Democracy,
Pluralism and Minority Rights - Part III
By Professor Nazeer
Ahmed
CA
Democracy is the
great slogan of our times. You can package practically
anything under this wrapper, capitalism, socialism,
nationalism, imperialism, you name it. The slogan
is a marketing executive's dream and is next only
to religion and motherhood in its appeal to the
guts of the masses. The Tsunami of democratic
slogans spares no one. The East and the West,
the haves and the haves not, North and South,
the rulers and the ruled fight their battles under
this banner. They justify their actions and wrap
their rhetoric in terms of democracy. It is both
a shield for the oppressed and a dagger for the
oppressors. Muslims are no exception to this rule.
They too justify
dictatorships, one-man rule, oppression and exploitation
using the language of democracy. For some time
it was fashionable to use the terms "Islamic democracy"
and "Social democracy". The qualifiers have now
been dropped but democracy is nonetheless the
guiding star, the North Pole of Muslim rhetoric.
We continue our brief review of how Muslims have
historically faced up to the issue of governance.
The laws regulating the life of the community
and of the relationship between the ruler and
the ruled were established very early in Islamic
history. The legacy of the early Companions was
the Khilafat but soon this institution was turned
into a de-facto dynasty.
The ruler was the
"Malik" and the ruled were the "Riyaya". Both
terms have their origin in the Qur'an. While the
term Malik is often used, the term Riyaya appears
to have its origin in Suratul Baqra, Ayat 104,
and seems to connote a meaning similar to "shepherd".
Although there is disagreement about the origin
of this term, it appears that the term "Riyaya"
came into political usage in the social context
of the Middle East where a large portion of the
population consisted of shepherds or was involved
in this trade. The term "Sultan", which gradually
replaced the term "Malik", is of a later historical
origin and was the result of Seljuk Turkish irruption
in the tenth and eleventh centuries. In previous
installments we examined how consultative democracy,
pluralism and minority rights were dealt with
in the period of Omar ibn al Khattab and Omar
bin Abdul Azeez. Here we examine the reign of
Harun al Rashid and the turbulent times of Nasiruddin
al Tusi. Harun al Rashid (d 809 CE) was a Mu'tazalite.
In fact, he was a Mu'tazalite par excellence.
The Caliph al Mansur had embraced the Mu'tazalite
doctrines in 765 CE and made it the state ideology.
The darul hikmah
was established in Baghdad and had been in full
operation for twenty-one years before Harun ascended
the throne. The books of Aristotle, Plato, Galen,
the Indian mathematics of Aryabhatta and Chinese
technology of papermaking and kaolin were introduced
into the capital. The empire extending from Spain
to the borders of China was at peace with itself.
Harun, avoiding the lure of further conquests,
set out to consolidate the empire and rule with
justice. He sent ambassadors to Charlemagne of
France and the Tang emperor of China, stabilized
his borders and turned his attention to internal
governance of the state. It was during this period
that three of the four Sunnah schools of fiqh,
the Hanafi, Maliki and Shafi', as well as the
Shi' Jafariya school of fiqh, were consolidated.
The application of the Shariah was codified in
accordance with the demands of the times and rights
and responsibilities of Muslims and non-Muslims
were elaborated. The fourth school of Sunah fiqh,
namely the Hanbali, did not emerge until a generation
after Harun and was largely a reaction to the
Mu'tazalite excesses. The Mu'tazalites were rationalists,
and as such applied Greek logic and Greek philosophy
to the problems of the state.
As champions of
the deductive method, they were not different
from the philosophers of today. However, there
is no evidence to indicate that their patronage
of Greek philosophy made them embrace Greek democracy.
Harun, despite his piety and his open mindedness
remained the "Malik", the owner and defender of
the realm, which was to be bequeathed to his sons
upon his death. While the rational techniques
was applied with vigor to secular and sacred issues
alike, the Abbasids were not prone to adopt the
Greek method of elected governance, give up their
privileges and hand over the reigns of state to
a consultative or elected body of legists. The
Zoroastrians and the Christians in the empire
continued to pay the Jizya, the Muslims their
zakat and agricultural taxes, the division between
Darul Islam and Darul Harab hardened further,
and no attempt was made to extend the principles
of fiqh to Muslims living in non-Muslim lands.
