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Home , Ayatollah, Imam, Major Occultation, Tawalli, Walayah, Wilayah

Mavani, Hamid. "A New Reading on Authority and Guardianship (wilayah): Shamsuddin." Democratic Moments: Reading Democratic Texts. . London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. 177–184. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 27 Sep. 2021. .

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Copyright © Xavier Márquez and Contributors 2018. You may share this work for non- commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A New Reading on Authority and Guardianship (wilayah): Ayatollah Muhammad Mahdi Shamsuddin Hamid Mavani

Islam categorically rejects dictatorship because it always leads to oppression, persecution, and uprising.1 From the Islamic point of view, only the divine (most exalted), who has no partner or associate in His Lordship, Authority, and Guardianship (wilayah), has the right to govern and enjoy absolute rule. In essence, no human being has any right to rule over others. The rule and control of is the only type of guardianship and authority that complies with human reason and intellect. Every mandate of authority and governance (hakimiyyah) for a human being requires a definitive proof. In its absence, therefore, no one has authority over another person, any other existent in the universe, or over nature, including over one’s own life and property. That these set limits cannot be transgressed is a fundamental principle under the subject of authority, as well as a matter that is well-established in jurisprudence and theology . . . 178 DEMOCRATIC MOMENTS

[I]nvoking democracy while the infallible is among us would be religiously unlawful, but . . . this is not the case during his . My jurisprudential opinion is based on the foundation of the ‘wilayah of the people resides with themselves’ (wilayat al- ‘ala nafsi-ha).2 During the Occultation, any government that is formed with the people’s free choice and consent is religiously lawful. As such, one must obey it within the confines of the laws enacted with the people’s consent . . . in fact, if the people intentionally and freely form a government during the Occultation, then it is not a usurped state. Not only would there be no objection to assisting and co- operating with it, but it would be mandatory to do so if the general social welfare were at stake . . .3 For such a government (consisting of and non-Muslims), professing should have no impact upon a citizen’s rank, and one’s religion [or lack thereof] should not lead to any differences in terms of rights or preference. The same applies to one’s socio-economic status . . . From the perspective of dignity and personhood, in the sight of the law every person in an Islamic society is equal.4

