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The Islamic Rational State: the Arab Islamists' New Politico-Legal Discourses of a Post-Caliphate Order

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The Islamic Rational State: the Arab Islamists' New Politico-Legal Discourses of a Post-Caliphate Order The Islamic Rational State: The Arab Islamists' New Politico-Legal Discourses of a Post-Caliphate Order Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Ould Meiloud, Ahmed Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 30/09/2021 20:53:48 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/625674 1 THE ISLAMIC RATIONAL STATE: THE ARAB ISLAMISTS' NEW POLITICO- LEGAL DISCOURSES OF A POST-CALIPHATE ORDER by Ahmed Meiloud __________________________ Copyright © Ahmed Meiloud 2017 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the THE SCHOOL OF MIDDLE EASTERN AND NORTH AFRICAN STUDIES In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2017 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Ahmed Meiloud, titled The Rational State: The Arab Islamists’ New Politico-Legal Discourses of A Post-Caliphate Order and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _______________________________________________________________________ Date: (July 20, 2017) Scott Lucas _______________________________________________________________________ Date: (July 20, 2017) Thomas Park _____________________________________________________________________ Date: (July 20, 2017) Yaseen Noorani _______________________________________________________________________ Date: (July 20, 2017) Maha Nassar _______________________________________________________________________ Date: (July 20, 2017) Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: (August 10, 2017) Dissertation Director: Scott Lucas 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that an accurate acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: Ahmed Meiloud 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would not have been able to complete this dissertation without the support of many people, who contributed, over the years, to my education and research. I am forever grateful to the many family members, friends, colleagues and total strangers who enriched my knowledge of Islamic law and of the Middle East and its languages and cultures. I am especially indebted to my dissertation committee (Dr. Scott Lucas, Dr. Maha Nassar, Dr. Thomas Park, and Dr. Yassen Noorani) for placing their vast knowledge of research on the region, and on religious discourses and social movements at my disposal. My advisor, Scott Lucas, deserves a special acknowledgement for his patience, and for his thorough and exceptionally helpful comments on the following chapters. Dr. Thomas Park was not only always generous with his time, but he also granted me unlimited access to his office and library to use whenever in need of space or resources. His intimate knowledge of Mauritania and Morocco was critical for my research, as well. Furthermore, I am extremely indebted to Dr. Yaseen Noorani whose advice and critical insights steered my research into its current focus. I am equally grateful to Dr. Maha Nassar for the many perceptive notes she shared with me about the history of ideas and social trends in the modern Arab world. Last, but certainly, not least, I would like to thank Dr. Leila Hudson and Dr. Samira Farwaneh for their support and encouragement throughout my experience as a graduate student at the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies (MENAS). Their liberality of mind and kindness complement the collegial atmosphere at the MENAS. 5 DEDICATION To my loving mother, Arwa, who took me on the first steps of my educational journey and who has since been a source of unwavering support and inspiration. To my children Habiboullah and Arwa Meiloud without whom this dissertation would have been completed three years earlier, and would have, therefore, lacked the critical insights arising from closely watching the unforeseen trajectory of the Arab Spring and from reading the Islamists’ sober reflections thereafter. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS FIGUTRES………………………………………………………………………………………7 ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………...8 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………….9 1. The advocates of the rational state………………………………………………..….13 2. The process and the progress……………………………...........................................22 3. A literature review …………………………………………………..........................32 4. Outline………………………………………………….…………………………….68 CHAPTER I: FROM THE KHILAFA TO THE NATION: THE ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF THE POLITICAL CREED OF THE RATIONAL STATE…………………………………72 1. Khilafa in the eyes of the advocates of the rational state………………………...…..75 2. Ambivalent critics…………………………………………………………………....83 3. conceptual framework……………………………………………………………….87 4. The long journey…………………………………………………………………….95 5. The first shock and respondent………………………………………………………96 6. The second shock and its harbinger: ‘Ali abd al-Raziq………………….…………105 7. The third shock and the islamists’ entry into the nation’s double time…………….133 8. The fourth shock and the rise of the rational state……………………………….…164 CHAPTER II: MAQASID: THE THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF THE RATIONAL STATE….……………………………………………………………………………………....185 1. Why Maqasid ?..............................................................…………………………....188 2. A frame of rationality ….… …………………………………................................190 3. A brief historical overview of maqasid…………………………………………….197 4. The Shaykh of Maqasid……………………………………….................................202 5. Modern maqasid…………………………………………........................................219 6. Maqasid and the rational state………………………………...................................242 CHAPTER III: SHARI‘A IN THE RATIONAL STATE: THE QUESTION OF SPHERE, SCOPE AND SENSIBILITIES….…………..…………………………………………………266 1. The political sphere...............................................………………………………….270 2. The religious sphere and civil consensus ….……………….....................................278 3. The religious sphere and political practice……………………….………………...283 4. Democracy and Islamic governance…………………………………......................298 5. Application of Islamic law…………………………………………….....................313 6. What about Hudud?…………………………………………….…..........................321 7. New Ijithads………………………………………………………………………...329 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………………..340 BIBILIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………371 7 FIGURES Figure 1: Categories of Prophetic Acts………………………………………………………...336 Figure 2: Distinction of Spheres……………………………………………………………….337 Figure 3: The Area of Convergence…………………………………………………………...338 Figure 4: Human Mediation of Religious Texts……………………………………….............339 8 ABSTRACT The future of political Islam, especially in respect to its response to the contemporary salient liberal values, has attracted immense scholarly interest. Some scholars expect a perpetual conflict because of the inherent ‘illiberalism’ of Islam; while others project an imminent post- Islamist turn, as liberal politics takes hold in Muslim societies. Examining the discourses of Arab Islamists, my dissertation points to a different development. Based on a comprehensive textual analysis of the writings of five contemporary Arab Islamists, projected against a survey of a century of Arab Islamic juridico-political thought—including three decades of engagement with democracy—I argue that these Islamists have formulated coherent (in foro interno) foundations for an Islamic rational state. These foundations, which reflect neither an abandonment of all traditional Islamist aims nor a neglect of divine texts, rest on a reconfiguration of Islamic legal theory, in which classical methods of textual analysis are discarded in favor of a systematic rational exploration of the Lawgiver’s aims (maqasid). This novel hermeneutics warranted the exclusion of all past Islamic juridico-political frames (including the early Islamic caliphate) and their rationalizations as binding. Thus, unencumbered by legal precedents, these Islamists conceptualize the political sphere as anthropocentric and therefore open to reasonable overlapping consensus. 9 INTRODUCTION The phenomenon of political Islam has attracted immense scholarly interest since its prominent rise in the 1970s. Much of this energy went to examining the objectives of this emergent trend. Even the Islamists have debated, and often quarreled amongst themselves, as to the ultimate goal of their activism. While certain segments of Islamists, especially Salafi jihadists, continue to pursue, or at least
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