IHSAN ETHICS AND POLITICAL REVITALIZATION: Appreciating Muqtedar Khan’s and Good Governance

Robert W. Hefner Pardee School of Global Affairs Boston University

Symposium on Islam and Good Governance International Institute of Islamic Thought | October 2020 DOI:

Symposium on Islam and Good Governance

Ours is an age of pervasive have pushed the juridification and political turbulence, and the scale of the interpretive reification of Islamic ethical challenge requires new thinking on traditions even further. Each group has politics as well as public ethics for our asserted that the essence of Islam lies in world. In Western countries, the specter jurisprudence (fiqh), and both have of , alt-right populism, tended to imagine this legal heritage on along with racialized violence has the model of Western positive law, shaken public confidence in long-secure according to which law is authorized, assumptions rooted in democracy, codified, and enforced by a leviathan diversity, and citizenship. The tragic state. “Reification of Shariah and denouement of so many of the Arab equating of Islam and Shariah has a uprisings together with the ascendance rather emaciating effect on Islam,” Khan of apocalyptic extremists like Daesh and rightly argues. It leads its proponents to Boko Haram have caused an even overlook “the depth and heights of greater sense of alarm in large parts of Islamic , , philosophy or the Muslim-majority world. even emotions such as divine love It is against this backdrop that (Muhabba)” (13). As the sociologist of M.A. Muqtedar Khan has written a book Islamic law, Sami Zubaida, has similarly of breathtaking range and ethical observed, in all these developments one beauty. The author explores the history sees evidence, not of a traditionalist and sociology of the , both reassertion of Muslim values, but a classic and contemporary. He does so, “triumph of Western models” of religion however, not merely to chronicle the and state (Zubaida 2003:135). phases of its development, but to To counteract these explore just why the message of impoverishing trends, Khan presents a compassion, mercy, and ethical beauty far-reaching analysis that “seeks to so prominent in the and Sunna of move away from the now failed vision of the Prophet came over time to be Islamic states without demanding displaced by a narrow legalism that radical secularization” (2). He does so emphasized jurisprudence, punishment, by positioning himself squarely within and social control. In the modern era, the ethical and mystical legacy of the Western Orientalists and Islamists alike Qur’an and traditions of the Prophet. As

2 Robert W. Hefner Ihsan Ethics and Political Revitalization the book’s title makes clear, the key to righteous deeds” (3). It is this this effort of religious recovery is “the cosmological ethic that Khan argues cosmology of Ihsan and the worldview must be restored and implemented “to of Al-Tasawwuf, the science of Islamic develop a political philosophy ... that mysticism” (1-2). emphasizes love over law” (2). For Islamist activists whose In its expansive exploration of models of Islam have more to do with Islamic ethics and civilization, Khan’s contemporary identity politics than a Islam and Good Governance will deep reading of Islamic traditions, remind some readers of the late Shahab Khan’s foregrounding of Ihsan may Ahmed’s remarkable book, What is seem unfamiliar or baffling. But one of Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic the many achievements of this book is (Ahmed 2016). Both are works of the skill with which it plumbs the depth impressive range and spiritual depth. of scripture, classical commentaries, and But whereas Ahmed stood in the tasawwuf practices to recover and humanities wing of , confirm the ethic that lies at their heart. Khan is an intellectual polymath who “The Quran promises that is with moves easily across the Islamic sciences, those who do beautiful things,” the social theory, and comparative politics. author reminds us (Khan 2019:1). The He brings the full weight of his effort to concept of Ihsan appears 191 times in conclusion with policy 175 verses in the Quran (110). The recommendations for how “to combine concept is given its richest elaboration, with political theory” (6), and to Khan explains, in the famous of do so in a way that recommends specific the Angel Gabriel. This tradition “Islamic principles that encourage good recounts that when Gabriel appeared governance, and politics in pursuit of before the Prophet he asked, “What is goodness” (8). Ihsan?” Both Gabriel’s question and the These latter recommendations Prophet’s response make clear that are decisive, but inevitably they will Ihsan is an ideal at the center of the elicit varied responses. In Chapter 4, Qur’an and Sunna of the Prophet, and Khan provides a vivid account of his that it enjoins “perfection, goodness, to travels to five Muslim-majority better, to do beautiful things and to do countries in the early stages of writing