Muslims subscribe to divine sovereignty and agree that only God, the True and Absolute Sovereign, has the authority and exclusive prerogative to legislate and determine the norms for the Muslim community. Muhammad, in his capacity as God’s designated Messenger, became His intermediary via revelation and, as such, was endowed with comprehensive authority and guardianship (wilayah) over the community. Thus the latter was duty-bound to obey and exhibit unquestioning loyalty and devotion () to him: ‘O believers, obey God, and obey the Messenger and those in authority (ulu al-amr)’ (Q. 4:59). There is no dissent among Muslims that God empowered the Prophet with some of His wilayah. For the Shi‘is, a restricted form of this wilayah was then transmitted to the twelve infallible in succession. The Imam’s legitimacy derives from the explicit designation of the Prophet or the preceding Imam, as opposed to public acknowledgment. As such, so long as the Imam was present and accessible, the Shi‘is had to submit to him as the ultimate authority on all matters. However, the Twelfth Imam’s prolonged Occultation5 raised the question: Upon whom should his authority devolve: The qualified jurist wilayat( al-), the attentive and A NEW READING ON AUTHORITY AND GUARDIANSHIP (WILAYAH) 179 discerning general community itself (wilayat al-ummah ‘ala nafsi-ha), or some other configuration? In modern Shi‘a political thought, two contrasting views of political authority can be found. For example, according to Ayatollah Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, the Qur’an prescribes no particular form of government as normative because it is more concerned about the final outcome – establishing a just and egalitarian society – than with how this goal is attained. Therefore, this matter is left up to the people and may assume different forms according to time and place: ‘If we study the Qur’an carefully, we see that the fundamental criterion it lays down for government is not a particular form or type – which it does not even present as a religious concern – but justice.’6 In contrast, during his exile in , , in 1970 Ayatollah Khomeini promulgated his version of the guardianship of the jurist (wilayat al-faqih), which he incorporated as part of the Iranian Constitution after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He argued that the jurist, by virtue of being the Imam’s indirect deputy, has both the mandate and the responsibility to interpret Islamic rulings not only on matters of devotion and personal affairs, but also in the social realm, and to manage the state’s affairs on the Imam’s behalf. Toward the end of his life, he stretched the scope of this authority to its farthest limit by proclaiming, in January 1988, that this individual can bypass the Shari‘a if (in his opinion) it conflicts with society’s general welfare and best interests. His concept of the jurist’s full-fledged authority and mandate as being equivalent in scope to that of the infallible Imams was a novel and radically different reading of the classical Shi‘i doctrine of , and one that had and still has a very limited following among senior and eminent jurists. Ayatollah Muhammad Mahdi Shamsuddin (1936–2001) of ,7 who criticized it, offered another paradigm that both accommodates religious diversity and pluralism and promotes a civil and democratic culture with a degree of separation of church and state, as we observe in the extract of his work that opens this chapter. Shamsuddin was born in Najaf, Iraq, into a family steeped in religiosity and scholarship that could trace its descent back to eminent Shi‘i jurists residing in Jabal ‘Amil (a Shi‘i in southern Lebanon). His father, Shaykh ‘Abd al-Karim, was a famous cleric and teacher of religious studies who decided to move back to Lebanon when his son was 14 years old. When the teenager was asked what he wanted to do, he opted to continue his studies in Najaf despite the severe economic hardship that was the common lot of all religious students at the time. This experience left an indelible imprint upon his psyche and instilled within him a genuine empathy for the underprivileged and the dispossessed. He enrolled in the advanced and specialized stage of his studies under two pre-eminent jurists, Muhsin al- and Abu al-Qasim al-Khu’i, and attained the rank of jurist with a license to issue legal opinions. He was also very familiar with 180 DEMOCRATIC MOMENTS the writings of Sunni scholars such as Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (d. 1897), Muhammad ‘Abduh (d. 1905) and Taha Husayn (d. 1973), who greatly influenced his conception of Islam as a living religion that encompassed all aspects of individual and social life. The July 1958 revolution in Iraq caused Shamsuddin to embark upon a career of social and political activism. He issued proclamations and wrote anti-British articles in the intellectual periodical Al-Adwa’ al-Islamiyya. In 1969 he and Musa al-Sadr moved to Lebanon, where they established the Supreme Islamic Shi‘i Council (SISC) of Lebanon. In 1975 Shamsuddin was elected its vice-chairman, a post that he retained until 1978, when he assumed its helm upon Musa al-Sadr’s disappearance during a visit to Libya. An exponent and in many ways a pioneer of Muslim-Christian dialogue, he has a number of works to his credit on this subject and also advocated Sunni-Shi‘a rapprochement. Shamsuddin speculated early on that Islam, being a comprehensive religion, requires the apparatus of an to implement its teachings. He surmised that Islam must have legislated both a political system and a perfect social system. In a later work he revised his position by stating that the revelatory sources contain no clear-cut evidence to sustain this viewpoint and that, as a matter of fact, the issue of government requires rational deliberation and does not belong to any jurisprudential category that demands unquestioned obedience.8 The outcome of this deliberation was the concept that the mandate to govern resides with the community itself. Given that establishing a government is a necessity and that there is no categorical proof in favour of one group having a monopoly on governance, he favoured popular sovereignty. This is in stark opposition to Khomeini’s proposed model, in which the public plays no major rule and all authority is vested in the jurist. Given the special context of Lebanon, namely, multiple faiths and , Shamsuddin espoused a notion of ‘civil government’ (al-dawlat al-madaniyyah) with an explicit public role for religion in terms of providing ethical foundations for individual conduct. Matters dealing with personal status laws (e.g. marriage, divorce and inheritance) and acts of remained under the purview of the jurists for the latter requires expertise and also because he was apprehensive of the erosion of religion. Shamsuddin contends that during the Imam’s prolonged Occultation, as well as under normal circumstances and in the absence of any specific justification or explicit evidence, no person has any wilayah or special prerogative over another person. Instead, the nation’s citizens (ummah) become the locus of political authority, which it exercises through elective and consultative bodies in which jurisprudential knowledge is not a requirement for serving as the nation’s leader.9 It therefore follows that jurists cannot claim to be privileged or possess a special mandate to manage the public’s affairs for the ‘rule and control of God is the only type of guardianship and authority that complies with human reason and intellect’, as we see in the opening extract for this chapter. A NEW READING ON AUTHORITY AND GUARDIANSHIP (WILAYAH) 181

