vizier was an invitation to ambitious men to usurp
royal privileges for themselves. Over the centuries,
many an incompetent sovereign found himself displaced
by his own vizier.
Security of the sultans took on urgency with the
rise of the Assassin Movement in the 10th and
11th centuries, which became the nemesis of Sunni
sultans. As the Turkish Empire expanded, the hajibs
were given further responsibilities to oversee
the security of the palace grounds, greet royal
visitors and supervise the royal kitchen. Thus
the impact of the Assassin Movement in the 10th
and 11th centuries was similar to that of the
Kharijites in the 7th century, namely, to further
isolate the ruler from the ammah (common folk).
(To be continued).
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