3 Symposium on Islam and Good Governance his book, not long after he realized “that largest Muslim social welfare the idea of Ihsan was the key to the association, has launched a series of enlightened understanding of Islam that national and international initiatives on I sought” (98). He reports that, in the “humanitarian Islam,” all designed to course of his travels, Muslim scholars in counter the narrow-minded and reifying the academy “were fascinated by the legalism of the country’s small but idea of developing a political philosophy assertive network of transnational based on Ihsan” (ibid.). Yet the response Islamists. Although not explicitly in other circles was often skeptical. referencing Ihsan, NU has not been the of Salafi and Islamist least bit shy about announcing its persuasion were hostile toward any conviction that democracy and inclusive ethical proposal seen as grounded in citizenship are deeply compatible with Sufi traditions. Surprisingly, even “Sufi- Islamic values in general as well as the leaning scholars” were unenthusiastic Muslim world’s traditions of divine love about his proposal, because for these and mysticism in particular.1 believers “the purpose of Ihsan in life is In broad swaths of the Muslim- to detach oneself from the seductions of majority world, and even in modernist this world, power and wealth, and not to Muslim circles in Indonesia, however, find fulfillment in them” (99). the response to proposals that suggest To his credit, Khan brings these Ihsan should be the basis of a more skeptical responses into his narrative compassionate Muslim governance may and recognizes the challenge they well resemble what Khan encountered in represent. Having done research for his travels. In one passage in his book, more than three decades in Indonesia, as he assesses what is required to elevate the world’s most populous Muslim governance around the Muslim world, country, I am confident that in some Khan observes, “It will take a global Muslim-majority lands, especially those movement to transform the idea of with still vibrant traditions of tasawwuf, religiosity as service to humanity. the Ihsan alternative may yet receive an Nothing less than a revival and reform enthusiastic hearing. Over the past five of Sufism can accomplish this years, the sixty-million member challenging task” (144). Although, Nahdlatul (NU), Indonesia’s again, in many Muslim lands Sufism and

4 Robert W. Hefner Ihsan Ethics and Political Revitalization neo-Sufism are flourishing, my sense is rather than a Sufi revival as such. My that the “agonistic pluralism” (to use sense is that building on this already- Chantal Mouffe’s phrase, referring to the existing aspiration for shariah reform inevitable and vitally necessary clash of can achieve many of the same goals of public ethical principles that takes place Khan’s Ihsan proposal, but with a in all modern societies) so characteristic greater degree of sociological feasibility of Western politics and modernity has by harnessing existing social and ethical also become a key feature of politics and trends. ethics in Muslim countries. On this As Khan himself shows so well, feature of global modernity, I suspect the crises of authority and religious there is no going back. So, however ethics shaping much of the world have beautiful the vision (and I agree it is), to led conservative Islamists to imagine pin one’s hopes for good governance on that God’s law is unitary and a global Sufi revival may mean the unchanging, so much so that a true chances of success are slim indeed. Islamic ethics can do no more than My reading of Khan’s proposal, implement that law in a fixed, inflexible, however, leads me to conclude that and thus highly ineffectual way. Where there may yet be a more immediate and such an unreformed and (ironically) accessible pathway toward the Western positivist understanding of realization of his proposal, one that shariah commands public support, there preserves most of the substance of the may well be few grounds for ethical Ihsan ethic while utilizing different reform on the scale intended by Khan social professes already underway in and others calling for Islamic renewal Muslim societies. What I am referring (tajdid) for the purposes of enhanced to here are an array of educational, equity, compassion, and justice. Recent economic, and political changes already years have seen a growing array of sweeping large sections of the Muslim efforts to break out of this ethical and world, and creating great social epistemological impasse, however, as pressures for a rethinking of Islamic seen in proposals made by Muslim public ethics on terms not dissimilar to intellectuals of varied pedigree, those Khan has in mind, but understood including Ebrahim Moosa, as a reconstitution of shariah ethics Kamali, , Ziba