Unanimously accepted textual evidence does endow the Prophet and the Imams with wilayah over the people; however, there is no proof to substantiate such a wilayah for the jurist. As such, the principle of ‘no person has wilayah over another’ must be considered the norm, which necessitates that the community’s wilayah inheres within itself, a reality that favours public sovereignty. Shamsuddin buttresses his conclusion with Qur’anic verses on shura, among them: ‘Consult (O Muhammad) with them about matters, then when you have decided on a course of action, put your trust in God; God loves those who put their trust in Him’ (Q. 3:159), arguing that the shura commanded is in matters of social life, such as forming a government.10 ‘The holders of authority’ (wulat al-amr) are the people themselves. They may opt to delegate a task to certain individuals, including jurists, hold them to account and, at some future date, withdraw it.11 In other words, resolving social issues and establishing a government is the entire community’s collective responsibility. Shamsuddin quickly adds that this scope is limited to matters for which no explicit religious rulings exist and that its results should not violate any established religious rulings.12 He praises certain characteristics of democracy’s procedural and substantive aspects, such as the smooth, secure and peaceful transfer of power; benefiting from the experience and expertise of a vast array of individuals; being amenable to accepting constructive criticism; and being able to rectify errors and deficiencies through a self-corrective process.13 However, he subscribes to these democratic principles only during the Imam’s Occultation, for upon that individual’s return the public is duty- bound to obey him without question.14 In addition, he proclaims that every human being, regardless of religion, race, gender and culture, is entitled to equal and inalienable rights and, under normal circumstances, can neither be deprived of them nor have them reduced or limited by another person or a government. This is partly based on the Qur’anic verse that endows human dignity to all members of humanity without any discrimination: ‘We have honoured the children of ’ (17:70). Shamsuddin goes to great lengths to underline the necessity of upholding women’s rights on the basis of Qur’anic verses, reports, rational proofs and the fundamental principle that no one has any wilayah over another person. Women are entitled not only to full political and social rights, but also to hold political offices. Hadith reports that bar their participation in the public domain are either deficient because of a weak chain of transmission, or are time- and context-bound to that particular era and society. He does add, however, that their most important responsibilities are to manage the house, nurture the children and enhance the marital bond. Yet their role is most certainly not limited to these undertakings, for in actuality it stretches into the social and political fields, as the Qur’an attests: ‘The believers, both men and women, support (awliya’) each other; 182 DEMOCRATIC MOMENTS they order what is right and forbid what is wrong’ (Q. 9:71). The clear disabilities placed upon women as regards testifying in court, inheritance, diyah (compensation for injury or death) and divorce are bound by certain time- and context-bound social structures that, as such, do not dilute their inherent or ability to occupy political office.15 Shamsuddin is equally adamant in protecting the rights of non-Muslims and asserting their equality with Muslims in the political and social spheres. As Islam has enshrined freedom of belief and conviction, it appreciates the diversity of traditions, languages and cultures. By not privileging one over another, it promotes a culture of mutual recognition, appreciation (ta‘arafu),16 and rivalry to perform good deeds.17 He opines that this principle is a fixed and timeless ruling derived from the Islamic corpus, meaning that it cannot be trampled upon or negated without a valid reason for doing so. The equality of all citizens also means that non-Muslims are entitled to compete for and occupy political offices. Contrary to the claim of many Muslims, Shamsuddin argues that Islam does not provide a template for an ideal state or endorse and prescribe any particular form of government; rather, its general guidelines promote justice, equity and fairness and are designed to help promote good and prevent evil at both the individual and the social levels: ‘We sent Our messengers with clear signs, the Scripture and the Balance, so that people could uphold justice’ (Q. 57:25). In other words, the forms of governments that arose after the Prophet’s death are historically contingent and relative and, as such, are neither universally applicable nor normative. This is also true of the notion that separating religion from the state is inconceivable under Islam. As such, Muslims are not required to replicate the state model supposedly espoused by the Prophet. In the first edition (1955) of his major work on the system of governance and administration in Islam, Shamsuddin explicitly rejected any compatibility between on the grounds that Islam, being a divine religion, should have a religious basis of assigning authority. However, after Khomeini implemented his concept of wilayat al-faqih, one obseves a major shift in Shamsuddin’s viewpoint on juridical authority. In the second edition (1990) of this work he argued that his rejection of democracy only applies to the period when the infallible Imam is present; however, it did not provide a precise definition of ‘democracy’. In the 1993 edition of the same work, Shamsuddin asserted that democracy, with its separation of powers, is the only feasible and effective option for dealing with issues and challenges facing Muslim communities. This evolution of his thought was conjoined with a change of perspective on the role of women and non-Muslims in politics: Women are competent enough to be judges and to assume the highest political offices. In 2000, for the first time he made a case in favour of non-Muslims competing for and holding political offices. While being the most ‘progressive’ on the latter A NEW READING ON AUTHORITY AND GUARDIANSHIP (WILAYAH) 183 issue, there are many commonalities between his views and those of other jurists, such as Ayatollahs Husayn Montazeri (d. 2009), Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (d. 1980), Mohsen Kadivar, Mohaghegh Damad and Mojtahed Shabestari. His innovative and creative proposal appears promising for with large Shi‘i and Sunni populations, such as Iraq, especially given the dismal failure of the Iranian experience after implementing Khomeini’s version of the all-comprehensive authority of the jurist: wilayat al-faqih.