This situation continued for more than four hundred
years thereafter. Historical Islam remained pluralistic
but exclusive.
The embrace of ijtihad
did not extend to lands where the khalifa was
not acknowledged as the supreme temporal and spiritual
authority. It was left to a non-legist, a scientist
by training, to take on this monumental task.
It is the historical good fortune of Muslims that
some of the most far- reaching ideas have emerged
from outside the circles of muftis and religious
establishments. Nasiruddin al Tusi (d 1274) was
one such great savant. Born into distinguished
family of Tus in Persia, Nasiruddin received his
early education from scholars who were fleeing
the Mongol onslaught. The times were hard indeed.
The hordes of Gengiz Khan had descended from the
heights of Mongolia (1219) and had devastated
a vast swath of territories extending from Amu
Darya to the Tigris. What was left was leveled
by his grandson Hulagu Khan who sacked Baghad
in 1258 and trampled the last Abbasid Khalifa
al Musta'sim under Mongol horses. Centers of learning
were razed to the ground, libraries burned and
scholars enslaved. It was not until 1262 when
the Mongols were stopped at the battle of Ayn
Jalut near Jerusalem by Sultan Baybars of Egypt.
Nasiruddin al Tusi thus lived under the Mongols.
The governing law
of the land was the Mongol Rasa, not the Islamic
Shariah. It was in its darkest hour that the creative
genius of Islam triumphed. An outburst of emotive
spiritual energy from the great Sufi Shaikhs converted
the Mongols and propelled Islam into the farthest
corners of the Indian subcontinent, into Indonesia,
Malaysia and sub-Saharan Africa. Nasiruddin was
valued by the Mongols for his astronomical knowledge.
He was the inventor of the 2-axis gimbal (used
in modern space applications) and the formulator
of the Tusi couple in mathematics. However, his
primary contribution to Islamic civilization was
his treatise, Akhlaq e Nasiri, a compendium of
ethical edicts emanating from Sufi ethos and Shariah
applications. He knew that when the governing
authority was non-Muslim, the Shariah was non-enforceable.
But Nasiruddin's genius was in using the Shariah
as the sap that produces the fruit of good character,
namely, akhlaq.
It was akhlaq, applicable
in Islamic and non-Islamic milieu alike, not the
cut and dry application of fiqh, that was the
essence of Islamic life. Nasiruddin al Tusi's
work took Islamic civilization away from its singular
emphasis on fiqh and opened up new horizons for
human civilization. His vision was transcendental.
Without compromise, he incorporated the essence
of the Shariah into akhlaqh and enabled Muslims
to lead an Islamic life in a non-Islamic hostile
milieu. The impact of akhlaq e Nasiri on history
was no less profound than the ethics of Confucius.
His treatise formed the basis of Mogul rule in
India and enabled the Great Moguls to create a
synthesis of a pluralistic Hindustani culture
which was open to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Its products included the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort,
the Badshahi Masjid, Hindustani music and poetry
and the Urdu language. Nasiruddin al Tusi was
perhaps the only genius who made a determined
attempt to create an intellectual space wherein
Islam could breathe, survive and prosper even
if the environment was hostile. His book was required
reading in Mogul schools, for all subjects, Hindus
and Muslims alike.
As we shall see,
the very success of al Tusi's work in the Mogul
courts produced a counter reaction, which swung
the pendulum back in the direction of a strict
application of fiqh. The doors to a pluralistic
culture which honored the rights of minorities
and majorities alike were shut. Historically,
fiqh has marked the reach as well as the limits
of Islamic civilization. These limits were tested
only once, but in the absence of ijtihad, the
walls of fiqh proved to be inelastic and Islamic
civilization was thrust back into its comfort
zone, with fiqh as the sole barometer of Islamic
life.
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