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Mir-Hosseini, and Jasser Auda, among go one step further: develop the many others. In his Radical Reform: empirical knowledge of society and Islamic Ethics and Liberation (2009), nature required to solve ethical Tariq Ramadan, for instance, provides problems in an empirically effective one of the most concise syntheses of this manner consistent with the full truth of reformed-shariah-ethics approach, and I revelation. cite it here because, in my view, he What is so timely and important clearly articulates the epistemological about these maqasid-based proposals obstacles involved in any such effort.2 for ethical reorientation is that they link Ramadan observes that an aspirations for Islamic ethical reform to Islamic ethics capable of meeting the far-reaching sociological and challenges of the modern age will be epistemological changes already impossible without the cooperation as underway in Muslim societies. I find equals of ulama an-nusus (“text this suggestion quite persuasive, but I do scholars”) with ulama al-waqi’ (“context think that we also need to talk about the scholars”). In Ramadan’s model, the move from Sufism to Maqasid (or ulama al-waqi are primarily scholars Maqasid to Sufism). One way would be working in the natural and social to highlight the Maqasid as protecting sciences. They are as important as life, honor, family, and property, linking scholars of the Islamic sciences, he together the sanctity of life and honor as explains, because “the world, its laws, goals of the Sufi approach to humanity and areas of specialized knowledge not as well. only shed light on scriptural sources but The twentieth century saw the also constitute a source of law on their emergence of new institutions of health own” (Ramadan 2009: 83). In care, education, science, and social Ramadan’s view, then, an ethical life welfare provision across the entire consistent with shariah is not merely a Muslim world. The knowledge required matter of conformity to a fixed and to progress in such fields represented an finished body of legal rules (ahkam). effective refutation of the claim that The struggle for the good also requires proper Islamic ethics involves no more that believers grasp the higher aims of than conformity to fixed and finished the law (maqasid al-shari`a) and then rules, without any of the epistemological

6 Robert W. Hefner Ihsan Ethics and Political Revitalization expansion both Ramadan and Khan positivist understanding of Islamic law. propose. Advances in education, These and other “mundane” activities science, and health care also offered a have served to convince a growing real-world counter-point to the number of Muslims that the moral and unempirical claims that an essentialized spiritual challenges of the age require version of Islamic law is a panacea for all more complex ethical engagements than social ills which does not require a conformity to unchanging rules, or to sustained engagement with the sciences the religious authorities who claim an of the world or with the higher aims of exclusive right to voice their truth. God’s law. Of course, some people may Momentum for this global process of insist that the new forms of knowledge Muslim ethical and epistemological required for such an ethical reform is already strong. For those with reformulation are “secular,” not Islamic. an understanding of the beauty of Ihsan, But others with a deeper religious the same process of maqasid-based understanding will recognize that this ethical reformulation can provide a “knowledge of the world” is an vehicle for promoting an even deeper additional means of moving closer to realization, “that God loves those who God. do beautiful things” (Quran 2:195). There is another sociological Indeed, with growing public awareness, reality contributing to these new Islamic this simple truth will provide powerful understandings of the true, the good, support for good governance and a truly and the beautiful. The creation of Islamic way of life. modern Islamic hospitals, banks, ______laboratories, and universities – which is to say, sites where Muslim actors are obliged to put new forms of knowledge and ethical action into daily practice – allows believers with new and important life-world skills to acquire a social standing and influence in Muslim communities that exceeds that of activists committed to a reified and

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ranging from Muslim politics and shariah law to citizenship and civic education in Western democratic societies. His research in recent years has had two thematic and areal foci: the politics and ethics of pluralist co- existence in the Muslim-majority world, including especially Indonesia and Malaysia; and, second, social

recognition and citizenship among Robert W. Hefner is a professor in Catholics, Muslims, and secular-liberals the Department of Anthropology and the in France and the United States. Hefner Pardee School of Global Affairs at has published 21 edited or single- Boston University. From 1986-2017, he authored books, as well as seven major worked with the sociologist Peter L. policy reports for the U.S. government Berger and served as director and/or and private foundations. Seven of his associate director of the Institute on books have been translated into Culture, Religion, and World Affairs Indonesian and Malay; one has been (CURA) at Boston University. Hefner is published in Chinese. With the support a social theorist who specializes in the of the Henry Luce Foundation, Hefner is anthropology of religion, ethics and law currently (2019-2021) co-producing (including shariah law), education and (with Zainal Abidin Bagir of Gadjah youth development, as well as the Mada University) six films on plurality, comparative study of gender, gender, and citizenship in citizenship, globalization, and Indonesia. He is also completing a book modernity. He has directed some 24 on Muslims, shariah law, and the quest major research projects and organized for a modern Muslim ethics. 19 international conferences, on issues

REFERENCES Ahmed, Shahab. 2016. What is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Khan, M.A. Muqtedar. 2019. Islam and Good Governance: A Political Philosophy of Ihsan. New York, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Ramadan, Tariq. 2009. Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zubaida, Sami. 2003. Law and Power in the Islamic World. London: Tauris.

END NOTES 1 See https://baytarrahmah.org/humanitarian-islam/). 2 Ramadan is currently under indictment in France on charges of sexual assault. Although he has publicly acknowledged marital infidelities, the court case against him has yet to be resolved.

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