Notes

1 Muhammad Mahdi Shamsuddin, Fi al-ijtima‘ al-siyasi al-Islami, 2nd edn (: al-Mu’assasat al-dawliyyah li al-dirasat wa al-nashr, 1999), 98. My translation. 2 Shamsuddin, Fi al-ijtima‘ al-siyasi al-Islami, 234–5. 3 Muhammad Mahdi Shams al-Din, Rudud samahat Ayatollah al-Imam al-shaykh Muhammad Mahdi Shamsuddin ‘ala as’ilah al-ustadh Fu’ad Ibrahim (n.p., 1997), 11–12. 4 Muhammad Mahdi Shamsuddin, Nizam al-hukm wa al-idarah fi al-Islam, 7th edn (Beirut: al-Mu’assasat al-dawliyyah li al-dirasat wa al-nashr, 2000), 391–2. 5 The Twelver Shi‘is believe that the Prophet explicitly appointed his cousin and son-in-law Ali as his rightful successor on the basis of a divine decree. Ali inherited the Prophet’s charisma and knowledge, and this was transmitted to the eleven succeeding Imams in the lineage of Ali and his wife Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter. As each Imam’s appointment is divinely inspired, popular legitimation is inconsequential. They are all considered infallible and the ultimate authority in expounding the law, doctrine and practices in both the temporal and religious domains. The Shi‘is accepted the view that the Twelfth Imam was born in 869 and assumed his position, aged five or six, upon his father’s death in 874. This initiated the period of (874–941), during which he was accessible to his followers through one of his agents. In 941 his fourth and last agent declared that the Imam had entered the and would not be accessible until his return toward the end of time with Christ in order to inaugurate peace and justice on Earth. 6 Muhammad Mojtahed Shabestari, ‘Religion, Reason, and the New Theology’, in Shi‘ite Heritage: Essays on Classical and Modern Traditions, ed. Lynda Clarke (New York: Global Publications, 2001), 253. 7 Farah Musa, Muhammad Mahdi Shamsuddin bayna wajh al-Islam wa jalid al-madhahib (Beirut: Dar al-hadi, 1993). 8 Shamsuddin, Fi al-Ijtima‘, 16. 9 Mohsen Kadivar, Nazariyye-ha-ye dowlat dar feqh-e Shi‘eh (Tehran: Ney Publishing House, 1993), 172. 184 DEMOCRATIC MOMENTS

10 Shamsuddin, Fi al-Ijtima‘, 98 and 132, fn. 4. 11 Ibid., 92–7. 12 Muhammad Mahdi Shamsuddinin, Ahliyyat al-mar’ah li al-sultah (Beirut: al-Mu’assasat al-dawliyyah li al-dirasat wa al-nashr, 1996), 127. 13 Shamsuddin, Nizam al-hukm, 234. Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a popular contemporary Sunni scholar, has concluded that ‘Islam sanctions and even mandates democracy’ because it is a means to accomplish one of the Shari‘a’s objectives: establishing just governance based on shura. See Noah Feldman, ‘Shari‘a and Islamic Democracy in the Age of Al-Jazeera’, in Shari‘a: Islamic Law in the Contemporary Context, ed. Abbas Amanat and Frank Griffel (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), 110. 14 Shamsuddin, Nizam al-hukm, 234–5. 15 Shamsuddin, Ahliyyat al-mar’ah, 31–6. 16 Qur’an 49:13. 17 Ibid., 5:48.